Banquet Season Begins

Wampum
Dale and I have appeared in Las Vegas, but I think Dale's still a tad too young to be retained as an entertainer at an Indian Casino. They like their entertainers to be just short of senile. Be that as it may, The Economist reports that gamblers will lose more money this year in Indian casinos than in Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City and Macau combined.
   The world's largest casino (picture at left), Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Connecticut, is owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe. The casino is undergoing a $700 million expansion.  I think the future of the 900-member tribe, which was almost extinct a generation ago, is pretty well secured.

Unmentionables Worth Mentioning
   This was sent to me by one of my female readers. If you know someone who's ready to go green underneath, forward this.

GreenKnickers was recently featured in a new special department on FigLeaves.com which is devoted to eco-friendly underwear and sleepwear for both men and women.

What makes GreenKnickers worth mentioning among a sea of unmentionables is what the company's name signifies. Products are made from organic cotton, hemp, or manmade cellulose fibers and dyes that are friendly to your skin and to the environment. Quirky bonus: Some of the undergarments, like the pair pictured above, use thermo-chromatic inks, so as the fabrics heat up against your skin, the prints change. On the pair above the leaves on the tree appear and disappear. My first inclination was to ask, "Why?" But I guess it's refreshing to see eco-friendly products that aren't overly serious.

Let the Banquet Season Begin
Spring is typically a busy banquet time for me, Dale and our posse of puppets.  Rotarians, Lions, Elks, Kiwanis and Chambers of Commerce are all on our schedule. Here's a photo taken this past weekend during our performance at the Dekalb County Soil and Water Conservation District Awards Banquet in Sycamore, IL.

On Monday we received this email:
"I just wanted to let you know that you exceeded our expectations ... everyone loved your show!  (Apparently they expected us to suck?) "I was so pleased and so was the Board of Directors.  Thank you again. It truly was an enjoyable evening."
Sandra B. Warner
DeKalb County SWCD

I want to thank fellow ventriloquist Chuck Field who appeared at the event a few years ago and did such an excellent job that the organizers decided it would be a good idea to hire another ventriloquist.  Here's a link to Chuck's Web site.  http://www.whatsupchuck.com/

Americans Call Traditional Journalism "Out of Touch"  
   Two-thirds of Americans - 67 percent - say traditional journalism is out of touch with what they want from news.  Though most Americans (70 percent) think journalism is important to the quality of life in their communities, two-thirds (64 percent) are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.  (Maybe they should get out a Guttenberg and start their own papers.)

According to a new We Media/Zogby Interactive online survey, Marketing Charts reports that the internet is now the top source of news for nearly half of Americans.  (I guess that nullifies my "Guttenberg" reference.) Republicans (79 percent) and political independents (75 percent) are most likely to feel disenchanted with conventional journalism, but the survey found that 50 percent of Democrats also expressed similar concerns.

Web sites were cited as more trustworthy than more traditional media sources - nearly one-third (32 percent) said internet sites are their most trusted source for news and information, (Are you kidding me?!) ... followed by newspapers (22 percent), television (21 percent) and radio (15 percent).  

Personal note: Apparently, "I'm out of touch." While I get a lot of information from the internet, I still go to newspapers, TV and radio for the "real" story.  On the internet anyone can become a writer/journalist ... even a Mannequin-American like me. Cloaked in internet ambiguity, these people usually have little or nothing to lose as a consequence of not being accurate or completely truthful. They can mix fact with fiction ... fiction with opinion ... and opinion with fact. For all you know I just made up this whole survey and accompanying numbers. But relax; I got this stuff off the internet.

Marketing Charts has more findings

               "If that thing says one word, I'm leaving!"