The Importance of Being Nosey

Images from this lovely blog and this marketing site.


It's a quick hit kinda day. Here goes:

1) What would it mean to have a seriously impaired sense of smell? Food doesn't taste much, you're not offended by B.O. or halitosis, but you'd miss the telltale odor of a gas leak or a fire.

2) I'm putting my nose in this judge's beeswax, but should a law-breaking polygamist remain on the bench in Utah? The argument is that his personal conduct doesn't hurt anyone or affect his rulings even if it is an ongoing offense against the law. Mmmmm, not so sure. If Utah in majority felt that the multi-wife life had such negligible repercussions, why did they outlaw it in the first place? How are we supposed to believe he dispassionately rules consistently for others based on the laws that he himself picks and chooses among?

3) China's ruling party has its nose out of joint about another pro-democracy blogger. Wang Yi's Microphone is not on.

4) Does anyone else smell the press' elation in creating as terrifying a lede as possible? AP Style now stands for Apocalyptic Style. Yesterday, when the administration released its plans to deal with a large-scale avian flu outbreak, when and if it should occur mind you, it included provisions to reduce the transmission by travel. This is all future tense, not today, conditional upon circumstances which have not occurred, but the press services, papers- and even a radio annoucer I heard- reported the frighteningly imminent-sounding and incomplete headline
U.S. May Restrict Travel
Just that. Nuff said, kay?

Seeing this in big font everywhere, you might be prompted to purchase one of those declining-circulation dailies in your panic that the THE STATE had finally implemented its national lockdown to detain you from going where you want, as if bag checks and toll booths weren't enough. When I went back to one of yesterday's AP links where I found the headline (I should've cached the page as proof) the scaretag had been revised to U.S. May Restrict Travel to Prevent Bird Flu, slightly more complete but still implying the pandemic and restrictions are fait accompli. This German site still has the spookier version along with a bullet-pointed estimations of the million+ dead. What won't the media to freak out the peeps? I fear the effects of the coverage as much as the facts.

5) With my nose for crime, or perhaps tacky crime dramedy, or even just things Hasselhoff, I found this story about NBC's new venture, the 24-hour Sleuth network. It probably won't have enough funding or audience for original programming, but it will be your one stop shop for select movie reruns and The A-Team, Miami Vice, Simon & Simon, The Equalizer, and Knight Rider. I'm going to need a bigger drive on the TiVo.

6) Re: Keeping my nose to the grindstone, here's an article from the Boston Globe on NaNoWriMo. You know I'm doing it, and I'll keep on mentioning it until you care. Or end of November. Whatever.

7) This South African woman had her nose bitten off by a seal she thought needed help. According to one bystander, however, the woman behaved foolishly, putting herself and her one-year old infant daughter entirely too close to a large, sharp-toothed, wild carnivore that regularly basked in the area and needed no assistance finding the ocean. The woman is now suing various govermental agencies for negligence because the seal, condemning the fiasco as just another circus, refuses to jump through the hoops of a trial.