Video of Tasered Streaker is Interesting for Unexpected Reason

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A video shot in Wrightsville Beach by Greensboro resident Stephen Stearns is interesting, but not because it features a naked dude being tasered by the police.  Sure, that's interesting if you're into seeing a naked guy tasered in the middle of the street, but I was more interested in the fact that Mr. Stearns kept running his camera even as he was being ordered by the police to stop.  He rightly pointed out that he was in a public place and that he had every right to continue filming. The officer threatened to arrest him, but Mr. Stearns held his ground and he obviously won the argument because he continued to record as the streaker was being escorted away by the police.

Whitaker Park and Wake Forest

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My parents both worked for RJR while they were students at Wake Forest.  When I saw the news that Reynolds is closing down its Whitaker Park operation I emailed both of them to see if they'd heard the news (they hadn't) and to see if they'd actually worked at that particular facility.  Ends up that they had.  Mom told me that the first summer they worked for RJR they were downtown, but the second summer they were at Whitaker. Dad said he remembered working at the "state of the art" facility as well.  Mom mentioned that it was divided into six units, four for Salems and two for Camels, and that she worked in Unit 1 and Dad worked in Unit 3. Dad thought the shift ran from 4 p.m. to midnight.  

Dad also wrote, "Wake could use it for some type of recreation facility. Because of its location you would think that would be prime real estate and would make a sizable tax deductable gift, that is if they have any profits to shelter." Seems that he and Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce head honcho Gayle Anderson are on the same page.

Doctor vs. Big Pharma and Government: Burzynski at a/perture

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Cancer is insidious and I'd venture a guess that almost every person in America has been touched by the disease.  Whether it's a family member, a co-worker or a friend we know someone who has had cancer and we've seen first hand how it decimates them and their loved ones.  That's why watching Burzynski, the movie will likely infuriate you.

The movie is a documentary about a doctor and chemist named, you guessed it, Burzynski who discovered a revolutionary treatment for cancer more than 30 years ago. Thanks to battles with myriad government and private entities his treatment has had difficulty getting approved for advanced clinical trials, and has only been available to a limited number of patients as a result.  That's all I'm going to say about the actual content of the movie for fear of spoiling it, but I will say that while I found the movie to be obviously slanted towards supporting Dr. Burzynski, it also provides compelling and objective evidence in support of its stance.  I also found it refreshingly absent of the kind of stunts that Michael Moore has made popular with his movies, and instead relies on public documents, interviews and public hearings to make its case.

All that's not to say that the movie is boring or slow.  To the contrary the pacing seems just right, there's very little redundancy in the evidence presented and yet it still seems thorough.  As a result Burzynski is compelling, the story infuriating and it's a movie I highly recommend seeing.

Burzynski, the movie is appearing this weekend (May 29-30) through next week at a/perture cinema (across from Mellow Mushroom on Fourth Street in downtown Winston-Salem) was written, directed and produced by Eric Merola. You can find show times on a/perture's website.

A Pox on the Poor

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This won't surprise anyone: According to a recent study poor people spend more on lotteries than anyone else.

A recent study found that poor folks – households earning under $13,000 per year – spend about nine percent of all their income on lottery tickets, reported Consumerist.com…

In all, an estimated 20 percent of Americans are frequent players, shelling out about $60 billion a year.

The study claimed that the relatively low cost of lottery tickets – the so-called "peanuts effect" – helps explain the popularity of state lotteries.

The study also stated that poor people play because they believe a lottery ticket is their best, fairest shot at riches.

I will readily concede that it's unfortunate that the people who can least afford it play the lottery in a fruitless attempt to gain riches, but I still get irked when people call it a "tax on the poor."  Taxes aren't optional (in theory at least), and lotteries are most definitely optional.  Personally I think a better term for lotteries is a "pox on the poor."

Another Reason to Stay Out of Politics

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There are a gazillion reasons to stay out of politics, but one that never occurred to me until I read this post at YES! Weekly is that when you're stumping you'll likely have to deal with people in various stages of undress.  It's bad enough dealing with this at the pool, where you're at least expecting it, but I don't think I could handle it as part of what's the equivalent of a job interview. Ick.

What Percentage of Personal Income Comes From Private Pay?

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If you had to guess what percentage of Americans' personal income would you say comes from wages paid by private employers?  75%?  60%?  50%?  The answer, my friends, is 41.9%.  That's a record low, and to me it's an amazing number.  From the USA Today article:

Key shifts in income this year:

• Private wages. A record-low 41.9% of the nation's personal income came from private wages and salaries in the first quarter, down from 44.6% when the recession began in December 2007.

•Government benefits. Individuals got 17.9% of their income from government programs in the first quarter, up from 14.2% when the recession started. Programs for the elderly, the poor and the unemployed all grew in cost and importance. An additional 9.8% of personal income was paid as wages to government employees.

Okay, I have a question that I'm hoping someone smarter than me and with more time to do research can answer: If about 42% of personal income comes from pay and about 28% comes from government programs/wages, then where does the other 30% come from?  I can think of medical benefits and interest on investments, but my little pea brain can't come up with anything else.

h/t to Fec for the link.

American Idiot, er, Idol

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Our forefathers are surely spinning in their graves.  As bad as things are with the economy, the Oilf of Mexico and the myriad other problems in this country, I fear that the greatest harbinger of doom for our society is that there are literally millions of living rooms in America in which a terrible TV talent show evokes responses identical to this (warning: language that is adult and NSFW):

Battle of the Bandz

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Until a week ago I was blissfully unaware that these cheap doohickies called Silly Bandz even existed.  Then some friends with younger kids came over to the house and I innocently asked why each of the kids had approximately 673 rubber bands on their arms, and that's how I was exposed to the latest fad to hit America's shores.  Sadly, my teenage daughter's now into these new crack-like collectibles, and that's why I think the banning of these insidious trinkets in schools isn't enough.  I think we need to have a War on Bandz, and if not a full blown war spearheaded by the DEA, then at least a Battle of the Bandz headed by the Family Research Council.  This kind of thing is right up their alley.