Nothing says "start of summer" to me like the first great white shark sighting. It's a fine reminder of how the longstanding coastal tradition of enjoying our beautiful beaches and shorelines can possibly end in being chewed to death.
Of course, Bruce Sweet, captain of the 35-foot Sweet Dream III out of Gloucester, Mass., doesn't seem concerned -- he hooked one by accident Saturday and, rather than declaring the need for a bigger boat or blowing it up with a scuba tank, he took pictures and video. How very new millennium.
Meanwhile, it's worth reminding everyone to practice water safety, and to avoid making bombastic speeches when standing too close to a big hole in the bottom of your ship that's being stalked by genetically engineered sharks. I'm just saying.
PROVINCETOWN, Mass. (CAP) - McDonald's executives were left with egg (McMuffin) on their face this week, when over 5,000 Happy Meals were distributed with colored condoms instead of a plastic toy from the movie The Last Airbender.
The condoms were intended for the Provincetown, Mass. school system, which recently established a policy making them available for students of all ages; they were delivered to McDonald's distribution center in Barnstable, Mass. in error.
"They were so bright and colorful, they were mistaken for Happy Meal toys," explained McDonald's vice president of public relations Robin Anderson. "Unfortunately most of the workers there don't read English, and they thought 'Ribbed Latex' was a character from The Last Airbender."
"Who ever heard of The Last Airbender anyway?" added Jose Estevez, president of McDonald's Distribution Union 8801, in defense of his fellow workers.
The mistake led to an incident in a Brewster, Mass., McDonald's, where more than a dozen 8-year-olds attending a birthday party all opened their condoms at once, and immediately blew them into balloons and started batting them around the restaurant.
Shrieks of horror ensued from several other patrons, and one elderly woman fainted when a condom balloon landed in her Filet O' Fish.
"She'd apparently never seen one that size before," explained Brewster Police Chief Bradley Heffernan, who noted that there were some similar concerns when Congress instituted its "Cash For Condoms" program.
The McDonald's incident also caused problems in Provincetown, where the schools accidentally received the restaurant's shipments of Last Airbender toys, and several were released to students who went into their school's nurse's office seeking condoms.
"This was actually very successful among the younger grades, where students would much rather get a stuffed 'Momo' doll than a condom," admitted School Superintendent Beth Singer, who in recent weeks has had to defend the school district's policy of distributing condoms to any student who asks, and not notifying parents.
"But unfortunately there was an issue with Last Airbender Aang Water Cannons being distributed to high school students, resulting in several unwanted pregnancies," said Singer.
ORLANDO (CAP) - "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" at the Islands of Adventure theme park has only been open a short time, but protests by conservative watchdog groups have already forced Universal to close the park's controversial "Equus Pavilion."
Based on the 2007 revival of the Peter Shaffer play that featured Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, the Equus Pavilion allowed guests to ride animatronic blinded horses past naked Radcliffe look-alikes.
"In retrospect, the attraction may have been too avant-garde for its own good," admitted Bill Douglas, president of Universal Orlando.
"I had to cover my daughter's eyes - it was bloody manky, all those Daniel Radcliffes running around in their altogether," said Sarah Lowsley of Wolverhampton, England, who had traveled to the park with her daughter Millicent, 12, and waited 10 hours to get in last weekend.
"They had some cellophane or something covering their naughty bits, but they were clearly in the nuddy," claimed Lowsley. "At one point one of them tried to have relations with our bloody mechanical horse!" Lowsley went on to clarify that she meant "bloody" literally, as the horses were all bleeding from their artificial eyes.
"The naked Radcliffes are only supposed to nuzzle the horses," responded Douglas, noting that park managers had reviewed security tapes and could only identify a handful of incidences where the cast members may have gotten "a little too randy" with the robot stallions.
"They're attractive animals," Douglas admitted.
The attraction drew immediate fire from conservatives, many of them already no fan of the Potter series. The watchdog group Mothers Against Everything (MAE) called Universal's decision to incorporate Shaffer's 1973 play about a young man's violent religious and sexual fascination with horses into a family theme park "a very bad choice."
Every year around this time, I like to dip into my pool of fatherly knowledge and offer up some tips on being a good dad. Unfortunately, it’s sort of like a little plastic pool, about a foot deep with cartoon whales on it.
