Summary of news that can make you crazy

So  many things seem mind-boggling weird lately. For example:
       

• The first lab-grown beef was cooked and eaten in London. Ever had real beef in London? Maybe the lab-grown stuff will be an improvement. The five-ounce burger patty (which cost more than $330,000 to produce, which means you would get change from your half a million) looked, smelled and nearly tasted like a burger. Then again, if you’ve tried fast-food burger places lately, their products are the same: they look, smell and nearly taste like a burger.  
• Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $270 million. Peanuts for the Post. First blush: Shocking. Stunning. OMG (I learned that from the kids). Second thought: if anyone can take a traditional paper and turn it profitable in this day and age, it has to be someone who understands new media. Bezos is among the leaders in how to do that. And, wisely, he’s not making any immediate changes in senior management at the paper nor signaling layoffs. Both good moves, if for no other reason than settling the shock, stun and OMG news. 
• Anthony Weiner is still running for mayor of New York.
• The government issued travel warnings for Americans who are headed to the Middle East because of intelligence they were picking up similar to just before 9/11 when we didn’t pay attention to the signals. I wasn’t planning a vacation in Baghdad any time soon anyway.   
• New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, the game’s highest paid player, was suspended for 211 games for his involvement with an anti-aging clinic, meaning he used performance-enhancing drugs and also tried to block an investigation into those charges. He is appealing. Uh, his suspension, not that he’s all that appealing anymore.
• A federal appeals court ruled this week that a Pennsylvania school district cannot ban “I (heart) boobies” bracelets rejecting the claim that the slogan (which is aimed at increasing breast cancer awareness among young folks) is lewd. Agreed. How do you promote awareness of breast cancer without saying what you’re doing?   And if you think the bracelets will break the news to the young folks that girls have breasts, I have a bridge for sale.
• Lastly, public  information officers in Seattle have been advised against using the phrase “brown-bag lunch” because it could be offensive to African-Americans since at some point a brown bag was used to determine if someone’s skin was light enough to gain admission to some events. They also were told not to use the word “citizen” because some folks are residents, but not citizens. 

 
You can’t make this stuff up, which is why I didn’t.