Also in the news

Sopranos stumper
People are either stumped or pissed about last week’s episode of The Sopranos. The episode was almost entirely a dream sequence, something the series is known for. Lots of people didn’t really know what to make of it. All I know is that I’ll keep watching.

Slip of the tongue?
Did you guys see this story from last week?

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A St. Louis radio station quickly fired a talk show host for
uttering a racial epithet as he talked about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
on his morning show Wednesday.

Dave Lenihan apologized on the air immediately after making what he said was a
slip of the tongue. KTRS president and general manager Tim Dorsey agreed the
remark was accidental but said it was nonetheless “unacceptable, reprehensible
and unforgivable.”

Lenihan had been heaping praise on Rice, who has frequently said she aspires
to run the NFL one day but has more recently ruled out seeking to replace
retiring Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

“She’s been chancellor of Stanford,” Lenihan said on the air. “She’s got
the patent resume of somebody that has serious skill. She loves football. She’s
African-American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am
totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that.”

He said he had meant to say “coup” instead of the racial slur.

KTRS listeners soon began calling the station to complain. Twenty minutes
after the utterance, Dorsey went on the air to apologize to Rice and KTRS
listeners.

“There can be no excuse for what was said,” Dorsey said. “Dave Lenihan has
been let go. … There is enough hate. We certainly are not going to fan those
flames.”

I can understand it if someone slips up, says something they didn’t mean to say. There’s still some nagging doubt in my mind, though, about the radio host. The host wouldn’t have said the word if it wasn’t already there in his head, right? Also, it’s news to me that Condi’s black. She had her ghetto card rejected years ago, didn’t she?

Ice, ice, baby
There was another story last week that should give anyone pause about eating fast food, if there aren’t enough reasons already. A seventh-grader named Jasmine Roberts got attention for her winning science fair experiement that found that ice at some fast food restaurants contains more bacteria than water from toilets.

Yuk. Here’s more from the USA Today story:

Her project compared ice samples from self-serve machines and drive-thru windows at five mainstream fast-food eateries in South Florida to samples of water from toilets at the same restaurants.
Laboratory tests performed at the University of South Florida, where Jasmine volunteers for a professor, found that the toilet water contained fewer bacteria than the ice 70 percent of the time.
Three of the five ice samples tested positive for fecal coliform or E. coli, bacteria that comes from mammal feces.
Every year when the science fair rolls around, Jasmine’s father tells her and her 18-year-old brother, Justus Jr., to do a project that will have an impact on society. But the impact has also been on Jasmine, who says she does not go to fast-food restaurants anymore.
“I was disgusted, because I would eat that ice,” she says.
Jasmine is keeping the names of the restaurants confidential, but she says she has talked with their managers and owners.
Daniel Lim, a microbiology professor at USF and Jasmine’s mentor in the project, says the results are not surprising.
“Keep in mind, the source of toilet water is the same as the ice. Toilets are routinely flushed, so you probably don’t have many bacteria,” he says. He adds that the ice could have picked up bacteria from its handlers and containers.
Lim says people should not be “overly alarmed,” because it takes a lot more bacteria to cause disease.
His advice to fast-food diners: “Be alert to make sure whatever we eat or drink has been handled properly.”