I received an invitation to attend a theater event at IU (Bloomington) which is based on an internet musical produced  by  the head writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

I looked up the musical and watched it on my computer, via HULU.com   It's great fun!  (Be patient with the slow start...)

Wanna watch it?

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog

Read about the production details here.

( Text saved for safekeeping ) </div> Several government bodies around the world suggest that anyone who uses a cell phone (and these days, who doesn’t) would be well advised to keep a little distance between that phone and their body. And when people need to make a call, they should minimize radiation exposures by phoning only where reception is really good.

In justifying these and other precautions at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Monday, several scientists observed that recent studies have begun linking heavy use of cell phones over a prolonged period with an increased risk of cancer. Especially in the head, and on the same side that people normally hold their phones.

Of course, if such a link were robust, cell phones would be sold with little warning labels, much as cigarettes are today. That link is not robust. On the other hand, they argued, it’s also not going away. Quite the contrary.

For instance, Olga Naidenko, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, a research/advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., led a team that just completed a 10-month analysis of 200 peer-reviewed studies on cell-phone safety.

“We found that the studies amassed during the first two decades of cell-phone use produced conflicting results and few definitive conclusions on cell-phone safety,” Naidenko said. “But, the latest research, in which scientists are for the first time able to study people who have used cell phones for many years, suggests the potential for serious safety issues.”

She and others at the hearing argued that in light of the accumulating — though still far from strong — indications of health risks, people would be wise to adopt the precautionary principle. Israeli physician and cell-phone researcher Siegal Sadetzki put it succinctly: “Better safe than sorry.”  

People can and should adopt simple practices that reduce their exposure to cell-phone radiation, said this researcher from the Gertner Institute (affiliated with the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University). Nearly all of the researchers and scientists who spoke at the hearing similarly advocated a precautionary approach.

The lone holdout: Linda Erdreich, who spoke at the behest of CTIA-The Wireless Association®. This international group represents, among others, cell-phone makers and wireless-service providers. Erdreich, a consulting epidemiologist, saw no reason to take precautionary measures, she said, because her reading of the scientific literature suggests wireless phones pose no harm.

“The currently available scientific evidence about the effects of radiation emitted by mobile phones is contradictory,” admits Dariusz Leszczynski of Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, in Helsinki. “There are both studies showing effects and some studies showing no effect.”

Rather than view this uncertainty as reason for complacency, he says, it makes more sense to consider as “premature” any interpretation that cell phones are safe. In fact, Leszczynski contends, “Current [cell phone] safety standards are not supported by science because of the very limited research on human volunteers and on children.” Rather, he says, “This uncertainty calls not only for precautionary measures but also for further research.”

His agency has issued two cell-phone advisories suggesting what such precautions might include — like limiting children’s use of cell phones. And texting,  when possible, instead of actually talking on a cell phone (to keep that phone away from direct contact with the body).

Last year, Sadetzki’s team reported finding a 50 to 60 percent increased risk among certain Israeli adults  of parotid-gland tumors (mostly benign tumors of the salivary gland). The affected group: heavy users of cell phones who did not listen to their calls via a hands-free device (such as a wired earphone or wireless ear piece). Writing in the American Journal of Epidemiology, she and her colleagues noted: “A positive dose-response trend was found for these measurements. Based on the largest number of benign PGT patients reported to date, our results suggest an association between cellular phone use and PGTs.”

 At the hearing, Sadetzki said her group’s findings were consistent with research by others linking cell phone use for 10 or more years to tumors in the brain and to acoustic neuroma (a benign tumor affecting the nerve that connects the ear to the brain).

In the July International Journal of Oncology, Lennart Hardell and Michael Carlberg of Orebro University Hospital in Sweden reported an update of their cell-phone studies looking at brain-cancer risk. Here, phone habits were analyzed for some 3,600 people, both individuals with cancer and healthy controls. And people who had developed astrocytoma — a type of brain cancer — were five times as likely to be heavy cell-phone users who got their first mobile phone during their teen years, at least a decade earlier. Cordless home phones did not show a similar link.

It may not be surprising that some of these links to cell phone use are only now emerging, Sadetzki said at the hearing, because there can be long latency periods separating exposures to carcinogens and the development of tumors. For instance, she pointed out that the first reports of brain tumors linked to radiation from the atomic-bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t show up until a half-century after the bombings.