Still, with kids ages 11 and 8, I figure I can come up with some half-decent advice — and maybe even some signs of hope for those of you with younger children who are concerned it’s only a matter of time before you screw them up. You know who you are.
1) Be prepared to do research. For years you were able to appear informed about your kids’ interests through your vast general knowledge, which you could mostly make up, since they had no access to Wikipedia. But eventually they gravitate toward activities you know nothing about, and if you don’t make a concerted effort to learn about them you risk being labeled an idiot, even before that typically happens.
Take my son, who this year decided to take up lacrosse; this is not a very well known sport, mainly because there has never been an inspirational Hollywood movie about it, possibly starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. To the untrained eye, it resembles guys running around whacking each other with sticks. But I did a little research into it and discovered it’s actually a highly nuanced, very strategic sport, in which guys run around whacking each other with sticks.
2) You have to work on the basics. When I first started teaching my son how to play baseball, I could do no wrong; I was like Mark Fidrych, Reggie Jackson and Garry Maddox all rolled into one, primarily because he had never heard of any of those people. But now that he’s an accomplished ballplayer in his own right, there are certain things he expects from me, like the ability to pitch him a ball in his strike zone, and not the strike zone of an imaginary 8-foot-tall person swinging a 5-foot bat.
This means the kids aren’t the only ones who need to practice. With that in mind, I plan to go out and, even if it takes me hour upon hour of intense personal effort, buy him a pitching machine.
3) Hide the remote. When your kids are little and they’re watching “Caillou” — the cartoon about the eerily bald, fit-prone 4-year-old whom even Mr. Rogers would trip if nobody was looking — you think children’s television can’t possibly get any worse. Then they start watching “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” starring twin actors apparently grown in a Disney laboratory using DNA from the band Nelson and a squirrel.
The comedy (“comedy”) on these shows usually involves bodily functions, hilarious personal injury and characters being nasty to each other. We’ve actually had to ban several Disney and Nickelodeon programs because the characters are so mean — I’m concerned that the sidekick girl from “iCarly” may actually be a sociopath. I’m just waiting for the episode where they find Gibby’s head in a box.
4) Beware the math. You might have thought your college degree, or perhaps your master’s, or the fact that you’ve spent years running a multinational corporation, would have prepared you for your daughter’s fifth-grade math homework. This is not true, however, because the way students learn math has been reworked by a committee of people who hate you.
It’s not just that they’ve taught our children completely alien procedures to use when solving math problems, leading to daily battles as parents insist on dividing and subtracting while their kids are trying to “regroup,” whatever that means. They also end every assignment with an essay question in which students have to explain why the problem works out the way it does, a development which seriously undermines the time-honored mathematical tradition of just guessing.
5) Give yourself a little credit. Although fathering is tough, you can sometimes spot signs that you’re making progress. For instance, when my son asked me what I was doing today, I said I was writing about how to be a good dad — and he replied, “Well, you’re a good dad, so that should be pretty easy.” Hey … That must mean I’m doing something right!
It’s just a good thing I didn’t say I was writing about how to be a good pitcher.
This column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”
LOS ANGELES (CAP) - Justin Merkenson, a 14-year-old from Cupertino, Calif., will try to break into the record books by becoming the youngest person ever to wrestle a live lion, he announced at a press conference yesterday flanked by his parents, siblings and other proud relatives.
"It's been my dream since I was 11 to wrestle a fully grown African lion," Merkenson told reporters. "I've been working this whole time toward that goal, and I feel like I'm finally ready to take it on, sort of."
Justin's parents, Larry and Marylou Merkenson, acknowledge they've faced criticism for allowing their son to take on a challenge many see as too dangerous for a boy his age, or any age, really.
"I do grapple with it," concedes Larry Merkenson. "But he's ready for it from the standpoint of animal wrestling ability, and emotionally I believe he's ready to tackle this head-on.
"I've tried to scare him away from it by showing him some ugly stuff that can happen when you get that close to a ferocious jungle predator, but he just gets more encouraged," he said. "He's kind of stupid that way."
Justin notes that he began wrestling small animals, like cats and possums, at age 13, moving up to larger-breed dogs and eventually more aggressive creatures like raccoons and domestic goats.
"The ones with the horns can get pretty nasty," said Justin.
