Daily Dispatch

Hanukkah Lamps Selected By Maurice Sendak

Happy Hanukkah! The eight-day Jewish holiday also known as the “Festival of Lights,” which honors the redidication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century CE, begins today. (If you’re unfamiliar with the details of the origin of this holiday—that’s what jewfaq.org is for.)

To commemorate the holiday this year, the Jewish Museum in New York City has a display entitled “An Artist Remembers: Hanukkah Lamps Selected by Maurice Sendak.”

Last-Minute Gifts Beginning With E

Okay, we’ve done A-D, now here’s E.

• E-Books

OMG! What a coincidence! You can gift Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader e-books right now over at Amazon! How weird! That’s totally coinci-mental!

Okay, it wasn’t a coincidence, we made that up as a clever way to get into this post. Not really that clever, though, huh? We’re sorry.

Where were we? Oh yeah. All you need is the giftee’s email address. It’s really easy.

And you don’t need to own a Kindle—and whoever you’re gifting doesn’t need a Kindle either, as Amazon has FREE apps that allow you to read books on other devices, like computers, and pads, and phones.

There are nine UJBR’s currently available as e-books. Here are the links, straight to Amazon:

Researchers: Acupuncture Does Something Good

This is rare. You’ve probably heard, like we have, dozens of times, how scientists have proven that acupuncture is a bunch of hokum. (And heard dozens more times from friends, aunts, wandering musicians, etc., that “No, it really works! I quit smoking, became psychic, and had my piles cured—all from acupuncture!”)

Well, score one for Team B above, as for one of the first times we’re ever seen, a medical research team has just recently found that acupuncture does something quite good:

Acupuncture significantly reduces levels of a protein in rats linked to chronic stress, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have found. They say their animal study may help explain the sense of well-being that many people receive from this ancient Chinese therapy.

Now, that’s not a complete vidication for acupuncture supporters, of course, but it is something.

And how they conducted he experiment is pretty cool, too:

Secret Movie Cameos: E.T.’s Bedroom

I SPY…AT THE MOVIES

More fun in-jokes and cameos from the silver screen.

CHARLIE’S ANGELS (2000)
I Spy…E.T.’s living room
Where to Find It: Wearing nothing but a plastic blow-up swimming-pool toy, Dylan (Drew Barrymore) bursts into a house where two boys are playing a video game. It’s the same house in Tujunga, California, that was used for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the film that launched Barrymore’s career in 1982. (To hammer the point home, the kids are eating Reese’s Pieces and there’s an E.T. poster on the wall.)

That’s just one tiny excerpt from the brand new Uncle John’s 24-KARAT GOLD Bathroom Reader.

NFL Drug Scandal Coming? [updated5]

FYI, sports fans: There could be a big story concerning the National Football League breaking pretty soon:

Chicago Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd was locked up in federal custody Thursday as his stunned teammates learned he had been charged with trying to set up a drug-dealing network following his arrest with more than a pound of cocaine.

A POUND of cocaine. That’s not your “personal-use” amount of cocaine, as the story implies with the “network” comment. And the dude just signed a three-year contract worth $5.15 million! Why on earth…?! Wow.

But for the REALLY big ingredient in this story we have to go to another site:

Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd, who was arrested Wednesday on federal drug charges, was a top drug dealer in Chicago and police have a list of NFL players who were supplied drugs by the receiver, a law enforcement source told 670 The Score.

Oh. Dear. This is really, really ungood for the NFL.

Star Fight: John Cleese Calls Eric Idle “Yoko”

Because we live to serve you the latest and greatest (and, well, let’s face it, some of the most awful) news, history, wisdom, nonsense, and, as in times like these—still steaming piles of fresh gossip—we point you to the Twitter feed of comedy legend John Cleese, who twittered, just minutes ago (it’s around 10 AM on the 14th day of December, 2011), of his Monty Python partner, Eric Idle:

Oh dear. Somebody’s a Mr. Crabby Pants this morning.

He followed that up minutes later with:

How to Eavesdrop on Astronauts

Over the past few weeks we’re published several excerpts from our very latest annual “Big John” publication, Uncle John’s 24-KARAT GOLD Bathroom Reader, a 544-page behemoth of mind-widening wonder. We brought you:

• Where Did DEFCON Come From?

• Killed By His Pet Monkeys

• The Demon Core

• The Playboy Playmate Edonomic Indicator

• Films Edited For Airlines

• and Obscure Fads of the 1960s: Piano Wrecking

Just to name a few.

Here’s one more. We think, we hope, you will like it.

 

HOW TO EAVESDROP ON THE ASTRONAUTS

The International Space Station is one of the wonders of our age, as large as a
football field and the third-brightest object in the sky after the sun and the
moon. Few of us will ever get to visit it, but you can listen in when
it’s passing overhead. It’s easier than you think.

UPDATED: Crash Un-Paralyzes Paralyzed Paralympic Star

UPDATE, 8 OCTOBER 2012: It has just been brought to our attention that this story is a hoax. Ugh.

An April 2012 ABCNews story on fake handicaps in sports for the disabled contains these paragraphs:

The Dutch handbiker Monique van der Vorst had won two silver medals in the 2008 Paralympics. But after that she suddenly experienced a seemingly miraculous recovery. In the summer of 2010, she claimed that she had regained sensation in her legs after 13 years in a wheelchair. Since then, she said, she could stand up, walk and even ride a racing bike again.

Now Van der Vorst has had to admit that she was also able to stand and walk during her career as a paraplegic handbiker. Former competitors and neighbors had reported often seeing the athlete outside of her wheelchair — taking a shower, or even dancing. Van der Vorst was a sports celebrity in the Netherlands, and now everyone is outraged. The newspapers are calling it a “scam” and a “lie.”

Update over.

*****

And in what is without question a candidate for the most amazing story of the year, last year, next year, and possibly every other year ever – she’s now in training to go to the regular old Olympics in 2016. Because just coming un-paralyzed? Boring!

Neil Young and the First-Time Busker

We found this story on FaceBook today. It describes one of those moments in life that seem to come straight out of a dream – and, indeed, many a singer and songwriter has probably had this exact dream.

Norway is Out of Butter

No, that is not super-secret spy code language – Norway is really out of butter:

The soaring popularity of a fat-rich fad diet has depleted stocks of butter in Norway creating a looming Christmas culinary crisis.

Norwegians have eaten up the country’s entire stockpile of butter, partly as the result of a “low-carb” diet sweeping the Nordic nation which emphasizes a higher intake of fats.

Our guess is Norwegian farmers will milk this story for all it’s worth. They’ll spread it far and wide. Keep churning it out…

This story is made all the more ironic by the fact that Norway actually looks like a lump of butter that was dropped on the top of Finland and dripped down the back of Sweden:

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