Tweet Talking

President Obama does it. So does Karl Rove.

So does Martha Stewart, Lance Armstrong, Miley Cyrus and Al Gore. Ditto Orpah Winfrey, Yoko Ono, Steve Jobs and Neil Diamond.

They all use Twitter, the social networking phenomenon in which userscan instantly communicate via text to friends, fans and family whatthey are doing or thinking at any given moment.

"I'm eating a bowl of Fruit Loops." "I'm walking the dog." "I'm contemplating a nap."

These are only a few of the fascinating messages you can give or receive if you Twitter. Or Tweet, as they call it. (Does that make the participants Twits? I'm just asking).

Personally, I'd rather read the fine print on my cell phone bill.

But I'm wrong, according to Time magazine. An article in that publication tells me that "Twitter turns out to have unsuspected depth. In part this is because hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds.

"The technology writer Clive Thompson calls this "ambient awareness": by following these quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines."

What does Time magazine know? It once selected Adolf Hitler as its "Man of the Year."

I don't have time to continually invest in the daily routines of my friends. And I doubt they would find an outpouring of messages about the mundane events in my life "strangely satisfying." If they do, they kinda creep me out.

Maybe it's my fault that I don't have friends or family that climb Everest or dine with Warren Buffet. But even if I did, I doubt they could convey the essence of these experiences in 140 characters or less.

I'm not alone here. The Nielsen research tells me that "Currently, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month or in other words, Twitter's audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month's users who come back thefollowing month, is currently about 40 percent."

And let's face it. Most of the stuff appearing on so-called celebrity tweets is written by public relations types and has all the substance of a bowl of meringue.

Examples:

Brittany Spears: "I want to thank everyone at the Mandarin Oriental in London for the hospitality this month! You made my boys and I feel right at home -Brit."

President Obama: "Hosting a town hall on health care reform at the White House today. Watch on ABC tonight at 10pm ET."

Elen DeGeneres: "A big margarita sure is refreshing, but to really beat the heat, watch my show for a chance to win prizes! "

Michelle Wie: "Did you know that babies are born without knee caps? Weird!"

On it goes.

To give Twiter its due, it along with other social networking sites most certainly has played a role in the recent post-election protests in Iran. Indeed, it has helped keep the rest of the world connected to events inside the country as the Iranian leadership repressed dissent and the coverage of it.
And while we'd like to imagine that a tool designed to entertain attention-deprived adolescents will change the balance of power in the Mideast, it's not that simple.

First, it gives too much credit to the tool, not the people who use it.

Second, as foreign policy expert Evgeney Morozov told the Washington Post "...Whether it has helped to organize protests -- something that most of the media are claiming at the moment -- is not at all certain, for, as a public platform, Twitter is not particularly helpful for planning a revolution (authorities could be reading those messages as well.")

Some day down the road, Twitter will be superseded by some other networking device, perhaps some sort of "Star Trek" transporter system so you can actually stand by while your friend brushes his teeth or buys a loaf of bread.

In the meetime, beware of how you tweet.

A story making the rounds on the Internet tells of a guy who just got a job with Cisco, the giant technology firm. He tweeted, "Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work." His tweet caught the attention of a Cisco employee. To which he responded: "Who is the hiring manager. I'm sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web."

All the Answers

Just about the time I decided that the Internet, the great technological leap of the late 20th century, was becoming nothing more than a repository for political extremism, pornography and spam, a ray of hope appeared.

Someone, I learned, has actually developed a website that will makeyour decisions for you.

What great news. No more wondering what to wear, what to eat, who to date, what religion to follow, where to vacation. No more wondering what scarymovie to watch, where to live in San Antonio, Texas, how to politely bypass a Greenpeace volunteer.

Hunch.Com will make those decisions for you, leaving lots of time to, well, vegetate I guess.

All you have to do is buy into the concept and your problems are solved.

The idea is novel but the execution is a bit scary. Hunch asks its clients question, hundreds of them, to determine what kind of person you are.

Once they have you figured out, they base their answers to your dilemmas on what they know about you and people like you.

The questions are much like you find on personality tests that employers administer to prospective hires, some obvious in their intent,others less so.

If you saw a guy you thought was a jerk accidently drop a wad of cash on the sidewalk, would you (a) return it (b) think about it or (c)keep it because the guy is a chowderhead.

OK, that goes to character. I get that. But it also asks if I believe aliens live among us, whether I fold my underwear, if I everbroke a bad habit and if I wet my toothbrush before I use it. (For the record, I answered no, sometimes, yes and absolutely).

The scary part: Aside from dispensing advice, what do they do with this information?

The Hunch folks promise they won't sell it to to marketers. But promises get broken. And there are other dark uses for this information.

I'm waiting for the knock on the door some moonless night by government sleuths who will inform me that my "wet toothbrush" answer pegged me as a terrorist.

So despite some misgivings, I decided to give it a try in the interest of journalistic inquiry.

