Offbeat News

[Jet]

Originally Posted by MsTinkerbelly

Vatican: Condom use less evil than spreading HIV


By VICTOR L. SIMPSON and NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Victor L. Simpson And Nicole Winfield, Associated Press – 12 mins ago
VATICAN CITY – In a seismic shift on one of the most profound — and profoundly contentious — Roman Catholic teachings, the Vatican said Tuesday that condoms are the lesser of two evils when used to curb the spread of AIDS, even if their use prevents a pregnancy.

The position was an acknowledgment that the church's long-held anti-birth control stance against condoms doesn't justify putting lives at risk.

"This is a game-changer," declared the Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit writer and editor.

The new stance was staked out as the Vatican explained Pope Benedict XVI's comments on condoms and HIV in a book that came out Tuesday based on his interview with a German journalist.

The Vatican still holds that condom use is immoral and that church doctrine forbidding artificial birth control remains unchanged. Still, the reassessment on condom use to help prevent disease carries profound significance, particularly in Africa where AIDS is rampant.

"By acknowledging that condoms help prevent the spread of HIV between people in sexual relationships, the pope has completely changed the Catholic discussion on condoms," said Martin, a liberal-leaning author of several books about spirituality and Catholic teaching.

The development came on a day when U.N. AIDS officials announced that the number of new HIV cases has fallen significantly — thanks to condom use — and a U.S. medical journal published a study showing that a daily pill could help prevent spread of the virus among gay men.

"This is a great day in the fight against AIDS ... a major milestone," said Mitchell Warren, head of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.

Theologians have debated for years whether it could be morally acceptable for HIV-infected people to use condoms to avoid infecting their partners. The Vatican years ago was reportedly preparing a document on the subject, but it never came out.

The groundbreaking shift, coming as it does from the deeply conservative pontiff, would appear likely to restrain any public criticism from Catholic conservatives, who insisted Tuesday that the pope was merely reaffirming the church's moral teaching.

Conservatives have feared that a comment like this would give support to Catholics who want to challenge the church's ban on artificial contraception in an environment where they feel they are under siege from a secular, anti-Catholic culture.

George Weigel, a conservative Catholic writer, said the Vatican was by no means endorsing condom use as a method of contraception or a means of AIDS prevention.

"This is admittedly a difficult distinction to grasp," he told The Associated Press in an e-mail. What the pontiff is saying is "that someone determined to do something wrong may be showing a glimmer of moral common sense by not doing that wrong thing in the worst possible way — which is not an endorsement of anything."

Benedict's comments come at a time when bishops in the United States are intensely focused on upholding the strictest views of Catholic orthodoxy, emphasizing traditional marriage, natural family planning based on a woman's menstrual cycle and making abortion the most important issue.

In the book, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times," Benedict was quoted as saying that condom use by people such as male prostitutes indicated they were moving toward a more moral and responsible sexuality by aiming to protect their partner from a deadly infection.

His comments implied that he was referring primarily to homosexual sex, when condoms aren't being used as a form of contraception.

However, questions arose immediately about the pope's intent because the Italian translation of the book used the feminine for prostitute, whereas the original German used the masculine.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters Tuesday that he asked the pope whether he intended his comments to apply only to men. Benedict replied that it really didn't matter, the important thing was that the person took into consideration the life of another.

"I personally asked the pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine," Lombardi said. "He told me no. The problem is this: ... It's the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship."

"This is if you're a man, a woman, or a transsexual. ... The point is it's a first step of taking responsibility, of avoiding passing a grave risk onto another," Lombardi said.

Those comments concluded the press conference, and Lombardi took no further questions about how broadly this interpretation could be applied.

The clarification is significant.

UNAIDS estimates that 22.4 million people in Africa are infected with HIV, and that 54 percent — or 12.1 million — are women. Heterosexual transmission of HIV and multiple, heterosexual partners are believed to be the major cause of the high infection rates.

Benedict drew harsh criticism when, en route to Africa in 2009, he told reporters that the AIDS problem couldn't be resolved by distributing condoms. "On the contrary, it increases the problem," he said then.

In Africa on Tuesday, AIDS activists, clerics and ordinary Africans applauded the pope's revised comments.

"I say, hurrah for Pope Benedict," exclaimed Linda-Gail Bekker, chief executive of South Africa's Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation. She said the pope's statement may prompt many people to "adopt a simple lifestyle strategy to protect themselves."

