antonyforody

The Pop Five is a series of readers pop-culture top five lists. Today's contribution comes from MikeV in Indianapolis:
I have seen 10 Cirque shows , most recently seeing Banana Shpeel in Chicago. All shows are a mix of music, athleticism, dance, comedy and wonder. Here are my top five Cirque du Soleil shows:
5. KOOZA. Cirque shows are of two varieties, stationary and traveling. Of the traveling shows, this is my favorite. The reason: Wheel of Death. Imagine two human-sized hamster wheels held together in a metal figure-eight framework. Then imagine a person in/on each wheel, causing a rotation by doing acrobatics within the wheels. There are times when an acrobat is literally flying through the air and you just hold your breath and hope they land.   4. LOVE . The main draw to this show is the music. It contains 26 songs that George Martin remastered from 130 Beatles tracks. Each seat in the theatre has three speakers, including two in the headrest. Musically, this show is top-notch. It also contains a lot of video which is sometimes projected on translucent scrims that divide the theater. This is the least acrobatic of the shows I've seen, but a segment involving rollerbladers wearing Beatles cartoon masks is exceptional.   3. Mystere . This is arguably the most acrobatic Cirque show. Imagine climbing a 30-foot fire pole. Maybe you could do it. Now imagine climbing it without using your legs. What if you tried climbing just using your hands while holding your body parallel to the ground? Now try climbing with your body parallel to the ground and kicking your legs up, letting go of the pole, grabbing it at a higher spot, and continuing until you reach the top. That's the kind of athleticism you see here -- and they climb faster this way than most people could in a normal fashion.   2. KA . KA has by far the most coherent story, which helps with the enjoyment of the show. But the true wonder is its stage: Sometimes it's a huge boat, sometimes it's an island, sometimes it's a treacherous cliff. The Hoover Dam outside of Vegas is classified as an engineering marvel -- the stage for KA is just as much of a marvel, in my opinion.   1. O . Most Cirque shows are where ex-gymnasts go after they're done competing. This show is where the ex-divers go. This is the only water-based Cirque show and the best one I've seen. People literally walk on the water one moment and are then launched into the air the next. It's beautiful, exciting, dramatic -- the best that Cirque offers.
Send your Pop Five list to popcandy@usatoday.com with your city and screen name. Look for it on the blog!

When I heard Dr Pepper was celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, I was surprised. For one thing, who knew people had been drinking the stuff for so long? For another, I had no idea Dr Pepper predated Coca-Cola .
Yesterday the brand celebrated the milestone by staging a flash mob at the New York Stock Exchange. I agree that many folks at the NYSE didn't seem amused; I think they had enough going on already. But those of us with less stressful jobs can watch the video:

The guy singing in the clip is David Naughton. You may remember him from the original "I'm a Pepper" ads back in the '70s:

Other fun facts about the fizzy beverage:
- There's no period in Dr Pepper.
- A Dr Pepper Museum is located in Waco, Texas. The gift shop sells things like "I'm a Pepper" snack bowls.
- The drink was introduced to the nation at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.
- Diet Dr Pepper debuted in 1962. It was called "Dietetic Dr Pepper."
Learn more in this timeline, and look for the brand to pop up in a Super Bowl ad with Gene Simmons.

Indianapolis resident Trevor Yager, a gay small business owner, is the First Lady Michelle Obama’s guest for Wednesday night’s State of the Union Address.
Yager is the founder of TrendyMinds, a 15-year-old advertising and public relations firm.

“I’m very honored to be a part of this. It’s a groundbreaking time in our country and I’m proud to be part of that,” Yager told the Bilerico Project, a gay news blog. “This is all possible because we some awesome clients who allow us to be successful. It is very honoring and emotional to be chosen.”
The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, which certified his business as gay-owned, nominated Yager to be a guest.
Obama’s State of the Union Address starts at 9 p.m. EST Wednesday and will air on all major television news networks.

