Sunday, November 1, 2009

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Bruce Kluger: Persky on Technology Top
I can't think of a better way to start a new week than with a good laugh. Permit me to share a wonderful piece by legendary writer-producer-director Bill Persky on modern technology. It appears in the today's edition of USA Today . We're Killing Communication At 78 years old, I can authoritatively say that 'talking' isn't what it used to be By Bill Persky What I really wanted for my 78th birthday was a pair of pajamas, but because they're not digital, I didn't stand a chance. Instead, I was deluged with an arsenal of high-tech "communications breakthrough" gadgets: an iPhone (which I quickly renamed a "not-for-me phone"); a Kindle electronic book (which doesn't feel, smell or look like a book); and a GPS navigation device (featuring the voice of some irritating woman whom I would never allow in my car, let alone tell me how to get where I'm going). I returned the gifts and went to Bloomingdale's to buy my pajamas. Yet what should have been a simple, two-minute transaction was interrupted as my saleslady responded to three text messages and a phone call. I'm not losing my patience but my sanity. With the wisdom I have gained from age and experience, I have finally decided it's time for all these communications breakthroughs to take a break from breaking through, since they're no longer improving communication but actually destroying it. How? By making it easier and faster for people everywhere to be in constant contact with each other -- about nothing. Nowhere is this more evident than on the social networking sites of which, I'm guessing, there are 375 (which probably jumped to 376 as I was typing "375"). MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Yuku and any other place inhabited by teens and young singles is not a world where we seniors belong. I learned this through personal experience when my ex-wife sent me an e-mail, asking me to be her Facebook friend. We parted amicably decades ago and have remained in casual contact since. But being her Facebook friend felt like a deeper commitment. Just what is a Facebook friend? What are the responsibilities? Are there legal implications? With some trepidation, I opened the link and there she was, smiling out at me expectantly, with two boxes next to her picture -- "Confirm" or "Ignore." I didn't want to get involved, but how can you ignore someone who's smiling at you and wants to be your friend? I clicked "Confirm" then briefly logged on to Google to research the side effects of my new acid-reflux medication. When I returned to Facebook, my inbox was bulging with 20 more requests for my friendship, most from people who were already my friends (but apparently that isn't good enough any more). With each "Confirm" I clicked, the number of new friends expanded, and within an hour I had more than 50 -- some of whom were apparently Facebook friends of my Facebook friends, so I couldn't reject them because my friends would think their friends weren't good enough for me. Even worse, there were three messages on my "Wall" (whatever that was) and a space in which, at that time, I was supposed to answer the question, "What are you doing right now?" I was too ashamed to tell the truth ("I'm on Facebook"), so I decided to see what some of my new "friends" were "doing right now." My daughter was "Drying my hair." Others were "Watching a rerun of Seinfeld in my underwear," "Eating leftover lasagna," "Looking for a clean pair of socks" and "Getting a colonoscopy" (this final one sent from the fellow's BlackBerry). In that moment, I knew exactly what I was "doing right now" -- and I typed it in: "Leaving Facebook forever." Tomorrow will bring countless technological breakthroughs, I'm sure. But, for Christmas, unless they stop you from peeing three times a night, help you remember your Social Security number, or teach you to read without your glasses, I prefer underwear. Bill Persky is a writer-producer-director whose credits include Kate & Allie , The Dick Van Dyke Show and That Girl . Dear President Obama: Letters of Hope From Children Across America (Beckham Publications Group, Inc.) By Bruce Kluger and David Tabatsky Foreword by Linda Ellerbee More on Facebook
 
Tadamasa Goto's Liver Transplant Profiled: How Yakuza Boss Got New Liver At UCLA (VIDEO) Top
On Sunday, 60 Minutes aired a report by Lara Logan on the puzzling liver transplants received by Japan's top crime bosses at UCLA Medical Center. Between 2000 and 2004, four members of Japan's Yakuza, a "powerful organized crime syndicate," received liver transplants. Despite a long list of patients in need, Tadamasa Goto, a man described as Japan's John Gotti, received a liver in just six weeks after cutting a deal with the FBI. Logan explains how a man who shouldn't have been allowed into the US received top-notch medical care--perhaps at the expense of innocent Americans. During Logan's report, fascinating details Yakuza culture emerge. WATCH: Watch CBS News Videos Online More on Crime
 
