Baroness Butler-Sloss is to step down in June as coroner for the inquests into the death of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed, it has been announced. Lady Butler-Sloss said she lacked the experience required to deal with an inquest with a jury. Lord Justice Scott Baker will take over as coroner for the inquests, which were expected to take place in October.When will this bloody saga end? A foolish, spoilt, royal slapper dies in a car crash with her jet-set 'boyfriend' and still, ten years later, we can't get the bloody story off the front pages. Sheesh!
Are our egos so damaged in the swirling mass of eschatological turds that is modern life that we fluff them with online lists of ‘friends’? Christ, at least with MySpace you run the risk of stumbling over a decent tune or two. Facebook, however and unless I’m missing something pretty fundamental, is culturally devoid of such rare treats. It merely serves the same purpose as a pen and paper and the nagging suspicion that you’re not as popular as you think or would like to be. Dammit, you’re going to make a list to prove it ain’t so. It’s a pissing contest against yourself. Grow up.I'm too old to get all this stuff anyway. I don't want any more friends, thank you very much, not that some stranger who decides they 'like' you and want to be on your list constitutes a friend. Ring them at three in the morning and tell them you've run out of petrol on the A3 and see what they say. If you do want to extend your social circle and become Mr. Popular however, I suggest you buy an 'enry of Charlie and turn up at the next available social gathering with your bag and some McDonald's straws. You'll be fighting them off.
Reporter Cynthia Hubert and photographer Renée C. Byer met Cyndie French in May 2005, about six months after her son Derek Madsen was diagnosed with cancer. French invited the journalists to observe all aspects of the boy's care and to document its impact on him and his family. For the next year, Hubert and Byer spent countless hours with Derek and his friends and relatives at home, on family outings and during doctor visits, blood transfusions, surgeries and other treatments. All of the scenes in this story were witnessed by Hubert and Byer.
Cyndie holds Derek on May 8. He is on medication that hinders his speech and keeps him awake at night. Except for a few minutes while hospice nurses are with him, Cyndie spends nearly every moment of the day at his side.."I was exhausted beyond belief but I had to do this. He would call my name and always expects me to be there," Cyndie said.
DEREK MADSEN
November 16th 1994 - May 11th 2006
Hitherto I had been innocent of Auster's prolific, sententious output, his self-inflated stature as a windy oracle bearing witness to the long swan dive of the West: "I don't keep saying that Britain is dead because I want to make British people and others despair of themselves and the future; I say it because (a) it is something I'm seeing; and (b) if the British are dead, the only hope for them is that they realize that they are dead and turn again toward life." I rather doubt that the mood and plight of the British people are so frail and contingent upon the approval of obscure bloggers like Auster that his words have the power to plunge them into deeper despair or awaken them from their waxy deathsleep. His blog, what little of it I could stand, has the sonority of someone whose loquacity has so dulled his other faculties that he has ascended into a higher realm of dimwit.I love Wolcott!
In the wake of Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech in which a student killed 32 people, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg has limited the use of stage weapons in theatrical productions.Via Jim Henley
“Red Noses” director Sarah Holdren ’08 said she first heard about the changes in a phone call from a friend as she arrived at the Off-Broadway Theater on Thursday morning. At the theater, technical director Jim Brewczynski told her about the new regulations. The pair then met with Trachtenberg, who initially wanted no stage weapons to be used in the show, Holdren said, though she later agreed to permit the use of obviously fake weapons.In a speech made before last night’s opening show of “Red Noses,” Holdren said that Trachtenberg’s decision to force the production to use wooden swords instead of metal swords will do little to stem violence in the world.
“Calling for an end to violence onstage does not solve the world’s suffering: It merely sweeps it under the rug, turning theater — in the words of this very play — into ‘creamy bon-bons’ instead of ‘solid fare’ for a thinking, feeling audience,” she said. “Here at Yale, sensitivity and political correctness have become censorship in this time of vital need for serious artistic expression.”
