As if it wasn’t good enough to find out that drinking red wine can help protect against cancer and heart disease, a new study shows that it can also protect against hearing loss as you age. Dr. Jochen Schacht of the University of Michigan Medical School says red wine, green tea, and white aspirin can all help keep you from going deaf. The downside is that if you drink red wine with friends, wouldn’t you rather they didn’t hear your slurred speech so well?

Goodyear is holding a contest to name their new blimp, with the person submitting the winning name getting use of the blimp for a day. Unfortunately the first phase, where you get to submit names, is over. Now all you can do is go to their site and vote for one of the Ten Most Boring Names Imaginable. Names like Liberty, Patriot of Peace, and Spirit of Endurance. *yawn* With suggestions like Spirit of the Hindenberg, Led-free Zeppelin, Filled With More Gas Than a Kennedy, and Kirstie Alley, there’s no doubt the blimp ride would have been mine.

David Blaine, the “magician” who has spent a week buried alive in a see-through coffin, hung out in a block of ice for 61 hours, and fasted for 44 days while living in a hanging Plexiglas box, came out of the 8-ft fish bowl he’s been living in for the past week. He’s doing well. Okay, other than the liver damage, pins and needles in his feet and hands, loss of sensation and rashes. Come on, David. Either go back to card tricks or move on to the finale — sawing your life in half.

For the second time in a year, New Jersey has dumped a state slogan. Last fall, acting Gov. Richard J. Codey rejected a highly paid consultant’s suggestion: “We’ll Win You Over” because he said it reminded him of when he was single and asked girls out on a date. Hey, it’s not like they were suggesting, “You Don’t Wanna Do Nuttin’ Do Ya?” So the state held a contest and “Come See For Yourself” won. Now they’ve dropped that for legal reasons, since it turns out West Virginia and other states already used that one. Hey, anyone heard of a Google search? So for now they have nothing. Maybe they should just use “New Jersey. If you can’t think of nothin’ nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all” and be done with it.

A reporter for the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag asked President Bush what he felt was the high point of his presidency. It wasn’t winning the election. It wasn’t starting a war. Neither was it rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, coming up with the idea of enemy combatants, or finally having a chance to sit down and read My Pet Goat. According to Bush: “I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound perch in my lake.” Hey, you can’t fry up and eat a Protocol, now can you?

First Bill Gates said he wished he wasn’t the richest person in the world. Then Nicole Richie admitted she’s “too thin.” What next, Angelina Jolie complaining she’s too famous, Tiger Woods bitching because he plays golf too well, and George Bush wishing he wasn’t the world’s foremost grammarian?

You can’t put a dollar amount on what a mother is worth, but those fine folks at Salary.com are doing it anyway. They say a full-time stay-at-home mom would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, which is a lousy $2,650 raise over last year. Their web site has a calculator that will personalize this figure for actual hours spent, whether Mom has a job or not, and location. Remember, this is only an estimate, actual worth may vary. Taxes, fees, transportation costs, room and board not included. Offer void during any family discussions about relative worth.

A poll conducted for National Geographic found that one-third of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can’t find Louisiana on a map, seven in ten were unable to locate Israel, and 60% can’t locate Iraq without enlisting, yet 94% have no trouble finding their way home after a night of drinking.

The Ho Chi Minh City Supreme Court has agreed to hear glam rocker Gary Glitter’s appeal of a three-year jail sentence he received for molesting two young girls in Vietnam. The news was reported by the appropriately named newspaper, Thanh Nien, which translates as “Young People.”

The Beijing News reports that a Chinese businessman bought a used MiG-21f fighter jet once used by the Czech military on eBay for a bargain basement $24,730. Plus shipping, of course. The winning bidder, which the newspaper identifies as Zhang Cheng but is known as 20020504maryville on eBay, says he plans to park the airplane outside his offices. Great. That means there will be a half-dozen fewer parking spaces for customers and employees, dammit.

