Privanoia

I've invented a word, "privanoia," which means paranoia about privacy. Privacy issues are raised again with recent stories of companies using our own electronic devices to spy on us.

In a story sure to raise of the hackles of privanoids everywhere, Aaron's Inc., a company which rents furniture and appliances to consumers, is accused of using software on a computer to view the user without his consent. An unidentified Aaron's manager showed a man, Brian Byrd, a photo of Byrd taken remotely by the webcam as he sat at the computer. Byrd is suing Aaron's. The national headquarters of Aaron's denies it's a company policy, and was done by a store franchised to an individual.

The spy software to do this is easy to come by and widely available.

The story of the Aaron's spying didn't last long as news; it was a one-day wonder. In another story which got a tremendous amount of press because more people own iPhones and iPads than rent computers from Aaron's, it was shown that those devices can track the user's whereabouts. Apple came out with a less than satisfactory answer as to why, but some soft pedal the notion it is used with evil intent. They claim it's basically the same kind of tracking cell phones have always had. If you watch any crime shows on TV you know that cell phones leave a record of what cell towers are being used at the moment calls are made. But others see the storing of such information on iPhones and iPads sinister since that it can be transmitted from device to device.

In 2008 writer Chris Albrecht wrote of an interview with cable giant Comcast's senior VP of user experience, Gerard Kunkel, who told him, "the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who's in your living room." According to Kunkel it would be done for reasons of identifying children in the room so parental blocks on programming can be automatically put into place, or for giving suggestions to adults for programs based on past usage.

It sounds chilling, doesn't it? These stories represent a really scary look into technology, that what we watch can be watching us back. In some cases there appears to be an intent to be useful (Comcast) in much the same way Google tries to interpret what you're typing into the search engine by throwing up suggestions even as you type. Companies like Amazon.com make suggestions for purchases based on what you've bought or looked at in the past. In another, protecting one's property (Aaron's, watching the user of its rental equipment); or in the case of the iPhone, tracking where cell phones are used (already common, but undisclosed by Apple as to how such information could be used, and why it transfers between devices.)

I remember paranoid stories when I first signed on to cable television. Someone told me that the company mounted a camera in the cable box, and it was able to watch the user. I actually looked at the box and didn't see anything, even the size of a pinhole, that could be a camera lens, so I dismissed it as paranoid raving. A couple of years later I heard of a study, done with the consent of television watchers, to mount a camera on their TVs, to find out how people watch television. (They found out people do everything in front of a TV, eat dinner, sleep, make love, but they don't always look at the screen when "watching" TV.) I suspected, although I've never known for sure, whether the story of the TV cam became twisted, and was the basis for the story about the camera in the cable box. Stories like Chris Albrecht's about Comcast mounting cameras to identify watchers wouldn't help squelch the paranoia about cable boxes.

We are being encroached on in ways we never suspected years ago. Cameras watching us through our TVs (and computers) were the stuff of George Orwell. But Orwell published his book, 1984, in 1948. In 2011 being watched, especially in stores, is part of the shopping experience. I'm aware my movements in Walmart are being observed on camera, but I'm on someone else's property, and they have a right to see that I'm behaving myself.

You could infer that everywhere you go you are being watched by someone. It might be a human eye, or a camera's eye. It might see you when you put your finger in your nose, or pull your pants out of the crack of your butt, scratch yourself or grimace, yawn, cough, belch, laugh...all things relatively harmless, but not what you want someone else to see. I don't, but on the other hand, if someone is stealing or exposing himself in a store I'm glad there are cameras recording them so they can be stopped.

I have a webcam, but I only plug it in when I use Skype. Is there a file being collected somewhere of what people do when they use their webcams? Like for having long distance sex?

Finally, I put my name into www.spokeo.com, and came up with my wife's name, my address and telephone number, a picture of my house, and if I wanted to pay $4.95, I could find out more information about myself, like my income and such. I typed in the names of relatives and friends and I found most of them, also. My privanoia went off the charts, until I forced myself to calm down. Spokeo is collecting information on all of us that is available in various places for anyone who wants to look. The Internet can be a valuable tool for us, or unfortunately, against us.

Privacy? Like the horse and buggy, button shoes and 5¢ candy bar, it is forever gone.

-

Happy birthday, Levon and Stevie

Happy 71st birthday, Levon Helms!



Happy 63rd birthday, Stevie Nicks!



