• Post-Katrina New Orleans still struggles, of course.  And now there’s an oil spill in the Mississippi River!  But there was good news on Friday.  The Times-Picayune is again awarding beans (here in Philly, the Inky awards Liberty Bells) in its restaurant reviews.  According to the T-P‘s food critic, both he and the local restaurant scene are finally ready.
• In news that’s not, a study finds that many NYC men don’t tell their doctors they have sex with other men.  Despite what the headline on the NYT blog-post says (“many gays don’t tell their doctors”), though, you’ll see that the vast majority of gay men are out to their doctors.  It’s the bisexual and “straight” men who aren’t being candid.  That’s not all that surprising: Some portion of these men simply haven’t come to terms with themselves.  And for some of these men, too, they’d be in the awkward position of having to admit adultery.  Still, doctors could make this easier.  I’m certainly out to my doctor, and, for an uptight, middle-aged straight man, he’s remarkably dispassionate about my sexuality.  But when I was freshly out, one of my doctors—a formidable woman with a thick Russian accent—didn’t make it very easy to talk.  “Are you still practicing homosexuality?” she’d ask, in a tone that struck me as, well, more inquisitorial than inquisitive.  “I wish,” I’d say, and then we’d move on to how my sore back was probably the result of my unfulfilled sexual desires.  Ugh.
• One of my Twitter buddies is mentioned—by, of all things, his screenname—in this NYT piece on Comcast’s online attempts to reach out to customers.
• Another NYT piece mentions Absaroka, which would have been a state—carved out of Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota—if a few early-20th-century romantics had been in charge.  Absaroka makes a certain geographic sense, as you can see in this Strange Maps post, in the way it gathers up square miles dominated by tall grass.  (If Absaroka appeals to you, check out the somewhat similar movement in northern California and southern Oregon for a State of Jefferson, too.)
• In some respects, anyway, rock drummers may be fitter than professional soccer players, BBC News reports.  I’m obviously missing out, since I don’t seem to be crushing on any drummers right now.  Who are the fittest, sexiest drummers?

If you haven’t heard The Wheat Pool, a Canadian alt-country-ish band, it’s time you did. Just click play to hear five cool songs. The Wheat Pool’s new album, Township, is highly recommended.

• On his 50th birthday, BBC News offers an interactive timeline of the life of Prince. Highlight for me: In 1981, Prince opened for the Rolling Stones, “[b]ut the crowd [did] not appreciate the moustachioed musician’s sexually ambiguous look and boo[ed] him off stage.” I wonder what those fans say now. In Prince’s honor, I think I’ll listen to Sign O’ the Times today.
• A law professor who posited that there was a 50-square-mile swath of Yellowstone National Park, the Idaho part of the park, where you could (literally) get away with murder writes about the difficulty he had (free registration) getting any legislators or judges to take him seriously. Happily enough, though, the National Enquirer did.
• NPR’s Day to Day featured Teitur, the Faroese singer I blogged about a few weeks ago. There’s a piece to read, you can listen to critic Christian Bordal talk about and interview the singer, or you can just listen to Teitur singing live in the NPR studio. It’s a great way to spend a few minutes, I swear.
• Dan Berry visits Butte County, South Dakota, for his NYT “This Land” column. Butte County contains the geographic center of the United States, but the true center isn’t all that well-visited. I love the, er, beautiful emptiness of the northern Great Plains….
• Yesterday, a NYT piece covered the dispute in Juneau, Alaska, over whether the state’s remote capital should—finally—be accessible by road. I guess you know what I think: Beautiful emptiness is apparently what I’m after. Sadly, I’ve never been to Alaska….