Trashley points out a website that makes me want to puke:

Are you a bad parent? Do you like to dress up your children and parade them around like dolls, but still can’t get over that nagging feeling your baby looks too - human? Well, luckily for you, there is now a place to retouch those baby pageant photos that you so desperately, desperately need. Really, there’s nothing more precious than a child who’s had all the life Photoshopped out of their smooth, sad faces. I’m sure little Madison McKayla will never grow to resent you or your waste of her college fund.

I have a gorgeous daughter. Many people have told me I ought to enter her into pageants, modeling, etc. I don’t, because I want her to learn that she has value outside of her good looks. I just don’t understand pageant moms at all.

Head on over to Trashley’s to see a seriously vomit inducing retouched picture.

According to ‘Pred-Joe‘, the deal between local investors and current Predators ownership is about to be finalized.  The Preds go for a coolio $200 million and we get to keep hockey around for a few more years.

Now, Mr. Forsberg…please, just give us one more year.  Thanks.

Change that soundtrack song from Jethro Tull (Skating Away) to Warren Zevon’s ‘Hit Somebody’

Tip-off: Nashville.ismyHome.com 

As anyone who’s read my stuff for a while knows, I have no shame whatsoever regarding self-promotion on a blog if I think it will be beneficial (though my contract demands that any nudity must be tasteful and integral to the plot). Along those lines, I’d like a little help. Here’s the deal:

I work (wearing a number of hats) for a start-up health care software company. Our system is intended for the use of employers who want to offer their employees so-called “consumer-directed” health care plans; e.g., health plans with higher-than-usual deductibles coupled with a cash component for expenses underneath the plan’s deductible. If you’ve heard of health savings accounts (HSAs) or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), you’ve heard of consumer-directed health care plans (also known as “CDH”).

One of the ideas we cooked up was starting a blog to discuss consumer-directed health care generally. Because I know a lot (relative to others in the company anyway) about blogging and because I was dumb enough to agree to do it (Ha, ha! Just kidding, fellow co-workers!), I am now the sole proprietor (with the first-class technical assistance of others) of CDH Compass.

I’ve been sort of “practicing” over the last week or so, but I think I’m ready to really kick it off, and I’d like a little help from you folks, if you are so inclined. Linking there would be swell, of course, but I would really like to get questions from people about CDH plans generally. I’m especially interested in practical questions about CDH. It is also perfectly fine with me if the questions are negative about CDH plans; in fact, those would be even better because I think those would make for a more interesting and informative blog on the topic.

N.B.: I am really not interested in the sort of politically-oriented or rhetorical questions or comments you might find on political blogs. What’s the difference? Well, just as a “for example,” suppose someone wanted to ask a question about how someone with a particular health condition would benefit (or not benefit) from a consumer-directed health plan. Here’s the sort of question I would prefer:

“I know someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes and her employer has announced that it is moving from a traditional health plan to an HSA plan next year. Will she still be able to get the treatment she needs? If so, how?”

Here’s the sort of “question” I would not prefer:

“I know someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes and now her employer is going to start one of those “HSA” things Bush and the Rethuglicans came up with for their wealthy friends, or, as I like to call them, “tax breaks for the rich,” because I’m clever like that. I hope they feel like crap when she dies because of their selfish loathing of sick people.”

Having said that, I’m generally amenable to more “philosophical” questions such as the pros and cons of CDH generally. And the like. Just keep the political junk out of it.

Anyway, I’d really appreciate some emails with questions, sent to rogertn [AT] comcast DOT net . I’ll then answer those questions in posts to the blog. I won’t use your name unless you want me to, and, no, you don’t get anything for this except my undying gratitude.

Oh, I should note that, if you poke around the blog, you will find a picture of me. This was not my idea. If I had my way, there would be no pictures of me in existence at all, but the feeling from the marketing minds was that a picture would be helpful. It “humanizes” the blog, you see. So there it is. I have been told that the picture was airbrushed, which is why my boobs look as good as they do.

(Hey, does this mean you’re a doer now? — ed. Golly, I sure hope so. I was feeling like quite the slacker, what with my roles as husband, father, professional, Sunday School teacher, runner and so forth and so on. But there’s only so much time in the day, you know.)

Looks like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richey are out of work….

E’s cancelled The Simple Life. The series finale airs Aug. 10.

The real shocker in reading the article is that they somehow managed to run that thing for five seasons.

On Wednesday August 1st, PBS will air a Great Performances special on the landmark musical experience created in Memphis at Stax Records. (And yes, I know that both my posts here so far on MCB have been about Stax and their 50th Anniversary, but the music is some of the finest ever made and I truly encourage both those in the know and those unfamiliar to explore the achievements made on modern American music.)