-

That smart Smart girl

Like everyone else who lives in Utah, for years I've followed the Elizabeth Smart saga. The story, as they say, has legs, and became a story of interest across the nation. Smart, we were constantly reminded by the news media, was kidnapped out of her bedroom by a man in June, 2002. At the time Smart was a young teenager. She was hidden in plain site by the kidnapper and his wife, who had set up a campground in the hills surrounding Salt Lake City. Smart was raped almost every day by the kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell, who claims to be a prophet, told by God that Elizabeth would be his wife.

Smart was found with the couple nine months later and returned to her family. Justice was delayed, dragged out for years because Mitchell, suspected of faking his delusional behavior, has been in and out of psychiatric facilities. He was finally found competent to stand trial. He was tried and sent to prison. Elizabeth Smart has grown up, and gave some interviews recently where she said she's thinking of going to law school, after she finishes her schooling at Brigham Young University.

Public interest in the case is still very strong. But children are kidnapped for sex in other places, children are kidnapped and murdered, also, but we don't always hear about those cases. What made the Smart case stand out amidst the sea of crime stories of the past decade?

In the recent book, Popular Crime, author Bill James* has this take on the media interest in certain cases:

In the wake of the Natalee Holloway case and several similar [cases], there was a media contretemps provoked by objections from minority groups that the media was focusing disproportionally on what they called "Missing White Girl" cases, and ignoring murders that occurred in the black community, murders and disappearances of men, and murders and disappearances of ordinary, frumpy-looking people. As far as CNN knows, you're not missing unless you're cute.

. . .This is the way it has always been. Popular crime stories are of many different types and descriptions and it is not easy to say why one case becomes famous and another does not. In my view, it is not possible to predict whether a crime will become famous, based on the elements of the crime. What makes a crime famous is not the crime itself but the way the media reacts to it, which depends to a large extent on the contextual dynamics of the media competition.

. . .There are certain elements that the biggest stories tend to have in common. Number one is an attractive victim. It is inherent in the definition of the word "attractive." It means that others pay attention. . . .children and pretty women are dry tinder, especially children and women of privilege.

Elizabeth is a child of privilege from a well-to-do family, and is attractive in a very wholesome, girl-next-door way. Last week watching her on television being interviewed it appeared that she glowed. Her blonde hair glowed. Her skin glowed, her eyes glowed. Even her teeth glowed! She wants to use her experience as a victim to advocate for other victims.

The dark side of attractiveness is that it can also attract the wrong people, like Brian David Mitchell. Mitchell looks like a caricature of a street crazy. He is a bearded man who wore robes and was followed by his wife and Smart, also in robes, Elizabeth in a veil to hide her face.

There's a lot of second-guessing on the story. One day Smart, while still missing, was confronted by a police detective in the public library, and asked to remove her veil. Mitchell intervened. He told the officer it was against their religion, and the cop backed off. Had the veil been removed he would have recognized her. Her face was on thousands of fliers, posters, billboards and on television. The cop was criticized later for his decision.

Elizabeth Smart is smart. She has decided to return as much as possible to a normal life. Personally, I don't know how someone could get through an ordeal like she did and be "normal," not wake up screaming in the night, for instance. Maybe she does that. But at least in her public persona she appears that she has mostly put her time with the bizarre religious polygamist couple behind her. Her desire for a regular life--get married, have children, help other people--will help her to further adjust. I give a lot of credit to her parents and a supportive family and community.

For the rest of my life every so often I will probably be seeing stories on Elizabeth Smart, and especially if she does as she says and becomes a lawyer. I have no doubt she'll accomplish whatever goals she will set for herself.

*James, in his uneven book about media and public attention to crime cases, mentions many of the most high profile cases of the past couple of decades, but does not mention Elizabeth Smart at all.

-

Not the end, amen.

I'm reminded by my friend Eddie Hunter's blog, Chicken Fat, that what was supposed to happen Saturday evening was the Rapture, not the end of the world, as has been erroneously reported in most media.

In the prophecy by Minister Harold Camping, on Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 6:00 p.m., local time, there would be major earthquakes, the righteous dead would rise out of their graves and be zipped into heaven. The unrighteous dead would be thrown out of their graves onto the ground, and those of us living sinners who are left would have to deal with it. The end of the earth would come on October 21, 2011, after a lot of suffering.

