Stasia and Bob

We Moved

2008-12-28T21:33:00.002-05:00

Stasia and Bob decided to move to a new Blog. Please come join us @

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We look forward to seeing and hearing from you.

Bob and Stasia

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T10:50:00.001-05:00

I want to wish each of you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season.

Thanks for coming to the blog.

Bob and Stasia

In the "Stupid or Cool?" feature on gift ideas, what horror-movie staple is mentioned in the robot lawnmower review?

2008-12-16T12:18:00.001-05:00

CNBC Bonus Bucks Trivia
CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

Power Lunch

Question: In the "Stupid or Cool?" feature on gift ideas, what horror-movie staple is mentioned in the robot lawnmower review?

Get the Answer

A Robot Lawnmower that cuts your grass like a Roomba only $1,699

You might want to do something with this one Spray-On Hair

Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming

2008-12-14T11:43:00.005-05:00

Well worth reading and an excellent gift.

Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming

This book boils it all down for you into easily understood, sometimes amusing explanations, and illustrations. This is your roadmap into understanding global warming and will turn you into authority on the subject.

The book covers the work of IPCC Working Groups One, Two, and Three. While the reports of these three groups are available online, each is well over 700 pages plus appendices. Mann and Kump have boiled down the essence into five parts, with mostly two-page articles full of colorful graphics, for a total of just over 200 pages of engaging science (A'ndrea Elyse Messer)

The Obama Transition

2008-12-12T11:21:00.001-05:00

Moon sails close to Earth

2008-12-12T09:38:00.003-05:00

Looks like a great night for moon bathing.

The Moon is set to pass closer to the Earth on Friday evening than it has done for the past 15 years.

Moon sails close to Earth
The Moon is set to pass closer to the Earth on Friday evening than it has done for the past 15 years.

The Moon's elliptical orbit means its distance from the Earth is not constant.

It will be a little over 350,000km away as it passes over the northern hemisphere, which is about 30,000km closer than usual.

If the sky is clear it will appear brighter and lighter than usual, say astronomers.

Closest path

Friday's full moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons this year, Nasa said.

Its orbit is elliptical, meaning it does not follow a circular but rather an oval path.

It is currently approaching the point where this oval orbit is nearest to the Earth.

"It's only every few years that a full moon happens to coincide with the part of the Moon's orbit when its closest to the Earth," said Marek Kukula, an astronomer at the UK's Royal Observatory.

"What people will see is a full moon that's really bright and a bit bigger than what they're used to."

Psychological illusion

The Moon is usually about 385,000km from Earth, but tonight it will be closer at around 363,000km.

It will appear largest as it rises and sets, but this is a psychological illusion, Dr Kukula said.

"When it's close to the horizon, our brain interprets it as being bigger than it actually is, this is called the moon illusion," he said.

"The size may be striking when it's near the horizon," said Robert Massey of the UK Royal Astronomical Society.

However, he cautioned against expecting too much.

"The Moon may be brighter and may appear somewhat larger, but it's really quite hard for the eye to notice the difference; the eye will compensate for the extra brightness, it's not like going from night to day," said Dr Massey.

The Moon's brightness varies throughout its annual cycle, during the mid-winter in the northern hemisphere it can appear brighter simply because it is higher in the sky.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7779294.stm

The NPR Dancers...a Little Laughter

2008-12-11T14:51:00.002-05:00

In light of all the buzz about the NPR layoffs, this video is hilarious. One needs to laugh as we watch the economy spin out of control. Check out this dance troupe *perform* NPR.

Watch Video Here

Job and Spending Cuts Across NPR

2008-12-10T16:05:00.002-05:00

They don't even factor in the amount of independent freelance work that the two slashed programs; Day to Day and News & Notes relied on. So the fallout at NPR will have an impact on indies all across the country. As a friend said today, "Yes the economy will improve but not for awhile, and yes there is money to be made but you have to be willing to work 10 times as hard to find it." (and that person is in real estate sales...yikes.)

From Current.org

Job and spending cuts extend across NPR
NPR is eliminating 64 jobs to address a projected budget deficit of $23 million and confirming that Day to Day and News & Notes will go off the air on March 20, 2009. Most of the personnel cuts come from laying off staff of the two canceled series, NPR announced in a news release, but job and spending cuts extend across the company to reporting and production, station services, digital media, research, communications and administration. Twenty-one open positions will not be filled.

