AdamSmith

Wonder if his reveal and cool collected follow-up tweets will now make it uncool for boy band members NOT to have done this? We can hope! (Listening, Harry? )

You know. I love that house even above d'Yquem, I think.

Another thing about red onions is to get the hang of how much is enough, but not too much. Also to get their flavor subtly rather than overwhelmingly into salads for example by chopping them very fine, then maybe incorporating them into the dressing. Agree also that Vidalia and other sweet onion varieties can be heaven. Funny, when I was little I loved raw onions, then at about 13yo or so they started disagreeing with my digestion. Couple years ago (I'm 55 now) I dared some on a hot dog, and whoopee -- no problem! Raw onions are definitely back on the table frequently now. Diced on top of black-eyed peas, etc. Finally, I too could live happily on cheese alone. Bread, fruit, port and/or cab optional.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/29/pacific-islands-drowning-samoa-climate-change

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jul/27/water-nestle-drink-charge-privatize-companies-stocks

What the NY Daily News is reporting: Tart-tongued comedian Joan Rivers was placed in a medically induced coma Thursday as her daughter flew cross-country to her critically ill mothers side, sources told the Daily News. Doctors expect to bring 81-year-old Rivers out of the coma this weekend to evaluate any damage caused when she went into cardiac and respiratory arrest during a routine doctors visit. They dont know how long she was starved of oxygen, the source said. Emergency medical help was dispatched to the building at 201 E. 93rd St. about 9:40 a.m., with the patient in cardiac and respiratory arrest at the scene, the FDNY reported. Rivers was at the doctor to get a chronic problem with her vocal cords checked out, according to sources. An assistant to the renowned comic was overheard saying that Rivers was inside The Mount Sinai Hospital after arriving a short time earlier. Shes not conscious, but shes stable, said an obviously distraught Graham Reed, the comedians aide. Reed refused to provide any details when approached by a reporter. The hospital released a brief statement confirming Rivers was at the facility. Her family wants to thank everybody for their outpouring of love and support, said hospital spokesman Sid Dinsay. We will provide an update on her condition as it becomes available. But another family source said the situation was dire. We are scared, the source said. This is not looking good. No big medical decisions will be made until (daughter) Melissa arrives. Melissa Rivers was flying back east from her California home. The family source said friends were gathering Thursday inside Rivers apartment. She would want us all to laugh, the source said. But at the moment, we are all praying. Rivers is a longtime Manhattan resident. She appeared in good shape Wednesday night for a performance at the Laurie Beechman Theater on W. 42nd St. She was incredible, sounded great, said one fan who attended the gig. http://m.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/joan-rivers-hospitalized-stops-breathing-operation-article-1.1920028#bmb=1

New York Magazine reports: Legendary comedian Joan Rivers was reportedly rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital on Thursday after she went into respiratory arrest while undergoing surgery on her vocal chords. TMZ says the 81-year-old comic stopped breathing during the procedure at a clinic on the Upper East Side. The NYPD told TMZ that Rivers is currently in critical condition. Update: 12:45 pm Page Six is reporting Rivers has been upgraded from critical condition to stable condition. Rivers' assistant Graham Reed told the Daily News, "She's not conscious, but she's stable." http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/joan-rivers-hospitalized-in-critical-condition.html

P.S. Lovecraft initially located his fictional town of Arkham in west-central Massachusetts. Then in 1930, to his irritation, the state decided to flood exactly that region to create the Quabbin Reservoir to provide drinking water for Boston and neighboring towns. So in subsequent stories he relocated Arkham to the Massachusetts north coast. At a Lovecraft convention I attended in Providence, RI some years back, one HPL critic (for real -- some university prof) gave an elaborate presentation on where precisely the original Arkham must have been located, using his research among photos of the area made shortly before it was flooded to create the reservoir, descriptions of various locales from residents at the time or their descendants, etc., etc. He was really proud of himself. It was thus delightful when, after he finished and asked for questions, a somewhat elderly lady in the audience stood up and said something to the effect of, "Well, you know in his letter number X to Frank Belnap Long, Lovecraft described the setting as [something or other]...And he added [these other details] in letter number Y...And you know he got that description directly from the local newspaper out there of [date], in an article on the flooding that the Quabbin was going to create in [such-and-such an area]. [Plus this detail and that.] So all that makes it fairly definite that Arkham was actually located there, don't you think?" She was clearly correct. We all applauded this fan/amateur sleuth for so neatly showing up the professional, no one clapping more vigorously than the legendary Robert Bloch, the guest of honor at that year's convention, who had been in the audience. I saw him seek her out afterward and very warmly say, more or less, "It is the priceless lunatics such as you, madam, for whom many of us keep on writing year after year."