After I asked a few random questions, I was told the following: I am not genius (I've heard that from my wife), I should run for public office (and face a pack of rabid journalists? No thanks) , root for the Denver Broncos or the Washington Redskins (actually, I'm a Pittsburgh Steelers fan), drink Cabarnet Sauvignon (I lean toward Zinfadels), play golf (I do) and live in North Hollywood (settle down in a faceless subway stop? No thanks).

I can't say any of these answers lit the way for me. Maybe something a little more esoteric.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken: "If you want a chicken egg, your best bet is to start with a chicken. If you start with an egg you might end up with a lizard or something."

What gender am I? "You identify more with males. You may been seen as more male or enjoy more activities that are associated with the male gender." (But there was an 18 per cent chance I was female).

What profession is best for me? Interior design (early Ikea is a personal favorite), followed by advertising executive or agent.

Should I become a writer? "Unless you write teen fiction with wizards, wolves, or witches; diet books; exploit the hopes of people of faith; or self-help guides, you're probably not going to have a best seller this decade."
-
Come to think of it, I think I'll follow the old fashioned method in reaching a decision: Always trust your first instinct.

Good Luck, Grads

The chances of landing a decent job are about as good as finding
weapons of mass destruction in the Iraqi desert." --- Will Ferrell,
speaking to Harvard grads, 2003.



Congratulations, 2009 graduates. Let me shower you with a few
feel-good commencement cliches: Today is the first day of the rest of your
life. Live for others, not just yourselves And as you go forth into the world,
always reach for the stars.

So much for the pleasantries. Now, let's get real. The job market
stinks. It's 10 times worse than it was when Will Ferrell spoke.

The best advice I can give you is to prepare yourselves for the
future is to get use to the idea of living with your parents again.

This especially true if you majored in art history, philosophy or
comparitive literature. For you, telemarketing, poultry processing or
roofing await you as career paths. If they're hiring.

Of course, if you're a former beauty queen, you can always get a
job as a TV reporter covering the mayor of Los Angeles. But I advise against
it. It never seems to turn our well.



"Your families are extremely proud of you. You can't imagine the
sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most
opportune time to ask for money." --- Gary Bolding



According to a survey from National Association of Colleges and
Employers, the class of 2009 is leaving campus with fewer jobs in hand than
their 2008 counterparts. The group found that just 19.7 percent of 2009
graduates who applied for a job actually have one.

In comparison, 51 percent of those graduating in 2007 and 26
percent of those graduating in 2008 who had applied for a job had one in hand by
the time of graduation.

One career counselor put it this way: "The bad news is this is
the worst job market I've seen, and I've been in career development
for 30 years.

"On the other hand, when the job market is tight, new
college graduates will find that while it is competitive, they have
the advantage of being a cheaper source of labor. The workers that
are being laid off by these companies are often more experienced and
so have higher wages."

That's comforting news. If you work, prepare to work dirt cheap.
And don't forget to step over the bodies of former employees on your way
in the door.

Meanwhile, more students are graduating from college, according to
the National Center for Education Statistics. Colleges and universities
will grant an estimated 1,585,000 bachelor's degrees this school year, up
from 1,544,000 in the 2007-2008 year and 1,506,000 the prior year.

It could be worse. In China, 6.1 million graduates have been
searching high and low for work the past few months. But they join an
estimated two to three million graduates from previous years who still haven't found
jobs.


"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." --- Milton Berle


"...You must knock on doors until your knuckles bleed. Doors will
slam in your face. You must pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and knock
again. It's the only way to achieve your goals in life." --- Michael Uslan,
film producer.



The employment outlook is not all bad, some career counselors say.
Despite cutbacks in finance, retail, manufacturing and construction, demand
for recent graduates remains high in fields such as accounting, public
service, health care, education and technology.

And look at it this way. Your job prospects are a lot better than
they would be if you hadn't gotten that degree. Without it, your career is
on the fast track to fast food.

A couple more words of advice from one who's been there: Life is
not fair, get use to it. Business cycles don't last a lifetime. You can
expect to work until mid century and beyond so be patient. Most people have
to work their way up. Unless Daddy runs a hedge fund, start small but get
started.

And last but not least: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end
up working for one.


"All that stands between the graduate and the top of the ladder is
the ladder." --- Author Unknown.

Happiness Is a Warm Republican

Here's something to chew on (if you still can) as you slide into the Buick and head on down to the local eatery for the early bird special.

Americans grow happier as they grow older. And a recent Pew Research Center survey shows that this trend is holding true even as the economy tiptoes like a drunk on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

What's more, the survey found, the rich are happier than the poor, whites are happier than blacks, married people are happier than unmarried folks and, drum roll please, Republicans are happier than Democrats.

That's great news. Next time I need cheering up, I'll follow the sounds of laughter to a group of rich old white people with grins on their faces and McCain/Palin bumper stickers on their cars.

The findings equating Republicanism with bliss cut against the grain a bit. Some of my perceptions were formed at my first real job in journalism editing the letters to the editor at the San Francisco Examiner in 1963.

Even in those days, San Francisco was a bastion of liberalism. Come to think of it, San Francisco was probably left-leaning in 1863.