"With all of NPR's revenue sources under pressure, these actions were necessary to responsibly stabilize our finances and put NPR on a realistic path," said Dennis Haarsager, interim president. "It's crucial to realize that these programming changes are being driven by a loss in revenue, not relevance," said Ellen Weiss, senior v.p. of NPR News.

General Critical of Iraq War Is V.A. Chief Pick

2008-12-07T18:22:00.002-05:00

General Critical of Iraq War Is V.A. Chief Pick
NY Times

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, elevating the former Army chief of staff, who was vilified by the Bush administration on the eve of the Iraq war for his warning that far more troops would be needed than the Pentagon had committed.

In his choice of General Shinseki, which Mr. Obama will announce here on Sunday, the president-elect would bring to his cabinet someone who symbolizes the break Mr. Obama seeks with the Bush era on national security. The selection was confirmed by two Democratic officials.

General Shinseki, testifying before Congress in February 2003, a month before the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, said “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to stabilize Iraq after an invasion. In words that came to be vindicated by events, the general anticipated “ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems,” adding, “and so it takes a significant ground force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment.”

Read full article here.

Neocons, Republicans and War Criminals Rave About Obama's 'Team of Rivals.'

2008-12-07T15:43:00.002-05:00

Neocons, Republicans and War Criminals Rave About Obama's 'Team of Rivals.'
Better Than Cats
GNN

As Barack Obama’s opus, “Team of Rivals,” continues its rolling debut, the early reviews are in and the “critics” are full of praise for the cast:
“[T]he new administration is off to a good start.” – Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.
“[S]uperb…the best of the Washington insiders…this will be a valedictocracy — rule by those who graduate first in their high school classes.” – David Brooks, conservative New York Times columnist
“[V]irtually perfect…” – Senator Joe Lieberman, former Democrat and John McCain’s top surrogate in the 2008 campaign.
“[R]eassuring.” – Karl Rove, “Bush’s brain.”

“I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain…this all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators, and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign…[Hillary] Clinton and [James] Steinberg at State should be powerful voices for ‘neo-liberalism’ which is not so different in many respects from ‘neo-conservativism.’” – Max Boot, neoconservative activist, former McCain staffer.

Read full post here.

Sarah Palin's Writing a Book...in hick slang?

2008-12-07T15:34:00.003-05:00

I can just hear it now. Since Sarah Palin was a journalist (sports) she is geared to write a book. IF, IF, IF she really writes it, I hope her editor charges a fortune how about $200K to make up for the wardrobe and stylist during the campaign. Why not spread the wealth, right?

Oprah: Sarah Palin Is Snubbing Me
Huffington Post

It's not Oprah Winfrey's fault that former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin hasn't been a guest on her talk show yet! Winfrey declared, "I said I would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin when the election was over... I went and tried to talk to Sarah Palin and instead she talked to Greta [Van Susteren]. She talked to Matt [Lauer]. She talked to Larry [King]. But she didn't talk to me. But maybe she'll talk to me now that she has a [multi-million dollar] book deal."

When asked if Oprah will have Barack Obama on the show, she responded, "There's always an open invitation for the president-elect and first lady."

Read article here.

The Real Generation X

2008-12-07T15:30:00.002-05:00

The Real Generation X
Thomas L. Friedman
NY Times

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation,” that classic about our parents and their incredible sacrifices during World War II. What I’ve been thinking about actually is this: What book will our kids write about us? “The Greediest Generation?” “The Complacent Generation?” Or maybe: “The Subprime Generation: How My Parents Bailed Themselves Out for Their Excesses by Charging It All on My Visa Card.”

Our kids should be so much more radical than they are today. I understand why they aren’t. They’re so worried about just getting a job or paying next semester’s tuition. But we must not take their quietism as license to do whatever we want with this bailout cash. They are going to have to pay this money back. And therefore, we have an incredibly weighty obligation to make sure that we not only spend every stimulus dollar wisely but also with an eye to creating new technologies.

We not only need to bail out industries of the past but to build up industries of the future — to offer the kind of big thinking and risk-taking that transforms enormous challenges into world-changing opportunities. That is what made the Greatest Generation great. This money can’t just go to patch up our jalopies.

