SICKO TRAILER: How Audiences Look at It

Slate does this kinda neat thing of superimposing opinions over video. By the way, it's a fun trailer, too.

VIDEO: How Big Is Rhode Island?

Off the cuff and interesting.

FRUGAL TRAVELER: Anarchists in West Lima, Wisconsin

Matt Gross makes traveling interesting. This is week five of his 12-week trip across America. (Click the title. Tip: Scale the video.)

VIDEO: Talking Dogs

There's some dog owners with too much time on their hands. (Sent by Roy Wilson)

IRONIC TIMES: Concerns Chart

IMMIGRATION PASSES
IRAQ AMONG AMERICANS'
GREATEST CONCERNS
But both lag behind other hot button issues.

Bicycle Tour through the Black Hills

Ann and Pat Lichter, Pat's brothers Mike and Jerry, and Mike's friend Bill came out to the hills for their annual bicycle trip this year. While Ann and Jerry's wife Sandy stayed with Tobin and Jeannie in Spearfish, the guys cycled from Alladin, WY to Sundance to Newcastle to Edgemont, SD and then back to Spearfish via the Mickelson Trail. (Click on the picture to get to a slideshow with captions.)

“I Got a Crush on Obama”

I'm an Obama supporter, but what the heck is this? Another indication that the end is near?

THE ETHICIST: Smoked Out

It's tough being ethical.

Late Night Monologues Laugh Lines

COLUMN: Want Some Cheese with that Wine?

By Tobin Barnes
People wish they knew more about wine.

Not everybody, but a lot maybe.

Feel like they missed out on this now-important aspect of their social educations. Sometimes even feel inadequate about it. Don’t know when to drink whites or reds. Boo-hoo. Don’t know how much to pay for a bottle without looking like a rube. End up paying an arm and a leg and still don’t like what they bought. You know, stuff like that.

Why this wine-knowledge thing is so socially important, I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve felt it, too.

It’s not like people are crying in their beer, wishing they knew more about THAT drink. People tend to drink the beer they like and not get too snooty about it. If someone’s drinking a Bud, it’s not like others are looking down their noses at him. Other hand, Busch Light? Maybe.

Oh, I suppose you could smell beer, admire the bubbles, measure the foam, take a sip, then spit it out into a bucket like wine. But for most, that’d just be wasted time and wasted beer. After all, one beer tastes like another after the first one.

Not sure, but same’s probably true about wine, too.

Of course, knowing a lot about wine necessarily means you’ve been drinking a lot of wine. That could be a problem, too.

Nevertheless, as I indicated before, people often admit they don’t know as much about wine as they’d like. So when they get near wineries, they tend to go on wine tours. Anyway, that’s what we’ve done several times--once in the Santa Barbara area and twice in the Sonoma/Napa Valley area.

Can’t really say I know much more about wine after those tours than I did before. Oh I guess I know how to hold a wine glass now (by the stem so your body heat doesn’t warm up the wine--now ain’t that getting touchy?), how to swirl the wine around a little to admire the color, and how to stick your schnoz into the glass a ways to fully appreciate the aroma.

Again, I suppose you could be doing this with beer, too, but I haven’t seen many who think it’s necessary.

Invariably, at the end of these tours, they let you sample some of their varieties. Generally, I tend to like the ones that taste most like fruity soda pop and dislike the ones that don’t, despite the indications that the non-sweet wines might be some of the best. So you see, I just don’t get it yet, despite several tours.

I guess I probably need to drink more wine, but like I said, that could be a problem, too.

My last wine tour was in April when we were in the San Francisco area. We drove around the Sonoma Valley and made a few stops. The most impressive place was the Benzinger winery.

During the tour, they told us that the big hillside framing the north boundary was an extinct volcano, which they seemed to think is good for the grapes. They also told us they use French oak for their barrels rather than Bulgarian oak, which is another good choice, but not as good as French.

At that point, I wondered whether someone who really knows their wines could take a sip of a Benzinger, spit it out and say, “Hmmm, they must have used French oak for their barrels. And, wait a second, was that a hint of volcanic ash along with the subtle taste of fruit and saffron? Well, I believe so.”

As you might imagine, this kind of stuff was way over my head, but what really impressed me, in addition to the truly beautiful setting of the winery, were their organic cultivation practices--something they called “biodynamic” farming.

What made me think of this again was a recent Newsweek article that featured the Benziger winery: “Mike Benziger is a grape healer,” the article said. “At his Sonoma, Calif., winery, he uses tinctures of stinging nettle, chamomile and dandelion to boost his vines’ immune systems so that they can fight bug infestations. Cows and sheep roam the vineyards, depositing natural fertilizer and kicking up the soil, helping aerate it. Predatory birds and bats nest in boxes overlooking the vineyards because they help control pests, and Benziger keeps his land hospitable to wildlife.”

Well, that’s really nice, isn’t it?

So even though I’m pretty sure I couldn’t taste the French oak or the volcanic ash in the Benziger wines, and didn’t spend too much time admiring the color swirling in the glass, I can certainly appreciate the effort such dedication to the environment requires when it seems too many just spray on more chemicals and could care less.