He plans to keep a record of his attempt via a blog called Justin's Lion Wrestling Blog, although he admitted it might be difficult to type while attempting to keep his head out of the lion's massive jaws. "But nobody ever said this would be easy, I don't think," he noted.
Still, opposition to the attempt is mounting. Darlene Fortenski, spokeswoman for Mothers Against Everything (MAE), denounced the idea, calling it "a very bad choice."
In what would have to be classified as the BEST CONTEST EVER, U.S. Senator Scott Brown is ... well, I'll let him tell you in his own words:
Our campaign has decided to launch an essay contest to allow you the opportunity to win two Red Sox tickets to attend a game with me off of the 2010 schedule at Fenway Park, and I'll pick you up in my truck!
He doesn't mention whether it will be a threesome, or whether you're obligated to give him one of the two tickets if you win. But the thought of piling into Scott's truck and rolling on down to Fenway is just too tempting to pass up -- do you think he'll buy beers?
Find out how to enter at his Brown Brigade blog. Meanwhile, if you've never seen Brown in person, I should mention that the photo above is not embellished in any way: He really does exude heavenly blue beams of light.
DETROIT (CAP) - Disgraced MLB umpire Jim Joyce made his second major faux pas in a week's time yesterday, apparently hitting the gas instead of the brake in his 2002 Chevy Blazer and running over Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga as he left Comerica Park.
"I don't know how it happened," said a teary-eyed Joyce afterward. "I had a really good angle on the pedals, and I would have swore it was the brake."
"I say many times: Nobody's perfect," Galarraga said from his bed at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital, where he was being treated for multiple contusions. "Everybody makes a mistake. Unfortunately this one leave me out for the rest of the season, but I'm sure he no want to run me over, probably."
Galarraga and Joyce of course made headlines last week when Joyce blew a crucial call at first base, robbing Galarraga of a perfect game with just one out to go in the ninth inning. The Detroit community has since rallied around Galarraga, with GM even presenting him with a brand new 2001 convertible.
"Unfortunately Jim [Joyce] backed into it at full speed after he run me over," noted Galarraga, who said the car is now totaled. "But again, he just make a mistake. Like I make a mistake when I got out of bed that day, apparently."
"I had a really good angle on [Galarraga's car] in my rear view mirror, and I would have swore it wasn't there," said Joyce, dabbing his eyes and large, fu-manchu style moustache.
It seems the incident is just the latest in a series of unfortunate encounters between the two men; it came out last week that in 2008, Joyce had advised Galarraga to invest heavily in HD-DVD, a move that eventually cost Galarraga hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"That one still smarts," admitted Galarraga. "But how could he know people will like Blu-ray better?"
"Blu-ray - who knew?" said Joyce, now openly weeping.
I’ve spent the last eight years systematically avoiding “American Idol,” which is not something that’s easy to do. It’s like avoiding obesity, or Regis Philbin — you’ve got to work at it.
For one thing, the singers in the clips I’d seen were always stretching high notes in a way that I thought might cause my head to explode, like the wine flute in those Memorex commercials. Plus, judging from the number of friends and relatives who told me I should be watching it — “You’ve got to watch Idol!” was a familiar refrain from my mother in particular — I was concerned it might be part of a plot to turn Americans into pod people.
But this year, I finally jumped on the Idol bandwagon, through the same avenue I get introduced to most things these days: my kids. (This is also the reason I know all the lyrics to the Hannah Montana song “Hoedown Throwdown.”) Watching Idol is actually a great way to promote family togetherness — it turns out nothing brings parents and their children together like ranking on people who’ve just embarrassed themselves on national television.
What surprised me, though, was that much of the music wasn’t bad. First of all, at some point apparently all the contestants started playing guitars, which makes them seem much less like Celine Dion. (Can you imagine Celine Dion holding a guitar? She’d tip over.) A fair number of contestants were “bluesy rockers,” as Randy liked to call them, as opposed to scary R&B warblers, as I’d like to think Ellen might call them if she weren’t afraid of being driven off the show and stoned like Paula.
And not only did I enjoy it, I even feel like I learned from it — namely that by following a few simple guidelines, we can all be American idols. For instance:
1) Don’t be lazy. As Simon was wont to point out, pretty much all the performers were prone to “lazy” song choices and “lazy” performances, which was easy for him to say, since he got to sit the whole time. If he were so industrious, you’d think he’d come up with another word for “lazy.” (I like indolent.)