“Remember, this money will not be neutral,” said Andy Karsner, a former U.S. assistant secretary of energy. “We are talking about directing an unprecedented volume of cash at our housing, energy, transportation and infrastructure industries. This cash will either fortify the incumbent players and calcify the energy status quo, or it will facilitate the economic transformation we seek. The stimulus will either be white blood cells that will heal us or malignant cells that will continue to sap our strength.”

Read full Op-Ed here.

Boston Legal goes to Supreme Court over Alzheimer's sufferer's rights

2008-12-04T08:12:00.001-05:00

I am a fan of the show Boston Legal. For years the show has alluded to the mild cognitive impairment of Denny Crane (William Shatner) by referring to it as "mad cow". Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a transition stage between the cognitive decline of normal aging and the more serious problems caused by Alzheimer's disease. The show is going to address the issue of Alzheimer's directly. This week Denny was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Boston Legal is about a "whacky" group of attorney's that often take on real life social issues when clients walk into their office ready to sue. In this case, Denny wants to get the experimental Alzheimer's drug Dimebon. Dimebon is an orally-available, small molecule that has been shown to inhibit brain cell death in preclinical models relevant to Alzheimer’s disease. Dimebon is currently in a Phase 3 clinical trial. It is not legal to buy it for Alzheimer's disease because it is not approved by the FDA for this purpose. The show ended the week with Alan Shore (James Spader) gleefully announcing that the United States Supreme Court had decided to hear Denny's case. The issue--he wants to buy the drug, why can't he?

Hot Christmas Toys

2008-12-03T06:56:00.013-05:00

Bakugan Battle Pack is #1 in Amazon Games and Toys

Parents get ready. The holiday toy season is on the way. With no mega-toy this year, manufacturers are hoping to win over kids with a variety of choices. Toys expected to be bestsellers this year range from cupcake makers to the latest LEGO sets to a large, moving dinosaur. Take a look at the 12 toys likely to be top sellers this year, according to Toy Wishes Magazine.

Wild Planet Animal Scramble
Company: Wild Planet
Retail Price: $19.99

Animal Scramble has an electronic hand-held tagger shaped like a giraffe that asks kids to find four animals: a monkey, parrot, tiger and elephant. The giraffe calls out which animals kids should tag and tracks the amount of time taken to complete each course. (For ages 3 and up.)

Bakugan Battle Pack (Styles and Colors May Vary)
Company: Spinmaster
Retail Price: $4.99 and up

Bakugan is a game and television show. Both were launched in January 2008. The company says it is making 300,000 Bakugan balls every day to keep up with demand. The balls are like little marbles that open up to reveal an action figure. (For ages 5 and up.)

Crayola Glow Station
Company: Crayola
Retail Price: $29.99

The glow station lets kids color in the dark by moving a light wand across a glowing canvas. You can draw your own images or use the wand with stencils and patterns that come with the package. (For ages 6 and up.)

Jakks Pacific Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker
Company: Jakks Pacific (JAKK)
Retail Price: $19.99

Kids make their own gluten-free cupcakes in 30 seconds. Afterwards, they can decorate the cupcakes with frosting and sprinkles. (For ages 8 and up.)

U-Dance
Company: Hasbro (HAS)
Retail Price: $53.99

Taking advantage of the music-and-dance trend in toys, Hasbro created U-Dance. The device hooks up to a television and players wrap sensors around their shoes. (For ages 8 and up.)

Playskool Kota My Triceratops Dinosaur
Company: Playskool (HAS)
Retail Price: $199

Hasbro’s Playskool created Kota, a baby dinosaur that comes to life when kids climb and sit on its back. Kota moves, makes noises and chews on a green leaf that comes with the toy. (For ages 3 and up.)

LEGO Agents Mobile Command Center
Company: LEGO
Retail Price:

The LEGO command center comes with two cars, a plane and a boat. The center unfolds off of a flat-bed truck. (For ages 8 and up.)

Vtech - Sit to Stand Alphabet Train
Company: Vtech
Retail Price: $49.99

The train teaches toddlers letters, numbers, colors, songs and stories, but can also be used as a walker or ride-on toy. (For ages 12 months and up.)

Disney Pixar Wall-E Movie Exclusive 16 Inch Programmable Robot Ultimate Wall-E
Company: Thinkway Toys

The Ultimate Wall-E robot brings to life the character from the Disney-Pixar movie. The Ultimate Wall-E has voice and motion sensors and comes with a remote control. (For ages 6 and up.)

