pine for pine: January 2010

The Barber of Vulcan

Green Green Grass of Putin

Santi Bose

Sea Pen: The Avatar Plant

Last Week from Harper's

Rosie, now the oldest donkey in the world at age 55, was sickly, and may not
survive this year's harsh British winter.

At least 150,000 people were now thought to have died in Port-au-Prince alone
(with a countrywide total perhaps double that number); 132 people have been rescued,
including an infant who spent one week--half her life--buried. One thousand
mourners gathered near the ruins of Port-au-Prince's Roman Catholic Cathedral for
the funeral of Haitian Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, who died in the quake, and a
New Mexico Christian group sent 600 solar-powered audio Bibles, a device called The
Proclaimer, to broadcast scriptures in Creole. CNN Chief medical correspondent
Sanjay Gupta was left the only doctor at a Haitian field hospital after the U.N.
forced a Belgian medical team to evacuate; Anderson Cooper was filmed carrying a
bleeding boy away from a crowd of looters after the boy was struck in the head by
a concrete block; and the media questioned whether it was appropriate for journalists
in Haiti to be wearing tight T-shirts on air.

Researchers found that, except for their time at school, American children spend
almost every waking moment (more than 7.5 hours a day) using an electronic device,
and a British study revealed that rickets was on the rise among children because
they do not spend enough time outdoors. A 42-year-old man died of stroke after
becoming over-excited while watching the film "Avatar," and to commemorate the death
of its founder, Glenn Bell, Jr., Taco Bell displayed on its website a packet of
Border Sauce marked "Filled with Sadness."

The lone bookstore in Laredo, Texas, closed, and a Georgia mother punished her
12-year-old son for his bad grades by forcing him to hammer to death his pet hamster.
Erich Segal, the author of "Love Story," who coined the phrase "Love means not ever
having to say you're sorry," died of a heart attack, as did "Spencer" crime novelist
Robert Parker, whose body was found at his writing desk. "He loved doughnuts," his
agent said. A popular British health club released an ad warning "fatties" that
they would be the first to be eaten by aliens. Moments before Gillian Cooke, a
British bobsledder who will compete in the Winter Olympics, jumped into her sled
during a World Championship event, her suit split open and revealed her buttocks.

A visitor to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art tripped and fell into Pablo
Picasso's "The Actor," causing a six-inch tear to the canvas. The saltmarsh sparrow
was foundto the be the most promiscuous bird in the world, and a pair of swans
stunned staff at a British wildfowl sanctuary by becoming only the second couple in
40 years to divorce. To dispose of the elderly, Martin Amis, age 60, called for
euthanasia booths "on every corner where you could get a martini and a medal," and
scientists concluded that engineers could learn from slime.

-- Claire Gutierrez