I read in my newspaper this morning that Mr. Camping has suddenly removed himself from sight. I haven't heard anything today, whether he's in hiding after his prophecy didn't pan out. After all, he had followers who quit their jobs, sold their possessions, and were waiting to be taken into the afterlife. They have to be disappointed, and perhaps he doesn't want to face them. Or maybe he was one of the righteous who got swept up in the Rapture. I know about three people who believe in that, and it hasn't occurred to me until now (48 hours after the event was supposed to happen) that I haven't spoken with any of them. So as far as I know maybe they're sitting on the right hand of Jesus right now, laughing at me.

UPDATE: It's a day later, and I have information from today's newspaper that Camping, upset about not having the Rapture, spent the weekend in a motel. He has re-figured his dates, and now claims his previous date for the end of the world, October 21, will be the Rapture. If I were you I wouldn't quit my day job, folks. This is twice he's been wrong in a public way (first time was in 1994), and nothing suggests he'll be right about October 21, either.

There are a lot of natural disasters happening now; and to those people who are looking for cataclysmic events preceding a supernatural event it would strengthen their beliefs. Every year many things happen that might point to some sort of biblical "prophecy" of the end.

We can't have the end right now, folks. The summer movies haven't come out yet, and I'm anxious to see a couple of them. We'll have to defer the end of the world for that, at least.



P.S. Green Lantern, as I recall it from reading the comic book 50 years ago, is a religious parable, with the Guardians of the Galaxy, who find ring wearers who are worthy (righteous), standing in for God.

-

"I love the java jive and it loves me."

Over the years I've heard many contradictory news reports about coffee's health effects. Because I drink a lot of coffee I'm always cheered by good reports, like when a recent story on NBC news said that coffee was good for men. Coffee, either with caffeine or decaf, helped to protect against prostate cancer.

That is indeed good news. For someone else. It's too late for me, since I had my cancerous prostate removed over two years ago. I've been drinking coffee for 40 years. According to the news story, based on my coffee consumption I should have had the healthiest prostate in the country. It didn't work for me; if it works for you other guys, then good for you.

I make my coffee medium-strong, unlike Starbucks. To me Starbucks is so strong that if I drink a large cup I bounce when I walk. I don't know how much caffeine is in a cup of that stuff, but if a 40-year, pot-a-day coffee drinker like me can get a buzz, then think of people who don't normally drink a lot of coffee consuming a large Starbucks. They probably feel like they're on amphetamines. Too much caffeine means the jitters for me.

Speaking of caffeine: I found these ads selling decaf Sanka in 1948 very creative. These beautifully illustrated ads, which come from issues of Life magazine, are exercises in fear and paranoia, a nightmarish, noir look at sleep interrupted by the mind’s dark imaginings and caffeine.




Perhaps the campaign wasn’t as successful as the Sanka people hoped, because the ads, which ran between January and May, 1948, were replaced later in ‘48 with another campaign, which did away with the scary montages and gave the reader a more routine advertisement.

(Note that the word 'HE' shows up in gray letters in the word 'CHEER'. Is that some sort of subliminal message, that a man will be just as happy drinking Sanka as a woman?)

This ad, from the same year, is for Chase & Sanborn, and shows a housewife that their coffee in the morning makes for a happy husband. It turns "bears" into "dears." And, unlike Sanka, his cup is fully loaded with caffeine. No jitters for him, and hopefully no prostate cancer, either.



-

A little ingenuity will save you money on a terror plot

An article, "The Outlaw," in the May 16, 2011 issue of The New Yorker, about the late, unlamented Osama bin Laden, got my attention with one sentence. Author Steve Coll wrote: "In the September 11th conspiracy, through Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, [Osama] used satellite telephones and e-mail to plan an attack in which [Al Qaeda] converted hijacked airliners into cruise missiles, without ever purchasing a weapon more sophisticated than a box cutter."

Americans dream of complicated plots. After 9/11 Hollywood was invited to give the government scenarios of how future terrorist acts might happen. But even without Hollywood screen writers to give them ideas, the bin Laden bunch came up with its own plots, and with them some low cost methods. Sure, Al Qaeda had to finance the hijackers for a time in the U.S., even sending some to flight school ("I don't need to learn how to land or take-off, just to fly an airliner, that's OK, isn't it?" "Sure, just sign on the dotted line, hand me a check and we'll start the lessons!") In terms of more bang for the buck, the 9/11 attacks had to be the best ratio of money spent for maximum damage ever.