In Sierra Leone, the director of the National AIDS Secretariat predicted condom use would now increase, lowering the number of new infections.

"Once the pope has made a pronouncement, his priests will be in the forefront in advocating for their perceived use of condoms," said the official, Dr. Brima Kargbo.

Lombardi said Benedict knew full well that his comments would provoke intense debate. Conservative Catholics have been trying to minimize what he said since excerpts were published this weekend in the Vatican newspaper.

The Rev. Tim Finnegan, a conservative British blogger, said he thought the pope's comments were unwise. "I'm sorry. I love the Holy Father very much; he is a deeply holy man and has done a great deal for the church," Finnegan said on his blog. "On this particular issue, I disagree with him."

Lombardi praised Benedict for his "courage" in confronting the problem.

"He did it because he believed that it was a serious, important question in the world of today," Lombardi said, adding that the pope wanted to give his perspective on the need for greater humanized, responsible sexuality.

Luigi Accatoli, a veteran Vatican journalist who was on the Vatican panel that launched the book, put it this way:

"He spoke with caution and courage of a pragmatic way through which missionaries and other ecclesial workers can help to defeat the pandemic of AIDS without approving, but also without excluding — in particular cases — the use of a condom," Accatoli said.

The launch of the book, which includes wide-ranging comments on subjects from the sex abuse crisis to Benedict's belief that popes should resign if physically unable to carry out their mission, drew a packed audience. Making a rare appearance, Benedict's secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, sat in the front row — an indication of the event's significance.

In the book, the pope reaffirms Vatican opposition to homosexual acts and artificial contraception, as well as the inviolability of marriage between man and woman.

But by broadening the condom comments to also apply to women, the pope was saying that condom use is a lesser evil than passing HIV onto a partner, even when pregnancy is possible.

"We're not just talking about an encounter between two men, which has little to do with procreation. We're now introducing relationships that could lead to childbirth," Martin said.

Individual bishops and theologians have applied the lesser evil theory to the condom-HIV issue, but it had previously been rejected at the highest levels of the Vatican, Martin said.

Monsignor Jacques Suaudeau, an expert on the Vatican's bioethics advisory board, said the pope was articulating the theological idea that there are degrees of evil.

"Contraception is not the worst evil. The church does not see it as good, but the church does not see it as the worst," he told the AP. "Abortion is far worse. Passing on HIV is criminal. That is absolute irresponsibility."

He said the pope broached the topic because questions about condoms and AIDS persisted, and the church's teaching hadn't been clear. There is no official Vatican policy about condoms and HIV, and Vatican officials in the past have insisted that condoms not only don't help fight HIV transmission but make it worse because it gives users a false sense of security.

"This pope gave this interview. He was not foolish. It was intentional," Suaudeau said. "He thought that this was a way of bringing up many questions. Why? Because it's true that the church sometimes has not been too clear."

Lombardi said the pope didn't use the technical terminology "lesser evil" in his comments because he wanted his words to be understood by the general public. Vatican officials, however, said that was what he meant.

"The contribution the pope wanted to give is not a technical discussion with scientific language on moral problems," Lombardi said. "This is not the job of a book of this type."

___

Associated Press reporters Rachel Zoll in New York, Jason Straziuso in Nairobi and AP Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione contributed to this report

Thanks for posting this darlin'. Pope Benedict is causing a stir because of his stance and, since the condom story has broke, has reversed something to make heads spin. I'll have to read up on it. Good post.

[Nat]

Gay groups protest forced separation of gay avian couple.

Gay groups in Germany are upset that officials at the Allwetter Zoo in Munster, Germany, have separated two male vultures who had set up nest-keeping together and were obviously a couple.

The two Griffon vultures, Guido and Detlef, have been a couple since March, according to U.K. news site The Register. They build a nest together, defended it from the other vultures, and spent most of their time together grooming each other.

But zoo curator Dirk Wewers apparently believed Detlef and Guido’s relationship was what I call situational homosexuality, like men in prison who have sex with other men because no women are available. Wewers said: “A suitable female was missing and in such a case vultures look for companionship from the next best thing, even if it is a male. Detlef looked for a bird of the opposite sex but settled with Guido.”

So the zoo decided to give the two other options by breaking up their happy home and sending Guido to a zoo in Ostrava, Czech Republic, where he would have access to female Griffon vultures. Meanwhile, Detlef, back in Munster, has been set up with a mail-order bride from the Czech Republic.

