Ohio

A new study by radiologists reports on teenage girls embedding needles, glass, and other objects in their flesh. While subdermal implants are nothing new in the realm of extreme body modifications, the researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio suggest that the increasing number cases they've seen are actually a form of self-injury similar to cutting.

Great article from the Wall Street Journal's Paul Ingrassia that summarizes how and why the US auto industry fell to pieces. My favorite part was this telling excerpt:

In Detroit, amid worker alienation and the "blue-collar blues," Chevies, Fords and Plymouths rattled, rusted and rolled over -- and those were the good ones. The Ford Pinto's gas tank was prone to explode into flames when the car was hit from the rear, making the Pinto the poster product for corporate callousness.

The Republicans tried to make fun of Barack Obama as a community organizer at their national convention in Minnesota, which I guess just goes to show how little Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have to fear from right-wing "humor."

Now they've gone further: Now they're attacking ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), one of the strongest, hardest-working, most dedicated community organizations in both Chicago and in 40 states across the U.S.

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a bill, the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act, that President Bush says he'll sign [though the margin of yeas to nays - 74 to 24 including yeas from both Illinois Senators Obama and Durbin - made the bill veto-proof] that will send $13.1 billion in funding to Amtrak over the next five years.

Last year we reviewed YouTube's 10 most popular videos. It's time to update that list and see what, if anything, has changed. Last year we concluded that 7 of the top 10 videos were music - with 5 of those being professional videos. That trend has continued, although there are now no amateur music videos in the top 10. There are 6 music videos this year, all of them from professional musicians and their record labels.

When America was being divvied up, surveyors and cartographers were as accurate as possible drawing the boundaries between these new regions. Unfortunately, mistakes were still made. And minor map mistakes led to years of fighting—sometimes in the courts, and sometimes on the field of battle.

1. The Toledo War: Ohio vs. Michigan

Our favorite movie at last year's REELING was V.O. by William E. Jones, which takes non-hardcore, "linking" sequences from vintage gay porn and juxtaposes them with the soundtracks of various classic foreign art films. As we wrote at the time, "The collision is a revelation, by turns hilarious and moving.