More cable for Congress ... Tracking hurricanes ... Marine tattoos

WASHINGTON -- Life is about to get a lot more entertaining for Capitol Hill lawmakers and their staffs. A big upgrade is under way for the cable-TV system to which those who toil in Congress are privy.

Soon, the number of cable channels available to the 535 offices will reach 54 -- about 19 more than they have now. Many of the channels, new and old, have at least a nominal connection to the job of legislating -- C-SPAN 1, 2, 3; CNN and its rival cable news networks; the NASA channel; Pentagon TV; the Weather Channel; even BBC World.

But what, pray tell, could be the official purpose of having the Golf Channel beamed into the inner sanctums of the House and Senate? Not to mention AMC; Bravo; the Travel Channel; ESPN and ESPN2; WE; two Mid-Atlantic Sports Network channels; and, most especially, the home-oriented lifestyle networks HGTV and DIY (which once were owned by the same company as Scripps Howard News Service)?

The office of the Architect of the Capitol, which is in charge of the cable system, says congressional leaders picked which channels they wanted. The lawmakers pay nothing for the service, with the cost coming out of the budget of the architect's office.

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If you're thinking of relocating or retiring to the Atlantic, Northern Pacific or Gulf of Mexico coasts, you might want to first visit a new government Web site that can show you the paths of all the hurricanes and tropical storms that have come through any particular area.

So detailed is the data that the "Historical Hurricane Tracks" site can generate a customized map down to the ZIP-code level. Developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the site contains storm data that, for the Atlantic edge of the country, stretches back to 1851, and 60 years ago for the Pacific Northwest.

On the Web: http://maps.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes

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The most recent government stats show that overall illicit drug use by teens and young adults dropped between 2002 and 2007, although there's been an uptick in prescription-drug abuse.

But for baby boomers, the past apparently is prologue. Among those ages 55 to 59, illegal drug use more than doubled over the same five years, with about 4 percent saying they so indulge.

Meanwhile, though the demand for amphetamines, Ecstasy and other synthetic drugs has dropped in the United States and Europe, it's growing in Asia and spreading fast and far into the Middle East, according to the United Nations. In particular, Saudi Arabia is the site of one of the biggest new amphetamine markets.

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Might be a good idea to dump that purple friendship bracelet before your next hospital stay. The American Hospital Association is mounting a big push to get all the nation's hospitals to adopt a single standard for color-coded alert wristbands for certain conditions. For example, there would be red bands to alert hospital personnel to a patient's allergies, yellow for patients who are at risk of falling and purple to signify that the patient has signed a "do not resuscitate" order.

About half the states already have voluntary guidelines for this system.

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Taking another step to polish the image of the U.S. Marine Corps, the service has just decreed that Marines who routinely interact with civilians -- such as recruiters and security guards (including those who protect U.S. embassies abroad) -- must not sport "sleeve" tattoos. Those are defined as tats that cover large portions of a person's arm or leg. Generally, any design that is as big as a fist and visible in physical-training gear is verboten.

The idea, the Corps says, is to present "a professional Marine image."

(SHNS correspondent Lee Bowman contributed to this column. E-mail Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com.)