“Virginity pledges”

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“Virginity pledges” — public promises to remain virgins until marriage — do not protect the young people who make them from the risk of engaging in unsafe sexual practices that could lead to sexually transmitted diseases. Some pledgers engaged in alternative sexual behaviors in order to preserve their virginity. In fact, among those who had not had vaginal intercourse, pledgers were more likely to have engaged in both oral and anal sex than their non-pledging peers. Among virgins, male and female pledgers were six time more likely to have had oral sex than non-pledgers, and male pledgers were four times more likely to have had anal sex than those who had not pledged, the research shows.” .

— Study in the March 18 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health

PrairieLinks.com

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Spent the morning visiting with Dwayne Leslie (5 min interview). He’s a farmer from Manitoba, Canada, who –five years ago– decided to build a web page to help pass the cold winter days when he couldn’t farm. He created PrairieLinks.com which is the #1 ag portal in Canada. When he couldn’t find any good farm auction sites, he started FarmAuctionGuide.com which attracts 10,000 unique visitors daily. Do not tell me that farmers are not plugged in.

“Advertising in the Age of Podcasts Manifesto”

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“We’re seeking out commercial information all the time. When you look up a movie review, or choose a plane flight, shop for an apartment, pick a restaurant or review your stock portfolio, you are seeking commercial information. So, therefore, there’s nothing particularly bad about commercials.”

— Dave Winer’s Advertising-in-the-age-of-podcasts Manifesto

Randy Michaels on future of radio

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“People today are being entertained different, and that’s a problem for radio. (By the) time a profit is made, satellite radio will be eclipsed by something more profound. Namely, Internet-based radio stations available nationwide thanks to wireless broadband technology. Radio is going to be interactive, and it’s not going to be delivered just by transmitters. The next thing is not satellite, which is another form of point-to-multipoint technology. It will be interactive, two-way communication that’s available to everybody that is the next big thing. Radio companies will have no more defense in defending their business than the railroads did when airplanes came in and took their freight business.”

— Randy Michaels, former Clear Channel Radio CEO, on the future of radio

iPod

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I find it interesting when words or objects of popular culture make their way into novels (I believe I posted on this the first time I saw Sheryl Crow’s name in a novel). I spotted a reference to iPods in Robert B. Parker’s Bad Business [pg 197], which was published in March of 2004.

“Vinnie put the shells on the coffee table and leaned the shotgun against the couch at the near end. Then he took an iPod and some earphones out and put them on the coffee table.”

Call me Omar

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A Sioux City man convicted of first degree murder in connection with a drug-related slaying will NOT get a new trial. Omar Rasheen Wilkins asked for a new trial because the prosecutor kept calling him “O-J” during the trial. The justices on the Iowa Supreme Court say the prosecutor’s conduct is “clearly subject to criticism” but probably did not affect the jury’s verdict. The justices also point out Wilkins’ own attorney slipped and called him O-J once during the trial, too.

57

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Another year, another birthday. Fifty-seven. (Shudder) Man, I can throw a rock and hit sixty from here. But I feel great. Shoot, I weigh exactly what I did when I graduated from college in 1970. Or do I? Surely a lifetime of experiences and memories must have some infinitesimal mass. All the good times must weigh something, even if you subtract a few bad moments. Of course the answer is right there in the mirror. I couldn’t find the quote but it’s something like at twenty you have the face god gave you and and sixty you have the face you earned. Damn. I just don’t think that’s accurate. Life’s been better than I look.

Internet surpassed radio as source for political news

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The Internet surpassed radio as a source for political news in the United States last year as more people went online to keep up with the presidential election campaign. So says a new report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults used the Internet to get political news last year, up from 4 percent in 1996 and 18 percent in 2000. Television remained the dominant medium for most voters, but 18 percent said they got most of their political news from the Internet, compared with 17 percent who said they turned to the radio for their news.