The special is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and was produced in part by Robert Gordon, whose definitive book “It Came From Memphis” should be on your bookshelf. And the title given this special program expresses much of the musical and personal philosophies of the creators of the soul sounds of Memphis - ‘Respect Yourself”.

More information on the special and an essay from Gordon can be read here.

There’s also a huge 3-volume collection of Stax/Volt singles released in the early 1990s which is jammed with some of the best from the studio (Scroll down to see volumes two and three).

For my money, American music today owes a huge debt to the works created in Memphis, Nashville and Bristol, and gives Tennessee a very unique distinction.

Could ESPN and the NHL kiss and make-up?

I know a lot of hockey fans hope this will happen.

Slarti has broken the news that Ginger’s going to prison (along with Slarti and friends):

It’s taken a lot of arrangement (and some hilarious non-phone phone conversations), but Ginger will be coming with us. I had been thinking of this for a long time, and when I heard her sing at the Blogger Karaoke Bash, my wheels started turning. Normally we go to the prison with a skeleton crew, and here you have this woman with an incredible voice and a heart for those in prison - well - let’s just say I was “convicted”.

That’s right, she’s going to sing for prisoners. But I find it highly amusing thinking of Ginger going to prison, anyway.

Interesting column in the Hollywood Reporter about how the perception of a movie’s quality these days is tied to its box-office success.

Consumers have been conditioned to believe that success and quality are officially indistinguishable from one another. If your movie is perceived to have bombed at the boxoffice, the judgment of your project’s artistic merits tanks right along with it not only in the critical community but, indeed, the greater public mind.

As we’ve come to learn, feature films have only that first Friday night in theaters to make their case before the assessment machine begins churning. Primetime TV series get two episodes, maybe three (if the producer wields sufficient influence). Anything that disappears from sight quickly is generally dismissed as a lousy idea from the get-go, no matter how well-made or entertaining. No one wants to back a loser, even one that was championed last week.

Read the complete article here.

Now, a big box-office doesn’t necessarily mean a movie is good or bad (example one: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, example two: Wild Hogs). A big box-office and a strong opening weekend is all about marketing and buzz. Just look at the first four weekends this summer when you had three “third” films in a series opening up and the huge hype that went into it (and only one was worthy of the hype…and it didn’t have a big green ogre or Captain Jack Sparrow).

So, does it matter to you how much money a movie makes? Does this determine if you will or won’t see it? And does it influence where you’ll see a film–theater or at home on DVD?

While I’m posting about movies, let me say again…Nashville needs a second-run, discount theater in the worst possible way.

As well he should be…..Please, please, please STOP!

Leblanc’s a bit worried:

This morning while getting ready for another excited day in the workplace, I glanced this story:

Authorities investigating bodies found in business

This location is exactly 2/5 of a mile from my house. That is easily walking distance from a potential murder scene. What has happened to our quiet little hamlet?

When I first moved to La Vergne, there was very little crime. Now it’s becoming known as “Little Antioch”, and for good reason. I don’t think Lewisburg is heading the same way, but it is always a bit sad to me when big city crime starts affecting small towns.

Lindsay has pics of BlogHer! I still wish I would have gotten to go, but there’s always next year. Lindsay also has pics of the one reason I’m glad I didn’t get to go to BlogHer right over here.

A VP candidate from the state of Tennessee?

It certainly worked for the Democrats in the 90s….

Nashville is emulating Akron, Ohio by creating a Fugitive Safe Surrender Program (FSSP) for non-violent offenders.  Offenders who don’t trust the police, might just feel more comfortable surrendering to the judicial system in CHURCH.  The Blue Collar Muse approves.  He also provides a lot of info about the program.

Seeing someone across the room and thinking they would make a good candidate for some Astroglide is a bit more palatable [than believing they are your soulmate].
–as commented by roctaviousmcghee over at Graceless In Love

The context of the gem of wisdom is that Graceless ponders if there truly are soulmates for each of us.

It was interesting to me the origin of this belief:

The idea of soulmates originally showed up as part of the theory of reincarnation.* In that line of thought, a soul is set about in this world to live out a number of lifetimes until a number of predetermined “Life lessons” have been learned. Once those souls have finished learning their lessons, they no longer return to earth as humans, but move onto a different “level” of existence as guardian angels or spirit guides

I like this “romantic” notion:

Some believe that soulmates are created when God takes a soul and splits it in two as it’s cast into human form. Each half goes about learning its lessons at its own pace, and sometimes the two halves cross paths during various lifetimes. They sense a powerful bond and long to complete each other because they are the same soul….Each half goes about learning its lessons at its own pace, and sometimes the two halves cross paths during various lifetimes. They sense a powerful bond and long to complete each other because they are the same soul.