Actually extraordinarily lovely. The only horror acknowledged by Plum Island natives is the pestiferous greenhead fly that swarms in summer months.

One tributary off the mainstream, such as it is, of Lovecraft criticism is devoted to locating his fictional towns in the real-world settings in which he describes them. E.g.: Tourist's Guide to Innsmouth General Location "You could take the old bus, I suppose," he said with a certain hesitation, "but it ain't much thought of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouth--you may have heard about that--and so the people don't like it." In their generally admirable annotated edition of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (Necronomicon Press, 1994), S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz cite Lovecraft's statements that the fictional town of Innsmouth is inspired by the atmospheric, decaying town of Newburyport, Mass. But, as they also point out, Innsmouth itself is distinguished from Newburyport in the story, and is said to be located somewhere on the route from Newburyport to Arkham. The exact location is a matter of some doubt. Joshi and Schultz point out that Innsmouth also shares some parallels with the real town of Gloucester, which is not mentioned in the story, and they imply that Lovecraft may have intended Innsmouth to be situated where Gloucester is. However, the evidence in the story convinces me that Innsmouth could not be located on the site of Gloucester. Consider: The narrator sets out from Newburyport in Joe Sargent's bus, which proceeds south along the coast. The road splits from the main highway to Rowley and Ipswich, and veers toward the beach instead. The narrator sees Plum Island on the left, but eventually they pass the southern tip of Plum Island and he sees the open expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Then the road begins to climb, and at the next crest, the valley of the Manuxet, with Innsmouth at its mouth, lies spread before them. Manuxet "joins the sea just north of the long line of cliffs that culminate in Kingsport Head and veer off toward Cape Ann" (315-316 in the corrected Arkham printing of The Dunwich Horror and Others). Kingsport is another of Lovecraft's creations, but Cape Ann is real enough, and it happens that Gloucester is well around the corner beyond Cape Ann. Joe Sargent's bus simply hasn't driven that far. There are other indications of a location too far north to be Gloucester. The Ipswich road is an extension of Eliot St, which proceeds southwest from Town Square. Thus, when the narrator gazes west from his hotel room, planning his escape, he sees the Ipswich road to his left (347). The narrator also observes that the abandoned railway line to Rowley streches off to the northwest (354). So Innsmouth is supposed to be further south than Plum island, but not so far south as Cape Ann; also roughly southeast of Rowley and roughly northeast of Ipswich. Such a place would be perhaps near the mouth of the Ipswich river; one wonders if that river could be the inspiration for the Manuxet. It is also quite possible that Lovecraft had no precise location in mind for Innsmouth, but the clues mentioned above seem to at least indicate the correct stretch of coast. http://cthulhufiles.com/innsmth.htm

In case you ever need to find your way out of Innsmouth in a hurry... Text: The Shadow over Innsmouth, H.P. Lovecraft.

Do you think it is even a doable task? The individual and societal costs you point out are only too real. Groups and movements such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving have made great strides in the past quarter century in public education and in strengthening of legal sanctions and their application. But even with all that, do you foresee any way that your suggestion of prohibition-except-by-medical-prescription could actually come about in this country? And, again, operate without the ills of the Prohibition era?

Without disagreeing with any of your reasons, do you have any ideas how such an approach could be made to have a better outcome than during Prohibition?