But I would estimate that 75 percent of the letter writers were from an audience that was older, conservative and unhappy as hell. So being young and impressionable, I came to the conclusion that when you reached a certain age, say 40, you became Republican and grumpy. And you wrote a lot of letters to newspapers.

---

Even today, if you want to know Republicans are thinking, you tune into the Fox News, which manages to maintain a high degree of outrage day after day. I mean, who would watch Bill O'Reilly if everyone was happy?

If you want to know what the Democrats are up to, you switch on Comedy Central where politics is a running gag. Head yuckmeisters John Stewart and Stephen Colbert draw ratings that would have made Walter Cronkite envious.

Maybe these pollsters equated humor with happiness. For example, former Arkansas Governor and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is a pretty funny guy. Democratic Senator Barney Frank from Massachusetts is about as funny as a North Korean nuclear test.

Nonetheless, my assumptions are apparently wrong, according to the Pew people. About 45 percent of the Republicans said they were very happy, compared with 30 percent of Democrats.

Republicans have been happier in surveys going back to 1972, the Pew folks say. That could be attributable to the fact that the Republicans have held the White House for most of those years.

But not necessarily, according to the survey. "Republicans tend to have more money than Democrats and as we've already discovered people who have more money tend to be happier," the report states.

Even adjusting for income, however, poor Republicans and happier than poor Democrats and rich Republicans are happier than rich Democrats.

Here's what the Pew people say separates Republicans from Democrats:

Republicans have more money, they have more friends, they are more religious, they are healthier, they are more likely to be married, they like their communities better, they like their jobs more.

Wait, there's more. Republicans are more satisfied with their family life, they like the weather better, they're more likely to feel that individuals - rather than outside forces - control their own success or failure.

OK, so that makes Democrats broke, friendless, single, sickly, atheistic louts who dislike where they live and work and feel manipulated by unseen forces. And, oh yeah, they complain about the weather a lot.

That sounds a lot like journalists.

The Pew people conclude that "there is a growing body of scholarly research, not just in this country but around the world, which supports the basic finding of these Pew surveys: that Republicans (or conservatives) are happier than Democrats (or liberals), and that these gaps persist even after basic demographic factors have been controlled.

"At least in the United States, this partisan happiness gap has widened in recent years."

I guess this means after the Democrats cure the ailing economy, conclude two wars, defuse the nuclear ambitions of rogue nations and provide affordable health care to all, they can start working on the Happiness Gap.

As for me, I adhere to the words of Albert Schweitzer:

"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."

The Road to Ruin

What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and
what's good for General Motors is good for the country." --- GM president
Charles Wilson in 1952.

That low rumbling sound you hear is Charlie Wilson spinning in
his grave. Fifty seven years after he uttered that famous line, he
wouldn't recognize the old place.

Oldsmobile and Pontiac have joined the Nash and Studebaker on the
slag heap of automotive history. Plants have been closed,
subsidiaries jettisoned, the workforce slashed. The stock, long a
mainstay of the family retirement portfolio, is flirting with a buck
a share. There is talk the company could leave Detroit.

What's good for General Motors these days is bankruptcy. What's
good for the country is to keep the company propped up long enough for it
to reemerge from its financial woes as a completely different entity.

Of course, General Motors is not alone. Chrysler is already in
bankruptcy. Ford is banking on electric vehicles to stave off an
economic nosedive. However, as Henry Ford once said, "You can't
build up a reputation on what you are going to do."

There are a lot of reasons bandied about for the decline of the Big
Three automakers. Poor management often marked by arrogance (see
Wilson's quote above), management/union relationships that make the
Israelis and Palestinians look like John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Failure
to recognize that the Japanese had a better idea. And products that
set new standards for lousy quality and bad design.

It is that last category that concerns us today. As we bid goodby
to the American auto industry as we know it (does anyone really think
Fiat will make a better Chrysler?), it's time to take a nostalgic
look back at the cars that helped sink Detroit.



The Corvair. What can you say about a car that gave us Ralph
Nader? To refresh your memory, this sexy, rear-engined beauty produced by Chevy
was a radical departure from the iron being produced in 1960. But it had a
couple of flaws: it tended to careen out of control on its own, its
single-piece steering column could impale the driver in a front collision and it
leaked oil like the Exxon Valdez. All of which made Nader a media star with
his book, "Unsafe at Any Speed." Alas, the Corvair is gone but Nader is
still with us.



The Edsel: Ford's folly was not so much a bad car as a bad idea.
Prededed by years of hype (There was even an "Edsel Show" on CBS
starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney and Louis Armstrong),
the car turned out to be nothing more than a bulbous Mercury with a stupid
grill. Even after 50 years, its name is still a joke punchline ("It looked
like an Olds sucking a lemon") and synonymous with failure.


The Vega. Chevy's attempt to take on compacts and subcompacts
like the VW Beetle, the Vega was initially popular when it was introduced in
1971. It was even Motor Trend's car of the year. Little did the public know
that the first time General Motors tested this car on the track, its front end
reportedly broke off from the rest of the vehicle. Buyers soon
learned that the body was prone to rust and the aluminum block engines could
overheat and burst into flame. Quality was nonexistent due to labor difficulties
at the Lordstown, Ohio, manufacturing plant. The recalls began to multiply
but customers didn't and it was off the market by 1977.

Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare. Rushed into production in 1976 as
Chrysler teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, the cars had a few problems.
"The engines would stall when you stepped on the gas. The brakes would
fail. The hoods would fly open. Customers complained, and more than three and a
half million cars were brought back to the dealers for free repairs--free
to the customer, that is. Chrysler had to foot the bill. But then even cars
that were mechanically sound started rusting." That assessment is from
none other than Lee Iacocca, Chrysler's main man at the time who coined the
phrase, "If you can find a better car, buy it."

Cadillac Cimarron. GM in its infinite wisdom decided to take a
world famous brand reknown for prestige and luxury and offer it up as a
humble, poorly performing compact. According to one source, the Cimarron,
introduced in 1981, was initially advertised as "Cimarron, by Cadillac" and
sales personnel were instructed by GM to not refer to the car as a Cadillac
and to inform customers that it was technically, not a Cadillac. It was, in
fact, a four-cylinder Chevy Cavilier priced twice as much as its sibling.
According to Car and Driver, current Cadillac product director John Howell has
a picture of the Cimarron on his wall captioned, "Lest we forget."

And last but not least, the Pinto. The Pinto, like the Vega, was an attempt to compete
with imported compacts and subcompacts. But the Pinto surpassed all others
when it came to failing both engineering and ethical standards.

It seems that the car's design allowed its fuel tank to be easily damaged in the event
of a rear-end collision which sometimes resulted in deadly fires and
explosions. This, and the fact that the doors could potentially jam during an
accident due to poor reinforcing made the car a potential deathtrap. When Ford
became aware of the flaw, it decided it was cheaper to pay off lawsuits than
to redesign the car. When all was revealed in a Mother Jones magazine
article, lawsuits, criminal (murder) charges and an expensive recall of all
defective Pintos followed. Although Ford was subsequently acquitted of all
charges, it paid several millions of dollars in damages and earned the reputation
for being the manufacturer of "the barbecue that seats four."

Panic in the Press

Just this past week, I performed a number of death defying acts,
each one so profoundly heroic that strong men trembled and weak men cried.

I left the house.

I withdrew money from an ATM machine.

I ate at a Mexican restaurant.

I attended a baseball game at Dodger Stadium.

I shook hands with people. And even hugged a few.

And I did it all without a mask.

Welcome to Life in the Time of Swine Flu.

I knew were were entering uncharted territory the other day when I
spotted a woman in the supermarket with at least two dozen bottles of hand sanitizer in her
cart, enough to wipe down the Rose Bowl.

Other than that, the only public signs of panic I've seen is on
the part of the media.

What we have had is an outbreak of out-of-control coverage.

"Swine flu-HIV could devastate human race" screamed a headline on
a UPI story.

"Flu Fears Spur Global Triage," pronounced the Wall Street
Journal. "

NBC's Robert Bazell said the government didn't "want people to
panic," but then panicked viewers saying "it appears to be an outbreak unlike anything we've
seen in our lifetimes."

CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked a Centers for Disease Control official,
"Is it time for people . . . to stop shaking hands and to stop hugging each other?"

Not to be outdone, Fox anchor Shepard Smith hinted the flu story
might be "just a distraction" from more serious issues." Another Fox host
darkly repeated Internet reports that "the government knows a lot
more than they are telling us."

Taking it even one step further, syndicated conservative talk show host
Neal Boortz played the terrorist and race card in one deft move: "What better way to sneak
a virus into this country than give it to Mexicans?"

Meanwhile in Great Britain, the London Independent thundered
"Prepared for the Apocalypse", describing Mexico as a "quasi-apocalyptic vision of anonymous faces
shrouded in government-issued surgical masks".

"Sore throat at breakfast … dead by teatime … how the last flu
pandemic killed 40 million," entoned the Express.

Then there was Vice President Joe Biden, saying he was advising
his family to stay off public transportation which prompted the Wall Street Journal to
observe, "Who knew Mr. Biden was talking about himself when he warned last year that Barack Obama
would be tested by crisis early in his presidency?"

On the network news last week, swine flu stories took up a
whopping 43 percent of airtime, according to the Project for Excellence In Journalism.

I would have guessed it was more like 93 per cent.

To be fair, not every media outlet went into hysteria mode. Many
approached the topic with healthy skepticism, reporting that more people die per year from
ordinary flu viris than from the swine variety.

And comedic commentator John Stewart put things into proper
prespective: "Swine flu ranks last on the list of things that can kill you in Mexico."

Truth be told, this was a tough call for a lot of editors.

Scientists and public health officials have been warning for years
about a deadly pandemic. The swine flu scared us in the 1970s, so much so that a massive
innoculation program was initiated which did more harm than good. Bird flu is still lurking
out there somewhere. We've been through the Asian Flu, the Hong Kong Flu and SARS.