I have felt an immediate connection — and contrary to roctaviousmcghee’s notion — it wasn’t necessarily romantic or sexual.  Do you believe that you can meet somebody and immediately know that they are a soulmate?  I do, and I have. 

Ben Cunningham is NOT a believer. He has an ally from perhaps an unexpected source: Rolling Stone Magazine

…. Ethanol doesn’t burn cleaner than gasoline, nor is it cheaper. Our current ethanol production represents only 3.5 percent of our gasoline consumption — yet it consumes twenty percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to double in the last two years and raising the threat of hunger in the Third World. And the increasing acreage devoted to corn for ethanol means less land for other staple crops, giving farmers in South America an incentive to carve fields out of tropical forests that help to cool the planet and stave off global warming.

Read more, if the story PEAKS your interest…

Meet Bob. He lives in Redondo Beach. He’s a…uh… an accountant… but a loveable one. Imagine a cross between Tom Hanks, Luke Wilson, and Perez Hilton. One day, his girlfriend suggests he move out. He is distraught. He turns to his friends for help, but most of his friends are female and too busy getting ready to attend AccountantHer. When he asks if he can go to AccountantHer with them, they laugh at him. No man goes to AccountantHer! This makes Bob feel even more alone. He wanders the streets until he finds himself at a County Fair.

Read about Bob’s road to success (and the Lord of the Ring-Dings). Bob’s story is chronicled in ‘Citizen of the Month’, a non-local blog brought to my attention by the discriminating eye of Chez Bez.

Klinde, my dear, are you feeling better? She’s been a bit under the weather.

This is a good thing that will make you think so deeply it might almost hurt.

I have found that many times people hear you talking but do not actually listen to what it is you are saying. In my experience that leads to arguments, misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

We are all guilty of this be it intentional or unintentional. Life has a funny habit of getting in the way and, at times, keeps us from paying closer attention to the actually things happening around us vis a vis listening versus hearing.

Glad to have you back, Klinde.

And read it all. It makes you ponder it all.

So much, but not enough, but then again, maybe…

Man, I’m lighting a candle.

Another new plan was formed. The nurses gave Katie more drugs, and we’d regroup at 2 to check on the progress. The drug they were giving her - I’m not going into specifics - usually takes several doses to work, so I was optimistic we’d hear good news at 2.

We didn’t.

Please send some of your good stuff to Katie and Jon. They are having a baby.

Yeah, it hasn’t been of the good, then yet it has.

Let’s just say, it’s been a rough week.

Our HBIC has discovered some excellent ways to repel mosquitoes with certain plants!  Hey, Aunt B, she even found out that mosquitoes hate your fave fragrant herb, rosemary!  Coool.  With this being the dog-days of summer and stocks in Chig-a-Rid going through the roof, this might be a safe and fragrant way to keep them at bay!

Check it out over at Shakyard.

When we began setting up Music City Bloggers a few weeks ago, we discussed the possibility of sending a contingent to the BlogHer conference in Chicago to use it as a deep dive into the strategy going forward. The logistics didn’t work out, though, and we stayed behind. So I’ve been reading with extra curiosity the reports from folks who attended this past weekend.

Busy Mom and Lindsay of Suburban Turmoil both attended and have been posting their reports. Coincidentally, one of the reports from Lindsay was about getting “ripped a new one” by Penelope Trunk (who is, incidentally, slated to be the keynote speaker at BarCamp Nashville). Ms. Trunk’s thesis, it seems, is that specialization is all:

Penelope shoots audience member down with barbed one-liner like, “You can’t write about politics and knitting,” delivered in a withering tone. Mkay. This would all have been slightly more tolerable if the information were accurate- but much of it seemed just plain wrong, like when a mommyblogger was told that she’d have to write about just one subject, like diapers, to be really successful. Think about the most “successful” mommybloggers for a minute. Most of them will write about just about anything if the mood strikes them. We read them for their voice, not their specific subject matter.

I say it’s coincidental because I’ve just been thinking about this subject quite a bit. If you’ve ever read much about marketing and branding, you know there’s always an emphasis on specialization. More and more, it seems the experts apply that logic to everything: books, e-commerce sites, blogs, careers, even people. And the experts are right — that’s part of how the “long tail” model works.

But the experts are also wrong, at least when it comes to people. People are complex. (It’s why I call my own blog High Holy Mass of Contradictions.) People are more interesting when they reveal their complexity. And when it comes to blogs that revolve around a central figure, why shouldn’t there be a mashup of everything a person wishes to reveal about him or herself? Again, as Lindsay says:

We read them for their voice, not their specific subject matter.

