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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Nov 28, 2012
November 28, 2012
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Culture Shock:
The Madison, Wisconsin, chapter of Gilda's Club will be changing its name this week because... young people are unfamiliar with GILDA RADNER, the legendary "Saturday Night Live" star who died of ovarian cancer in 1989.
Gilda's Club is named for Radner's famous remark, in which she compared cancer to membership in "an elite club I'd rather not belong to."
There are some two dozen branches of Gilda's Club cancer support groups around the country, but a handful have undergone a name change recently due to the lack of name recognition among potential new members, according to gawker.com.
"One of the realizations we had this year is that our college students were born after Gilda Radner passed, as we are seeing younger and younger adults who are dealing with a cancer diagnosis," executive director LANNIA SYREN STENZ told the Wisconsin State Journal. "We want to make sure that what we are is clear to them and that there's not a lot of confusion that would cause people not to come in our doors."
The club plans to change its official name to Cancer Support Community Southwest Wisconsin.Some of the comments at gawker.com:
--"Also note, the 'Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation' name will be changed to 'FreeiPad.com' in order to attract more kids."
--"In related news, Martin Luther King Day is being changed to 'day to honor some black guy who walked around the south a lot'."
--"Why the hell is this Susan G. Komen chick still walking around? Sure you could walk for three days OR you can just take a cab. The Susan G. Komen 15 Minute Cab for A Cure is more modern... make it so!"
--"Imagine the disappointment in a child's mind when they find out the Mayo Clinic is not named after a sandwich spread."
--"Hmm. Following similar logic, I guess the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the United Negro College Fund have some explaining to do."
--"What is the #$%&ing confusion? Do college kids think only Gildas can join? Lots of organizations have weird names from benefactors and no one thinks about it. ('I'm sorry, but you're clearly a Glenda...')"
--"...and with your donation, we can hopefully cure Big Papi's Disease* in our lifetime.(*formerly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease)"Those lottery odds:
You're more likely to get stuck on a tarmac for two hours or more than to win the Powerball lottery. Try 1 in 964.
At least that's according to a report from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Other odds for comparison:
--Winning Powerball: 1 in 175.2 million
--Dying in an amusement park accident: 1 in 72 million
--Struck by lightning: 1 in 700-thousand
--Being audited by the IRS: 1 in 175
--o--
From the Motley Fool (who sez --"don't buy a Lottery Ticket"):
--Getting pregnant from a one-night stand: 1 in 20
--Getting struck by lightning: 1 in 10,000
--Dying in an airplane crash: 1 in 355,318
--Being dealt a royal flush in a given hand of poker: 1 in 655,750
--Dying from a flesh-eating bacteria: 1 in 1 million.Sucking the life out of the wire services:
KIM KARDASHIAN is the most-searched person on the internet, if you believe Microsoft's Bing search engine stats. The reality star --who was number two last year-- tops the list, beating out last year's number one, JUSTIN BIEBER. By the way, Kim held the title back in 2010, only to drop it last year. The rest of the top-10 below:
Bing "most searched" rank 2012:
(last year's rank follows)
10. Taylor Swift (--)
9. Nicki Minaj (--)
8. Jennifer Aniston (3)
7. Selena Gomez (--)
6. Katy Perry (7)
5. Lindsay Lohan (4)
4. Rihanna (--)
3. Miley Cyrus (10)
2. Justin Bieber (1)
1. Kim Kardashian (2)
FYI: Dropping off the list from last year: LADY GAGA, JENNIFER LOPEZ, BRITNEY SPEARS and MEGAN FOX.
PS: I know you're wondering "what about the politicians?" Although the 2012 elections were the second-most searched story of the year (behind the iPhone5), the candidates themselves didn't break into the top-20 --MITT ROMNEY was 43rd on the people rankings and BARACK OBAMA 46th.Models:
A female male model is making a big splash in the fashion world. CASEY LEGLER is a woman, but she's working as a male model for the Ford modeling agency. She first did a photo spread posing as a man for Muse magazine. She told Time magazine that her goal is not to push gender boundaries. She says she's an artist and that she considers modeling to be part of her artmaking. She now joins ANDREJ PEJIC (pronounced Andray Pay-schick) in the ranks of famous androgynous fashion models. (Bartha)
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