According to reports, Detlef’s “ex-gay therapy” appears to be working. But over in Ostrava, Guido is having none of it. Reports are he won’t have anything to do with the female vultures.

Both male vultures are 14 years old, which means both are still relative youngsters, since their lifespan in the wild is estimated at 50 to 70 years old. The oldest known Griffon vulture — or Great Vulture — in captivity died at the age of 118.

According to Wikipedia, Griffon vultures are on the brink of dying out, although there have been resurgent populations in some areas of Europe. In Germany, Griffon vultures in the wild died out in the mid-18th century, but, “Some 200 vagrant birds, probably from the Pyrenees, were sighted in 2006, and several dozen of the vagrants sighted in Belgium the following year crossed into Germany in search for food.”

So, OK — the idea of creating breeding pairs and replenishing the Griffon vulture population has merit. But still, it just doesn’t seem right to me to separate what was obviously a loving couple for the sake of making some baby vultures. I am sure there are plenty of other hetero male Griffon vultures available more than willing to take care of the breeding needs.

Either way, it gives new meaning to the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together,” huh?

[Jet]

Nation's Obesity Epidemic Threatens Pets

THURSDAY, Nov. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Before sharing your Thanksgiving leftovers with your pampered pets, take note: The obesity epidemic in the United States is enlarging cats and dogs, not just their over-fed owners. Overweight pets are a serious health issue today, experts say. About half of the nation's companion animals -- some 90 million cats and ogs -- are tipping the scales, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention.

"As a practicing veterinarian for almost 20 years, I've never seen this many overweight pets," said Dr. Ernie Ward, author of Chow Hounds: Why Our Dogs Are Getting Fatter -- A Vet's Plan to Save Their Lives. "We're witnessing the super-sizing of America's pets before our very eyes." The cause of obesity in people and pets is the same, added veterinarian Dr. Joe Wakshlag, assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "The Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention] says that America has become 'obesogenic,' meaning that we live in a world that promotes increased food intake, unhealthy food choices and reduced physical activity," he said. "Our pets live in the same world and are suffering the same consequences of obesity."

Like their owners, portly pets are at risk for developing diseases such as arthritis, diabetes, kidney and heart disease, high blood pressure and many forms of cancer.


The result: high medical bills. In 2009, the Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. said its policyholders filed more than $17 million in claims for conditions and diseases that can be caused by excess weight. Making matters worse is the normalization of excess weight. Ward calls it the "fat gap" -- where pet owners view an overweight or obese pet as normal.
If a thick layer of fat prevents you from easily feeling your pet's ribs, your dog or cat is too heavy.
Cutting out high-calorie treats -- especially those filled with fat and sugar -- is an easy first step to help a pet shed excess weight. If you must give a snack, opt for healthy, low-calorie alternatives such as baby carrots, broccoli, and celery for dogs; salmon or tuna flakes for cats.

"If I could wave a magic wand, I would eliminate all of the unhealthy treats for pets and people," said Ward. "This single act would greatly reduce obesity rates and decrease many chronic debilitating diseases."
Keeping pets trim also requires regular exercise, said Ward, who practices veterinary medicine in Calabash, N.C. In general, he recommends that dogs get at least 20 to 30 minutes of sustained aerobic activity each day. That can be achieved by a brisk one to three mile walk or, depending on where you live, going to a dog park, agility course, or even heated swimming pool for pooches. Businesses geared toward keeping dogs fit are found in many major U.S. cities.

For cats, as little as five to 15 minutes of play -- chasing a laser beam, feather toy or crumpled ball of paper -- is all they need each day, he said.
Keeping pets at a healthy weight also requires knowing how much to feed them. But the amounts suggested on food packages are formulated for active, unaltered adult dogs and cats, said Ward. "That means if you have an older, spayed or neutered indoor lap potato, you'll probably be feeding 20 to 30 percent too much if you follow the food's instructions," he said.
Instructions on diet pet foods aren't much better. Researchers at Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine recently examined nearly 100 foods claiming to aid weight management and found that most would actually cause weight gain if owners followed the label's feeding directions.

"As this study shows, packaging might not always be a reliable source of information," said veterinarian Dr. Lisa Freeman, study co-author and professor of nutrition at Tufts University.

Efforts are under way to require manufacturers to include calories on all pet food packaging in coming years, but Wakshlag said listing the calorie content won't help pet owners much. "There's really no way, based on how the label is structured now, to accurately give the calories," he said. Unless a company has done a pricey and lengthy digestibility study of their food, "they really don't know how many calories are in a can," he said.