Add to that a climbing death rate in Mexico and outbreaks in the
United States. Then the World Health Organzation ratchets up their alert staus to its second
highest level. The President of the United States holds a press conference in which he
expresses "cause for concern, not cause for alarm."

On the other hand, previous pandemic scares have been overblown.

This is not a story you assign to an intern.

The trouble will much of the coverage begins when anchors on the
24-hour-a-day cable news channels pick up the beat. They have a lot of air time to fill and
pretty soon begin to overreact to evey development while feeding on each other's excesses.

Mark Feldstein, a former correspondent for NBC, ABC and CNN,
explained it this way to the Washington Post: "Cable news has 24 hours to fill, and there isn't 24
hours of exciting news going on. If you scare people, they'll tune in more."

Besides, the media loves doomsday scenarios. Remember Y2K and Mad
Cow Disease?

Then when this hype gets spread on myriad social networking
networks, you have an information pandemic. As of Wednesday, Google listed 19,100,000 hits
for the topic "Swine Flu."

The trick for the media is to balance restraint with the need to
inform the public of an important story. It's a difficult act that sometimes gets lost in the
emotion of the moment.

The result is that the public loses faith in the media. In Texas,
when Fort Worth closed down every single school sending 80,000 students home, the governor
blamed "media hype."

We know that this particular chapter may not be at an end. Some
public health officials warn that the virus could mutate and that a real global outbreak
could occur.

If that happens, will the public view the media as the boy who
cried wolf?

That would make a bad situation worse.

At a time the media is expanding to include any and all voices,
which voice to listen to will become increasingly important.

Every Dog Has His Day

Look, I have enough things to worry about theses days.

Can I eat pistachio nuts? Are there Somali pirates in my neighborhood? What's going to happen to Phil Spector in prison? Do I have to learn to love Hugo Chavez?

Thankfully, there is one less furrow in my brow.

Bo, the Obama's new dog, has finally arrived.

This is particularly good news for those downtrodden Washington reporters who aspire to practice great and important journalism but instead have found themselves on the dog beat for the last several months.

Nobody ever won a Pulitzer covering dogs.

Nonetheless, speculation about the Top Dog has been rampant in the press since the Obamas announced after the election that their daughters would be rewarded with a pet.

Indeed, the identity of the dog was a story too big to contain.

White House aides told the AP that the office of the first lady arranged an exclusive deal on the dog story with the Washington Post. But celebrity Web sites and bloggers were abuzz with rumors of the first family's selection of a dog; one site even claimed it had pictures of the future first pet.

A Web site called firstdogcharlie.com broke the news, publishing a picture of Bo which it said was originally named Charlie, according to the Post. The celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com linked to the picture.

So much for the big White House unveiling. For an Obama team that ran a tight-knit press operation during the residential campaign, it was a sign of how tough it can be to keep the lid on things in Washington.

And they think they're going to keep the bank stress test results secret? Not in this dog-eat-dog environment.

But I digress.

Bo is a Portuguese Water Dog, which is not a CIA interrogation technique but a poodle-like animal with boundless energy.

The name was selected by the kids because Michelle Obama's father was nicknamed "Diddley." Bo Diddley, get it?

He is said to be pre-trained: Bo already sits, shakes, rolls over and Twitters. Like all things in Washington, his selection has been, well, dogged by controversy.

The Obamas said their preference was to get a shelter dog, but daughter Malia has allergies so they had to be more selective in their choice. This, of course, put the Obamas smack in the dog house with angry animal lovers who were lobbying for a rescued animal.

But it turns out Bo had been shown the door by his previous owner. So in fact he is a second-chance dog.

"Clearly our best hope was that he (the president) would go to a shelter or a breed-rescue group," said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. "He didn't do that, but he also didn't go to a pet store or puppy mill either..."

In fact, the Obamas didn't go anywhere. Bo was a gift from the Kennedy family.

If that's not enough, conservative icon Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker and possible Republican presidential candidate, told ABC news that he found all the hubbub over Bo "fairly stupid."

(Which is not as bad as Barney, the Bush Scottish terrier, who earned the wrath of Karl Rove and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rove remarked that Barney was "a lump." Putin said he feels a world leader should own large robust dogs, not smaller breeds. Wait until he gets a load of Bo.)

As White House pets go, Bo is a benign character.

Calvin Coolidge, a taciturn man if there every was one, had six dogs, a bobcat, a goose, a donkey, a cat, two lion cubs, an antelope, and a wallaby. The main attraction in his personal zoo, though, was Billy, a pygmy hippopotamus.

Herbert Hoover's son, Allan Henry Hoover, owned a pair of gators that were occasionally allowed to wander around the White House grounds.

Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection were Benjamin Harrison's two opossums.

To save cash during World War I, Woodrow Wilson brought in a flock of sheep to take care of the White House's groundskeeping duties. Old Ike, a ram, supposedly chewed tobacco.

The Bushes had a black cat named India. The name rankled citizens of the country of the same name to the point that many Indians named their dogs "Bush."

As for President Obama, now that the pet controversy is behind him, he can turn his attention to such mundane matters as a reeling economy, nuclear ambitions of rogue nations and terrorism.