Lillian Landry always said she wasn’t afraid to die. So when death came last week, the 99-year-old was lying peacefully in a hospice with no needles or tubes. Her final days saw her closest friend at her side and included occasional shots of her favorite whiskey, Canadian Mist.
Landry is an exception. Unlike most Americans, she made her end-of-life decisions years ago: no heroic measures to save her and even instructions on the bar where mourners should gather.
The health overhaul bill that narrowly passed the House on Saturday includes a provision to nudge more people to confront such choices: It would pay for end-of-life counseling for Medicare patients.
Supporters say counseling would give patients more control and free families from tortuous decisions. Critics have warned it could lead to government “death panels.” What few on either side note is that counseling could lead more people to choose less intensive care when they’re dying, and ultimately trim government-funded health bills.
Hospice care has grown from about 25,000 patients in 1982, when Congress approved coverage under Medicare, to 1.45 million people in 2008. It’s for patients who have a prognosis of no more than six months – and it ranges from in-home care to stand-alone centers to special wings in hospitals. It does nothing to artificially lengthen or shorten life, focusing mostly on a patient’s comfort.
People on Medicare account for the vast majority of U.S. deaths, and care in the last year of life accounts for roughly a quarter of Medicare’s budget. So increased use of hospice could mean sizable savings for the government, particularly if patients enter it sooner.
A 2007 study published in the journal Social Science and Medicine found that among Medicare patient deaths, those who used hospice saved taxpayers an average $2,309 over their last year. In some cases, the savings were as much as $7,000, depending on the illness and length of hospice stay.
Still, only about 39 percent of Americans who died last year were in hospice. The average patient spent a little more than two months under that care; about a third moved to hospice only in the last week of life.
“It’s significantly underutilized. People are referred very late,” said Dr. Richard Payne, a Duke University professor who heads the school’s Institute on Care at the End of Life.
“Our culture just doesn’t tolerate talking about death and dying. And the minute you even start talking about having conversations with a doctor, it’s immediately pejoratively labeled as ‘You’re trying to kill me.’”
That perception is precisely what got affixed to the counseling measure in the House bill. Even though the legislation specifies counseling wouldn’t force patients to limit efforts to keep them alive, and even with the support of the American Medical Association, AARP and others, suspicion has lingered, encouraged by conservative voices including Sarah Palin.
Dr. Jim Small, a Denver pathologist who belongs to the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, said he feared the provision would be twisted into something more intrusive if bureaucrats lay out the details.
“It’s incredible micromanagement,” Small said. “End-of-life discussions are part of normal, good patient care, but there’s no reason for it to be in the bill.”
Even when patients do opt for less invasive, potentially cheaper care, there are limitations. Predicting when someone will die is notoriously inexact. Terminal patients can live for years. So deciding on less intensive treatment isn’t always an easy choice.
“The concept of the last year of life is entirely retrospective,” said Donald Taylor, a public policy professor at Duke who was the lead author of the study looking at hospice’s cost savings. “It’s just not that clear when people are dying.”
Among those for whom death is clearly imminent, though, advocates argue hospice offers a more compassionate approach.
Dr. Joel Policzer is medical director for VITAS Innovative Hospice Care, which runs the hospice wing at Florida Medical Center where Landry spent her final days. Many of the patients have been hospitalized repeatedly, often getting arguably unnecessary tests before finally succumbing. He characterizes the American medical perspective as “Do something! Do something! Do something!”
Often, Policzer says, a dying elderly patient may have wanted less invasive care. But it doesn’t happen.
“It doesn’t happen because people are never asked. If they were, people would tell you they want to die at home in bed, surrounded by their family, their friends and their pets,” he said. “People who are dying do not need to have needles shoved in them two or three times a day. It’s not going to make a difference.”
On a recent morning, Policzer stopped to check on 76-year-old Walter Norton, who lay frail and silent in his hospice bed. He had made numerous trips to the emergency room before his family turned to hospice. He had dementia and was suffering from pneumonia and dehydration.
No one’s sure exactly what Norton would have wanted. “He wasn’t asked, ‘What do you want to have done?’” Policzer said.
Five days later, Norton was dead.
Landry, on the other hand, had thought about life’s ending years ago.
Four days before she died, her closest friend, Joe Takach, was sitting in a recliner beside her. Her head was tilted, her mouth open and her left hand lay across her waist atop a crisp white sheet.
End-stage heart disease brought hospice care to Landry’s home in July; she entered the inpatient unit in late October. Until then, she had continued her routine, going to church every week, making coffee in the morning, sitting for hours in a swivel chair watching birds and squirrels from her bedroom window. She’d make four-course dinners and sometimes stay up talking with Takach until 2 a.m.
Landry had moved in with Takach after Hurricane Wilma destroyed her home four years ago; the 49-year-old retired police dispatcher said it was like having a grandmother again.
He called her the Energizer Bunny. She called herself a tough New Englander.
“You OK?” Takach asked her in one of their final meetings. “I’m OK,” she said in a soft, garbled voice, her eyes opened just a slit.
“You don’t have any pain?” he asked. “No,” she said.
Had Landry not made her wishes known, she likely would have been subjected to CT scans, blood tests, IVs and a feeding tube.
“She would not want that,” Takach said. “She would say, ‘Enough!’”

Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said on the weekend.
Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles. Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage.
“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”
As Steele talked about ways the party could position itself, he also poked fun at his previous pledge to give the GOP a “hip-hop makeover.”
“You don’t have to wear your pants cut down here or the big bling,” he said.
Vermont and Iowa have legalized gay marriage in recent weeks, and a Quinnipiac University poll released in April found that 57 percent of people questioned support civil unions that provide marriage-like rights. Although 55 percent said they opposed gay marriage, the poll indicated a shift toward more acceptance.
The chief of the Republican National Committee has been criticized by some social conservatives in recent weeks after GQ magazine quoted him as saying he opposed gay marriage but wasn’t going to “beat people upside the head about it.”
Steele, a Catholic and former Maryland lieutenant governor, was elected chairman of the committee earlier this year.