Pets don't need many calories to maintain a healthy weight. Ward said an adult 10-pound, indoor, spayed cat only needs 180 to 200 calories per day while an older 20-pound, neutered dog needs 340 to 380.

To figure out your pet's daily caloric needs, Ward suggests this formula as a starting point: Divide your pet's weight by 2.2. Multiply this figure by 30, then add 70, and you'll have an idea of how many calories to feed a typical, inactive spayed or neutered pet. "Of course, each pet's metabolism is different, so be sure to consult your veterinarian before starting a diet," he said.

[Jet]

ATM Fraud Gets Even More Brazen

by Karen Blumenthal
Saturday, November 27, 2010

provided by
The Wall Street Journal

Until recently, skimming equipment was relatively crude and clunky, attached to card-readers with double-stick foam tape and relying on small cameras to record hands punching in PINs. Newer devices include equipment that fits inside card readers, pinhead-sized cameras and well-crafted attachments that sit snugly on top of ATM card readers and PIN pads, looking just like the real equipment. Bluetooth technology allows the fake card reader and PIN pad to talk to each other, and data drives or wireless technology can make downloading of stolen information quick and easy.

Avivah Litan, fraud analyst at Gartner, a research firm, estimates that fraud involving debit cards, PINs and point-of-sale equipment has surged 400% over the past five years. One tactic, she says, has been "flash attacks": Using the stolen information, gangs create thousands of counterfeit debit cards and then dispatch cronies to at least 100 ATM machines in several cities at once. Each withdraws a small dollar amount from several accounts to avoid fraud-detection software, adding up to tens of thousands of dollars in losses.

Full story and links.....
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-bud...en-more-brazen

[betenoire]

Online retailer threatens and harasses customers - which drums up more business for him

This worked because, previously, Google couldn't tell the difference between a good review and a bad review. All that mattered to the search engine was how much mentioning this guy was getting.

And now he's in jail.

[Nat]

Oprah Winfrey: 'I'm not a lesbian'

The rumors have been around for years. She even made light about them recently. But Oprah Winfrey has once again stated flatly: "I'm not a lesbian."

"I'm not even kind of a lesbian," the talk-show queen, 56, tells Barbara Walters in an upcoming interview on ABC. "And the reason why [the rumor] irritates me is because it means that somebody must think I'm lying. That's number one. Number two ... why would you want to hide it? That is not the way I run my life."

The rumors have focused on Winfrey's friend Gayle King. But Winfrey says that relationship is extremely close in a whole different way.

"She is ... the mother I never had. She is ... the sister everybody would want. She is the friend that everybody deserves. I don't know a better person. I don't know a better person," Winfrey says while choking up.

"It's making me cry because I'm thinking about ... how much ... I probably have never told her that. Tissue, please. I now need tissue. I've never told her that."

[Jet]

2,400-year-old pot of soup excavated

Third age.com

A 2,400-year-old pot of soup has been exhumed near the ancient capital of Xian in China, reports said Monday. Chinese archaeologists found the ancient food sealed in a bronze cooking vessel in a tomb.

AFP reported Monday that archaeologists were in the process of excavating the tomb to clear the way for the expansion of Xian's international airport.

The discovery sheds some light on the eating habits and culture of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC).

"It's the first discovery of bone soup in Chinese archaeological history," Liu Daiyun of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology told the Global Times.

The contents of the vessel were green from oxidation of the bronze, and further tests will be required to determine the specific ingredients and confirm whether it is in fact soup.

Scientists also excavated a bronze pot that contained an odorless liquid believed to be wine. They also discovered a rotten lacquer-ware vessel.

Nearby tombs suggest the inhabitant of the mausoleum was a high-ranking officer or member of the land-owning class.

[Jet]

IRS audits jump by 11 percent; wealthiest targeted


Associated Press
Wed Dec 15, 3:51 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service is making it a bit riskier to cheat on your taxes. The tax agency increased the number of returns it audited by nearly 11 percent this year, statistics released Wednesday show. Wealthy taxpayers and big businesses were most likely to be targeted.
The IRS also stepped up audits of charities and other tax-exempt organizations.

In all, the IRS examined more than 1.58 million individual returns in the budget year that ended in September, up from 1.43 million the year before.
"We saw individual audits increase, reaching the highest rate in the past decade," said Steve Miller, IRS deputy commissioner for services and enforcement. "The bottom line shows enforcement revenue topped $57 billion, up almost 18 percent from last year." Overall, a little more than 1 percent of individual returns were audited, either by mail or in person. The IRS audited more than 8 percent of returns with incomes above $1 million.