2) Be new and fresh. I liked how the show would make the performers sing songs by Elvis and Frank Sinatra, and then chastise them for not sounding current enough. It seems they were supposed to update the songs by changing the arrangements, presumably just enough to ruin them.
3) Don’t ever admit that you’re a paint salesman. This apparently marks you as a total loser with next to no hope for actual success; the only worse profession for eventual winner Lee DeWyze would have been shoe salesman, in which case Ryan Seacrest would have taken him out back and shot him, just to put him out of his misery.
4) Be in the moment. This advice usually comes from Kara, who only seems to like your performance if she can tell exactly what you’re thinking the whole time. This would not work in my favor, since what I’d usually be thinking is “Kara’s bulgy-eyed stare is creeping me out.”
5) If you have a Ryan Seacrest in your life, you can skip over him if you DVR. I mean that metaphorically, of course; in the real world you just have to distract yourself from the Ryans by doing things like reciting your grocery list in your head.
6) You only need to watch the last five minutes of the results show. I’m not sure exactly how this is applicable to your life outside of Idol, but it could possibly save you from accidentally seeing the Bee Gees.
Granted, following these rules might not turn me into a Siobhan or a Tim Urban, but I’m figuring if I try hard enough, and keep Idol in my heart, I can keep the Simons of the world at bay. Or at least my mother.
This column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.
LOS ANGELES (CAP) - A week after his surprising win, American Idol champion Lee DeWyze is just now coming out of what doctors say is a state of severe shock.
"I won? I sang Beautiful Day?" DeWyze said incredulously when shown a tape of his victory show. "I was on American Idol?"
Then he slipped back into the shell-shocked look that became his trademark on this season of Idol, having to be revived with a bucket of ice water to the face.
"I have to make a whole album now?" he then asked, still dripping. "I'm a freakin' paint salesman, for crying out loud!" Then he bent over and took a series of long, deep breaths, apparently to keep from passing out.
DeWyze's victory came as a surprise to many, given that the runner-up, Crystal Bowersox, was generally considered by judges and critics to be the better performer.
"I thought Lee was great, but all he ever did backstage was hyperventilate and throw up," said Bowersox. "I'd wish him luck and he'd just stare at me like he was going to cry. Then he'd either heave or curl up in the corner and recite the Benjamin Moore paint colors."
For his part, departing Idol judge Simon Cowell says he's sure that DeWyze will get over his jitters.
"Lee is really the type of contestant the show was invented for," said Cowell. "A normal person, really a complete schlub with no discernable personality, a nobody with the worst job in the world and really a generic, marginal voice ... Hmm. Actually, come to think of it he probably shouldn't have made it past the first round."
I have no intention of seeing Sex and the City 2 -- my wife is sparing me and plans to see it with friends instead -- and yet I anticipate its coming with an almost palpable, existential dread. Am I the only one who looks at those women and sees the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
OK, maybe I'm overreacting. I'm sure it's two hours of bubbly fun. Let's look at the synopsis from the Patriot Ledger's Ed Symkus, who sat down with the stars in the shoe department at a Bergdorf Goodman and, apparently, lived to tell about it:
Though all four characters are tackling an issue, “Sex and the City,” as fans know, centers on Carrie. Her story is always just a little bigger and glossier; her troubles run a bit deeper. She’s going through what she believes is a rough patch with Big, and when the plot sends the four women on a Middle East adventure, the Carrie-Big relationship gets even more complicated, thanks to a chance encounter with an old flame.
Well, actually that sounds like an entertaining twist on the usual OH PLEASE GOD MAKE IT STOP!!! Sorry, I'm better now. Sex and the City 2 opens everywhere (and I mean everywhere) tomorrow. Start barricading yourself in your basement now.
WASHINGTON (CAP) - Although claims that the annual National Day of Prayer may violate the First Amendment didn't stop it from happening this year, the White House has proposed changes to the holiday for 2011, enacting instead a "National Day of Wishing."
"For what is prayer if not a form of wishing - for mercy, forgiveness, to win the lottery or that something horrible will befall our enemies," noted President Obama, speaking to reporters at the White House yesterday. "And by enemies I'm not specifically referring to [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell."
