How It Is

Welcome to New York

A retaining wall collapsed yesterday on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Upper Manhattan. 

It’s Always Death’s Fault

Newsday wins headline of the week:

Death pleads guilty in cemetery group theft

I envy the reporter who got to write that. The guy’s name is actually Death. And he actually is chair of a cemetery association. Witness:

“Donald Death, 60, the former chairman of the Locust Valley Cemetery Association, wrote $170,000 in checks of the association's money to a fuel company his family owned.”

This on the knowledge that there is a Dr. Payne in New York who is a famous pain management doctor, as well as Dr. Comfort who heads a well-known palliative care program. More evidence naming creates destiny. (See: Winning and Losing.)

10 Stories the world needs to know more about

Here is the UN’s list of underreported stories for 2005: 10 Stories the world needs to know more about.

Somalia: Steps on a path to fragile peace in a shattered country

Tragic blind spot in health care for women

Northern Uganda: A humanitarian crisis that demands sustained focus

Sierra Leone: Building on a hard-won peace

Actors for change: The growth of human rights institutions

Cameroon: Farming in the Dark

Island after the hurricane: Grenada struggles to recover from devastation

Behind closed doors: Violence against women

A viable alternative: curbing illicit drugs through development

Environment and health: New insights into spread of infectious diseases

Ta-Da

Who knew? I’m so so ethical. More ethical than you. Yes. Look what this study from Louisiana State University says:

“According to the researchers, journalists are significantly more ethical than the average adult -- eclipsed only by seminarians, doctors and medical students.”

What’s really funny is this:

“Junior high school students scored lowest, with 20.0, just below prison inmates, with 23.7.”

We knew this, yes? What I would have bet against is this:

“Among journalists, their study showed no significant difference between broadcasters or their print counterparts, between women and men or between managers and the rank-and-file.”

Of Course He Has Another Voice

In more from Seth Stevenson’s fascinating diary from the Michael Jackson trial, he describes a deliciously perverse piece of testimony.

First, he describes the guy testifying as “a giggling, babbling bubblehead.”

The man is Rudy Provencio, who helped produce Jackson’s "What More Can I Give?" single.

Anyway, here’s the shiny piece of Stevenson’s writing I want to share with you:

“If his act this afternoon is any indication, Provencio's got a bunch of fun in store for us. Asked if he can recognize Michael's voice over the telephone, Provencio says, "Sure, his voice is distinct. Well, unless he's upset and he uses the other voice."

All the World’s a Shopping Cart

In the Creepy But True category, a new Canadian study asserts that “parents take better care of pretty children than they do ugly ones.”

Shocker.

The NYT adds this:

“When it came to buckling up [in a supermarket cart], pretty and ugly children were treated in starkly different ways, with seat belt use increasing in direct proportion to attractiveness. When a woman was in charge, 4 percent of the homeliest children were strapped in compared with 13.3 percent of the most attractive children. The difference was even more acute when fathers led the shopping expedition - in those cases, none of the least attractive children were secured with seat belts, while 12.5 percent of the prettiest children were.”

Got to love them dads. Everything that is wrong with this world begins in a supermarket. This is my new theory, as of right now. Let’s roll with it for a bit: processed foods; marketing; fathers ignoring ugly children; UGLY CHILDREN.