Songs of Innocence

Neil Diamond has finally revealed the answer to one of the great unsolved mysteries of Western culture: Who was the inspiration for his hit song "Sweet Caroline"?
According to Diamond, it was none other than sweet little Caroline Kennedy.
"I've never discussed it with anybody before — intentionally," the 66-year-old singer-songwriter told The Associated Press last week. "I thought maybe I would tell it to Caroline when I met her someday."
The opportunity came when Diamond performed the song via satellite for the late President John F. Kennedy's daughter - now bearing the name Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg - at her recent 50th birthday celebration.
Diamond told The AP he was "a young, broke songwriter" when he chanced across a photo of Caroline in a magazine. "It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony," he said. "It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there."
The actual song, however, wasn't written until some years later. Released as a single in 1969, it went platinum and rose to Number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Frankly, Upfront couldn't help being somewhat skeptical about Diamond's story. Caroline Kennedy was just 12 years old when he wrote the song; he was 25. What normal 25-year-old man would write lyrics like this to a 12-year-old girl?
I look at the night / And it don't seem so lonely / We fill it up with only two / And when I hurt / Hurtin' runs off my shoulders / How can I hurt when holdin' you / Warm, touchin' warm, reachin' out / Touchin' me, touchin' you / Sweet Caroline / Good times never seem so good / I've been inclined to believe they never would
However, if Diamond says that's the way it was, we guess there's no choice but to believe it.
But we still want to know who "Cracklin' Rosie" was - and we refuse to buy Diamond's story that she was a bottle of wine.

Wayne Hauge and David Monson aren't your stereotypical dreadlocked, tattooed and multiply-pierced marijuana lovers - they're just a couple of farmers in North Dakota. But they're spearheading a court case that could be a milestone in the campaign for legalization of hemp.
This week, Monson and Hauge plan to ask a federal judge in Bismarck to force the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to observe a state law that would allow them to start cultivating hemp. (As a state legislator - a Republican one, no less - Monson helped get the law passed.) Under present federal law farmers must get DEA approval to grow the plant. If Monson and Hauge win, they could clear the way for hemp production on a much larger scale in North Dakota and eventually the United States.

All you hipsters out there looking to clear bumper real estate for that "Colbert in '08" sticker, can cool your jets, because if you didn't hear, Comedy Central megastar and faux-pundit Stephen Colbert was denied access to the South Carolina Democratic primary ballot.
The "Colbert Nation," the name of Colbert's expansive and apparently active fan club, aren't taking too kindly to the fact that South Carolina's Democratic party executive council voted 13-3 to keep Colbert off the ballot. A posting on the ColbertNation.com website reads as follows:

In another 100,000 years or so, everybody will belong to The Beautiful People. Well, except for those who belong to The Ugly People.
As reported in the London Daily Mail (why do the British journalists get all the cool stories?) Dr. Oliver Curry, an "evolution expert" at the London School of Economics, is convinced the human species is destined to evolve into two genetically distinct species - a tall, beautiful, brainy upper class and a "dim-witted, ugly, squat, goblin-like" underclass.
But before that happens, Curry theorizes, a golden age of physical perfection will arrive about a thousand years from now. People will be about 7 feet tall, and thanks to better nutrition and advances in medical care they'll live to 120.
"Men will have symmetrical facial features with squarer jaws, look athletic and have deeper voices and bigger penises," the Daily Mail writes. "Women's skin will be lighter with large clear eyes, pert breasts, and glossy hair. Interbreeding will produce a uniform race of coffee-colored people."
So by 3000 AD all the women will look like Beyoncé Knowles? We could do a lot worse.
Alas, the golden age will not last long, Curry predicts. The natural tendency of beautiful, smart, rich people to breed with other beautiful, smart, rich people will cause human evolution to diverge along widely different paths until ultimately we become two species instead of one.
"The report suggests that the future of man will be a story of the good, the bad and the ugly," Curry said.
All of which leaves Upfront wondering which species a guy like Dick Cheney would fit into.

As if we didn’t know.First there was Mark Foley and the Congressional pages. Then there was evangelist Ted Haggard, with his massage-and-meth parties. Then there was Larry Craig, with his toe-tapping and his wide stance.

It was just a matter of time before word got out about our llama problem. No, not that problem.

The one where Central Oregon llamas go crazy and attack humans. Aaaargh!

File this one under "Only in South Carolina."

The beautiful people of Malibu have a large, smelly and stubborn mess on their hands - a 70-ton blue whale carcass that just refuses to go away.

Are you worried about the perennial problem of picking out a Christmas gift for the man or woman who has everything?