And in the loneliness of the Oval Office when things get tough, he can recall the words of President Harry Truman:

"If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."

Stop the Presses

"HE who pays the piper, calls the tune."

Words of wisdom from centuries past still ring true.

If you don't believe it, ask Rick Wagoner, former CEO of General Motors.

The American public paid this particular piper billions in taxpayer dollars to keep his business afloat.

When he floundered, the public, through its president, called the tune. It was entitled "Hit the Road, Jack."

There is a place, however, where the piper adage doesn't always play. And you're looking it at.

In the news business, the advertising department, which pays the bills, not only doesn't call the tune - its members aren't allowed in the same room with the piper.

Reporters and editors determine content. No advertising types allowed. The news columns are not for sale.

Would you want coverage of the Wall Street crisis compromised or surpressed because banks and brokers buy ads in the paper? Would you want stories about salmonella-tainted food to go unreported because markets and restaurants spend a lot of money advertising in newspapers?

You get the point.

This has been holy writ since Ben Franklin was a copy boy.

But there is change in the wind.

If you didn't notice the dust-up at the Los Angeles Times recently, you missed what one Web site called the "defining moment in the waning days of newsprint."

With the blessing of the publisher (and none of the editors as far as I can tell), the Times printed a bought-and-paid-for story on its front page that was nothing more than a shill job for a new NBC television series.

It was ham-fisted, it was ugly and it was one of the most egregious violations of trust between a paper and its readers I've ever seen - and I worked at the Times for 33 years.

Worse, it was apparently done at the suggestion of the Times.

Several days later, the Times published another shill job, this time for a movie, that was made up to look like one of its sections.

I wonder if the revenue collected for these products offset the subscription cancellations that followed.

Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein said he decided to run the NBC ad despite newsroom objections because he was trying to ensure that The Times could continue to operate.

"Because of the times that we're in, we have to look at all sorts of different - and some would say innovative - new solutions for our advertising clients," he said.

Whether readers knew this was advertising or not was beside the point, said Geneva Overholser, director of the school of journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.

"Some people say readers are smart and they can tell the difference, but the fundamental concept here is deeply offensive," she told The New York Times.

"Readers don't want to be fooled, they don't like the notion that someone is attempting to deceive them."

All of us in the newspaper business are in survival mode. This paper is no stranger to furloughs, staff cutbacks and other attempts to keep our heads above water.

But, to paraphrase another saying, what good does it do to sell advertising and lose your soul?

Advertisers won't advertise if there are no readers left. And there will be no readers left if they don't believe in the integrity of the product.

I hope the Times' foray into deception is not a trend. The real path to survival for newspapers is a great leap forward.

While print will survive in some form, the industry needs to devote all its energies into producing a top-rate digital product. If not, it's just trying to sell buggywhips to astronauts.

Digital journalism is the answer not just because it's trendy but because it can do the job better than print.

Unlike TV and radio, which are stuck with people reading out loud, customers of digital journalism will get the best of all media forms, according to author and journalist Mark Bowden.

They can wade into any story that attracts them as deeply as they wish. Readers will gravitate toward prose, while those who prefer sounds and images can simply watch and listen. The digital report will not be locked into the strict chronological format of TV and radio news, but will be much more like a newspaper, which permits you to begin with sports and weather, if you wish, or go right to the editorials or comics.

Bottom line: More people read the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times online than in print.

Bottom line Part II: My morning routine now consists of reading this paper and the Times with my first cup of coffee in the morning.

With the second, I scan the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC and whatever outlet strikes my fancy via my laptop on the kitchen table.

If this old dog can learn that new trick, so can everyone else.

Gavin Comes Calling

Gavin Newsom, the man who would be governor of California, blew into town the other day, deciding, I presume, that while his heart may be in San Francisco, his potential voters are in Southern California.

Newsom is the Democratic mayor of Bombast by the Bay, perhaps best known as a prominent and vocal opponent of Prop. 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative that was passed by voters last fall.

It was a stance that cut both ways.

An infamous film clip of Newsom wound up on a pro-Prop. 8 commercial, in which he was seen grinning broadly and saying of gay marriage, "This door's wide open now. It's going to happen, whether you like it or not."

How that notoriety continues to play out for Newsom remains to be seen. Clearly, gays are a potent political force in San Francisco and a mayor who wants to keep his job had better be a friend to that community.

Gays are a political force in Southern California as well but not enough of one to have stopped the Prop. 8 movement. The initiative passed in every county here except Santa Barbara. That's territory Newsom would have to win to achieve election.

So chalk that up as one delicate issue on Newsom's plate. Another is that he's testing the political waters on the home turf of a potential rival, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Villaraigosa is nothing if not a photo-op. When it comes to visibilty, he beats Newsom hands down.

But on closer inspection, these two have something in common.

Scandal.

On Jan. 31, 2007, Newsom's campaign manager and former deputy chief of staff, Alex Tourk, quit after learning of a sexual affair the mayor had with Tourk's wife, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, in late 2005.

