Travers, Kennedy and the Kidnapper

"The more advanced the technology, the more vulnerable the society." - Richard Monda

The Sunday papers I perused this weekend (The Sunday Gazette & The Times Union) were heavy on the Travers and the burial of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. I would say that the two stories received just about equal coverage. The next most prominent story was the one about the California kidnapper and his 11-now-29 year old victim. The papers have re-packaged "news" on this case that already was out Friday.

I'm surprised nobody's looked up the Lyalls... I've always thought that their daughter Suzy is still alive somehow somewhere. Origianlly, I thought maybe she was a victim of the sex slave trade and is living in South America or the Middle East. But now we can't help but wonder: what if some old dairy farmer is keeping her prisoner in a barn in Gallupville or some other small out-of-the-way place?

Two notes on the Sunday Gazette: #1 - can "USA Weekend" get any smaller? They've shrunken it down and reduced it to 11-pages. Is it a magazine or a flier? I've seen neighborhood newspapers with more substance.

#2 check out the scarey Solar Flare scenario on page E10. Since the Gazette charges for online content, here's the gist of the Star Talk article by Chicken Little Richard Monda: he writes about a "violent cosmic event" that happened in 1859 and disrupted telegraph systems worldwide. A "once-in-500 year event," a powerful "Carrington-class" solar flare, was the culprit. Monda points out that if such a thing were to happen today, we'd have little notice, and with everything now digital, we'd pretty much be screwed as a civilization, beginning with the failure of the National Electric Grid here in the U.S. - sort of a "Dark Angel" scenario, but worse:

"Once the grid is out, our infrastructure would collapse...within a few days there would be no machine-powered transport, no delivery networks, no modern communications, conveniences or health care... the societal impact - and cost - is estimated to be ten times that of Hurrican Katrina."

Gee, that makes you wanna cry! But the topper of it all, best thing I read all Sunday morning, was Maureen Dowd's column in the TU, all about the skank blogger Google lawsuit! A model by name of Liskula Cohen googled herself and found out that some anonymous and completely unread blogger called her a "skank" and so she sued. Here's a snippet:

"Port contends that if Cohen hadn’t sued, hardly anyone would have seen the blog. (If a skank falls in the forest and no one hears it ... ?)"

It's a good read... Here's the full text as it appears in the New York Times.