Rambling Rhodes

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Not so Newsy News

It has recently come to the attention of the staff here at Rhodes Media Services (RMS) that we've been most remiss lately when it comes to bringing you, the 10 valued readers of Rambling Rhodes, the news and events deemed unworthy by the bigger, more influential cogs in the media machine.

You see, the bigger media cogs, such as NBC, CBS, The Travel Channel and Bravo are more interested in news and events they think are of the utmost urgency. They tend to gravitate towards stories about something or other going on in Iraq, or how global warming is going to swallow the world sometime next week, or whether Britney Spears is pregnant with Lindsay Lohan's child. These are the types of news items big media cogs obsess over, and that's their right, I suppose. Still, as a journalist by education and profession, I intuitively understand the big media cogs miss a lot of other, equally important news stories that simply must be reported.

Take, for example, a Jan. 24 Reuters news item out of Amsterdam, where a genius of an individual put his mighty brain power to good use to create a beer for dogs.

After a long day hunting, there's nothing like wrapping your paw around a cold bottle of beer. So Terrie Berenden, a pet shop owner in the southern Dutch town of Zelhem, created a beer for her Weimaraners made from beef extract and malt.

As a point of clarification, "Weimaraner," loosely translated, means "Beer Dog." Okay, that may or may not be true. The point is, it SHOULD be true, because everyone would like to own a Beer Dog.

Berenden consigned a local brewery to make and bottle the nonalcoholic beer, branded as Kwispelbier. It was introduced to the market last week and advertised it as "a beer for your best friend." "Kwispel" is the Dutch word for wagging a tail.

In other news, the Dutch have a word for wagging a tail. For some reason, I find that intriguing. I’m trying to imagine a Dutch conversation wherein the word "kwispel" is invoked.

Dutch Person #1: Now there's a happy dog!

Dutch Person #2: How do you know it's a happy dog?

Dutch Person #1: Well, just look at it kwispel. It's kwispelling like crazy! That's not an angry kwispel; that's a darned happy kwispel!

But, this isn’t all about fun and kwispels. As with most entrepreneurial endeavors, there's money to be made:

The beer is fit for human consumption, Berenden said. But at euro1.65 ($2.14) a bottle, it's about four times more expensive than a Heineken."

We turn our attention now away from dog brew to potty news. Last week, I was thinking to myself about the disappointing lack of potty-related news crossing the wires. As if in answer to my silent thoughts, I came across the headline: "Woman Takes Potty Break, Falls in Lake," and I was immediately drawn in to learn more, even though the headline pretty much spelled it out for me.

According to a Jan. 23, Reuters report out of Sandusky, Ohio, a woman going to the bathroom outside lost her balance and fell into Lake Erie, said police, who had to pull her out of the frigid water. Officer Kevin Youskievicz and the woman's friend helped pull her out early Monday and wrapped a blanket around her until an ambulance arrived.

Now, this is the type of hard-hitting, investigative news reporting we need to see more of in today's 24/7 news cycle. News like this can tip an election or win a war. When you read a lead paragraph like that, you just KNOW the rest of the story will be an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Or, maybe not:

She was treated at a hospital and released. The woman's friend told police the woman needed to go to the bathroom and lost her balance near the water. The name of the 25-year-old woman was not released.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to think there's more to the story. More questions need to be asked. Why, for example, was the woman going to the bathroom outside in the middle of winter? Further, why did she feel compelled to go to the bathroom on the banks of Lake Erie? Why did she lose her balance?

Perhaps she fell due to an unstable kwispel?

At Some Point, You Just Gotta Say, WTF

Remember last year, when some CARTOONS got a bunch of Islamic undies in a fundamentalist bunch? Remember how it got to the point where media outlets wouldn't reprint CARTOONS that incited violence, primarily because of concerns they may incite MORE violence? In other words, they didn't want to insult anyone. . . but specifically Muslims of the fundamentalist variety.

Now, there's this: SHANGHAI -- Next month, China will ring in the Year of the Pig. Nestlé SA planned to celebrate with TV ads featuring a smiling cartoon pig. "Happy new pig year," the ads said.