On a smaller scale, but demoralizing and terrifying in terms of damage was the fertilizer-and-diesel bomb home-grown American terrorist Timothy McVeigh used on the Oklahoma City Federal Building, killing 168 people. A sexy scenario Hollywood writers made up, like what I saw on one season of the TV show 24, utilized nuclear dirty bombs dispersing radiation. But really, why use a nuke when a truck load of fertilizer and diesel fuel will do so much damage? Better yet, line up six trucks and blow them at once!

A scenario I would come up with would have terrorists knocking out electrical in coordinated attacks across the U.S., disrupting everything we do in this country, communications, banking, etc. No one would need a nuclear attack to accomplish that. Even Mother Nature does a pretty good job herself. Every winter due to storms power goes out for thousands of people across the country. It's because we're still getting our power delivered the same way we did 100 years ago, but that's soapbox oratory I use every winter when I hear of downed power lines.

Another place where terrorists hold the upper hand is in our system of airport security. We concentrate on that to the exclusion of other modes of transportation. Just bypass airports. Terrorists could rent Ryder trucks and drive them to their destinations with their deadly cargo. No one would look twice.

As we found out on September 11, 2001, it doesn't take a complicated plot to wreak havoc against a whole country. It just takes a bit of ingenuity.

-

Goodbye to two sex offenders

In the past couple of months I've seen obituaries of two of my former coworkers. Both were listed on the sex offender registry for offenses involving children. (A fact not noted in either obituary.)

E. was the accounting director for the school district where I worked. He had a reputation with the employees of the district office. He would hire 18 or 19-year-old boys as part-time helpers. They were always very handsome. One young man was placed in a chair right by E.'s side at his massive desk, and when we'd walk by the office we could see them huddling together. The word got out about E.'s voyeurism, from stories the young man told. E. volunteered to chauffeur him when on dates. He would park his Lincoln Continental, and watch in the rearview mirror as the young couple had sex. That's kinky, but they were older teenagers, and knew what they were doing. Years after E. retired he was charged with sex offenses against young children, who are protected by law because they obviously don't know what some dirty old man is doing. E. was in his seventies at the time. He died in March, 2011 at age 83, praised on the obituary website by several people who knew him. The former superintendent of schools wrote a very nice condolence. E. was a faithful member of his church, the same church the superintendent attended.

E.'s obit picture.

E.'s pic from the sex offender registry.

I met C. when he was about 21, in the late '70s. He was a big guy, 6'2" tall, who acted much younger than his age. My impression was that C. was mentally about 15 years of age. He was impulsive, and had a short temper. He got himself into trouble on many occasions with the boss, Big Jim. In 1981 C. left us to go to work in a lumber yard, but was fired for stealing. He tried to get his school district job back, but the boss didn't want anything to do with him, and sent him on his way. I didn't hear any more about C. until the late '90s, when I read a news article saying he had been arrested for having sex with a 12-year-old girl. I showed the article to Big Jim, who commented that C. was, "not one of my better hires."

According to the obituary C. died at age 53 on May 15, 2011 of a sudden heart attack.

C.'s obit pic.

C.'s pic from the sex offender registry.

I wasn't surprised by either of these two men being arrested for sex offenses, because of my general impressions from working with them.

Now they're both dead and I assume they'll be eventually taken off the sex offender registry. As it is when googling either of their names I get links to both their obituaries, full of praise for their lives. Their offender registries, not praiseworthy at all, state simply: Offense/Statute: 76-5-404.1 - AGGRAVATED SEXUAL ABUSE OF A CHILD-ATTEMPTED/1ST DEGREE FELONY.

-

May 21 is the date to meet your maker!

Let's see...what did I have planned for this week? I've gotten some of my main chores completed; I mowed the lawn on Saturday, as well as grocery shopped. We watched Toy Story 3 tonight, so I need to mail it back to Netflix on Monday. I'm sure I had something else to do this coming week...


Oh yeah. One thing I need to put on the agenda is to bend over and kiss my ass goodbye. According to the eBible Fellowship, and Christian radio host Harold Camping, the Rapture will be on Saturday, May 21, 2011. All the righteous will be zipped up into heaven, leaving us sinners (i.e., about 99.99% of the surviving population of the world) behind. That gives us just about a week to get our affairs in order, and according to those righteous folks who are bringing us this great news, "get right with Jesus."

You can read about it here, and even listen to some of the eBible Fellowships webcasts on the subject.

Now, I'll tell you, I'm not going to get too excited about this upcoming event, because history is replete with prophets crying in the wilderness, and telling the end is upon us. So far in my lifetime I've been disappointed every single time someone pointed at a date and said, "This is it! The end!"