Taxpayers filed nearly 143 million returns, including those from individuals and married couples. Nearly 389,000 taxpayers reported incomes of $1 million or above.

Corporate audits dropped slightly, by less than 1 percent. But there was a 7 percent increase in the number of audits of firms with $10 million or more in assets.

[Jet]

Bones found on island might be Amelia Earhart's

Associated Press

NORMAN, Okla. – The three bone fragments turned up on a deserted South Pacific island that lay along the course Amelia Earhart was following when she vanished. Nearby were several tantalizing artifacts: some old makeup, some glass bottles and shells that had been cut open.

Now scientists at the University of Oklahoma hope to extract DNA from the tiny bone chips in tests that could prove Earhart died as a castaway after failing in her 1937 quest to become the first woman to fly around the world.

"There's no guarantee," said Ric Gillespie, director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, a group of aviation enthusiasts in Delaware that found the pieces of bone this year while on an expedition to Nikumaroro Island, about 1,800 miles south of Hawaii.

"You only have to say you have a bone that may be human and may be linked to Earhart and people get excited. But it is true that, if they can get DNA, and if they can match it to Amelia Earhart's DNA, that's pretty good."
It could be months before scientists know for sure — and it could turn out the bones are from a turtle. The fragments were found near a hollowed-out turtle shell that might have been used to collect rain water, but there were no other turtle parts nearby.

Earhart's disappearance on July 2, 1937, remains one of the 20th century's most enduring mysteries. Did she run out of fuel and crash at sea? Did her Lockheed Electra develop engine trouble? Did she spot the island from the sky and attempt to land on a nearby reef?

"What were her last moments like? What was she doing? What happened?" asked Robin Jensen, an associate professor of communications at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., who has studied Earhart's writings and speeches.

Since 1989, Gillespie's group has made 10 trips to the island, trying each time to find clues that might help determine the fate of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan.

Last spring, volunteers working at what seemed to be an abandoned campsite found one piece of bone that appeared to be from a neck and another unknown fragment dissimilar to bird or fish bones. A third fragment might be from a finger. The largest of the pieces is just over an inch long.
The area was near a site where native work crews found skeletal remains in 1940. Bird and fish carcasses suggested Westerners had prepared meals there.

"This site tells the story of how someone or some people attempted to live as castaways," Gillespie said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press. "These fish weren't eaten like Pacific Islanders" eat fish.

Millions of dollars have been spent in failed attempts to learn what happened to Earhart, a Kansas native declared dead by a California court in early 1939.
The official version says Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel and crashed at sea while flying from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, which had a landing strip and fuel.

Gillespie's book "Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance," and "Amelia Earhart's Shoes," written by four volunteers from the aircraft group, suggest the pair landed on the reef and survived, perhaps for months, on scant food and rainwater.

Gillespie, a pilot, said the aviator would have needed only about 700 feet of unobstructed space to land because her plane would have been traveling only about 55 mph at touchdown. "It looks like she could have landed successfully on the reef surrounding the island. It's very flat and smooth," Gillespie said. "At low tide, it looks like this place is surrounded by a parking lot."

However, Gillespie said, the plane, even if it landed safely, would have been slowly dragged into the sea by the tides. The waters off the reef are 1,000 to 2,000 feet deep. His group needs $3 million to $5 million for a deep-sea dive.
The island is on the course Earhart planned to follow from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, which had a landing strip and fuel. Over the last seven decades, searches of the remote atoll have been inconclusive.

After the latest find, anthropologists who had previously worked with Gillespie's group suggested that he send the bones to the University of Oklahoma's Molecular Anthropology Laboratory, which has experience extracting genetic material from old bones. Gillespie's group also has a genetic sample from an Earhart female relative for comparison with the bones.

The lab is looking for mitochondrial DNA, which is passed along only through females, so there is no need to have a Noonan sample.
Cecil Lewis, an assistant professor of anthropology at the lab, said the university received a little more than a gram of bone fragments about two weeks ago. If researchers are able to extract DNA and link it to Earhart, a sample would be sent to another lab for verification.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That's why we're trying to downplay a lot of the media attention right now," Lewis said. "For all we know, this is just a turtle bone, and a lot of people are going to be very disheartened."