Take that Job and Shove it!

2008-12-02T15:45:00.006-05:00

I don't care if you are 38 or 58 you are living in one of the most opportune times you will ever see. Sounds crazy huh? Well they are moving the cheese (I know this sounds trite but it is true). If you keep looking for the cheese where it was you'll never find it. In other words, you can't keep looking for the cheese in the wrong place.

If you are new to this blog, I am the old dude here, Bobby D. Now I would call Stasia the young dudette but she is rather thin skinned so lets just say she is the YOUNG one.

Down below Stasia posted an article, Content Sharing or Slave Labor? I made the following comment:

The thing about Citizen Journalism is you can do it part time and make a couple hundred bucks a month. If you are really good you can make some serious dojo.

On the other hand, if you are really good you can probably get a job at the Huffington Post. Take a share of the VIG.

Now if you are a Citizen Journalist down here in Florida you can also make 18 bucks an hour doing some caregiving work. Ten hour days, five days, that is a bit more than $45 G a year. Add in the meager citizen journalism pay and you are getting near $50 G. (By the way, driving older people to the grocery store and taking them to the doctor is not hard work. You also end up with lots of free meals and other fringe benefits.)

Down here in South Florida you can buy a nice 3 bedroom townhouse with a garage in the neighborhood of $125 G.

Anyway, here is my question. How many journalist in this day and age make $50 G and get all the tax benefits of a sole proprietor?

Not to mention, once you get good at caregiving you hire other caregivers and take a piece of their action. Next thing you know you are making $125 G.

We live in America. You can think about all the people losing their jobs and wait until you lose your own. Or, you can become an entrepreneur. Once you learn a business you get to say these magic words--take that job and shove it.

Well now I want to elaborate.

Back in 1973-74 the stock market dropped by almost 50 percent (see: A Brief History of Stock Market Drops--the Last 80 years). New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy. People were losing their homes and we were in the middle of a monster recession. The world was coming to an end, Right? Sound familiar? It didn't get better for quite a while. By 1980, inflation was up to a annual rate of 15 percent, unemployment was around ten percent, and short term interest rates were over 20 percent. The world ended didn't it?

Ok, now to my point. I don't care if you are 38 or 58 you are living in one of the most opportune times you will ever see. Sounds crazy huh? Well they are moving the cheese (I know this sounds trite but it is true). If you keep looking for the cheese where it was you'll never find it. In other words, you can't keep looking for the cheese in the wrong place.

Now I suppose you want me to tell you where to find the cheese, but I am not going to do that. However, I will give you a couple of pieces of the road map. First and foremost, start maxing out your 401 K. Don't believe the crap you are reading out there. If you can't max out your 401 K with your current job, get a part time job. In 1974 and again in 1982 you could have put $10 G in any of a long list of stocks and made well over a million. Yeah a million bucks from one ten thousand dollar investment in a single stock. The list of companies is very long. An investment in Microsoft or Intel (later in the decade) would have done the trick.

Now what you need to do is start figuring out where the money is going to be. Hmm, who is the Microsoft or Intel of alternative energy? Forget about buying the computer, buy the company that sells what is in the computer. Forget about the utilities, start figuring out who is going to put a part in every wind machine or solar panel.

Ok, now I just gave you an idea about where you can start finding some cheese. Its in alternative energy. Maybe you are lucky and you can identify an early stage company that is going to be the big winner in the alternative energy field. How about you go beg them for a job and promise to work like a dog. Working like a dog is not so bad. Don't believe me? Well go find someone that works at Google. Why not find the janitor. He should be worth a few mill by now. Go find someone that jumped into CISCO, Intel, or Microsoft when they were in an old building down the street. CISCO started in an apartment.

Ok, for all four of you that read this blog go get some people in here to comment.

I have better ideas about the trends of the future and how to make some serious DOJO but I am not sharing unless I get an audience yelling and screaming at me.

How about we start with the student body at Drexel and work our way up to the real army--Penn State.

My mother was 66 years old when Microsoft went public. About $2 G would have gotten her to a million. You know a million is way to low. You should be thinking $10-30 million right now.

Oh yeah, right now buying Google is for suckers. You might make some good dojo but you won't find the cheese looking over your shoulder.