But, there could be a time when someone is correct, and it will be the end. If you read the pamphlet I've linked above you'll see they have the dates all figured out, right to the exact day. It is problematic to me because of the different time zones around the world. For those across the International Date Line will the Rapture start on the same date for them or will it have to be adjusted for their time zone?

Something that has crossed my mind, since I follow some TV programs on Sunday nights, I'll be mighty pissed off if they're canceled because of the Rapture.

I'm also concerned that the Rapture will disrupt the Mayan timetable for the end of the world in 2012.

If you believe in the Rapture, listen to the 1980's band, the Alarm, then come on down and meet your maker!



-

World's biggest boobs!

Life magazine's editors could be playful, as witness this photo from its June 14, 1948 issue. If they wanted to show bare boobs in 1948 they couldn't just hire a model to bare it all, but they could show nude statues, or paintings by old masters, and call it art. So I'm saying that whoever sculpted this one-ton statue of a torso, for an advertising display in New York City 63 years ago, was an artist.

OK, my headline is a tease, so I'll show you what you came to this site for when it showed up on Google.

Speaking of world's biggest boobs...

When I first wrote about Sheyla Hershey (above) her chest was 38KKK. She was looking for bigger implants, but ethical physicians had a problem with giving her more surgery. Sheyla vowed to go to Brazil, where there are no limits on how much silicone can be implanted into a woman's breasts. Sheyla's breasts caused her health problems; she had to have the implants removed, and became so depressed she tried to kill herself. But now the implants are back and Sheyla is herself again...whatever that is. Last I heard she was a 38MMM. (Note to Sheyla: you are halfway through the alphabet. After ZZZ there are no more sizes.)

I thought Sheyla was big busted until I saw a video of Jamie (from which I made this screen capture), whose boobs are so big they go through the door a couple of minutes before the rest of her. I have the same question for Jamie and Sheyla: how do you find a comfortable position in which to sleep, and how long as it been since you saw your feet?

In the era of Photoshop it's hard to tell what boobs are real, real-fake (implants), or just fake-fake (Photoshop fake). I tried to find pictures where I believe the woman behind the bosom is real, where the boobs are not computer generated. At Insomnia Notebook we (my staff of boobmen and I) strive for accuracy, so you can believe we are scanning the Internet constantly looking for and scrutinizing boobs, and will be glad to report on them for you.

You can tell this gal is legit! She's certified by the Guinness Book of World Records!

I have shown this picture before; it's from an ad in a fashion magazine. The caption is "People will talk." Yes they will. They will ask, "What is more enhanced, her boobs or her lips?"

I believe this young boobette is balancing against the tree to avoid pitching forward!

Stripper Chesty Morgan is famous for her 73FF boobs, unenhanced by silicone. The only thing fake about her is her wig. Here she is demonstrating how those famous cha-chas may be used as flotation devices in case her plane goes down in the water.

.

Sixties soul sistas

I found this great 3" CD in a storage box in my basement. I thought it had been lost years ago. It's an oldies compilation with some great Chess songs by female soul singers of the ‘60s.


I love this music. I went onto YouTube and found some visual versions of these great songs, as well as some more music by other talented singers.











I remember this performance on Shindig by the late Mary Wells. I think every guy in the ‘60s who heard this Motown hit got a little tingle when she sang, “…there’s not a man today who could take me away from my guy,” in her breathy bedroom voice.

Happy Mother's Day...

...to Wanda, mother of Postino...


...to Shirley, mother of Sally...


...to Sally, mother of David...


...to Julia, mother of Bella and Gabby.


Happy Mother's Day to you all!


With love from Postino

-

Nature Boy

When Nat King Cole's performance of the song "Nature Boy" was number one for eight weeks in 1948, there was a sort of media frenzy over the song's composer, eden ahbez (he spelled his name without capital letters.) ahbez, a musician and composer, born in New York, by 1948 living in California, was a proto-hippie. Not the earliest, because as this linked article shows, German immigrants brought their back-to-nature ways with them to the U.S. as early as the first years of the Twentieth Century.

"Hippie Roots & the Perennial Subculture" by Gordon Kennedy and Kody Ryan.

Life magazine did an article on ahbez in its May 15, 1948 issue.

