The Currency of Today's News
I'm a news junkie. I must have my daily fix. It is as though I have somehow failed in some vital life-task, of being a responsible individual, of being in the know, of having a finger on the pulse of the world, if I somehow or other don't gather into my daily knowledge base any and all news that is available for any given day. There are days when perusing the newspapers are rewarding, others frustrating, others still pointless, but never are they disappointing, for there is always something to learn. Sometimes valuable, sometimes life-enhancing, sometimes puzzling in the extreme.Here's a few tidbits for anyone delinquent enough not to have passed their eyeballs over the history of the past days' events as seen through the pages of this individual's local newspapers: You be the judge.
- Redefining Autism - Advocates claim that treating autism is akin to treating left-handedness or homosexuality - an impossible goal that can only end in disaster. They claim that words used to describe autism are unfairly loaded, and focus on disability over ability. Skeptics see the movement as fetishizing disability, or the blinkered refusal of parents to accept that their child is less than perfect and in need of treatment.
- In China, even the dead need brides; Afterlife Marriage - Here in the parched canyons along the Yellow River known as the Loess Plateau, some parents with dead bachelor sons to go extreme lengths to ensure a son's contentment in the afterlife. They will search for a dead woman to be his bride and, once a corpse is obtained, bury them as a married couple. The rural folk custom, startling to Western sensibilities, is known as minghun or afterlife marriage. Scholars say it is rooted in the Chinese form of ancestor worship, which holds that people continue to exist after death and the living are obligated to tend to their wants - or risk the consequences.
- Priest gets 3 years for Sex Assaults - A retired priest who sexually abused 47 girls during his career was sentenced yesterday to a three-year prison term after asking his victims for forgiveness. "His perverted cravings, it appeared, were almost insatiable". "Justice is an elusive commodity. How does one give justice to this?" (Justice? that's about 1.6 months for each victim...)
- Gamblers want that lucky number - The 1-800 hotline established to help Ontario's addicted gamblers is being inundated with thousands of calls from people looking for winning lottery numbers, prompting the government to rethink the way it advertises the telephone number.
- Handwriting can reform problem child, analyst says - Handwriting analyst Simon Zelcovitch has begun working with families to help transform selfish children into more giving ones, domineering children into collegial ones, and closed-minded or secretive children into more open, personable people - all by identifying revealing aspects of their handwriting and changing their writing patterns accordingly. "By altering their handwriting, the person will change their behaviour. There's absolutely a connection," said Mr. Zelcovitch, who is based in Toronto.
- Choice of words can be revealing, research suggests - Grammar has become a window into the soul, thanks to a simple computer program that counts the types of words used, from pronouns and prepositions to expletives and expressions of joy. "What we are finding is that we can get a sense of people's age, sex and social class by the way they use these stylistic words" Professor Pennebaker said of his subjects in the Linguistic Analysis & Word Count project (University of Texas language lab). "We get a sense if they are depressed, if they are high status or low status in a social interaction. We get a sense of honesty and insecurity. All of these are revealed through things like pronouns and articles and prepositions."
- Canada-U.S. border not so clear-cut - The United States is eager to install a battery of surveillance towers, motion sensors and infrared cameras to monitor the Canada-U.S. border. Now if only officials can find it. "I can send you places where you just can't find the border", said Dennis Schornack, the U.S. Commissioner for the boundary agency, the binational organization that maintains the 8,890-kilometre boundary. "In the worst spots, it looks like you are in some kind of primeval forest."
- Straw leads where the police fear to follow - What is truly alarming is that so suffused is the Metropolitan Police (London) with political correctness that it undertook a "risk assessment" and granted Police Constable Alexander Omar Basha his wish to be excused duty outside the Israeli embassy, a two-hour stint of duty which he feared could jeopardize the safety of members of his family, who are Lebanese.
- Britain's empty Conservatism Guess whose political platform this is:
- Tax cuts? No.
- More public money for government-monopoly health care? Yes.
- Same-sex marriage? Enthusiastically yes.
- Big supermarkets? Offenders against the environment.
- Kyoto Accord? Absolutely.
- Terrorism? Close Guantanamo.
- Illegal immigration? Don't talk about it.
- Israel's response to Hezbollah's rockets attacks? Disporportionate.
- George W. Bush? No friend of ours.
- Got a headache? A splitting headache? Read more news.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, October 08, 2006
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