Babble-On 17

T.G. it's Friday, Freitag, Vrijdag, Venerdi, Vendredi, Viernes, Sexta-feira ...

Woody's worthiness - when is a celebrity's image worth so little that you can use it in ads without permission?  Never, according to Woody Allen, who has asked for 10 million in damages from American Apparel for their unauthorized use of his unique visage on billboards.  The company claims that Allen's image isn't worth anything, let alone 10 million, since he personally ruined it by marrying his step-daughter a while back.  So what, then, was American Apparel doing when it put him in their ads?  Were they attempting reverse psychology? Or merely seeking the publicity of a well-publicized dustup?  Pay the man!

Life imitating art - I wonder if the Ohio skydiver who perished on April 12 when his chute failed to open was a fan of CSI Las Vegas? The show that week (Season 9, Episode 19 'The Descent of Man') had featured a skydiving death of a very similar sort.  But I am guessing, fan or not, he didn't watch it that week.  Chances are he avoided the show if he had any inkling of it's content, for the same reasons I avoid watching 'Alive' before I fly on any plane that crosses remote, snow-covered mountains and might also be carrying a soccer team, a particularly large Jenny Craig dropout, or a famished pack of Webelos.

The madness of eating Daisy - Back in March our government decided it might be wise to finally ban the slaughter for meat of 'downer' cattle- animals too sick or weak to stand on their own.  Imagine my surprise!  I'd believed that little gotcha was taken care of long ago when Mad Cow Disease first reared its ugly bovine head back in '95 and a raft of laws were passed to keep neurologically comprised (i.e., too sick or weak to stand) animals out of the meat supply. But no, seems if you could make them stand, say with a fork lift or a sling and a wench, that was all good.  Pick 'em up before you 'off 'em and you were A-OK.  Then that little loophole came crashing into the public eye with the beef recall in 08.  The biggest beef recall in US History in fact, started after annoying videos were released of downer cattle being pushed and shoveled upright for slaughter at a California slaughterhouse.  Oops! Time to close the wide open barn door ...