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Hollywood Actress Barbara Streisand Becomes A MacArthur Foundation Fellow
Friday, September 30, 2005   By: Mahone Dunbar

News From Tomorrow - A genius award and superstorms

News From Tomorrow

(Remotely Viewed News From Parallel Dimensions)

PPI–Mahone Dunbar

On September 30, 2005, Barbra Streisand - songstress, actress, directoress and democratic strategist - received a MacArthur grant for her extraordinary contributions to science. Often called ‘genius’ grants, the MacArthur awards are given to select people, along with a no-strings-attached $500,000 grant.

According to Jonathan Fanton, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the awards are made to "recognize the critical role played in society by highly creative people working across a wide spectrum of activity." Ms. Streisand was one of five persons, including three physicists and a neurologist, to receive the grants this year.

The foundation’s 12-member selection committee elected Ms. Streisand as a foundation fellow because of her acute observations on global warming and her discovery that hurricanes were indicative of an increase in global warming.

After the ceremony, Ms. Streisand answered questions and bantered with the press.

Press: What was the crucial factor that led you to your hypothesis?

Streisand: Well, unless you're meshuggener, you'll realize that the back to back superstorms we had this summer are a sign of global warming. We are in a global warming emergency state, and these storms are going to become more frequent, more intense."

Press: By superstorms, you mean the hurricanes? Like Katrina and Rita?

Streisand: Katrina schmeena, whatever. They were category 5, that’s what's important.

Press: But - is this really a new phenomena? Didn't a category 5 hurricane strike the Bahamas, with 160 mph winds, in 1947, when you were only five and no one had ever heard of global warming?

Streisand: "So what am I? Watching the weather channel when I'm five years old? Don't be a putz."

Press: And a category 5 with 185 mph winds was in the Atlantic when you were 8 years old. And when you were 9, a cat 5 named "Easy" formed, and when you were 13, "Janet" hit Mexico with 150 mph winds, and there was "Cleo" with 140 winds when you turned 16 . . . and, of course, when your were 18, in 1960, "Donna" and "Ethel", both with 140 mph winds, formed only nine days apart!

Streisand: Have you been to my website?

Press: And then only a year later, when you where 19, another pair of Category 5 storms, "Carla" and "Hattie," formed; and then "Camille" and .. . .."

Streisand: Enough already. Stop with the kvetching. Whatta you know from superstorms and global warming? You have to have a nose for global warming . . . and boy have I got a nose. Speaking of which, did you know that global warming increases allergies? You have no idea how painful that can be with a prominent proboscis like this.

Press: In addition to an increase in allergies, what else will global warming do?

Streisand: "Well, I was just researching the facts on global warming the other day. Scientists predict that there’s going to be more droughts and dust bowls. More dust on bowls. Can you imagine the extra work that's going to create for my downstairs maid, Marie? Of course Republicans like Bush don't care about the impact  their policies have on the little people, like Marie, do they. Has anybody seen my inhaler?"

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