Getting Maximum Wear from Your Socks?

Pat Lichter is, as documented by his wife Ann and daughters Meghan and Katie in this picture. Pat is evidently doing his part to stop excess energy use and any resultant global warming one pair of socks at a time.

Now I'm the polar opposite of Pat. I can't stand to wear socks with even a little bit of wear. Therefore, I have begun an endowment of my "old" socks to Pat's drawer. I'm looking at it as a type of carbon credits to make up for my wastefullness.

Laugh Lines

Humorous Videos Montage

FRUGAL TRAVELER: American Road Trip--Nashville

Down home America in week two of a twelve-week trip. Also check out other videos in this series. (Click the title)

So You Think SoDak's Dull

Here's a good one from bizarro world, reported by the Rapid City Journal. Some of the comments after the story are good, too. (Click the title)

SLATE: Democratic Debate with Ratings

This is different. (Click the title)

IRONIC TIMES: Proud Grandparents

clipped from www.ironictimes.com DICK, LYNNE CHENEY POSE WITH NEWBORN GRANDSON “We couldn't be more conflicted,” says beaming grandma.

COLUMN: Tension in the Information Age

By Tobin Barnes
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed lately.

Sometimes it’s hard to breathe. Maybe I should start carrying around a brown-paper sack. Do some ventilating. Gotta do something.

You see, my plate is full and I had no intention of filling it. It’s given me concerns. And who wants those?

Not me. That wasn’t my plan.

And it’s all because of information. It’s at my fingertips. Boot up my computer and it’s right there, any time of the day. Drives me nuts. But I can’t help myself.

Being well informed has gotten in the way of a happy life. Made everything too mental. I know way too much about a lot of random things and that’s not good.

Allow me to give you an example. Like my health. I get these emails from RealAge.com, a fine reputable organization, I’m sure. At first, when I signed up for the emails, I thought they’d be a good idea. I’d just had hip surgery, so I wanted to be more health conscious. Avoid stuff that would get me back into the hospital as I aged.

But it’s not health conscious, I’ve discovered, so much as health paranoid.

Deep down I know all these health tips they send are good for me, but it’s like inviting a nagging mother-in-law into your life (not that I know what that’s like, but I’ve heard stories). Almost every day I get these nasty nag notes. They tell me all kinds of irritatingly healthy things, like I should lose weight. I read that and I’m thinking, “Okay, five to ten pounds.” My wife gets wind of this, jumps on the band wagon, and starts thinking thirty.
I soon realize it’s a catch-22.

I’ll be miserable if I lose the weight because I’ll be eating less and exercising more, and heck, that’s no fun no matter how cheery they make it sound. You can’t just put lipstick on a pig and call it pretty.

But then I’ll probably be even more miserable if I don’t lose the weight. We’re talking major league, on-going guilt trip: relentless self-fed negative impressions conspiring to attack my self-esteem--impressions like “lazy slob,” to name one.

Who needs it in these already trying times? Can’t we just get along? I’m talking to you, RealAge.

And if it’s not diet and exercise they’re needling me about, they’re bugging me with emails about vitamins.

First it was my mother. Now it’s the health police.

I’m already taking vitamins until the cows come home, and then every week or so, another RealAge email comes up with a new one.

It’s a job taking all those vitamins every morning: rattling around in the cupboard, taking off caps, putting them back on, drinking the pills down with water, then having to hit the can soon after because of all the hydration. Give me a break!

All this pill popping, just to get a 40% less chance of contracting this, that, or the other thing.

And that reminds me. How about these medical percentages they’re always coming up with. What’s up with that? Who’s the 40% and who’s the 60%. It’s like you’re sitting at a blackjack table in Vegas. They tell you to play the percentages. Things is, people lose their shirts playing the percentages.

And even if the RealAge advice is working, it’s like good old Redd Foxx used to say, “Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.”

See? You can’t win when you’ve got too much information. No truer words than “Ignorance is bliss.”

But that bliss is long gone for me. I’ve become an information junkie. I get the shakes when I’m not aware of the latest minutia. I’m convinced I need it. Like when I ran across this gem: Periodically polish your lawn furniture with car wax to keep it looking new.

Yeah, car wax.

And I’m sitting there thinking, “Hmmm...maybe I should.”

THE ETHICIST: Utility Judgment

You mean you have to be ethical all the time? (Click the title)

Friedman on Going Green

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman hits the nail on the head as to Congress's political stances on global warming, especially the "assisted suicide" part:

"Some lawmakers are pushing corn ethanol from Iowa, either because they hail from that area and are looking to give more welfare to farmers by wasting money on an alternative fuel that will never reach the scale of what is needed, or because they plan to run in the Iowa caucuses. Others are pushing huge subsidies to turn coal into gasoline, because they come from coal states. Those who don’t come from Michigan want higher mileage standards imposed on Detroit, while those who come from Michigan prefer to continue their assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by blocking tougher mileage requirements."

SLATE SLIDESHOW: Church Signs

As this slideshow attests and you've probably observed, church signs can get pretty quirky.