Winners

One man’s bone is another man’s boon. Superstar opera singer Juan Diego Florez was forced to cancel all his eagerly anticipated performances for the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s (LOC) “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” because of a throat infection caused by a fishbone the tenor swallowed. Doctors advised the singer to rest his voice through mid-March at the earliest. Des Moines Metro Opera favorite and Iowa’s own rising star tenor John Osborn has replaced Florez in Chicago. Someday, Osborn’s bio might read, “His big break came when…”

Fan-favorite Uno lived up to his name last week by becoming the first beagle to win best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. More than 169 breeds and varieties competed. To quote Buck Laughlin of “Best in Show”: “And to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten.”

Merriam-Webster announced its Word of the Year for 2007 and the winner — drum roll, please — is a sign of our electronic times… “w00t.” That’s right, the interjection which means to express joy and is similar in use to the word “yay,” won top honors, edging out “facebook,” though it has yet to find its way into a regular Merriam-Webster dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster’s Web site, the word first became popular in online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t (“leet,” or “elite”) speak. “w00t” is also an acronym for “we owned the other team,” in case you care.

Losers

The disturbing trend of campus shootings continued last Thursday when a deranged former graduate student, armed with a shotgun and two handguns, opened fire in a lecture auditorium at Northern Illinois University, killing five students and wounding 16 before killing himself. Police identified 27-year-old Stephen Kazmierczak as the gunman, and said he had stopped taking his medications a few weeks prior to the shooting.

We know about the gift horse’s mouth, but someone has to worry about gum disease at the World Food Prize after Monsanto Co.’s $5 million “symbolic” donation last week. Officially, the gift is “to ensure that the Norman E. Borlaug Hall of Laureates will become the permanent home of the World Food Prize’s annual symposium on cutting-edge topics of global food security.” Excuse our cynicism, but so far Monsanto’s greatest contribution to the dialogue on cutting-edge food topics has been to bully small farmers out of the sustainable practice of saving seeds and to sue organic dairies into not providing consumer information about added bovine growth hormones (BHG). The timing of the gift was interesting, coming just days after Anderson-Erickson, Iowa’s mainstream dairy, announced it would demand its milk suppliers quit using BGH, and after Monsanto failed to convince the Federal Trade Commission to ban labels informing consumers about such omissions.

Police are investigating a case involving a fan allegedly harassing the lead singer for the popular metal band Slipknot. The group’s lead singer, Corey Taylor, filed a complaint with West Des Moines police accusing 24-year-old Waukee resident Lia Teresa Ballotti of harassment. In the report, Taylor said he met Ballotti a few years ago at a concert and has encountered her a handful of times. He denied having any kind of a personal relationship with Ballotti, who sent letters to him saying she was the daughter of late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain and that she was in love with Taylor. The singer filed the report with police when Ballotti left flowers and a card on the doorstep of his West Des Moines home.

Do Iowa lawmakers actually think Microsoft Corp. would consider Iowa for a data center that they say will offer high wages and employ more than 100 people? While lawmakers are falling over themselves to lure the computer software program to the Hawkeye state with tax incentives — the kind Gov. Chet Culver bemoaned in his Condition of the State address last month — you can’t help but wonder if they are a victim of short-term memory. Do they honestly believe Bill Gates has forgotten the sting of Roxanne Conlin’s multi-million-dollar class action suit last year? The smart money is on Washington, the other state in the running for the center.

More good news-bad news for the recording industry as it struggles to find ways to sell music to customers. Record companies took another beating last year as U.S. album sales dropped 9.5 percent in 2007 compared to 2006, despite a 45 percent increase in the sale of digital tracks according to figures released by Nielsen SoundScan. Slightly more than 500 million records (CDs, cassettes, LPs) were sold in 2007, while more than 844 million digital tracks were sold last year — up from 588 million in 2006. Still, overall music purchases increased 14 percent in 2007 with sales of albums, singles, digital tracks and music videos totaling 1.35 billion units. The top-selling album of 2007, you ask? Josh Groban’s Christmas ditty, “Noel.” CV

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