R.I.P.: Joe Bowman

Joe Bowman, a nationally known Texas sharpshooter who could blast an aspirin to powder at 30 paces and split a playing card edgewise at 20, has died. He was 84.

Bowman shared his marksmanship skills with Hollywood stars and law enforcement officers. He was also a gifted magician and trick roper, performing at rodeos and gun shows.
obit HERE
IMDB HERE
NPR podcast HERE
official website HERE

Tanorexia Epidemic

The swine flu is scary since you haven't much control...but how about consciously taking part in an activity that will probably kill you all for the sake of a fake image you'd like to project?
Tanorexia, its now being called.
Nearly 30 million people tan indoors every year in the United States, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation, and 2.3 million of them are teens. People get addicted to tanning beds, one small study suggested. The UV light is thought to affect moods, and to stop going can bring on withdrawal symptoms.
Tanning beds are a $5 billion-a-year industry in the United States, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation (that's up from an estimate of $2 billion in 2006). The tanning salon industry has in the past claimed the UV light is harmless and even healthy. One claim from proponents is that tanning prevents sunburn, thereby reducing the chance of skin cancer.
But UV tanning, from the sun or in a bed, damages genetic information in cells and is linked to the development of skin cancer, researchers at Wake Forest University found. The Skin Cancer Foundation agrees. The darkening of skin is a direct result of damaged cells. more HERE
Hollywood's obsession with tanning isn't helping, either. Take Kim Kardashian, for example. The star recently sought advice for curing sunburn lines — after dozing off in a tanning bed with extraordinarily large sunglasses on — then posted the pics on Twitter. Could the reality TV star be suffering from "tanorexia," a compulsive need to be tan? more HERE

Related:
Texas House OKs indoor tanning ban for some teens
Bill Would Restrict Tanning For Ohio Teens

Texas Threatens Secession from the Union

Speaking at an anti-tax protest Wednesday, Texas governor Rick Perry brought up the fact that Texas had the right to secede from the union if things in Washington got bad enough.
Speaking to an anti-tax "tea party,” the Republican governor also dismissed criticism that people protesting taxes across Texas and throughout the country were "right wing extremists."
more HERE

...they may not be extremists, but they're certainly not history scholars either...they should do research on the Boston Tea Party for which they named their protests...the issue then was No Taxation without Representation ...what they've been protesting today is something entirely different...we won't even touch on the whole 'teabaggers' title...

Devo in Texas

Austin, Texas - Art punk legends Devo took awhile to move the full house of the Austin Music Hall Friday night, opening with new songs and minor old ones, but from about the 20-minute mark on, when the synths were traded for real bass and guitar, the spuds from Akron proved to be a great rock ‘n’ roll band.
more HERE

Sadist School in Texas

DALLAS, Texas - The Dallas school system was rocked by allegations Thursday that staff members at an inner-city high school made students settle their differences by fighting bare-knuckle brawls inside a steel cage.
The principal and other employees at South Oak Cliff High knew about the cage fights and allowed the practice to continue, according to a 2008 report by school system investigators.
The principal and staff should have been breaking up fights. Instead, they sent troubled students into a steel utility cage in an athletic locker room to battle it out with bare fists and no head protection.
more HERE

Live Texas Decemberists

The Decemberists' newest project promises new heights of bombast: Its new record, The Hazards of Love, is a sprawling 17-part narrative song-cycle.
The band premiered the music of Hazards in its entirety, and played music from the rest of its repertory, as part of NPR Music's official South by Southwest showcase. The show was streamed and broadcast live from Stubb's Bar-B-Q in Austin, Texas, and archived online.
hear it HERE

Metallica To Play at SXSW

Metallica will be playing a surprise show at Stubb's, Austin's legendary venue, on Friday, March 20 at 10 p.m. as part of the "Guitar Hero: Metallica" showcase at Texas capital's annual South By Southwest music festival.
more HERE

Fight Club for the Developmentally Disabled

Arrest warrants for four Corpus Christi State School employees and two former workers were issued Thursday for organizing fights among the mentally disabled just as Texas lawmakers in Austin blasted the state’s top disabilities commissioner for failing to take steps years ago to curb abuse.
story HERE
video report HERE