Under the best circumstances, the analysis would take two weeks. If scientists have trouble with the sample, that time frame could stretch into months, Lewis said.
"Ancient DNA is incredibly unpredictable," he said.
Other material recovered this year also suggested the presence of Westerners at the isolated island site:
• Someone carried shells ashore before cutting them open and slicing out the meat. Islanders cut the meat out at sea.
• Bottles found nearby were melted on the bottom, suggesting they had been put into a fire, possibly to boil water. (A Coast Guard unit on the island during World War II would have had no need to boil water.)
• Bits of makeup were found. The group is checking to see which products Earhart endorsed and whether an inventory lists specific types of makeup carried on her final trip.
• A glass bottle with remnants of lanolin and oil, possibly hand lotion.
In 2007, the group found a piece of a pocket knife but didn't know whether it was left by the Coast Guard or castaways. This year, it found the shattered remains of the knife, suggesting someone had smashed it to extract the blades. Gillespie speculated a castaway used a blade to make a spear to stab shallow-water fish like those found at the campsite.

Following Earhart's disappearance, distress signals picked up by distant ships pointed back to the area of Nikumaroro Island, but while pilots passing over saw signs of recent habitation, the island was crossed off the list as having been searched, Gillespie said.

In 1940, a British overseer on the island recovered a partial human skeleton, a woman's shoe and an empty sextant box at what appeared to be a former campsite, littered with turtle, clamshell and bird remains.
Thinking of Earhart, the overseer sent the items to Fiji, where a British doctor decided they belonged to a stocky European or mixed-blood male, ruling out any Earhart connection.

The bones later vanished, but in 1998, Gillespie's group located the doctor's notes in London. Two other forensic specialists reviewed the doctor's bone measurements and agreed they were more "consistent with" a female of northern European descent, about Earhart's age and height. On their own visits to the island, volunteers recovered an aluminum panel that could be from an Electra, another piece of a woman's shoe and a "cat's paw" heel dating from the 1930s; another shoe heel, possibly a man's, and an oddly cut piece of clear Plexiglas.

The sextant box might have been Noonan's. The woman's shoe and heel resemble a blucher-style oxford seen in a pre-takeoff photo of Earhart. The plastic shard is the exact thickness and curvature of an Electra's side window.
The body of evidence is intriguing, but Gillespie insists the team is "constantly agonizing over whether we are being dragged down a path that isn't right."
___

[Jet]

Words "viral" and "epic" consigned to college trash

BOSTON (Reuters) – This story might be epic, and could even go viral, but not if Lake Superior State University has anything to do with it. Just sayin.'
The small college in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, released on Friday its annual list of "banished words" -- terms so overused, misused and hackneyed they deserve to be sent to a permanent linguistic trash can in the year ahead.

"Viral," often used to describe the rapid spreading of videos or other content over the Internet, leads the list for 2011. "This linguistic disease of a term must be quarantined," Kuahmel Allah of Los Angeles said in making a nomination. Runners-up included "epic" and "fail," often twinned to describe a blunder of monumental proportions. A total of 14 words were on the list.

Cliched terms such as "wow factor," "a-ha moment," "back story" and "BFF" (Best Friends Forever) rated highly. The very au courant use of "Facebook" and "Google" as verbs got a thumbs down as well.

As usual, election-cycle zingers and catchwords quickly look as worn out as last year's campaign posters. In that vein, voters suggested the banning of "Mama Grizzlies," used to describe right-wing female politicians in the mold of Sarah Palin, and "man up," famously used by Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharon Angle in a testy debate with Democrat Harry Reid and a favorite Palin expression as well.

"A stupid phrase when directed at men. Even more stupid when directed at a woman, as in 'Alexis, you need to man up and join that Pilates class!'" said Sherry Edwards of Clarkston, Michigan. LSSU began its popular list in 1976, when it named "at this point in time," as substituted for the concise and elegant "now," as a linguistic dud. The college now receives well over 1,000 nominations each year through its website, lssu.edu/banished.

Previous winners and nominees include the terms "shovel ready" for 2010, "battleground states" for 2005, "24/7" for 2000 and "family values" for 1995.
(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Jerry Norton)

[Jet]

Huck Finn Gets Some Changes

By Mike Krumboltz – Tue Jan 4, 3:34 pm ET
Yahoo Blog

Acclaimed by critics, scholars, and -- of course -- readers, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the great American novels. The book has been reprinted countless times, adapted into movies, and translated into just about every language under the sun. But should it be updated for today's times?