Graham Bensinger: Mark McGwire Needs to Tell the Truth Top
September 8th 1998. 8:18pm. Mark McGwire hits a line drive that carries just enough to clear the left field wall. Home Run No. 62. Breaking Roger Maris' single season record. I'll forever remember that moment. Just as I'll remember March 17th 2005. When the disgraced ex-slugger, only a fraction of his once cartoon-like size, held back tears as he refused, sometimes incoherently, to address illegal performance enhancing drug allegations. The man who once enjoyed stratospheric celebrity was now seemingly hoping for mercy from a public who came to realize they were entertained by an illegal drug cheat. But it's surely more complicated than that. After all, McGwire's record was broken only three years later by Barry Bonds -- who we've since learned also used illegal performance enhancing drugs. Usage was rampant in Major League Baseball for much of a generation. Bonds was forced out of the game. He remained a capable player, yet no team wanted the negative press he brought. Others such as Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens had to publicly address illegal performance enhancing drug allegations. Even though they both likely lied, they were forced to speak. But not McGwire. He retired from the game just before the Steroid Era came to light. While he previously denied illegal performance enhancing drug use, those denials stopped when under penalty of perjury. He has never given an interview about the topic since. Last Monday changes everything. The Cardinals announced McGwire will be returning to the team as hitting coach this coming season. McGwire will no longer be able to avoid addressing "the past," as he referred to it on Capitol Hill. He will no longer be able to avoid the limelight. He'll be around the media almost every single day for at least seven months beginning in March. The question isn't if he'll speak, it's rather what he'll say. McGwire has one last opportunity. One final chance to do what's right. To regain the public's respect. To tell the truth. Even if we already know the truth, McGwire has never admitted it. Hopefully that changes. But history tells us, that's unlikely. Graham Bensinger is a sports reporter and radio talk show host. His website is www.GrahamBensinger.com . Email Graham at: Graham@TheGBShow.com . More on Baseball
 
Shayana Kadidal: World Series: One Question about Damon's Dash Top
Johnny Damon joins Enos Slaughter in the annals of great World Series baserunning plays tonight, stealing second and then third base on one play. One of the first baseball proverbs I recall was "in every game you see one thing you've never seen before," and after thirty years of idling away hours watching baseball games, tonight was the first time I've seen anything like it. Here's how it happened: After fighting off several potential third strikes with two outs in the 9th inning, Damon slapped a single to left. On the first pitch to Mark Teixeira, Damon took off for second, stealing the bag easily with a stand-up slide. But the Phillies had overshifted their infield defense against pull hitter Teixeira, moving the shortstop over to the right side of the infield and leaving only the third baseman Pedro Feliz on the third-base side of the infield. Feliz fielded the late throw from the catcher, Damon saw no one was at third, and he took off running, stealing two bases on one pitch for what surely is the first time in World Series history. After the game, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, looking shellshocked, said it was usually the catcher's job to cover third base in that situation. But here's my question: with three infielders on the right side of the infield, why isn't one of them -- second baseman Chase Utley or shortstop Jimmy Rollins -- always covering throws from the catcher on base-stealing attempts? Wasn't the first mistake having the only defender on the left side of the infield cover the bag? [UPDATE: Damon, speaking in the postgame news conference, notes that he still has a little speed left in his 36-year-old legs, but that if (shortstop) Jimmy Rollins had caught the throw from the catcher, he might not have been able to outrun him to third. He's half-joking, but still...] November 2, 2009
 
Democrats' Quiet Changes Pile Up Top
While President Barack Obama still faces stiff headwinds on a range of major legislation on his agenda, he has been signing into law a slew of smaller initiatives that had gathered dust on the Democratic wish list for years. More on Barack Obama
 