Outsourcing News to India

2008-12-02T14:16:00.003-05:00

Maureen Dowd's piece from Sunday was about newspapers outsourcing LOCAL news to India. This Op-Ed is so astounding...those kids getting ready to write for the Florida papers might as well quit and become computer science majors. An Indian reporter covering the Rose Bowl in Pasadena via the web and admitting she thought it was a food-related story first? I can't take it!!!!!

Penny for Your Thoughts?
Maureen Dowd
NY Times

I visited the future, and it was wearing a bow tie and calling itself “Thomas Edison.”

The newspaper business is not only crumpling up, James Macpherson informed me here, it is probably holding “a one-way ticket to Bangalore.”

Macpherson — bow-tied and white-haired but boyish-looking at 53 — should know. He pioneered “glocal” news — outsourcing Pasadena coverage to India at Pasadena Now, his daily online “newspaperless,” as he likes to call it. Indians are writing about everything from the Pasadena Christmas tree-lighting ceremony to kitchen remodeling to city debates about eliminating plastic shopping bags.

“Everyone has to get ready for what’s inevitable — like King Canute and the tide coming in — and that’s really my message to the industry,” the editor and publisher said. “Many newspapers are dead men walking. They’re going to be replaced by smaller, nimbler, multiple Internet-centric kinds of things such as what I’m pioneering.”

I wondered how long it would be before some guy in Bangalore was writing my column about President Obama.

“In brutal terms,” said Macpherson, whose father was a typesetter, printer and photographer, “it’s going to get to the point where saving the industry may require some people losing their jobs. The newspaper industry is coming to a General Motors moment — except there’s no one to bail them out.” He said it would be “irresponsible” for newspapers not to explore offshoring options.

He said he got the idea to outsource about a year ago, sitting in his Pasadena home, where he puts out Pasadena Now with his wife, Candice Merrill. Macpherson had worked in the ’90s for designers like Richard Tyler and Alan Flusser, and had outsourced some of his clothing manufacturing to Vietnam.

So, he thought, “Where can I get people who can write the word for less?” In a move that sounded so preposterous it became a Stephen Colbert skit, he put an ad on Craigslist for Indian reporters and got a flood of responses.

He fired his seven Pasadena staffers — including five reporters — who were making $600 to $800 a week, and now he and his wife direct six employees all over India on how to write news and features, using telephones, e-mail, press releases, Web harvesting and live video streaming from a cellphone at City Hall.

“I pay per piece, just the way it was in the garment business,” he says. “A thousand words pays $7.50.”

A penny for your thoughts? Now I knew my days were numbered.

Read full Op-Ed here.

Content Sharing or Slave Labor??

2008-12-02T13:54:00.002-05:00

Content Sharing or Slave Labor?

In response to the article -- 3 Top Florida Papers Extend Content Sharing -- With News Produced by FIU J-School Students

It is an interesting initiative from a multi-media perspective (just not enough journo schools getting in the game and offering courses in this area) and a fantastic opportunity for students to get real experience and bylines.

But this sentence truly disturbs me:
"This is going to be much more than an internship," Richards said. "For the students, it will provide not only a whole new level of education, but a whole new level of experience in journalism." And with all of South Florida's newsrooms hit by layoffs, he added, "It not only supplements what the newspaper needs -- it's a great practicum for the students."

OKAY that is giving unpaid jobs with awesome access to real news experience to students BUT they are replacing PAID journalists that have been laid off.

So what PAYING gigs at the Florida papers will there be when they graduate?

Plus newspapers will probably be paperless (oxymoron, huh) in 10 years anyway. So really these students are setup to go forth and prosper on the Internet, web journalism. And that is another part of the story that I think the reporter missed.

Why is everyone so scared to come out and say it...we have entered the end of the newspaper as we know it and given the economy...perhaps the demise of print will be sooner than later.

Citizen journalists, student journalists, free labor with some glitz and 15 minutes of fame????

It will be interesting to see who benefits most from this. I hope it is the consumer since it obviously doesn't create much hope for working journalists.

3 Top Florida Papers Extend Content Sharing -- With News Produced by FIU J-School Students

2008-12-02T13:35:00.002-05:00

Here ya go, Stasia.

South Florida's three largest daily newspapers are about to announce a new initiative in their three-month-old content-sharing arrangement, the launching of a news service with print and digital articles produced by Florida International University journalism students.

