by Ian Punnett

 

I hope you’ve been well since I last wrote.  I’ve been traveling the last three out four weekends.  It was delightful just to have a night off the air last Saturday night so thank you, Art Bell, for returning the favor after all these years of me jumping in for you.  I’m sure having Art on was a treat for everybody.

One of those weekends I traveled, you might remember, was to Milwaukee to be backstage for the last night of the “Spinal Tap: Unwigged and Unplugged” tour.  Last week I was forwarded a fun photo with me, 2/3 of the band, the best chocolatier in Chicago who happens to be a huge nighty fan of C2C and my friend, Judith Owen, who happens to be married to Harry Shearer.

Spinal Tap

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And while I was on vacation, so was my dog, Jack.  Since a few of you have asked for an updated shot of this emotionally needy wreck of a shelter dog, I give you photo proof that even on “Jack-cation”  this dog never seems able to relax.

Jack

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Maybe he too can’t seem to get those poor people on Air France Flight 447 off his mind.  

(LA Times) Inside the sleek ****pit of Air France Flight 447, according to aviation experts, the crew (was) confronted with a cascade of mysterious system failures.

The atmosphere of a routine international flight would vanish. Warning lights would be flashing and alarms would sound as one high-technology system after another of the highly automated jetliner began going off line.

At the same time, the Airbus A-330 was flying through turbulence caused by a tropical storm rising from the equator 35,000 feet below that was capable of jostling the pilots so strongly that they may have had difficulty reading the ****pit instruments.

Were the wings level? What speed were they traveling? Why were the computers reducing their ability to move the plane's control surfaces? As the pilots frantically worked to understand what was happening during the chaotic final minutes before the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on May 31, the sky was illuminated by sporadic flashes of lightning.

"It would tax a really experienced pilot," said Robert Ditchey, a pilot, aeronautical engineer and former U.S. airline executive. "All hell is breaking loose."

All hell was breaking loose inside the ****pit, sure, but was the plane breaking loose itself?

(Bloomberg) -- The Air France plane that crashed June 1 may have partly broken up in the air before hitting the Atlantic Ocean, O Estado de S. Paulo reported, citing investigators it didn’t identify.

Most of the 16 bodies examined in preliminary stages of the probe into the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris were found naked or with minimal clothing, suggesting the wind may have removed the garments, the newspaper said. The possibility of an explosion or fire in the jet is also unlikely because the bodies showed no sign of burns, Estado said.

Almost all of the bodies had multiple fractures, the paper reported. Investigators haven’t found water in the victims’ lungs, which would indicate drowning, Estado said. Bodies were found 85 kilometers (53 miles) apart, which may also indicate the Airbus A330-200 broke up before reaching the ocean, Estado reported.

It’s going to be some time before we know the mysteries of the deep on this one, we ought to be prepared for that.  But if you are one that seems agitated all the time because time in your head seems to pass at a very different rate than those around you, maybe you’ve got ADHD.

CHILDREN with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder might appear rowdy and indisciplined, but they are actually trying to cope with a faulty perception of time.

What to most of us seems like a short stretch of time would drag unbearably for someone with ADHD, says Katya Rubia of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London. Her team's research, reported this week, adds to a growing body of evidence for the importance of time perception in a wide range of psychological disorders.  (New Scientist)

And speaking of the body of time . . . 

June 12, 2009 -- A half-nude painting has surfaced that looks much like the Mona Lisa, sparking debate over just how far Leonardo daVinci took his iconic painting.

The newly revealed painting, hidden for almost a century within the wood wall of a private library, shows a portrait of a half-naked woman with clear links to the famous (and clothed) Mona Lisa.

The work, which do****ents suggest was at least based on never-seen similar work by Da Vinci, is now on exhibit at the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, where Da Vinci was born in 1452.

The lady in the portrait does not exactly resemble the original Mona Lisa, but there is little doubt it has parallels with the painting hanging at the Louvre museum in Paris.

"The frontal look, the position of the hands, the spatial conception of the landscape, with columns at the sides, show a clear link with the Mona Lisa's iconographic theme," Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the museum, told Discovery News.

Doesn’t that just like the Mona Lisa IF Leonardo had painted her at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally?

Expected soon:  the discovery of a lost DaVinci’s “Last Supper” where Jesus and the Disiples are all portrayed by dogs . . .