News that the manuscript would undergo some changes sent shockwaves through the Search box. According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books plans to release a version of "Huck Finn" that cuts the "n" word and replaces it with "slave." The slur "injun," referring to Native Americans, will also be replaced.

It's important to note that in using the words, Twain was critiquing racism, not endorsing it. Also important: These changes affect just one version of the classic novel, and won't apply to all the printings. Regardless, public response has been swift. Almost immediately, Web searches on "huck finn censored" and "huckleberry finn changes" spiked into breakout status.

The reponse on Twitter has been equally thunderous. Many of the comments appear to be against the changes. One person sarcastically writes, "I love when people erase racism and pretend it never happened." Still, not everyone is outraged. One respondent writes that it is "awkward being the only black kid in class and having to read it." Another points out that the original is in the public domain and still available to anyone who wants to read it.

A popular column for Entertainment Weekly asks whether this is all such a bad thing. Is it so different, the column asks, from editing "The Godfather" so it can be shown on network television? With this new version of "Huck Finn," more people, including young readers, will be able to enjoy it. Does that make the changes worth it?

We don't know the answer, but it's a question worth thinking about. Either way, the novel will survive the controversy. "Huck Finn" was first published in 1884, and it was just a year later when people began to wonder if the book should be banned. The more things change...

[dreadgeek]

This seems, ummmm....silly. Not to put too fine a point on the matter. Like most of you, I've read Huck Finn. I read it when I was young. Did the use of the 'n-word' bother me? Sure. But it did not keep me from reading the book or enjoying it. This idea--well meaning as it might be--that people are SO sensitive that they can never, ever, be exposed to the ways, language or mores of a different time or place has got to die. Removing the n-word from Huck Finn is not going to get a single black youth who doesn't do her homework now to do her homework. Removing the word 'injun' isn't going to improve the life of a single Native American child.

What's more it does violence to literature. Books are written in a particular time and place. Some books are so fantastic that they transcend their time and place and Huck Finn is certainly one of those. We *can* judge behaviors in the past and condemn, unambiguously, the blatant racism and its sanction by the society of 19th century America. The fact of the matter is is that fin de siecle America WAS a fundamentally racist place. Changing the verbiage used by Twain or any other writer from that period isn't going to change that.

Along with the violence done to literature it does violence to history. Most modern people's ONLY connection to the 19th century will be through the literature they are exposed to in grade school. It is vanishingly improbable that most people, certainly most Americans, will ever read a book of history on their own volition and so the years they are in school is the only time they will ever be exposed to how the culture they are scions of came to be. We already have a problem with revisionist history in this nation--a big problem in fact--and the left mindlessly aping the right on this subject doesn't help. My concern is that people, exposed to this sanitized version of Twain, will be lulled into believing that America has *always* been as racially sensitive as it is now. We know, however, this isn't true.

Lastly, by doing this we are stealing from students the opportunity to learn a valuable skill; deep and contextual thinking. I love movies from the 40's and 50's. Give me some b/w film about a gumshoe and I'm a happy girl. Now, using the logic deployed in this butchering of Twain, not only am I not supposed to like these movies (I'm black, I'm a lesbian and I'm a feminist--none of those are reflected in those movies) but merely being exposed to those movies is supposed to be soul-shattering to me. So much so that I must be 'protected' against such movies. Using this logic, either Casablanca should be edited to eliminate the role of Sam or I should not see it at all lest I be psychically scarred.

It's hogwash. Pure and utter hogwash based upon hokum-based theories of human psychology.

Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by Jet

Huck Finn Gets Some Changes

By Mike Krumboltz – Tue Jan 4, 3:34 pm ET
Yahoo Blog

Acclaimed by critics, scholars, and -- of course -- readers, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the great American novels. The book has been reprinted countless times, adapted into movies, and translated into just about every language under the sun. But should it be updated for today's times?

News that the manuscript would undergo some changes sent shockwaves through the Search box. According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books plans to release a version of "Huck Finn" that cuts the "n" word and replaces it with "slave." The slur "injun," referring to Native Americans, will also be replaced.

It's important to note that in using the words, Twain was critiquing racism, not endorsing it. Also important: These changes affect just one version of the classic novel, and won't apply to all the printings. Regardless, public response has been swift. Almost immediately, Web searches on "huck finn censored" and "huckleberry finn changes" spiked into breakout status.

