Archive for Friday, August 3, 2007
News of the weird
August 3, 2007
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Lead story
Some parents feel "unprecedented levels of angst" to pick cool enough names for their kids, with some even hiring consultants, according to a June Wall Street Journal report. Baby-book authors charge clients $50 for a list of "special" names, and half-hour phone consultations go for $95. Another adviser charges $350 for three calls plus a comprehensive linguistic history of the selected name, and one California mother paid $475 to a numerologist to "test" the name Leah Marie for "positive associations." The Journal blames the problem on too much information about names (from the Internet), as well as parents' fear of dooming their child for life by insufficiently distinguishing their kid from others.
Cultural diversity
Violent demonstrations in northwestern India in May left at least 18 dead, as members of the lower Gujjar caste demanded that the government put them into an even lower class, at the bottom of the social ladder (so that they would be eligible for more government benefits). The Gujjars say that being one of the government's "Other Backwards Classes" is unsatisfactory and that they deserve worse.
International restrictions on tuna fishing have created a shortage in Japan's sushi restaurants so dire that chefs are considering substitutes such as sushi prepared with raw horse or deer meat. While that would outrage many Japanese diners, some restaurateurs believe the plan feasible, according to a June New York Times dispatch from Tokyo. Said one: "We tasted it, and horse sushi was pretty good. It was soft, easy to bite off, had no smell."
Cutting-edge research
Dr. Brady Barr, a reptile specialist with the National Geographic TV channel, needed to get close enough to Nile crocodiles in Tanzania (length: up to 20 feet) to attach data monitors to their tails and decided to dress up as a croc and crawl to them. With a crocodile suit, a prosthetic head and a metal cage (and hippopotamus dung to mask his human scent), he was able to apply tags, with video to prove it (according to a June report in London's Daily Mail), with the scariest moment coming not from crocodiles but when a hippo wandered by, attracted by the dung scent.
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3 August 2007
at 11:18 a.m.
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cearleywine (Anonymous) says…
I would much rather chose the name of my co-creation than hiring someone else. How could anyone think to pay for such a service? We should try to establish more personal connections to our young rather than trying to fit a mold of a materialistic society.