News items of interest
From an Article on useless info at websites:
McGovern says that something like 70 per cent of most websites goes unread. Despite that, when putting content on the web, "rarely do we ask the question: is anybody interested in reading that?"
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My Turn: The Last Generation To Live on the Edge
By Robb Moretti
NEWSWEEK
My parents are part of what has been labeled the Greatest
generation.
I hail from a great generation as well. That's because my peers and
I,
the
oft-maligned baby boomers, came before seat belts, bike helmets
and
all
things plastic protected children from the hazards of everyday
life.
We
were the last Americans to grow up without a childproof safety
net.
I KNOW THAT many of today's protective gadgets prevent kids from
getting
seriously injured. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how my friends
and
I
survived childhood at all. But I believe that we experienced a
kind of freedom that children who came after us have not.
I was born in November 1954 and whisked from the hospital during a
violent
California rainstorm, not in a car seat but in my mother's arms.
Since
our car didn't have seat belts, we drove commando.
As a baby, I was tucked into my crib without a padded bumper guard
or
a
machine that soothed me to sleep with amplified sounds of the
ocean.
Baby pictures show me smiling while I stuck my big head through
the wooden
bars. At night my mother swaddled me in warm pajamas-the
non-flame-retardant kind.
Once I could walk, I was free to roam around the house under the
watchful
eye of my parents. Unfortunately, their diligence couldn't prevent
every
mishap. My mom still tells the story of how I learned not to play
with
electricity by sticking my toy into an open light socket.
When my parents needed peace and quiet, they didn't put me in
front of
the
television to watch a "Baby Einstein" video; they plopped me in a
chair to watch my mom do housework or cook.
My dad drove a monstrous Chrysler that had a rear window ledge
large enough to provide a comfortable sleeping area during long
drives. As va
5-year-old, I loved lying on that ledge, staring at the sky or the
stars
while we roared down the new California freeways. I was a
projectile object waiting to happen! Riding in the front didn't
improve my odds
much:
whenever the car came to an abrupt stop, my mother or father would
fling
an arm across my chest to keep me from going airborne.
During my grade-school years, my mother would often leave my
younger sister and me in the car, keys in the ignition and doors
unlocked,
while
she went shopping. When we got home I would run out to join my
friends,
with the only rule being to get home by dark. My parents weren't
terrified if I was out of their sight. In fact, they enjoyed the
silence.
Playing at the park was a high-risk adventure for my friends and
me.
The
jungle gym was a heavy gray apparatus with metal bars, screws and
hooks.
On a hot day the metallic surface of the sliding board would burn
our behinds. A great afternoon at the park usually meant coming
home with blisters on our hands, a bump or two on the melon and
the obligatory skinned knee.
I rode my red Schwinn Stingray without wearing a bike helmet; my
Davy Crockett cap protected me from serious head injury. Although
I did not have the benefit of a crossing guard at the blind
intersection I had
to
traverse to get to school, I was sure the snapping sound made by
the baseball cards stuck in my spokes alerted the oncoming traffic
to my presence.
Every school day my mother packed my Jetsons lunchbox with a
tuna-fish sandwich, which we found out later often contained high
levels of
mercury
and a dolphin or two. Also stuffed in my lunchbox was a pint of
whole chocolate milk and a package of Hostess Twinkies or
cupcakes. Despite
our
high-fat, high-sugar diets, my friends and I were not out of
shape.
Maybe
that was because we worked so hard in phys-ed class every day.
Occasionally our teacher pushed us so far that some poor kid would
throw
up his lunch.
In the afternoons we all played in a school-sponsored baseball
league.
We
didn't wear plastic batting helmets or cups, and we hit pitched
balls instead of hitting off a plastic tee. Worst of all, we
received
trophies
or medals only if our team won the championship.
Last February, Americans were captivated by the skeleton event at
the
2002
Winter Olympics. But 35 years earlier, my junior-high friends and
I
had
invented our own version of the sport. We'd roar down steep Bay
Area streets on a flexible sled with wheels instead of runners.
Like the Olympians, we held our chins just inches above the
ground. You don't
see
kids today with two false front teeth nearly as often as you did
in
1967.
We baby boomers may not have weathered the Depression or stormed
the beaches at Normandy. But we were the last generation to live
on the
edge
and, I believe, to have fun!
Teen's dying wish for Cameron Diaz blow job not granted
PHILADELPHIA, Monday: The parents of 15-year-old leukaemia patient Josh Morten, who last night passed away after a four year battle with the illness, said they were sorry not to have fulfilled his dying wish to get a blow job from Cameron Diaz.
The courageous teenager told his family two months ago that the one thing he'd really like before he died was to be sucked off by the successful Hollywood actress and former model.
"Josh never asked for much," his father confided. "He never complained about his illness, or made unrealistic demands. So when he requested fellatio from the star of Charlie's Angels and There’s Something About Mary we thought, sure, that’s the least we can do for him."
But attempts to grant Josh his dying wish proved much more difficult than the family had initially thought. Formal requests inviting the star to perform oral sex on their dying son were repeatedly declined.
"We wrote, we rang, we faxed," Mr Morten explained. "And every time it was the same answer: 'Sorry, Ms Diaz is currently unable to comply with your request.' I mean, how unsympathetic can you get? We're talking about a dying kid here! Would it kill her?"
Mr Morten even made a special trip to Los Angeles, to try to talk to the movie star personally outside the premiere of Gangs of New York. "The crowds were ten deep," he said, "and I'm there yelling out to her from the back: 'Will you go down on my son please!', but she didn’t want to know."
With hopes diminishing by the day, Mr Morten placed similar standby requests with the agents representing Catherine Zeta Jones, Jennifer Lopez and Salma Hayek, but in each case the stars refused to co-operate.
"Who do they think they are, these women!" railed Mr Morten. "They earn millions of dollars and swan about at fancy parties, but when they get a simple request to bring a smile to a young boy far less fortunate than them, they turn their back on you. What kind of world do we live in when a dying teenager can no longer get his cock sucked by a celebrity?"