At the time of the affair, Rippey-Tourk worked in Newsom's office as the Mayor's aide for commission appointments.

After leaving her job in Newsom's office in August 2006, Tourk received $10,154 in catastrophic illness pay, which is usually reserved for those who are terminally ill, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

An investigation by the San Francisco city attorney cleared all those involved of legal wrongdoing.

Newsom apologized for the affair, saying, "I hurt someone I care deeply about, Alex Tourk, his friends and family, and that is something that I have to live with and something that I am deeply sorry for."

He announced that he would seek treatment for alcohol abuse.

In the meantime, Villaraigosa, prompted by a report in the Los Angeles Daily News, was revealing an ongoing, year-long affair with Telemundo anchorwoman Mirthala Salinas, which was widely believed to have triggered the breakdown of his marriage.

"I have a relationship with Ms. Salinas, and I take full responsibility for my actions," he said at a news conference.

Salinas was engaged in an enormous conflict of interest by covering the mayor for an extended period while she was sleeping with him, even broadcasting news of the mayor's separation from his wife.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Villaraigosa's admission cast a fresh shadow over his own personal conduct: He has two adult daughters born out of wedlock and his wife filed for divorce in 1994 over a separate affair for which he later publicly apologized. They eventually reconciled.

In the end, Villaraigosa dumped Salinas and won reelection, seeming to survive the scandal.
Salinas, her journalistic career ruined, disappeared from the stage.

At least, Newsom and Villaraigosa won't be able to point the finger of moral outrage at one another.

Politicians survive sex scandals, Bill Clinton being the most prominent example. But Clinton had the political capital to see himself through.

Newsom and Villaraigosa are asking us to forgive and forget at a time in this country when the public is outraged at the moral and ethical lapses of bankers, brokers and, yes, politicians.

That's asking a lot.

Perhaps that is why Sen. Dianne Feinstein, not exactly a fresh political face, is the instant front-runner if she jumps into the Democratic primary field for governor, according to a Field Poll reported in the Sacramento Bee. She comes out ahead of state Attorney General Jerry Brown, a former governor favored my many older voters but a mystery man to many younger ones.

Billionaire former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is the early leader for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. But she is so little-known that her favorability ratings among GOP voters lag behind Brown, a favorite liberal target for many California Republicans.

In a Feb. 20-March 1 poll of voter preferences for potential Democratic and Republican primary contests, Feinstein emerges as the clear voter favorite to date.

The 16-year U.S. senator, former San Francisco mayor and unsuccessful 1990 gubernatorial candidate is preferred by 38 percent of likely Democratic primary voters.

Brown and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are tied for second at 16 percent, followed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at 10 percent and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi at 4 percent.

Don't Pass It On

The Internet is truly a boon to all mankind.

If you want recipes for brussel sprouts, for example, there are literally hundreds. This is not a particular help to me since I like mine with an entire brick of Velveta cheese melted on top to disguise the taste. But there they are.

If you want a Rush Limbaugh bobblehead doll, it's there for the taking.

You can check your stock portfolio and then, with a click of the mouse, find the number for a suicide prevention hotline.

But there's a dark side to the Internet, one that I've been increasingly exposed to lately.

My inbox has been filling up lately with messages from well-meaning family members and friends who are anxious to share the Outrage of the Day.

Mostly, these consist of warnings of impending doom in the form of riots and revolution or tales of outrageous abuses of power by our elected officials that threaten our very way of life.

As if there isn't enough bad news out there.

We live in fearful times. Who would have believed our economy could be in the shape it's in now? And the finest minds in the country, so far, haven't been able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Against this backdrop, I guess we're ripe to believe anything.

Which gives birth to these kinds of Internet posts:

Example one: "Sources at the United States Embassy in Beijing China have just confirmed that the United States of America has tendered to China a written agreement which grants to the People's Republic of China, an option to exercise Eminent Domain within the U.S.A., as collateral for China's continued purchase of U.S. Treasury Notes and existing U.S. currency reserves!

"The written agreement was brought to Beijing by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was formalized and agreed-to during her recent trip to China.

"This means that in the event the US Government defaults on its financial obligations to China, the Communist Government of China would be permitted to physically take...land, buildings, factories, perhaps even entire cities - to satisfy the financial obligations of the U.S. government."

This immedialtely raises in some people's minds two horrific images: Chinese Communists and Hillary Clinton.

Outrageous? You bet.

Trouble is, it isn't true.

My first hint came when I searched the data bases of the New York Times, Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times to see how they covered this story.

They hadn't. Think what you will about the media, they're not about to blow off a story that would alter the economic, political and moral landscape of our country forevermore.

Not only has the State Department denied it ("there is no factual basis or substance to this report") the source seems to be a former radio host named Hal Turner who once claimed to have "Amero" coins which proved a secret consiracy to to merge the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a single entity.

Nonetheless, the eminent domain story spread like wildfire over the Internet spread by bloggers who didn't lift a finger to check its authenticity.

The real scary thing is that people were willing to believe it.