There really is nothing new, is there? This album, released in 1960, looks like it would be more at home in 1968. It looked very unusual to album buyers in the crewcut and bow tie era in which it appeared, and didn't sell well.


ahbez was a couple of decades ahead of the large hippie movement made up of Baby Boomers, born around the time "Nature Boy" was a hit on the radio. By the mid-'60s and the "Summer of Love," flower power and Woodstock, most of the hippie generation probably didn't know who ahbez was.

eden ahbez died in 1995 at age 86, after a car wreck.

Here's Nat King Cole's rendition of the hit song:

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em."

Going through Life magazine issues from 1948 reminds me how much America has changed in 60 years, in some important ways. In those days smoking was considered very urbane, very cool. Hip people smoked cigarettes.

These four ads are all selling something different, but cigarettes are shown in each: an Alan Ladd-Veronica Lake movie, diamonds from the De Beers syndicate, Hart Schaffner & Marx suits, and yes, even cigarettes, plugged by no less than a future president of the U.S.





I got addicted to cigarettes when I was in the U.S. Army in the mid-'60s. I quit ten years later, just before my son was born. I don't remember being influenced by advertising, although it was everywhere. My smoking was more because of my peer group. In the Army the call was, "All right men, take a five minute break. Smoke 'em if you got 'em." The whole platoon would light up, sending a huge noxious cloud into the atmosphere. When I quit in '77 there were laws being passed about smoking in public places. Then the segregation of smokers began, sending smokers first into special smoking areas of the building, and then when the laws were tightened, out the doors to smoke. Smokers have a special pariah status now, and sometimes in winter I drive by an office building and see several people standing, shivering, smoking in the rain or snow. I don't like smoking, but I don't like to see prejudices against smokers. The treatment of smokers reminds me of black people being told to go to the back of the bus.

The Goofy animated cartoon, "No Smoking," may have been influenced by Walt Disney's own chain-smoking habit. Children's book author, Bill Peet, who worked for Disney during the early '40s, shows a caricature of Disney, cigarette in hand, listening to Peet going through the storyboards for Dumbo. Disney died of lung cancer 15 years after the Goofy cartoon was made in 1951.

Illustration from Bill Peet, An Autobiography, 1989.

My dad followed Disney a year later, dying of a heart attack induced by 35 years of heavy smoking.

You'd think I would have been smarter, having my father die of the same habit I was just taking up, but I wasn't. By the time he died I was just like George Geef (Goofy) in the cartoon.



Quitting was hellish and while going through nicotine withdrawals I often cursed myself for starting.

Marianne's missed opportunity

In AARP Magazine for May/June 2011 there are several 70th birthday greetings for Bob Dylan. Among them is a tattle-tale anecdote by singer Marianne Faithfull. Faithfull had some hits in the '60s, but is also known for hanging around with groups like the Rolling Stones.

Marianne said [with snarky comments in brackets by me]:

When we met in 1964 I was just 17 , and Bob was a few years older. He had written something for me, but I was pregnant and just about to get married, so I didn't want to go bed with him, and he got cross. There went whatever he was writing. He tore it up in front of me. [Well! That's sort of a kiss-and-tell, without the kiss. I'm sure we're all happy to learn that a Bob Dylan song went undone because of Marianne's charms. I'm sure Bob got over his attack of horniness, and maybe he rewrote the song without telling her about it.]

Marianne goes on to say:

Bob had a big influence on the Rolling Stones. I got ahold of The Basement Tapes and went on holiday with Mick and took it with me. [Did she take her baby with her, and was the husband out of the picture by then?]

. . . I played it ad nauseum [until she got sick from listening to it?]. When we got back, Mick gave it to Keith; I think it affected their writing and moved them into the golden period. "Gimme Shelter" and "Street Fighting Man" and "Sympathy for the Devil"--those are all about big subjects, and what Bob was writing about all during the '60s was big subjects.

So, I give Bob all my love [Does that mean you're ready to go to bed with him now?] and congratulations, and "Well done, man."

Tsk, tsk, Marianne. That's quite a little tribute, which is about you and the Stones and oh, by the way, Bob Dylan.

Marianne sang some pretty good songs, and she certainly was pretty, a desirable and stylish girl. The fact that she was 17 when she met Bob gives me the creepy-crawlies. Where were her parents, letting her run around with horny rock stars?

Bin Laden loved death, got his wish

"TIME [magazine] includes a quote from when bin Laden told a journalist, "I am a person who loves death. The Americans love life. I will engage them and fight. I will not surrender. If I am to die, I would like to be killed by the bullet." --Huffington Post

Read the full report here.

Is bin Laden in paradise right now enjoying his 70 virgins?