. . . for the annual AIDS Walk/Run, which raised a record $170,000-plus during weekend events at Beaver Lake Nature Center. And while AIDS Community Resources executive director Michael Crinnin was quoted on WSTM-Channel 3 as saying young people “get AIDS,” he didn’t mean that literally, but in the vernacular, like you would “get” a joke.

. . . for the residual effects of Stephen Strasburg’s all-too-brief stay in the Salt City while honing his pitching craft for the Syracuse Chiefs. It’s pretty cool turning on a Major League Baseball broadcast and hearing the commentator talk about Syracuse this, and Syracuse that. Maybe now folks will realize there’s more to sports here than an orange ball.

Bad Week

. . . for Oz-Stravaganza, the annual Wizard of Oz blowout in Chittenango that got, well, blown out when Dorothy Gale-force winds ripped through the Madison County village on Sunday morning, canceling the last day of the celebration. While trees fell, there were no reports of houses falling on Wicked Witches.

. . . for Paul McCartney, who took some heat last week for dissing George W. Bush’s familiarity with libraries, but really got slammed when it was revealed in a press release about a film featuring George Harrison that Paul really is dead! So, all those veiled references—a barefoot Paulie traversing Abbey Road, the black rose in Magical Mystery Tour (evident in the photo at left), the “I buried Paul,” not “cranberry sauce” line, at the end of “I Am The Walrus”—it was all true! Now, if we could only be convinced that the Bush presidency wasn’t a sick joke. . .