3 Top Florida Papers Extend Content Sharing -- With News Produced by FIU J-School Students

By Mark Fitzgerald

The South Florida News Service will launch in January, Earl Maucker, editor and senior vice president of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, confirmed in an interview Monday.

The news service to be run out of classrooms at FIU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication formalizes even further the news content-sharing arrangement between the Sun Sentinel, The Miami Herald, and The Palm Beach Post that was launched in late August. Under that arrangement, the three dailies can publish stories from each other's print newspaper and online news sites. The content sharing is limited to local news, courts, government affairs, police reports, and entertainment, with investigative series or other enterprise projects not part of the arrangement.

Each newspaper is assigning a professional editor to mentor and work with students, who will have a desk at the newspapers, said Allan Richards, the school's interim associate dean who will oversee FIU's participation in the partnership along with Teresa Ponte, its interim chair of the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting.

"This is going to be much more than an internship," Richards said. "For the students, it will provide not only a whole new level of education, but a whole new level of experience in journalism." And with all of South Florida's newsrooms hit by layoffs, he added, "It not only supplements what the newspaper needs -- it's a great practicum for the students."

The extension to a news service of FIU student journalists was a natural one, Maucker said. All three editors are long-time members of the FIU j-school's Leadership Council, and meet with its dean, faculty, and students on a regular basis. Maucker is the current chairman of the council.

"We already have Sun Sentinel bylines in the Herald, Miami Herald bylines in the Sun Sentinel and the Post, and we (editors) all got together and decided that since we already have this affiliation with FIU, what better way to have new voices reporting?" Maucker said.

"The South Florida News Service will bring in younger journalists, and it would, we believe, energize our own staffs," he added. "All of us have been into pretty aggressive internship programs already, and this would be another way to work with them."

The journalism school is creating two or three classes in multimedia journalism whose students will work on the news service, both producing stories they initiate and taking assignments, Richards said. Each class would have about 20 students, and be taught by the school's teaching veteran journalists Jane Daugherty and Mario Diament.

The news service would be somewhat similar to Medill News Service, which uses graduate journalism students at Northwestern University to produce news articles, but the South Florida service would have a decidedly local news focus, Maucker said. Many of the stories would focus on municipal coverage, FIU's Richards added.

In the joint announcement planned for Tuesday, Maucker, Palm Beach Post Editor John Bartosek and Miami Herald Editor Anders Gyllenhaal said the news service would provide the dailies with "a new approach to covering the community -- in stories, in video, in audio, in both English and Spanish."

"At a time when the news business is evolving every day, we can think of no better partners than the college students who will shape the media of the future," the editors added.

They said in a statement that the news service "will provide FIU students with an unparalleled education in print, video and multimedia journalism and further enhance the SJMC's standing as the powerhouse journalism and mass communication school in Florida."

FIU's Richards said the journalism school has recently been participating in several partnerships with dailies, especially the Herald.

After he and two journalism students returned from a reporting trip about HIV/AIDS in South Africa, students produced in partnership with the Herald a Web-only reality show about a person in Miami living with AIDS. Students have also produced pieces for the Herald's "Sixty Second Profile" series about notable Miamians.

The New York Times Hispanic Student Journalism Institute is also setting up a newsroom at the school next month.

Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P's editor-at-large.

Links referenced within this article

mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/mailto:mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com

Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003918219

A Brief History of Stock Market Drops--the Last 80 years

2008-12-02T12:13:00.001-05:00

Market Mayhem

There have been plenty of big selloffs in the stock market over the last month, but early on Friday Oct. 24, many market watchers thought it would bring the big one that would join other infamous days. For history's sake, however, the days since Lehman Brothers' chapter 11 have been momentous and notable enough. Here's a look at some very bad days and periods for stocks that got investors' attention over the past 80 years.

Crash of 1929
The stock market crash of 1929 saw the market fall 12.8 percent on Oct. 28, 1929, known as “Black Monday," but the market fell almost as sharply the day after. The crash contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s and many also consider it part of a two-decade bear market.

1973-1974
During this period of the Nixon-Ford presidency, when inflation was a major concern because of the first oil spike, the Dow went from its Jan. 11, 1973 high of 1051.70 to a low of 577.60 on Dec. 6 1974, a 45.1 percent decline.

Oct. 19, 1987
Known as Black Monday, or "The Crash," the Dow fell 507.99 points, or 22.61 percent, as part of a broad global selloff.

