Verizon Backs Ban on Hand-Held Car Phones. In a major turnabout, the nation’s largest cellular provider says it would favor legislation mandating hands-free communication for vehicular cellular users. Critics say it is not the handling of the device but the distracting absorption in conversation that poses the hazard. I have to admit I make calls — hands-free — while driving, and I have to agree that at times I have come to my senses to realize I’ve been driving without any conscious attention while engaged in a conversation…

The dumbing-down of the American palate continues. Health and Cheese: Am I Bleu? The FDA threatens to ban raw milk cheeses — made from unpasteurized milk — if tests show that harmful bacteria can survive the aging process that creates them. Soon the only cheeses you might be able to buy in the US would be the interchangeable pasty ones. Oh, and cheese whiz… Speaking of cheese, what would you do if you were out somewhere and the person of your dreams touched you lightly on the shoulder, smiled deeply and asked you, “So, what cheese are you?” Find out here…This is me, as it turns out: “St. Paulin is a round, semi-soft cheese from France. It has a thin leathery rind, and is a

yellow/orange colour. It has a creamy, butter-like taste, and was originally made by Trappist

monks.”

Subversive No More. ‘Ireland’s censor has cleared the film of James

Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses for cinema release — 33 years

after it was banned.

The film, directed by U.S. film-maker Joseph Strick, was refused a certificate in 1967 after

the censor of the time deemed it ‘subversive to public morality.” Reuters

Totally tropical Tokyo. “Tokyo is becoming tropical. But heat from buildings and cars rather than global climate change is mostly to blame,

say Japanese meteorologists. Torrential rain has wreaked havoc in the city, prompting Japan’s Environment Agency

to plan a city-scale experiment to tackle the problem.

Warm, humid air rises from Tokyo during the day, forming water-laden cumulonimbus clouds as it cools, says

Fumiaki Fujibe of the Meteorological Research Institute in Tsukuba Science City, 70 kilometres east of Tokyo. These

clouds cause torrential rain and thunderstorms in the early evening–as in the tropics.”

Wistful Whizzers: ‘Being “pee-shy” was interfering with

his career choices, his social life and his peace of mind. So he

sought therapy — and found that he shared the problem with an

estimated 7 percent of the population (17 million people). “It’s

probably second only to the fear of public speaking,” he

reports happily, adding, “It was silly that I wouldn’t open up to

anybody about it. I thought I was choosing not to give this

disorder any ability to control me — when in fact I was giving

it total control.”

Once coyly termed “bashful bladder,” difficulty urinating in

public is now dubbed paruresis, or avoidant paruresis (AP),

and it’s fast emerging from the water closet.’ St Louis Riverfront Times