 “Since widespread cell-phone use began only in the mid-‘90s,” she notes, “the followup period in most published studies is only about 10 years.”

Cell-phone technology “is here to stay,” she acknowledges, so “the question that needs to be answered is not whether we should use cell phones, but how.”

For instance, she noted that the French health ministry has warned against excessive cell-phone use by children because their bodies may still be undergoing developmental changes that render them especially susceptible to radiofrequency emissions. Moreover, cell-phone radiation penetrates their brains proportionately more deeply than it does in adults. The Israeli health ministry recommends that cell-phone users employ speakers, earphones or hands-free technologies and limit use of these phones where reception is weak.

Naidenko has yet another recommendation: “Buy low-radiation phones.” Identifying which emit the lowest radiation can be difficult, she acknowledged. That’s why her group developed a free, interactive online guide that provides manufacturer-stated radiation-emissions values for more than 1,200 different phones.</div>

I haven't been posting birthday greetings for some time here on LJ because, as much as I love making them, I couldn't keep up with creating unique digital events on time, and it was making me tense that I might forget someone.

But, I HAVE been thinking good thoughts to YOU on your birthday.  Throwing a cork in your honor, in fact! 

A birthday girl that I know is in Scotland right now.   I was just thinking good thoughts to her, and then I thought, If I were in Scotland, what would I sing for her birthday song? In a flash before I knew what song it would be. 

When you hear this, you'll know I was thinking of a wonderful song and wishing you a wonderful year.( Video )

So this is the text of the speech that some parents wanted their children shielded from for fear of liberal indoctrination by a president they hate.  Apparently they fear  Responsibility and Success as well as hope and perserverance.

I would love it if every person, regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof,  would take the R & S words and make them a part of their living vocabulary. 

.....But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities......

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009
 

From the Huffington Post:

In preparation for the first-ever National Honey Bee Awareness Day that took place on Aug. 22, big bee backer Häagen-Dazs used the creative efforts of five brothers from Los Altos, Calif. to make a short video raising awareness.

Max Lanman, a 21-year-old senior at Yale majoring in film studies (and the third-oldest Lanman brother), directed, edited and photographed the result of the request, a viral video entitled “Do the Honey Bee.”

Absurdity abounds and worry confounds!

I just got back from ortho doc.

The x-rays show a definite humeroid fracture, up in the very top of the bone, but it's stable~ no chips or anything.  YAY!

There's one small tear in a rotator-cuff tendon, nowhere near a complete tear.  YAY!

No surgery necessary from what she sees right now.  YAY!

She said I'm doing great...she was impressed with my self-care, go me :-)

She wants me to use the sling when I go out, but not around the house unless the arm really hurts.  She was glad otc painkillers are taking the edge off and that I'm not using them 'round the clock, but only when the arm really is hurting pretty badly.

She wants me to go to PT to get exercises and see her again in a month. 

Even though my shoulder hurts a lot right now from being manipulated by the x-ray tech, I'M SO HAPPY!!!!

The Doc's name is Rebecca B. Anderson, and I liked her very much.

The sound clip at the end of this blog post about the Movie score for Quantum Quest is interesting.


I think I would add some sparkly-glassy sounding bits for the music of Saturn's rings.

For those of you who know both me and my husband, I'm sure that it will not surprise you much to hear that we have had many discussions of (and attempts at)  using a variety of methods &/or contraptions for poaching eggs, in a quest for the.perfect.method.

Our eggsacting research is probably why this blog made me laugh out loud.   It has photos and very funny wordage about the process and end-result of attempting to poach an egg a la Julia Child. 

While waiting for the eggs to boil, I read an interesting and kind of spooky article titled Electric grid still very vulnerable to electromagnetic weaponry

( Saved below for safekeeping, although if an EMP weapon were to go off, I won't be able to read it on my computer. )

jazzyglo shared this with me, and now I share it with you!

Here are the results of a recent game of Acrostic scrabble between cynnerth  and me.  Scrabble words are in CAPS down the left margin of each poem.

~~~~~~~~~~

Really
Embarrassed
Display

~~~~~~~~~~

Mouse runs
Around
Zeroing in on
Edam

~~~~~~~~~~

Breakfast
Raisin
And
Nut muffins

~~~~~~~~~~

Orange
Nightlight

~~~~~~~~~~

Muscles
Operate
Van
Everything
Relocating

( More short poems )