Obama noted that it would no way violate the separation of church and state to ask people of all faiths - or no faith - to engage in a nationally sponsored day of abject begging to no one in particular. "Or as we refer to it in Washington, Tuesday," said Obama. "Just a little Beltway humor there."
The announcement drew immediate criticism from the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a privately funded group with strong ties to the Evangelical Christian movement and an armed militia believed to number about 30,000.
"The National Day of Prayer provides an opportunity for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith," said task force chairwoman Shirley Dobson, wife of former Focus on the Family CEO Rev. James Dobson. "It provides an excellent opportunity for those of us who are going to be saved to pray for the doomed souls of those who oppose us, as if we would do that."
But many, such as The End Of Faith author Sam Harris, applauded the move. Appearing on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, Harris called it "a fine first step" toward dismantling all of America's houses of worship and bringing on a godless society based strictly on intellect. "
"Maybe we could turn all the churches into marijuana bars!" suggested Maher, and they high-fived.
It has come to our attention that certain users have raised concerns over our privacy policy. We’d just like you to know that here at Facebook, it’s extremely important to us that your information is kept private, to be shared only among your friends, networks, fans, people who “like” the same things you do, and users of applications you don’t realize you’ve signed up for.
It’s true that it’s in our best interests, for growth and advertising purposes, to make as much of your personal information as possible freely available over the Web. But we make a promise never to share what’s on your profile unless you have expressly authorized us to do so by not un-checking an arcane series of hard-to-find boxes, some of which don’t exist.
So just to make sure you understand your privacy rights as a Facebook user, we’ve put together the following easy-to-follow guidelines:
1) Default settings. Just to make things easier, our default settings make your personal information, photos and videos accessible to everyone on the Web, including your mother, your second-grade teacher and the guy who, at this very moment, is Photoshopping the heads of strange children onto the bodies of centaurs.
However, you can easily modify these settings. For instance, you can make your information visible only to certain networks, certain friends, or “only you,” if you want to be just as much of a lonely loser as you were before you joined Facebook. Your call.
2) Photos. We understand why you might have concerns over who can see photos of you that you’ve posted, or that are posted by your friends, or by an old boyfriend or girlfriend who swore the pictures were just for their own personal viewing. Boy, did we find out about that the hard way.
But the rumors that embarrassing pictures of you hunched over a toilet or wearing a Sexy French Maid Halloween costume are automatically visible to your boss and your priest are entirely untrue. Assuming you’ve checked and/or unchecked the right boxes, they can only be seen by friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends and all the other people who play Farmville.
3) Personal information. We want to state unequivocally that we do not sell your personal information to third parties. In fact, we give it to third parties in exchange for drugs. Ha ha! Just a little Facebook humor there. (Just the part about the drugs — the part about giving your information away is true.)
4) Instant Personalization Pilot Program. This is the program that allows other websites, like Yelp and Pandora, to access your profile information. However, you can opt out of this program, and at this very moment we have a team of engineers trying to determine how one might go about doing that.
“But Facebook, why would you ever presume that we’d want you to share our information with other websites without our permission?” you might ask. To which we’d respond: “Shut up and play some more Farmville.”
5) If you’re embarrassed about people seeing your “Like” list, maybe you should stop liking things like Barry Manilow and “Jersey Shore.” You know who you are. And so do we.
Finally, we want to remind you that, if you’re that concerned about people seeing the information you somehow thought would remain private just because that’s what we told you when you signed up, you always have the option of deleting your account.
Good luck figuring out how to do it.
Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. This column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. (You can try to friend him on Facebook, but he’ll probably ignore you.)
SAN FRANSICO (CAP) - The online listings service Craigslist reports that the murder of people that either place or answer ads on the site was down 4.76 percent in the first quarter of the year.
"Craigslist prides itself on ease of use, effective service and its users not getting killed," noted site founder Craig Newmark in a press release this week. "This is one of those cases where two out of three actually is pretty bad."
The company is touting the decline in Craigslist killings as a sign that its efforts to discourage wanton murder among its users are working. Among the steps the site has taken to curb Craigslist killers are prominent posts noting that listings must be truthful and used for the purpose intended, and that using them to lure or determine likely victims is a violation of the site's terms of use and can result in users being banned or moderated.
"We want people to feel somewhat comfortable that when you place an ad listing, say, a diamond ring for sale, there's a reasonably good chance four guys won't come to your house and kill you for it," wrote Newmark. "That's our pledge to you."
