LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR, 21st CENTURY STYLE:  How do couples meet these days?  Everyone knows that meeting online is much more common now than it was … well … before there was an online.  But I did not realize until I saw this chart that there had been such a sharp uptick since 2000 in meeting in a bar or a restaurant.

One possible contributing factor to all this is the rise of sexual harassment lawsuits under Title VII and Title IX.  Note from the chart that the decrease in “meeting through or as coworkers” seems to roughly track the 1986 Supreme Court case that recognized sexual harassment lawsuits against employers under Title VII and (more importantly) the 1991 amendments to the law that made general money damages available for the first time.  That’s when employers started strongly discouraging amorous co-workers.

There was a bit of a time lag with Title IX (which covers colleges and universities).  It wasn’t until 1999 that the Supreme Court held that a school district could be held liable under Title IX for failing to control a student who is sexually harassing another student.  The students in that case happened to be 5th graders, but colleges and universities knew they were the ones most at risk for a lawsuit.  They stepped up their game at discouraging what they (often overzealously) considered “sexual harassment.”  Right on schedule, the line for “met in college” starts to decline.

Since 2000 or so, the number of couples who met in a bar or restaurant increased by about 50%.  It’s hard to know whether this is a real uptick in “cruising the bars” or something else.  But it makes me wonder whether all this concern over women’s safety at school and work has made them safer.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS, FONDLING OUR JUNK: TSA Nightmare Security Lines ‘Inevitable,’ Says DHS Secretary.

Knoxville, Tennessee. The Henley Street bridge (recently rebuilt) viewed from Volunteer Landing. Unedited pic from iPhone 6.

Knoxville, Tennessee. From Club LeConte.

Knoxville, Tennessee. At the Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop, where business is currently very good. Quoth the InstaDaughter: “Pie is the new cupcakes.”

Knoxville, Tennessee. From the cocktail deck at Calhoun’s On The River, last night with Brannon Denning and Ben Barton.

Knoxville, Tennessee. Boyd’s Jig and Reel in the old city — location is in the old Manhattan’s, for the Knoxville expats out there. Nice place, Belhaven on draft. This pic is with the iPhone 5, which I upgraded to awhile back. Not as good a camera as the Lumix, but pretty darn good for a phone. Click on the picture to see it full-sized, and note that you can read the labels on the bottles.

PEOPLE ASK FOR KNOXVILLE PHOTOS ALL THE TIME, SO HERE ARE A COUPLE FROM MARKET SQUARE YESTERDAY:

Knoxville, Tennessee. On Cherokee Boulevard, just before the Knoxville Marathon.

Knoxville, Tennessee. The sole surviving Kay’s Ice Cream stand, out on Chapman Highway.

Knoxville, Tennessee. On Market Square. I’m told that the dog and bird are great friends, and go everywhere together.

Knoxville, Tennessee. Stefano’s Pizza on the Strip, which looks pretty much the same as it did when I was in college.

Knoxville, Tennessee. On Market Square.

CAMERA UPDATE: So I noted a while back that I hadn’t bought a new camera in a while, and wanted to try out a new micro four-thirds camera. I wound up buying a Panasonic Lumix GX-1 with the Lumix 7-14mm ultra-wide angle lens.

After playing with it for a while I can report that it’s a great camera. It’s terrific in low light. Here’s a picture from Big Ed’s Pizza, and you can see how it froze the pizza-toss in available light. Pretty well.

The wide-angle lens takes in a very wide angle, and as you can see, the color-rendering in dim uneven light is still quite good.

Pics taken around stately Instapundit Manor suggest that the 7-14 lens is great for making houses look better than they do: If I were a real estate agent I’d order one immediately. The only downsides are (1) While it’s smaller than a full-sized DSLR, it’s still big enough that it won’t fit in a pocket; and (2) It’s kind of expensive. It’s a better and more versatile camera than the Lumix LX-5, but is it enough better to justify the price difference? If you need interchangeable lenses and high quality in a small package, yes.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Black, who’s a fan of the LX-5 writes:

Hi Glenn,

I was a professional photographer and photo lab owner with my wife for about 25 years. We got out of the lab business just before the digital tsunami hit, and are now employed in geographic information systems. I picked up a Panasonic Lumix LX-5 last summer, and I honestly think it’s the best camera I’ve ever owned (I still have about a dozen film cameras, from Mamiya M645 to Canon A2E and F1’s, none of which will ever see another roll of film). The Leica F:2.0 wide angle zoom on this camera is amazing, and the low light performance you mentioned on your model is evident in this model as well. I’ve always been a bit puzzled by folks enamored of super zoom telephoto lenses. I find the wide angle lens to be far more useful in practical terms (so much so, I also bought the .75 wide angle converter for it, making it an 18mm wide angle). Most of the time, you can move closer to a subject to get the framing you want. But if your back is up against a wall, and you can’t get everything in the image you want, you’re SOL. Below is a link to some of the images I took on our 30th anniversary trip to Chicago last August.

A small sample of some of the 1,000+ images I shot while in Chicago…

Very nice. And I quite agree about the value of a wide angle lens vs. a telephoto, especially for the kinds of photography I tend to do.

Despite his resemblance to a Simpsons character, the man plays guitar like a god.

Jimmy Logston and Jen. Both pics from the Knoxville Blues Society’s 10th annual birthday party for the late Sara Jordan.

Here’s some video.

Courtesy of Les Jones. More here and here.

WHILE OTHERS CAMP OUT IN TENTS, the more enterprising youth of America tackle the economic slump creatively. And successfully, to judge from all the cash.

Knoxville, Tennessee, at the downtown Farmer’s Market.

UPDATE: Reader Kenneth Lawton writes: “Saw the young buskers with their case full o’ cash – right out there in the open… While I greatly admire their enterprising – and entertaining – spirit, these kids need to be more careful some other less-enterprising youth doesn’t grab their stash and run. Every busker has this happen. Once.”

Ah, that’s just a compositional issue. My fault. Just outside the frame is a spike, holding the head of the only guy to try that. Don’t mess with this crowd.

Knoxville, Tennessee. The Pizza Palace on Magnolia. This place should be familiar both to Knoxville expats and to fans of Guy Fieri.

Knoxville, Tennessee. I dropped by Sam and Andy’s the other day for lunch. It was just as good as always, which was very good.

KNOXVILLE SKYLINE: I went to a reception last night at Club LeConte in the top of the First Tennessee bank building. Here’s the view down the Tennessee river. Note the under-repair Henley Street bridge again.

FOR SAM HUNG AND OTHER HOMESICK KNOXVILLE EXPATS:

This is the under-repair Henley Street bridge — notice the absence of anything above the arches — seen from the deck at Calhoun’s On The River last night.

AT LONG’S DRUG STORE, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Some of my Utah friends may find this particularly amusing.

Knoxville, Tennessee.

THEY TOLD ME IF WE ELECTED BARACK OBAMA. . . .

Actual background here.

UPDATE: Reader Steve Eimers sends this link. He writes: “Were you at the parade today? Unfortunately we didn’t see Congressman Duncan I was hoping to tell him not to raise the debt ceiling. I’m attaching a picture of the parade. Just above the yellow light in the distance you can see a little red dot. That dot is the flag box.”

No, I took that picture a couple of years back. I don’t live in Lenoir City. But if I did, here’s what I would have seen today. Thanks, Steve!

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE. Market Square.