Getting Emotional Over Jet Noise: Changes in flight patterns have brought jet noise to neighborhoods that never had them before, and people are furious. But this situation isn't connected to O'Hare; it's in Phoenix. The Arizona Republic looks at the moving noise contours there because of changes at the local airport and suggests it may not actually be the decibels of the racket but the nature of the sound that is infuriating people. In short, the unpredictablity of the jets combined with the emotions they stir may be what is setting folks off.
“An airplane that goes overhead, if it has no emotional value, it can just flit through your neurological system,” one noise expert says. “If someone already has decided they’re upset about airplane sounds, if it keeps happening, they’re going to build up their emotional response.”
Because the human brain is hardwired to pay attention to new and irregular noises (is that a lion lurking in the bushes?), such sounds make it hard for people to focus, the report says.
Don't Mess With Mayo: Who knew the American Egg Board was so cutthroat? Mess with their monopoly on mayo (eggs are a key ingredient in the condiment) and they'll put a hit out on you. Or at least joke about putting a hit out on you. That's just one of the tactics summarized in this Quartz piece about the egg lobby's efforts to crush upstart competitor Just Mayo, an egg-free mayo substitute. The board referred to the vegan alternative as “a crisis and major threat to the future of the egg product business.”
All May Not Be Well That Ends Well: Newsweek has a harrowing look at the life of Michelle Knight, one of three women kidnapped, raped and tortured for more than a decade in Cleveland. Knight, who has changed her name to Lily Rose Lee, is trying to use what happened to her to help others who have been similarly harmed — but the picture drawn by reporter Abigail Jones makes it clear that while the rest of us have stopped paying attention, the story is far from over for Lee.
Down to One Vote: Officials in Missouri, in a bit of misguided gerrymandering, have put the decision on a new sales tax up to just one voter. The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that officials in Columbia, Mo., trying to draw out registered voters from a new taxing district missed one and now a University of Missouri student alone gets to decide whether a half-cent sales tax gets approved. If there had been no registered voters, property owners would have gotten to decide. The Tribune tracked down the one voter and retells her story of city officials trying to get her to withdraw her voter registration.
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