The company is also cracking down on other crimes facilitated by Craigslist, such as prostitution.
"When you place a listing offering 'a good time' in quotes and include a naked picture of yourself and hourly rates, we are counting on you not to be offering prostitution services," reads another warning on the site. "Please don't let us down."
"We are dedicated to reducing to acceptable levels the number of Craigslist-related crimes, be they prostitution, robbery, fraud, extortion or pederasty," wrote Newmark in the release. "But we're concentrating primarily on reducing murders because, let's face it, that's bad for business."
In case you somehow missed it, the nation recently celebrated “TV Turnoff Week.” This is the week when families all across America turn off their TVs and sit around their kitchen tables staring at each other like frightened bullfrogs.
That’s because as we all know, TV is the glue that holds families — nay, societies — together. For instance, without TV, nobody would have any idea who Barney Fife is. What kind of world would that be?
Despite that, though, my wife Theresa and I decided to try TV Turnoff Week this year after we read a few disturbing facts that left us concerned about TV’s effect on our kids. Things such as:
· 45 percent of parents say they use the TV to occupy their children. I’ve done this, but usually by giving them a screwdriver and suggesting they try to figure out how the TV generates all those magic pictures from outer space.
· Children 6 and under spend an average of 14 hours a week watching TV, but only 38.5 minutes engaged in conversation with their parents. Even less if you don’t count the time spent talking about what’s on TV.
· 97 percent of children have products based on characters from TV shows. This would explain why, if we had to send our kids to one of those Montessori schools that bans character logos, we’d have to cover their clothes almost entirely with masking tape, and then pray that their underwear never makes an appearance.
· 59 percent of Americans can name The Three Stooges, while only 17 percent can name three Supreme Court justices. In our defense, though, that number would skyrocket if the president appointed somebody named “Shemp.”
Unfortunately the TV turnoff began inauspiciously in our house — first of all it was raining, which should be an immediate deal-killer for TV Turnoff Week, like when NASA scraps a shuttle launch. Also, my wife was working the first night, and she’s much more ambitious than I am about planning family activities. For instance, she might organize, say, arts and crafts projects, whereas I might suggest hide and seek and then wait for my kids to realize I’m not actually “seeking.”
But I did my best, actually going out and buying a new board game, which I believe is how Amish people pass the time when they’re not building barns. Unfortunately, it seems I picked a game that was a little too easy — it occupied a total of about 20 minutes, leading me to wish I had engaged them with something more complicated, like Monopoly or the U.S. tax code.
On the second day Theresa again got them through the after-school hours without any TV, apparently without the use of tranquilizers. And after dinner we decided to try bike riding, which I admit is more productive if your kids have actually mastered pedaling; otherwise you have to spend the whole time pushing them down the hill in plastic Little Tikes cars, which tend to hit the side of the driveway and roll over like a Ford Explorer negotiating the Autobahn.
In fact, we made it through pretty much the whole week, although we did have to bring their bikes to increasingly exotic locales to keep them interested; I thought we were going to wind up driving town to town in search of a half-pipe. We also read more and listened to more music, and I admit that at one point around Thursday I considered commissioning a mime troupe.
Then on Friday night we sat the kids down to congratulate them. “Even though TV Turnoff Week is over, we proved that we didn’t need television to have fun, right, guys?” I started to say, although I only got through the “over” part before they trampled me on their way to the Disney Channel.
Still, we must have done something right, because they seem a bit more willing to turn off the TV and head outside this week. Also, a subsequent informal poll showed that my kids are, for now at least, among the 46 percent of children who say they’d rather “spend time with their fathers” than watch TV.
Presumably, provided I start putting a little more effort into the whole “seeking” thing.
Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. His original column runs every other week; this “Best of Chianca” column is from 2006. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CAP) - The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens an economic and ecological disaster on tourist beaches, wildlife refuges and fishing grounds in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. But it's not all doom and gloom in the Gulf - the accident has proven a godsend to one ailing business, Giant Sponge Unlimited LLC.
"They say there's always a silver lining, and in this case I have to say that spill really saved our bacon," said the company's founder, Fred Prywatki, who so far has provided more than 1,000 giant sponges to the cleanup effort. "My mother always asked me, who's ever going to need that many giant sponges? And I never really had a good answer for her.
