The crazy lady strikes again for Thursday, August 24, 2006

Apparently, Beemer - a Belgian Malinois police dog working for the Ventura, California police department - decided to take a bite out of crime by biting Police Chief Pat Miller in the leg. At the time, the department was hot on the trail of a perpetrator. Read about the story here. This sounds very much like something Paul Harvey might run on his For What It's Worth segments. Sign in to see full entry.

For a change, I'm not referring to my personal medical history, although I feel like the only person in Western civilization to have as many diagnoses as I do. I'm referring instead to my habit of finding and researching rare disorders and diseases. I have clear memories of doing this as early as 1981, when I first found out about AIDS. Back then, or perhaps a bit after it was first reported in Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report that year, it was called GRID (for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency... Sign in to see full entry.

Regular readers of this blog will note that I have been telling a great number of unusual tales of late, like the one about the boy arrested for saying "meow" to a disagreeable neighbor repeatedly. Many of those stories come from the Strange but True link on the AOL News site. This has come in handy, particularly the past day or two. The unique page-view count on this blog has exploded whenever I put up one of these weird stories, and I've been spurring creative opinion pieces for at least one... Sign in to see full entry.

Well, Pluto is apparently no longer considered a planet. That's why "that dog won't hunt" - we all remember Pluto, the Disney cartoon character, or at least I hope we do. The International Astronomical Union has redefined just what constitutes a planet. First of all, a planet must be large enough so that its gravity pulls it into a round shape as it orbits the sun - and it must orbit the sun (as opposed to some other body, such as another planet). Secondly, a planet, to be considered a planet,... Sign in to see full entry.

There was one other thing that got my attention about Oprah's program this morning. One of the aspects of class differences, at least in the minds of some, is that members of the upper crust look and speak differently from those in the lower economic classes. Now, I'm not talking about the difference between ratty, dirty clothing and clean, well-repaired garments. I'm talking about people who claim they can tell the difference between garments when someone is wearing (for example) a $5000... Sign in to see full entry.

Oprah hit the jackpot again today. She's doing a show on class differences, and whether or not a casual observer can tell to what economic class someone belongs. She herself has the classic rags-to-riches American-dream story. As she said in today's show, she had no idea to what class someone who was "po' " belonged; she was a self-confessed "po' " person, while growing up. Now, she owns Harpo Productions, and has one of the most successful television shows in America. She is so famous that... Sign in to see full entry.

A segment on the Today show yesterday morning piqued my interest. It was about the increasing equality of young girls in the realm of what I call "doing bad stuff." Many of us Baby Boomers are fond of telling our daughters that "the world is your oyster" (an exact quote from the piece) - that girls can do anything boys can do, and just as well as the boys, too. Well, this has a negative effect, and the segment was about the unintended negative consequences of such a remark. Did you know that... Sign in to see full entry.

This humorous tale, about a young gentleman's proposed - ahem - habits on a date, reminded me of a very cute incident told by Scott Hahn at the recent EWTN Family Celebration in Birmingham, Alabama. (It's in here because it really has nothing whatever to do with Catholic doctrine.) Dr. Hahn (whose PhD is apparently in church doctrine) told the tale of his son Gabriel, born on the fifth anniversary of Dr. Hahn's marriage to his wife Kimberly. Gabriel has become fond of telling people that "I was... Sign in to see full entry.