Mark Joseph: President Obama & America's Comedically-Challenged Funnymen Top
For years liberals and conservatives have argued back and forth about a press biased against their side. President Obama is now leading a crusade against conservative talk radio and Fox News, while for years, at least since Richard Nixon's presidency, conservatives complained about biased coverage by the mainstream media. I think it's fair to say that most mainstream news orgs tilt left while talk radio leans right but somehow through a multitude of voices and forms of media, we arrive at a semblance of balance. But I'm increasingly troubled by the lack of objectivity among comedians, especially when it comes to the treatment of our new President. Comedy should be bipartisan, and we should all be able to laugh equally at conservative and liberal leaders alike, but an increasingly ideological comedy community suddenly claims it can't find anything to laugh about when it comes to Barack Obama, a problem they mysteriously never seemed to have with previous presidents. President Gerald Ford was an ace football star at the University of Michigan, yet a few slip ups like this one caused SNL star Chevy Chase to create sketches like this one which had us all convinced that Ford was a bumbler. But if we thought our comedians were being equal opportunity mockers, the joke was on us. In an unusual moment of candor, Chase confirmed last year what conservatives had long suspected: comedians were acting less like an impartial umpire and more like a referee who kept throwing punches when the judges weren't looking. "I wanted Carter in and I wanted him out," Chase said of Ford and his relentless if hilarious attacks on the sitting President. "And I figured, 'look we're reaching millions of people.'" A nonplussed CNN interviewer tried again to make sure she had heard him right. "Wait a minute you mean to tell me that in the back of your mind you were thinking 'hey I want Carter and I'm going to make him look bad?'" "Oh Yeah!," Chase replied. Ronald Reagan's occasional napping and his seeming disengagement from the issues provided fodder for comedians and hilarious sketches like this one in which Reagan the foreign policy mastermind pretends to be the amiable dunce that Clark Clifford once called him. George Bush's mangled syntax and general awkwardness was all Dana Carvey needed to mock him effectively as he did here. Who could forget SNL's hilarious take on Bill Clinton whose outsized appetites for sex and fast food provided wonderfully funny moments like this one. Then there was Will Ferrell smartly capturing George W. Bush's cowboy impatience and less than perfect command of the English language here. But then along came Barack Obama and suddenly professional funny-men claimed in articles like this one and this one that they were suddenly unable to be funny anymore. Sorry, comedians of America, we don't believe you, and after Chase's confession, we really don't believe you. But for a moment let's just pretend you're not pretending you can't be funny in order to help him politically and you are, indeed, momentarily, truly comedy-challenged. Here are some suggestions from an amateur: * Obama as Erkel: He's black, skinny and, let's be honest here, a little geeky. Give him some suspenders and some glasses and you've got Steve Erkel. And when he gets on his bike and hikes up his pants too high, he begins to look like an all-grown-up Erkel. *The Gerald Ford Factor: No pratfalls yet, but if he keeps doing stuff like this, the bumping his head into stuff might work nicely. *The guy who tries to pretend he's working class but can't do working class things-like bowl and throws a baseball like a....well...not like a boy. *The guy who can't function without his Teleprompter. *The foreigner who hasn't been around the continental United States long enough and thinks there are 57 or 58 or 59 states in America *The elitist who asks for Dijon on his hamburgers , and asks country folk if they've seen the price of Arugula at Whole Foods lately. Americans love to laugh at our Presidents and if our so-called funnymen keep feigning an inability to speak humor to power-and make us laugh-we may have to find new voices who prize doing their jobs and keeping the jokes coming over advancing an ideologically-driven political agenda. More on Barack Obama
 
Goldman Sachs Seizing Homes Subprime Mortgages Bought Top
Goldman spent years buying hundreds of thousands of subprime mortgages, many of them from some of the more unsavory lenders in the business, and packaging them into high-yield bonds. Now that the bottom has fallen out of that market, Goldman finds itself in a different role: as the big banker that takes homes away from folks such as the Beckers. More on Banks
 

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