Monday
This was one of the longest workdays ever. At one point, I would swear that a certain :20 (from 14:40 – 15:00) lasted for about 3½ hours.

NPR/PRI
Talk of the Nation: Ephedra and Dietary Supplements
All Things Considered: Gay Marriage Announcements
All Things Considered: Slavery Reparations

Commentator Dinesh D’Souza argues that the concept of reparations for slavery is misguided. He draws on his own experience growing up in India, a country colonized by the British for centuries. He argues that while slavery and colonialism injure those who grow up under them, the systems can prove to be beneficial to the descendants.

All Things Considered: Voyager Anniversary (The NASA spacecraft, not the starship)
All Things Considered: The Cost of the Death Penalty
The World: Nigeria Woman Faces Death by Stoning
The World: The Crime of Father Amaro (a controversial film from Mexico)

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said little Alice…
I was watching the Janeway/Barbie Borg show tonight, and they made a reference to B’Elanna’s mother, Miral. Being the Trek fan that I am, I looked up Miral’s character bio. From there, I found that she had “appeared” in an episode of Voyager. I got the actress’ name (Karen Austin) and jumped to IMDb and looked up her filmography. And that’s where things got a little surreal.

Her birthday is two days before mine. That, in itself, isn’t so odd. The fact that she is from my mother’s hometown is, however. This wouldn’t be so odd… if my mother was from New York. But she isn’t. She’s from a town in West Virginia. A small town, at that. It’s the county seat… but it’s a county of only 26,000 people (according to the last census numbers). Hence, my surprise. I’ll have to see if Mom knows who she is.

Tonight’s Curious Commercial
There is a new Saturn ad on the airwaves. It has people… jogging (that’s the best description)… down streets, roads and expressways. As if they were cars. They stopped at traffic lights. They waited in turn lanes.

And, in the night shots, they even had headlights and (I will resist the temptation to make a bad pun here) taillights.

The tagline was something like: “When we design new cars, we don’t just see sheet metal.” It was an interesting commercial. Especially the freeway shots.

Peace.