What Caught My Eye Today

Midwest Flooding - Storm-driven floodwaters surged over large portions of the Midwest this week. Federal authorities warned that up to 30 levees along the Mississippi River could fail if efforts to reinforce them with sandbags failed. Let's see here. Mother nature versus sandbags? Sadly, I have to go with Mother Nature on this one. The flooding wiped out as much as 20% of Iowa's corn crop, the nation's largest, stoking fears that shortages will force already-high food prices even higher. In addition to ruining more than $1 billion worth of crops, the rising waters have wiped out bridges and rail lines, idling the freight trains that transport much of the Midwest's farm output. Well that's a relief. I was starting to worry about how to spend all that extra cash I have lying all over the place.

Golf - One final update on Tiger Wood's remarkable U.S. Open win last week. Trading on Wall Street's New York Stock Exchange mysteriously fell 71 million shares, or 9.2%, on Monday, the day Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open by one stroke in a 19 hole playoff. I gotta say, this doesn't sound too mysterious to me. Obviously, they were watching the same deal I was. What, you expected me to lie to my faithful readers? Heck no. I wouldn't waste a perfectly good lie on anyone but my boss.

Plastic Surgery - The operation takes only 30 minutes and for some women it can literally mean the difference between life and death. Gynecologists in several Western European nations are reporting a surge in the number of Muslim women requesting "revirgination"--a simple plastic surgery procedure to restore the hymen, the membrane that usually tears the first time a woman has intercourse. For young Muslim women growing up in more permissive Western societies, premarital sex is no longer unthinkable. Yet when it's time to marry and they return to their more traditional roots, they find that "virginity is a prerequisite." A woman who doesn't bleed on her wedding night can easily find herself divorced, beaten, or even killed by shamed family members. There's a comforting thought. Though I have to say, in this day and age where plastic surgery has nipped, tucked, sucked, and augmented various body parts, it's nice to see that it can also save some lives. Of course, there is broader question of the circumstances that drive Muslim women to choose this procedure in the first place, but I'll leave that for another time.

Potpourri (by the numbers) - You may have noticed that I have an interest, among other things, in statistics. Oh sure, you can spin them any way you want to in order to advance your position on an issue, but I find statistics can offer a fascinating perspective on a wide range of current events. And with that I give you the following...

• The number of Americans in custody or under supervision in the criminal justice system rose to 7.2 million in 2006, the most ever. And yet, somehow, that doesn't make me feel any safer.
• The out-of-wedlock birthrate in the U.S. now stands at 38% (28% for whites, 50% for Hispanics, 71% for blacks). So does this mean that whites have much more tolerance for putting up with irritating spouses?
• One adult in four in New York City is infected with the genital herpes virus, 7% higher than the national average. I've always hurt that New Yorkers were a friendly lot.
• More than 7,300 taxpayers earning $200,000 or more in 2005 paid no federal income taxes by using charitable deductions and other tax loopholes to reduce their tax liability to zero. That's it, I want a refund from TurboTax. Those jerks didn't save me a darned thing.

Pop Culture - Entertainment Weekly recently published its 1000th issue. In celebration of this milestone, the magazine published various 100 Best of the Last 25 Years lists. Here's a sampling of some of those lists (I highlighted those that I have heard or seen):

• Music
  1. Purple Rain, Prince
  2. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Lauryn Hill
  3. Achtung Baby, U2
  4. The College Dropout, Kanye West (what can I say, I'm white)
  5. Madonna, Madonna
  6. American Idiot, Green Day
  7. The Blueprint, Jay-Z (still white)
  8. Graceland, Paul Simon
  9. Back to Black, Amy Winehouse (can you say overrated?)
  10. In Rainbows, Radiohead
• Television
1. The Simpsons
2. The Sopranos
3. Seinfeld
4. The X-Files (I just never bought into the concept)
5. Sex and the City (I'm secure enough in my masculinity to admit this)
6. Survivor
7. The Cosby Show
8. Lost (see X-Files)
9. Friends
10. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Movies
  1. Pulp Fiction
  2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy
  3. Titanic (chick flick I'm not ashamed to admit that I watched)
  4. Blue Velvet (never heard of it)
  5. Toy Story
  6. Saving Private Ryan
  7. Hannah and Her Sisters
  8. The Silence of the Lambs (fava beans and Chianti will never taste the same again)
  9. Die Hard
  10. Moulin Rouge (chick flick I'm ashamed to admit that I watched)