It’s true that the connected world is becoming more of a place for specialists. For now. Specialists can be a great source of focused information. But like any trend that swings noticeably in one direction, you can always count on it swinging back. In a short while, expect the experts to be advising bloggers (or authors of whatever medium is popular at the time) to broaden their focus or risk becoming repetitive and stale. There will always be a place for generalists, and it’s a good thing because the world is full of them.

Now it’s your turn. What do you think? Do you think of blogging as the domain of specialists? Do you read a range of blogs, from narrow focus to broad? How do you decide how much focus to apply to your own blogging?

This is soooo cool.

Dean Dad is an academic. And, as academics are wont to do, he’s analysing a situation deeply. Over at his place there is much discussion about What Makes A Nerd and Who Nerds Are.

As they mature, nerds can go in different directions. Dumb nerds have a tough row to hoe; in my observation, they usually wind up as druggies or Trekkers or captives of some strange and random enthusiasm they take much too far.. (The “Worst. Episode. Ever.” guy on The Simpsons pretty much captures it.)

The closeted gay nerds often weren’t really nerds at all, so once they come out, that’s that. The closeted gay conservative Christians deserve a study of their own.

Some of the smarter nerds become relatively high-functioning over time (hi!). We tend to age with relative equanimity, since we don’t experience aging as the loss of coolness, never having been cool in the first place. With kids and a mortgage, certain topics that would have been unforgivably nerdly at earlier ages become, if not cool, at least relevant. With a little effort, we can pass ourselves off as “on the quiet end of normal,” rather than as the repulsive pariahs we once were and never quite forget being.

I had always thought of myself as a “smart nerd”…until all this Harry Potter business. I do think that qualifies as a ’strange and random obsession’, but since I’m a writer I excuse myself a bit.

Rachel over at Women’s Health News reacts to the L.A. Times piece about Clarion Health Partners and their new propsoal for health insurance:

In one of the boldest moves yet, an Indiana-based hospital chain last month said it decided on the stick rather than the carrot. Starting in 2009, Clarian Health Partners will charge employees as much as $30 every two weeks unless they meet weight, cholesterol and blood-pressure guidelines that the company deems healthy.

Here is Rachel’s reaction.

Aside from the weight issue, cholesterol and blood pressure are only two measures of your relative health. They’re also two measures for which lots of pharmaceutical companies would like you to buy their miracle drug. I wonder if prescriptions for those will go up drastically, costing workers even more money as they attempt to conform to the guidelines? What about other conditions? What about a family risk of cancer? What about people with numerous other risk factors for poor health? What if I don’t eat my government-prescribed recommendation of fruits and vegetables? What if what we think we know about these risk factors changes, as it often does? The whole idea of group health is to spread the risk around, not to arbitrarily charge people more for a couple of measures.

I saw this story yesterday and one big question sprang to mind–what is the definition that will be used for overweight and/or obese? I know the U.S. government has one, but it’s defintion, Ticki Barber is overweight and/or obese.

Big improvements are afoot at our sister blog, Tn. Blog Watch.

I’ll let Casey explain:

After considering the suggestions ya’ll provided me with over the last few days, as well as the traffic (which has dropped to negligible), I’m shutting down the blogwatcher. The Top Blogs page will still indicate that blogs ware being watched. But it’s lying.

So it’s wide open now. Only those posts submitted by people will appear in the New Posts category.

What am I talking about?

Okay….I’ll wait here while you scroll down past the aggregator over there—>

Did you see the “Top Blogs At TN Blog Watch” section? That’s our version of Digg, where you can submit your favourite blog posts as you read them.

Other people can vote on them, and those with the top votes make the list.

All you need to do is:

1. Go Here.
2. Become a Registered User.
3. Submit a story you liked

…and you’re in!

The big change is that the blog was initially “submitting” everything off the aggregator. That made it (in my opinion) hard to find what you wanted to vote on. This way should be easier. And it makes it fun to see what everyone is enjoying out there.

So go on and give it a whirl!

Southern Beale has a sordid tale of politics trumping science

Yes of course, because when it comes to Americans’ health and the obesity epidemic, we simply must put an expert in Latin American history in charge. That person will surely keep the interests of Kraft, General Foods, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo at the forefront.

Heckuva job, Billy!

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there’s a connection between poverty and poor health, and that a high-fat, high-sugar junk food diet is causing America’s obesity epidemic. But it does take the removal of political cronies and Bush family friends and relatives from policy positions.