Oct. 13, 1989
The failure of a leveraged buyout of airline holding company UAL triggered what was then known as the "Mini Crash." The Dow fell 190.58 points, a 6.91 percent decline.

1997
The financial crisis in Asia, primarily in South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand, had its largest impact on the US markets on Oct. 27, 1997 when the Dow dropped 554.26 points, 7.18 percent, forcing an early closing of the NYSE.

Dot-Com Bubble Burst
The tech sector was hit hard as the dot-com bubble burst. The Nasdaq peaked at 5048.62 on Mar. 10, 2000 before beginning a brutal two-month slide. By May 23, 2000, it was down 37.32 percent.

Sept. 17, 2001
The Dow dropped 684.81 points (7.12 percent) on Sept. 17, 2001, the Monday the New York Stock Exchange resumed trading for the first time after the 9/11 attacks.

Robo-rat: creepy or exciting?

2008-12-02T07:30:00.001-05:00

Scientists in the UK have come up with a robot controlled by a bundle of brain cells taken from a lab rat.

They've linked the rat's brain neurons to a circuit board and have apparently got those neurons to actually control their creation.
It may be unsettling for some - conjuring up images of mad scientists - but the makers of the world's first rodent robot say their work could help determine why brain disorders such as Alzheimer's develop.

OT: Is ‘Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’ Unconstitutional? Some Say Yes

2008-12-01T23:30:00.001-05:00

I understand this post is a bit off track but the topic caught my attention and it should be a good one for getting the blood flowing. It could also serve as a diversion from the current sorry state of the stock market.

Here’s why: a handful of Con Law scholars seem to feel that the Emoluments Clause of Article I, Sec. 6 disqualifies Hillary Clinton from serving as Secretary of State, an appointment that arrived a moment ago. (Click here for part of the discussion, courtesy of the Volokh Conspiracy.) The Emoluments Clause states:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time . . . .

In other words (and generally speaking), if the emoluments (i.e., pay) for a certain cabinet position increase, all members of the Congress in office during that time of the increase shall be disqualified from later holding that position.

Is ‘Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’ Unconstitutional? Some Say Yes

According to Volokh, the Emoluments Clause is in play because the Secretary of State got a cost-of-living adjustment in January of this year, at which time Hillary Clinton was a senator from New York. As John O’Connor, the author of an 1995 Hofstra Law Review article on the Emoluments Clause puts it: “[U]nder a straightforward application of the Emoluments Clause, Senator Clinton is ineligible for appointment as Secretary of State because the emoluments of that office “have been encreased” during Senator Clinton’s current Senate term, and this disability continues until the end of “the time for which [she] was elected, or until January 2013.

Couple questions then: Does it matter if the pay hike was activated not by Congress but by the President? That’s what happened here — President Bush issued an Executive Order which raised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s pay. O’Connor, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, thinks not:

I do not believe it affects the analysis that the salary increase occurred as a result of an Executive Order or that the statute creating these quasi-automatic salary increases was enacted prior to Senator Clinton’s current term. By its plain language, the Emoluments Clause applies when the office’s salary “shall have been encreased,” without regard to exactly how it was increased.

If you think this would have come up before, you’d be right. President Nixon was confronted with it when he wanted to appoint Senator William Saxbe to Attorney General. The solution derived, called the “Saxbe Fix,” reduced the pay level of the cabinet position back to where it was before the hike. Later, Lloyd Bentsen served as Treasury Secretary after the “Saxbe Fix” legislation reduced the salary of that office to its level immediately before Senator Bentsen’s Senate term had begun.

And is the “Saxbe Fix” unconstitutional? O’Connor, who takes a rather literal reading, thinks so: “[T]he clause’s best reading is that an act of increasing emoluments renders members of Congress ineligible for appointment [to] the office until their respective congressional terms end.”

In the exchange, Eugene Volokh, no intellectual slouch himself, throws out some arguments as to why the “Saxbe Fix” might, in fact, be legal. But University of St. Thomas law professor Michael Stokes Paulsen, who’s done some writing on the issue as well, thinks not. He writes, via Volokh:

“A “fix” can rescind the salary, but it cannot repeal historical events. The emoluments of the office had been increased. The rule specified in the text still controls.”