"Until today," said Prywatki, smiling broadly and folding his arms behind his head.
The company responsible for the spill, BP Global of Great Britain, "will pay us pretty much whatever we ask," explained Prywatki, whose company is the only manufacturer of giant sponges (many of them roughly 100 feet in diameter) in the Western Hemisphere.
He noted BP's willingness to pay handsomely for his product represents a big change from his last venture, Fred's Science Museum in Woburn, Mass., which closed after three months. "There it was tough to get people to pay a measly four bucks admission, even when we threw in Pizza Hut coupons," he explained.
BP has tried numerous methods to contain the spill, including Prywatki's sponges, a giant metal dome lowered over the spill area, and millions of rolls of Bounty paper towels dropped from helicopters.
"We had to stop that last one because they were knocking the oil-covered turtles unconscious," explained BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, looking noticeably pale while lighting a cigarette with a shaky right hand. "That's considered bad form among environmentalists, evidently."
Taking a long drag and then rubbing his furrowed temple with his free hand, Hayward added, "It's a good thing I got a $32 million bonus last year, or this would all be very hard to stomach."
For those of you out in the rest of the country who may be wondering, there’s more to Massachusetts than just taxes and liberals. We also have clams. And lately, we have two controversies that have been dominating discussion here: the debate over whether to allow wind turbines and casinos, unfortunately not together.
I’d been waiting to weigh in on these subjects until I’d done the proper research, by which I mean, until I’d seen a headline about them on the front page of the Boston Herald. I’m still waiting, unless wind turbines or casinos happened to be the subject of the recent cover story entitled “Button-down Mayor Says ... Screwgle Google,” the latest proof that ink fumes have permeated the building.
As far as the turbines go, though, I can’t help but wonder why people hate them so much. I find them to be kind of soothing — it’s like looking at a giant pinwheel. A giant, monstrously expensive, bird-annihilating pinwheel.
Now, we all know that the late Sen. Ted Kennedy didn’t want them marring the view from his Hyannisport compound, but let’s face it: It’s not Ted Kennedy’s view, it’s the people’s view. This would explain why Scott Brown has mounted a wind turbine to the back of his pickup, right next to the Truck Nutz.
And personally, I’d love to look out on a series of wind turbines from my compound, because that would mean ... I’d have a compound. Right now all I see when I look out my window is the guy across the street looking back at me, and frankly, it’s starting to creep me out.
Now, some say the energy we get from these babies will actually be too costly to justify the expense of building them, so I’m hoping they figure that out before they start construction, even if that would violate the state’s massive infrastructure projects credo (“Build first, ask questions later”). Also, they should make sure they don’t hire the people who did the Big Dig, unless they want the turbines to take 16 years and then fall over.
But the one argument I’ve heard that actually makes some sense (no, not the part about the birds —they need to start looking up, for crying out loud) is the following: Members of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe have said the turbines would desecrate tribal burial sites. By which they presumably mean “potential sites for future Indian casinos,” whose swimming pools will be filled with re-animated corpses and Craig T. Nelson.
Which brings us to the casinos, which I’m still not sure how I feel about. On the one hand, they could prove disastrous for compulsive gamblers and their families. On the other hand, maybe Tom Jones would come! So I’m torn.
One thing I’m definitely in favor of, though, is the idea of warning labels on the slot machines. I pictured something informative but catchy, like: “NOTICE: For best results, place your life savings, your clothing and your portable oxygen tank into the slot below. An attendant will be along shortly to carry your wrinkled naked body back to the bus.”
So you can imagine my disappointment when I heard that the Massachusetts House of Representatives had rejected that particular amendment. Seems there was an issue with the proposal: According to the State House News Service, the warnings “would require the listing of so many odds that the sign would be up to three times larger than the machine itself.” Which means the warnings about the buffet would probably have to blanket the entire building like a giant field tarp.
Regardless, both casinos and wind turbines sound on paper like fine ideas; the first one will bring in tons of tax revenue, and the second will help the environment, not necessarily in that order. You might quibble over the details, but at the end of the day, what could possibly go wrong?
With the possible exception of Massachusetts taxpayers getting screwgled.
Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Portions of this column appeared previously on The Wicked Local Blog. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.
Last week, a new study revealed that only a quarter of Americans can name more than one of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: There’s more than one?