It’s that, or WFMY News 2 in North Carolina is being very careful about being politically correct before Monday’s “Day Without Immigrants” work boycott and rallies. For future reference, the station’s headline writers need to know that cole slaw is made with cabbage, not lettuce; there is no Joe in a Sloppy Joe; and creamed spinach is made with spinach.

Teresa L. Kaiser, the executive director of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, resigned yesterday after being arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and reckless driving after she was involved in a two-car crash Saturday night. With a blood alcohol level of 0.16, no less — twice the legal limit. Regardless of how it turns out, it’s a safe bet she can call it job-related research and write off her legal fees.

Toasters are 100 years old this year. What did people do before that, use the pop-up fire? In a poll conducted for the Grains Food Foundation, more than half of the people surveyed said they’d rather have toast than candy in the morning. A third prefer morning toast to chocolate. And one in 10 would rather have toast than sex in the morning. Oddly, only one person said they prefer the smell of napalm in the morning.

Four bus loads of students from O’Brien Middle School in Reno, Nevada, were rewarded for their good grades on Monday by being sent on a school-sponsored field trip to the Six Flags Marine World theme park in Vallejo, California. After four hours on the bus they arrived…to find out the park is closed on Mondays. Attention Washoe County School District employees: Memorial Day is May 29, the last day of school is June 7, and this year the Fourth of July will be celebrated on July 4. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

According the New York Times, Airbus has a new seating idea – standing room only. It seems the European airplane manufacturer has been trying to interest Asian carriers in the idea of putting a standing room section on their planes. Passengers would stand up against a padded backboard and be held in place with a harness. The only time you’d get to sit down would be in the lavatory. No word on if anyone will do it, or the price, but be careful the next time an airline asks if you want to fly standby.

Sweden has finally accepted Dubya. Not the president, but the letter that’s his middle initial. You know, the one he mispronounces. This is big news since there is no natural-born “W” in Svenska, which is what they call their language. The few words that do begin with “W” were stolen – I mean, borrowed – from other languages, so dictionaries always lumped them in with the more popular “V”s. Since the Swedish Academy is including a section of “W” words now, the language officially has 29 letters instead of 28. Of course since they call the new letter “double-v,” they still don’t have a Dubya. Lucky stiffs.

Cable TV service In Demand is airing a special on Monday night called The Spirit of John Lennon. It’s a televised seance during which they claim to have reached the spirit of John Lennon. At one of Lennon’s favorite New York restaurants, La Fortuna, of course. I mean, where else would you expect him to be hanging out? For $9.95 viewers can hear what a psychic on the show claims to be the voice of Lennon speaking. Or maybe he’ll be singing:

Imagine there’s John Lennon
It’s easy if you try
No royalties to pay him
With luck ratings to the sky
Imagine all the people
Tuning in today…

You may say that I’m a schemer
But I’m not the only one
I hope on Monday you will join us
And we’ll live as number one

“The mayor of Paris arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday to kick off a three-day visit marking the 10th anniversary of the sister-city relationship between the two cultural hubs…”

“In Paris, the fact that Delanoë is openly gay is a nonissue, his aides said Wednesday. He made his sexual orientation public when a journalist asked him about it before he was elected mayor.”

When Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes announced the birth of their baby, they said they named her Suri, which means “princess” in Hebrew and “red rose” in Persian. They were right on the second count, but Hebrew scholars in Israel say no dice to the first. “We seem to have learned a new Hebrew word, and from Tom Cruise, no less,” said an Israeli news anchor. No problem. Suri has plenty of other translations. It means “pickpocket” in Japanese, “pointy nose” in some Indian dialects, and is a breed of South American alpacas. Don’t be a lama, Suri. It’s okay, princess.

Alternative weekly The Boston Phoenix has named Gilbert Gottfried the “unsexiest man in the world,” followed closely by New York Yankees pitcher Randy Johnson, Roger Ebert, and Dr. Phil. Was that Carrot Top breathing a big sigh of relief I just heard?