How to fight being tired in the afternoon: nap and coffee
I have never tried having a cup of coffee before taking a power nap. But I will test this in the weeks to come. Here is the background in the NY Times.
THE FACTS
Late November is the start of the busiest travel season of the year, when millions of drivers hit the road for long-distance treks. Many will be sleep-deprived and looking to pull over for a nap or a dose of caffeine.
But the best idea may be to combine the two, and not in the order one might think.
Continue ReadingAn insider’s confession of tabloid journalism in the UK
This must be one of the most intriguing session in the history of the British parliament
British Inquiry Is Told Hacking Is Worthy Tool
By SARAH LYALL (NY Times)
LONDON—He admitted that he and his colleagues hacked into people’s phones and paid police officers for tips. He confessed to lurking in unmarked vans outside people’s houses, stealing confidential documents, rifling through celebrity garbage cans and pretending that he was not a journalist pursuing a story but “Brad the teenage rent boy,” propositioning a priest.
After Paul McMullan, a former deputy features editor at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid, had finished his jaw-droppingly brazen remarks at a judicial inquiry on Tuesday, it was hard to think of any dubious news-gathering technique he had not confessed to, short of pistol-whipping sources for information.
Continue Reading
M. Jackson doctor convicted in star’s 2009 drug death
I would have been surprised if the doctor had not been convicted.
By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent
LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson’s doctor was convicted Monday of involuntary manslaughter after a trial that painted him as a reckless caregiver who administered a lethal dose of a powerful anesthetic that killed the pop star.
The verdict against Dr. Conrad Murray marked the latest chapter in one of pop culture’s most shocking tragedies—the death of the King of Pop on the eve of the singer’s heavily promoted comeback concerts.
The Last Days of a Dictator
The last days of a dictator are not particularly fun. Hitler committed suicide in 1945 when the Russians were close to his underground bunker in Berlin. Saddam Hussein loved life too much and come out of a hole in the ground when guns had surrounded him. I am not sure about Qaddafi’s attitude toward his own life. Did he remain defiant until the end or were his captors simply more aggressive then the soldiers who found Saddam? Putting the body of a killed dictator in the freezer of a grocery store strikes me as a novel way to preserve it for a few days. People could come and look at the brutal end. Unfortunately, these pictures will not deter other would-be dictators because at the core they are not guided by reason but by delusion.
In His Last Days, Qaddafi Wearied of Fugitive’s Life By KAREEM FAHIM (NY Times)
MISURATA, Libya—After 42 years of absolute power in Libya, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi spent his last days hovering between defiance and delusion, surviving on rice and pasta his guards scrounged from the emptied civilian houses he moved between every few days, according to a senior security official captured with him.
A Story that you will not forget
Even for someone who reads a lot this story will stand out and stay burned in your memory if you have children or consider having them in the future
Notes From a Dragon Mom By EMILY RAPP (NT Times)
MY son, Ronan, looks at me and raises one eyebrow. His eyes are bright and focused. Ronan means “little seal” in Irish and it suits him. I want to stop here, before the dreadful hitch: my son is 18 months old and will likely die before his third birthday. Ronan was born with Tay-Sachs, a rare genetic disorder. He is slowly regressing into a vegetative state. He’ll become paralyzed, experience seizures, lose all of his senses before he dies. There is no treatment and no cure..
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