And the answer is, yes there are, but the study said that twice as many people could name members of TV’s Simpson family than could name two or more of those freedoms. Which, granted, isn’t an especially fair comparison, given that “The Simpsons” has been on for so long now that it’s impossible not to know them; it’s rumored that Woodrow Wilson ended his 1912 debate by telling Taft to eat his shorts.
But it wasn’t just the venerable Simpsons that people were more familiar with; the study also said that more people could name three “American Idol” judges than name three First Amendment rights. (Which is ironic, considering that Simon is actually exercising at least one of those rights every time he tells a contestant that if she’d sung like that 2,000 years ago, people would have stoned her to death.)
So I figure it falls to me to fill you in on some First Amendment freedoms you may be unfamiliar with. And, contrary to what one-fifth of the study’s participants thought, one of them isn’t the right to own a pet — although I can see where they’d think that, given Thomas Jefferson’s fondness for his pet sheltie, Beauregard.
1) Speech: This is the right that guarantees you can say whatever you want, wherever you want, safe in the knowledge that your government can’t throw you in prison for it. No, what they’ll probably get you on is tax evasion. (It’s worth noting, however, that despite this freedom you can still not yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. This was particularly important when the Bill of Rights was written, because theater tickets were much cheaper then.)
2) Religion: This is the right ensuring that if any public employee (teacher, librarian, DPW worker, etc.) even accidentally insinuates that there may be some kind of supreme being (for instance by screaming, “Oh my God, I’ve stabbed myself with my compass!”), it is legal for him or her to be immediately tackled by undercover Secret Service agents. It also keeps the government from telling you what religion to practice, even in the case of Tom Cruise.
3) Assembly: You remember when you were in school, and every so often they’d haul you all down to the gym for an assembly, and someone would talk to you about hygiene or the dangers of LSD? It’s sort of like that.
4) Press: Particularly important to the people in my profession, this is the right that declares we can print or broadcast whatever we want, as long as we don’t mind being firebombed. (It’s worth noting that the fledgling government almost immediately regretted this one when the Norwich Packet ran a story about “George and Martha’s Steamy Summer SEX ROMP.”)
5) Petition for the redress of grievances: According to historians, even the Founding Fathers didn’t really know what this one was about, but James Madison thought it sounded “wicked dramatic.” One thing we do know is that as originally written, the S’s looked like little F’s.
Speaking as someone who, in all seriousness, had a framed copy of the Bill of Rights on his wall until we took it down to paint recently and I accidentally stepped on it (which, believe me, made me feel really bad, like the ghost of John Hancock was going to visit me in the night and stick me with his quill), I found the study disturbing, to say the least. But on the plus side, I suppose it could jump-start some interest in the foundations of this great democracy, and finally get people to better appreciate our freedoms.
Although “The Simpsons” may need to go off the air first.
Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. This "Best of Chianca" column is from 2006. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.
Am I the only one who loves looking at wind turbines, like the ones approved yesterday off the coast of Massachusetts? They relax me -- it's like looking at a giant pinwheel. A giant, expensive, bird-annihilating pinwheel.
Now, we all know that Sen. Kennedy didn't want to look at them off in the distance from his Nantucket compound, but personally I'd love to look out on them from my compound because that would mean ... I'd have a compound. Right now all I see when I look out my window is the guy across the street looking back at me, and frankly, it's starting to creep me out.
Then there are the arguments that it will interfere with air and sea travel, but I would point out that, unlike icebergs, captains (and pilots) should have a reasonable idea of when they're coming up on one of these, and can simply head a few degrees port or starboard. Or aft, when appropriate.
Now, some say the energy we get from these babies will actually be too costly to justify the expense of building them, so I'm hoping they work those numbers out before they're already half-built, which sounds like something that would happen around here. Also, they should make sure they don't hire the people who did the Big Dig, unless they want them to take 10 years and then fall on people.
But the one argument I've heard that actually makes some sense (no, not the part about the birds -- they just need to look up, for crying out loud) is the following:
Members of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Martha’s Vineyard have vowed to sue to stop Cape Wind from being built, saying it would interfere with sacred rituals and desecrate tribal burial sites.
Woah, Nellie -- nobody said anything about desecrating burial sites! We all remember the outcome last time that happened:
All I have to say is, the minute anybody spots Craig T. Nelson ... run!
