For one long weekend at the end of May, nearly every hotel, hostel, B&B and flophouse in Baltimore is booked up. Traffic gets brutal, the sidewalks fill and locals are more than a little miffed by all the clueless tourists. Many of them are in town for Maryland's high school lacrosse state championships, but for plenty of others, a stay in Charm City promises the polar opposite of all the good clean fun going down at the stadium. These visitors are ready to sweat too, but they've come for something quite different: feedback, blood and distortion.

It began with a song. The roots of Portland's Alialujah Choir go back to Adam Selzer and Adam Shearer's collaboration on an all-Portland charity compilation, (D)early Departed. It seemed a natural choice to pair the Adams, the former known for his work as a producer at Type Foundry studios and as part of the band Norfolk & Western; the latter the affable and increasingly visible frontman of the local band Weinland. "A House, A Home" was the result — a song that builds a fictionalized doomed romance into the real-life historical backdrop of Dr.

To physician Larry Shore of My Health Medical Group in San Francisco, it's no surprise that patients give doctors low marks for time and attention.

"There's some data to suggest that the average patient gets to speak for between 12 and 15 seconds before the physician interrupts them," Shore says. "And that makes you feel like the person is not listening."

One day last week, I was entering the federal courthouse in Greensboro, N.C., where John Edwards is on trial, when a U.S. marshal took my local newspaper. A moment later, he told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff to hand over his morning paper.

"We can't have newspapers?" I asked.

"You guys know the rules," the smiling marshal said.

It came as no surprise to us when outrage over "pink slime," the catchy nickname given to lean finely textured beef (LFTB), went viral a couple of months ago.

Murky government rules, off-limits meatpacking floors, and a "gotcha" media mentality have created a fear and mistrust that's left the public highly opinionated but often woefully misinformed about where our food comes from.

Known for exploring the complexity of human hurt in ways that are both personal and universal, Janiva Magness is a widely praised blues and soul singer. Magness writes from a serious place, and fittingly, her music isn't to be taken lightly: She often weaves a difficult personal history into her songs, but, as her new album's title suggests, Magness pushes through tough times on Stronger for It.

In 2004, singer-songwriter Regina Spektor was a staple of the so-called anti-folk scene when she sat down for one of her first public-radio interviews with the now-defunct WNYC program The Next Big Thing. In the interview, she joked that she stayed up until 3:30 a.m. writing a song, trying not to wake the neighbors, but never wrote anything down.

She still doesn't.

We like when conventional wisdom is challenged. And during the past couple of days, we stumbled on two stories that challenged assumptions both the news media and Americans seem to make.

First, Reuters compares Americans to anorexics when it comes to taxes. Essentially, they say when Americans respond to polls, they see themselves as "fat with taxes." It's the one thing both political parties agree on. But taking a look in the global mirror, Americans are actually quite skinny.

Forgive me, if you're suffering from PSA policy fatigue.

But there are a few more things I thought you might want to know about the new guideline from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that says men of all ages should forgo routine blood tests to detect prostate cancer.

Research from Johns Hopkins suggests the chances that doctors will listen aren't great.