The reponse on Twitter has been equally thunderous. Many of the comments appear to be against the changes. One person sarcastically writes, "I love when people erase racism and pretend it never happened." Still, not everyone is outraged. One respondent writes that it is "awkward being the only black kid in class and having to read it." Another points out that the original is in the public domain and still available to anyone who wants to read it.

A popular column for Entertainment Weekly asks whether this is all such a bad thing. Is it so different, the column asks, from editing "The Godfather" so it can be shown on network television? With this new version of "Huck Finn," more people, including young readers, will be able to enjoy it. Does that make the changes worth it?

We don't know the answer, but it's a question worth thinking about. Either way, the novel will survive the controversy. "Huck Finn" was first published in 1884, and it was just a year later when people began to wonder if the book should be banned. The more things change...

[betenoire]

"It's like it never happened!" I say that a lot after I've cleaned up a mess I've made, swept up broken glass, get enough caught up on a delinquent payment that the phonecalls stop coming. It's not a true statement, of course: the trash can is fuller, I've got one less drinking glass, my credit report is a scandal. But it's a statement that makes me feel better. It's like it never happened.

That's what's happening here. Whoever is behind the decision to edit Twain wants to feel better about the past, at the expense of honesty. I guess if they ever went ahead and edited all future printings and history books (which they totally already are doing!) and censored the hell out of the internet they could clap their tiny hands and say it's like it never happened - and 70 years from now there would be nobody left who knew that it had happened...but that doesn't undo anything.

[Soon]

I voted (for no revisions) w/o reading any other comments yet on this thread. I am actually really excited to read what people say! I love this type of discussion.

I took a grad course in English Lit. that solely focused on ONE novel -- Huck Finn. I couldn't believe that an ENTIRE semester would be focused on one novel! One of the best courses I ever took.

I can't imagine the discussion (in that class) with the original words and text being censored or omitted. With no more than ten people in the course, we learned so much (as Canadians) about that socio-historical context of that book and I just don't think the impact would be the same with changes.

I actually think Twain had a comment about words and changing them--but I would have to find it.

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by HowSoonIsNow

I took a grad course in English Lit. that solely focused on ONE novel -- Huck Finn. I couldn't believe that an ENTIRE semester would be focused on one novel! One of the best courses I ever took.

Wow, that's even cooler than the Philosophy course dedicated entirely to Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I had read about a few years ago! God, I should have gone to University, it sounds so much more interesting than college.

Anyway. I really should re-read Huck Finn now that I'm an adult. I was in 5th grade when I read it, and I don't think I really was in any position to "get" the novel.

[Toughy]

One person voted to change the novel and 3 more think Gone with the Wind should be changed.

I would love to hear why.......reminds me of when former Attorney General John Ashcroft put a drape over the statue of Lady Liberty's bare breasts.........

and just so y'all know what I think.......it's a horrendously stupid idea to change words in Twain's or any other writer's work.

[dixie]

Why stop with classic literature or textbooks? While we're at it, let's change the Bible (or any other Holy book) to take out all the "sins" that we don't think should apply to us... *insert utter sarcasm here*

[betenoire]

And once we're done with all of the holy writings we can begin to heavily skew and filter the news!

Oh, wait...

[Jet]

Just my .02

I added a poll choice for Gone with The Wind as an epic and written in the context of southern history, sensibilities and dialogue in the old South. Why not start tearing an epic novel to pieces beginning by removing the word "darkies." And soon enough, someone will start removing pictures of lynch mobs in research books and chronicles. After that, add a few lies about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, which some already deny happened. We can keep going, under the guise that everything is offensive or outdated or unproven for some reason. Nonsense as far as I'm concerned. But the danger is that we can omit, change and retell until we've whitewashed history and manipulated thinking. Twain didn't intend for his books to offend, they were written in his day and, to me, they portray a pretty good picture of history and classic literature of the 1800's.

I'm sick and tired of oversensitivity to the point that nearly everything is becoming unacceptable. I don't think you get rid of racism or hate by covering it up through revision, you get rid of it by keeping the past and the changes over time up front as fact and well documented. How many times did my Jewish friends' parents always say "never forget." And they did that by contributing to books, educational materials, speeches and testimonies and making every effort to provide facts and awareness as survivors of mass manipulation and genocide. They believed that, without awareness, the Holocaust could happen again.

I'm going to read Huck Finn again and Tom Sawyer right after that.

[The_Lady_Snow]

It's unnecessary censorship, it's an attempt to erase his country's racist history.