Paradise Preoccupied

When sitting down to compose a new blog post, I sift through a variety of sources. From personal experiences to global events, there’s almost always something that strikes whatever part of my body could be referred to as my “fancy” and gets me typing.

Today, however, I’m spoiled for choice, so rather than pick one topic, I’m bouncing from one to the other like a barefoot tourist on hot sand.

Starting with news from the world of medicine, this story on the potential viability of a contraceptive for men has me hoping that they work out the bugs and that men will actually line up to take responsibility for reproduction.

I worry, however, that big doses of hey-you-ain’t-touchin’-my-sperm may come into play, and that may be happening already.

Despite the injection having no serious side effects, almost a third of the 1,045 men in the two-and-a-half year trial did not complete it and no reason was given for this.

Moving right along, and sticking to the body … or not, as the case may be … this possible revelation has me all ears …

Vincent van Gogh did not cut off his own ear but lost it in a fight with fellow artist Paul Gauguin in a row outside a brothel, it has been claimed.

It has long been accepted that the mentally ill Dutch painter cut off his own ear with a razor after the row in Arles, southern France, in 1888.

But a new book, based on the original police investigation, claims Gauguin swiped Van Gogh’s ear with a sword.

No shit? That’s a tug at the old lobe, now, isn’t it?

Moving from medicine to law, here’s a story that’s so nuts I can’t begin to follow it. (Sorry about that … )

And speaking of nuts, for contenders for the title see this.

They’re well known because of these pickets which they’ve been doing for at least 15 years now. The pickets weren’t always of soldiers’ funerals, but it got more extreme as it went on. Originally it started as pickets of places where gay people congregated – a local park becoming a cruising area which they objected to, and then when Aids came along they said it was punishment for homosexuality and they began picketing Gay Pride parades and marches and also then the funerals of people who died of Aids. And they didn’t originally use offensive words like “fag”. They would say “homosexuality”, but then it just escalated.

Great. And they’re getting press in the UK where they LOVE watching American loonies … and there never seems to be any shortage of good-value-for-money fodder across the pond

And while they’re at it, the Brits have published their “least wanted” list of nuts they don’t want in their country.

The names of some of the people barred from entering the UK for fostering extremism or hatred have been published for the first time.

Islamic extremists, white supremacists and a US radio host are among the 16 of 22 excluded in the five months to March to have been named by the Home Office.

Please. Please. Don’t let the radio host be Rush. I’ve been wishing for more twenty years … way back when he was selling diet plans on Sacramento television — yes, he’s been fat for that long … that he’d move to Wigan and drive a milk float.