The Leningrad Cowboys

My girlfriend tells me to let readers see my softer, gentler, arts and culture side more often, so here goes.

Via To The Point News, which explains this video, with a hat tip to Henry Loeb, Jr.:

"Sweet Home Alabama," played well and also sung quite well in English by a Finnish rock band and the Red Army Choir:

A Slightly Younger Jim Dickinson

UPDATE: Health warning over body piercings

Houston, We Have a Problem

You know that female problem I told you about in another post long ago, the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) that, by age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired and that causes cervical cancer in many women?

Well, there is no test by which you can know whether she has it, although genital warts are a clue; but you can bet she does, although -- thank Science (not "god") -- there is now a vaccine against it.

The new news is that a lot of nice, generous, pleasing men are getting throat cancer from licking their women.

[Scientists] concluded the incidence rates for HPV-related oral cancers rose steadily in men from 1973 to 2004, becoming about as common as those from tobacco and alcohol.

Well, great. Gosh, I wonder why.

The only available vaccine against HPV, made by Merck & Co. Inc., is currently given only to girls and young women. But Merck plans this year to ask government permission to offer the shot to boys.

Experts say a primary reason for male vaccinations would be to prevent men from spreading the virus and help reduce the nearly 12,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed in U.S. women each year. But the new study should add to the argument that there may be a direct benefit for men, too.

This ought to be a no-brainer, even for government workers. Serious business.

TN Blogosphere Shrinks Further in Influence

WKRN-TV in Nashville fired A.C. Kleinheider as of last Friday and has no plans to continue its Volunteer Voters blog and aggregator.

I've had a difference or two with AC in the past couple of years; but he never let his emotions or a would-be clicque of readers rule his writing.

Blogging from its inception has been an amateur thing, albeit sometimes evolving beyond that, when advertising revenue could support it as a lifestyle and a business; but what makes it truly different is not just the commenting feature -- the mainstream media has co-opted that. It is the linking to and dialogue with other bloggers that makes it resemble the coffeehouses of old, wherein citizens bared their views, responded to the views of other citizens, and thereby had the power to create an atmosphere of discernible public opinion and influence in their communities.

Here in Memphis, the aggregation of bloggers that Jackson Baker of the Memphis Flyer mentioned as a force two years ago has to a considerable extent dis-aggregated. Other pursuits, de-motivation, campaign differences, and ego trips have taken their toll. Even that Mike guy who put the blogger meet-ups together no longer does so.

I'll take partial blame for this dis-aggregation; but I'll also say I have three cases of excellent Carlsberg lager beer I can offer up to bring some of the community back.

When I'm Sixty-Four

Paul McCartney screwed up. After Linda McCartney died, he eventually got involved with one Heather Mills, a former model -- and more, if you believe the tabloids. By the time Paul and Heather met, she had lost part of one leg in an accident; but he married her anyway. Well, hell, remember Tony Soprano and that one-legged Russian chick?

'Heather was a high-class hooker paid thousands'
Paul 'Heather vice' agony
Lady Macca's porno past
Macca agony at Mrs Mucca
Macca and Heather split
Heather's Grabby Road
This'll cost Macca £200m

Mills to sue over paper's claims:

Heather Mills McCartney, estranged wife of Beatles star Sir Paul, is to take legal action over newspaper claims that she worked as a prostitute in her 20s.

Lawyers for the 38-year-old ex-model said the News of the World's claims were "untrue and highly defamatory".

The statement added that legal proceedings would be launched against the paper after her divorce from Sir Paul, 63, was finalised.

Now here it is, Paul's 64th birthday, and he's just separated; and -- because he did not think a prenuptial agreement with this woman would be "romantic" -- he may have to shell out a large fortune to a woman he was only married to for four years and who by several reports bitched him out all the time.

Paul should have remembered soul brother Percy Sledge's song, "Take Time To Know Her":

Take time to know her
It's not an overnight fling
You better take time to know her
Please don't rush into this thing

UPDATE: McCartney Reportedly Files for Divorce.

UPDATE: Divorce is final. She got about $50,000,000. You can see a video of her comments on the case here. The marriage lasted three years and ten months, so that pegs her nightly haul at about $35,000.

Best Memphis Flyer Cover Ever!

Ladies, you may not want your man to go to a strip club, but you could get him to buy you some shoes like this. They drive most men wild, to the point men start handing money to the women wearing them. Hello? Ding, ding, ding ding?