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More Men Caring For Elderly Parents

2008-11-29T16:07:00.001-05:00

More Men Take the Lead Role in Caring for Elderly Parents
NY Times

When Peter Nicholson’s mother suffered a series of strokes last winter, he did something women have done for generations: he quit his job and moved into her West Hollywood home to care for her full time.

Since then, he has lost 45 pounds and developed anemia, in part because of the stress, and he is running out of money. But the hardest adjustment, Mr. Nicholson said, has been the emotional toll.

“The single toughest moment was when she said to me, ‘And now who are you?’ ” he said. “My whole world just dropped. That was the pinnacle of despair.”

Mr. Nicholson, 53, is part of a growing number of men who are providing primary care for their aging parents, usually their mothers.

The Alzheimer’s Association and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimate that men make up nearly 40 percent of family care providers now, up from 19 percent in a 1996 study by the Alzheimer’s Association. About 17 million men are caring for an adult.

Read article here.

Citizen Journalists on Mumbai Attacks

2008-11-29T16:01:00.002-05:00

Citizen Journalists are the new wave...not sure what to make of it all since I am what 'a journalist's journalist'? What do we call *real* journalists now? I applaud people for getting in on the game but do wonder what it means for the future and objective journalism.

Citizen Journalists Provide Glimpses Into Attacks
NY Times

From his terrace on Colaba Causeway in south Mumbai, Arun Shanbhag saw the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel burn. He saw ambulances leave the Nariman House. And he recorded every move on the Internet.

Mr. Shanbhag, who lives in Boston but happened to be in Mumbai when the attacks began on Wednesday, described the gunfire on Twitter — the “thud, thud, thud” of shotguns and the short bursts of automatic weapons — and uploaded photos to his personal blog.

Mr. Shanbhag, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, said he had not heard the term citizen journalism until Thursday, but now he knows that is exactly what he was doing. “I felt I had a responsibility to share my view with the outside world,” Mr. Shanbhag said in an e-mail message on Saturday morning.

The attacks in India served as another case study in how technology is transforming people into potential reporters, adding a new dimension to the news media.

Read article here.

U S Government has committed $7.4 Trillion to economic rescue

2008-11-24T20:17:00.002-05:00

If you were around in the late 1970s you will remember the monster inflation. Imagine the CPI going up by 1.5 percent per month. Don't be fooled by what you are reading right no, inflation is on the horizon. Figure 12-18 months before you start to see the momentum really pick up. Remember the .com boom? Remember Internet stocks soaring to prices in the stratosphere. Well you can expect some really ugly news in the years ahead on inflation. The only way for the Federal Reserve to stop inflation is to tighten credit and raise interest rates. Think that is going to happen anytime soon? No way. Once a trend gets in force it is hard to stop? Don't believe that? Well how about the current stock market?

Smart investors should be thinking about identifying good commodity based stocks and good gold companies. Its gonna get real ugly out there. Then again look at the bright side, when you are paying 6 bucks for a loaf of bread the price of you house will be going up.

The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

Source Bloomberg

Gay Marriage, Milk & The Twinkie Defense

2008-11-23T17:00:00.004-05:00

Marriage on the Rocks
Maureen Dowd
New York Times

Dianne Feinstein is not sure she’ll ever be able to watch the movie “Milk,” even though she’s in it.

There is 1978 footage of a stricken Feinstein in the opening minutes of the new Gus Van Sant biopic of Harvey Milk, her colleague on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the first openly gay elected official in American history. (Sean Penn soars as Milk.)

“I was the one who found his body,” the California senator told me Friday, on route from the airport to her home in San Francisco. “To get a pulse, I put my finger in a bullet hole. It was a terrible, terrible time in the city’s history.”

The movie, chronicling the rancorous California fight of gay activists against church-backed forces in the ’70s to prevent discrimination against gays, is opening amid a rancorous California fight of gay activists against church-backed forces to prevent discrimination against gays.

Milk was gunned down by Dan White, who had served on the board with Milk and Feinstein. White, an Irish Catholic former policeman and Vietnam vet, opposed Milk’s equal rights initiatives for gays. He resigned and immediately wanted his seat back, a move Milk helped persuade the mayor, George Moscone, to reject. White climbed through a City Hall basement window with a loaded gun and shot down Moscone and then Milk. (In the infamous “Twinkie defense,” White argued that junk food had left him stressed out.)

Read full Op-Ed here.