OUT OF THE BOX

News Spotting
By Lois Laine


"Every time you stand up for an ideal, you send forth a tiny ripple of hope"--Robert Kennedy

Big Daahh: Happy 21st
Research from this month's Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology suggests that a large number of people celebrating their 21st birthday-drink. Yeah, and it shouldn't surprise us that the report says 83 percent of those turning 21 hit the shots on that day. The results came from a small sampling of college co-eds, largely from one white college. The bigger questions in my mind are: how many of the 21-year-olds' parents were buying them the shots, and how many were celebrating in Vegas?

Accepted/Not Accepted
College bound in admissions maze
This is "the most unpredictable and the most unusual admissions year in our history"--William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard.

Seems there are lots of students waiting to be a real college preppie, and some of these kids have multiple applications in. However, there also appear to be more confused preppies, who don't know where they want to be or when they should start their "big adventure." Some elite colleges are waiting until August to strike the no-shows from their lists. Other colleges are promoting pre-college time, bonding with other undecideds....

And the survey says...
Americans, about 63 percent, think same-sex marriage is "strictly a private decision" between the two individuals. The recent USA Today/Gallup poll also indicates that Easterners really believe it's nobody's business (71%), Westerners are about average for the country (64%) in their view of same sex marriages, and the Southerners have the viewpoint that what happens between people of the same-sex is "strictly private" (56%). When it comes to polygamy (multiple wives, usually) and marriage with kids under 16, most Americans want the government to do some oversight and regulation.

I saw you....on a digitized billboard on Greg and McCarren in Reno, NV. The police want you to turn yourself in, honey, and if you don't, we'll collect on the reward money being offered. New technology installed/operated by ClearChannel. The new-wave of advertising by CC offers lots of instant public service time ads. Other "digiboards" to come.

Too soon to tell where chukkars are, and it's official from the Nevada Department of Wildlife--the crafty game birds aren't anywhere to be found. Right now. However, those of you who are hunters know that you can probably start seeing them in the middle of nowhere, in August, on cliffy remote spots--just above this little hill.

Big Brown: Triple Crown Bound
New York's Belmont Park will be the place to see, on Saturday, June 7, if racehorse Big Brown has the juice to complete the final, and third race of the arduous Triple Crown of horse racing. Beginning with the Kentucky Derby, followed by the Preakness, the Belmont Park lap puts it in the record book. The personable brown three-year-old has a big future in stud fees (potential $50 million), and some interesting owners. Both owners, Michael Iavarone, who is working on a multi-million dollar hedge fund to invest in horses, and former owner, Paul Pompa, have stories in the national newspapers. Pompa sold the horse interest for $3.5 million, and then the horse picked up steam and started winning big time. Too bad the USA Today story on Big Brown (June 4, 2008, 9C) didn't include the main bread winner in the happy extended family. The story forgets to mention the particulars on Big Brown. A touching story unfolding around Big Brown's is that jockey Kent Desormeaux's nine-year-old son, Jacob, is losing his hearing and eyesight to a rare disease. This might be the last time the youngster witnesses his dad running big horses in the big show.

LATE NEWS: Stocks rallied today, when news of the "Tax Rebate Check Bump" hit the streets. "May," may just pull out of the hole as the second worst month of the quarter yet....But oil, per barrel, jumped an incredible $5.05 in one day! A trail drive, on horseback, is getting to be a better and better picture in my mind for a vacation. And let the oil companies be damned to dinosaurs and back again....