This week, China Central Television, the national state-run TV network, banned Nestlé's ad -- and all images and spoken references to the animal in commercials, including those tied to the Lunar New Year, China's biggest holiday.

The intent: to avoid offending Muslims, who consider pigs unclean. "China is a multiethnic country," the network's ad department said in a notice sent to ad agencies late Tuesday. "To show respect to Islam, and upon guidance from higher levels of the government, CCTV will keep any 'pig' images off the TV screen."

Honestly, in five years, I wouldn't be surprised if we found ourselves required by some sort of international edict to read the Koran so as to better understand Islamic sensibilities, and there'd be long-winded Star-Tribune editorials espousing the wisdom and benefits of such a multi-cultural understanding initiative.

For my part, I'm going to eat a full slab of pork ribs tonight, while watching "Babe."

Blogging for Uranus, Today

LearnedFoot notes: As it so happens, tomorrow, January 24, is the 21st anniversary of Voyager 2's closest pass of the planet Uranus. . . Therefore, I am declaring tomorrow to be Blog for Uranus day. I think it would be groovy for anyone out there with a blog or ThunderJournal to write a short meditation about the importance of Uranus and what it means to you.

I'm so excited about this, I'm going to post about it a day early.

I remember when I first heard about Uranus. I was only eight years old at the time, but I remember being completely fascinated by Uranus. There was just something about it. The idea that a gaseous entity could exist in such inky blackness was deeply profound, and I immediately needed to learn everything I could about Uranus.

Uranus, it turns out, is a desolate, uninhabitable place. From a safe distance and perpective, Uranus looks harmless enough, almost serene, but make no mistake, no human being could survive long on or even near Uranus. Uranus is also surprisingly large, far larger than you'd expect. Scientists have even discovered Uranus is large enough to sport its own rings, which probably isn't a mark of pride for Uranus.

Scientists have also noted Uranus has a peculiar orientation, perhaps the result of a past collision with something similar to Uranus itself. Because of this peculiar orientation, it was difficult early on to get an unobstructed view of Uranus. In fact, most scientists will be quick to tell you they weren't at all certain what to even expect once they probed Uranus. Not surprisingly, the atmosphere around Uranus was found to be primarily methane, a flammable gas not known to be particularly stable.

Many moons have been seen coming from Uranus. At last count, as many as ten moons had been detected, clearly showing Uranus isn't in the least bit modest. Perhaps as payback for flashing its many moons, one moon may, in fact, have been heavily fractured by a violent impact, which Uranus may have deserved, in retrospect.

As for the rest of the moons of Uranus, it's been surmised methane trapped on the surface may be a contributing factor to the overall darkened appearance of the moons and ring particles, reported to be "almost uniformly gray in color."

In short, it's unlikely Uranus has ever, or will ever, be capable of supporting life in any form, but it's still a harmless entity to observe. . . from a safe distance.

ebay

It's been awhile since I surfed around eBay. Like, I think the last time I surfed eBay was during the early months of 2001. eBay, surprisingly, has changed somewhat since then. You'd think, since eBay has changed so much, their method for maintaining contact information and passwords would similarly have changed. But, no, apparently eBay hasn't gotten around to that yet.

You see, I figured, since it's been over half a decade since I last surfed eBay, or logged on to eBay, or thought much about eBay, it was likely my old user ID and password had expired. At least that's what I hoped, because I'll be damned if I could even remotely recall my eBay username and password from over five years ago. I've forgotten more Internet site passwords since 1998 than you can possibly imagine.

So, assuming eBay had jettisoned my user information, I tried to create an entirely new eBay profile with user name and password. Unfortunately, there was enough of my old eBay identity left at eBay that I kept getting notified that I already have an eBay account. Of course, the bot behind my old eBay account offerred to send my username and password to my e-mail address, which would have been great, but I don't even remember what e-mail address I used when I set up that eBay account all those years ago, so it's a pretty useless exercise to have the bot send that ebay information to an e-mail address that probably doesn't even exist any more.

So, I haven't been able to get back on eBay. Granted, I didn't try all that hard, but still. I think my next eBay username and password, should I be able to set up a new account, should be something super simple to remember. I'm thinking username = ebay and password = eBay.

Yeah, that's the ticket.