Example Two: Petition for President Obama:

"Dear Mr. President: We, the undersigned, protest the bill that the Senate voted on recently which would allow illegal aliens to access our Social Security. We demand that you and all Congressional representatives require citizenship as a pre-requisite for social services in the United States."

Really, Social Security for illegals? I can feel my blood pressure starting to rise. But again, not a word in the nation's leading media.

According to the Snopes website, which attempts to get to the bottom of urban legends, this legislation wasn't about giving illegal aliens Social Security benefits.

It was a proposed amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform act in 2006 which would have granted former illegal aliens who had since become legal credit for monies they themselves had paid into the Social Security fund while they were in the U.S. illegally.

The Senate, knowing a political hot potato when it sees one, voted to withdraw the amendment from consideration. Which means they killed it.

Indeed, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act never became law.

Example three: President Obama snubbed the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball honoring recipients of the Medal of Honor.

True enough. He didn't attend. Vice President Biden attended instead.

Obama didn't show up at any of the dozens of unofficial balls and galas sponsored by entities other than the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

He did, however, attend the official Commander-in-Chief's Ball honoring all U.S. service members, including Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipients, hundreds of wounded soldiers (and their families) from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and spouses of troops currently deployed overseas.

In fact, the American Legion issued a statement saing, "From The American Legion's point of view, the new President's absence was understandable considering the unprecedented logistical challenges presented by the vastly increased number of visitors to this inauguration and the necessary attendant security measures."

My advice: if you get an e-mail telling you to pass it on to everyone you know, don't.

Ed's Really Excellent Plan

If the folks in Washington are looking for new ways to combat joblessness and boost local economies, they need to look no farther than the San Gabriel Valley.

It is there that Ed Roski has come up with a one-man, sure-fire stimulus package. And it's beautiful in its simplicity.

First, announce you are going to build a 70,000-seat stadium and bring NFL football back to Southern California.

Nobody asked for it but, what the heck, Roski, a billionaire businessman, controls the land necessary to build the stadium in the city of Industry and already has a certified environmental impact report for the site.

The price tag: $800 million or so.

So far so good. Building a stadium would certainly create jobs as would having a fully functioning pro football team working there.

But even if a spadeful of dirt is never turned in pursuit of this project, it will directly and indirectly engage many dozens of architects, engineers, public relations people, bankers, bartenders and bureaucrats.

Never mind that the chances of this stadium getting built are about the same as me setting the pole vault record. The NFL isn't interested. Neither are the people of Los Angeles. It doesn't matter. Those working on the project get paid just the same.

Next, alienate people living in the surrounding communities.The city of Walnut has already filed a lawsuit to stop the proposed construction of the stadium. People in Diamond Bar are mad.

The Walnut suit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court accuses the city of Industry of approving the stadium without sufficiently reviewing its environmental impact. Neighboring cities "would realize significant traffic impact, noise, air and light pollution and other impacts that would jeopardize the health, safety and welfare of its residents," officials in Walnut claim.

The city of Industry and Roski's people disagree.

I think you see where I'm going here.

The suit immediately initiates the Lawyers Full Employment Act. Hordes of attorneys from both sides descend upon the issue to argue the merits of the case.

Motions are filed. Depositions are taken.

The attorneys in turn hire clerks, researchers, limo drivers, messenger services and pizza delivery boys to fuel their efforts.

Talk about trickle down economics.

But wait, there's more!

The citizens of Walnut are not happy that their elected representatives were late to the party in opposing the stadium. So they are filing recall papers against three city council members.

Help wanted: campaign managers, petition circulators, poll takers, vote counters, printers to grind out political signage. The possibilities are endless.

Of course, there are a lot of people in Walnut who support a stadium. When they get organized, they'll also be looking to employ a few good men, metaphorically speaking, to represent their interests.

And even more: According to the Los Angeles Times, the Walnut suit also claims that the developer's campaign failed to reach the city's large Asian population.

The suit claims that the city of Industry did not properly inform Walnut residents in their native language about the potential impact of the $800-million stadium. Although Industry knew that the stadium-entertainment complex would impact large Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Spanish-speaking populations in Walnut, it failed to provide notices for the project in any language other than English, according to the suit.

This, of course, opens the door to reams of paperwork necessary to notify the aggrieved populace in at least four different and diverse languages about the project. That requires a veritable United Nations to translate and communicate the appropriate information. Another job creation opportunity.

For the Roski plan to work, he must convince a current NFL owner to pull up stakes and move to Southern California.

Think that would result in a few bigtime lawsuits and the attendant employment opportunities? Is the Pope German?

So notify the Obama Administration. Ed's on to something. Our economic salvation lies in proposing outlandish stadia smack dab in the middle of communities that don't want them. It could cut the unemployment figures in half.

And what happens when the Roski NFL stadium plan falls through? Why, he'll build a giant retail center complete with office space, stores, theaters and restaurants.

Get your resume ready.

The Rose of Dodger Stadium

WE are lurching into spring, drought, depressions and doom notwithstanding.

If you don't believe it, daylight savings time starts this weekend.

That means it's baseball season, a mystical place where, at least for the time being, we can find relief from a world of Obamas and Octomoms.

Out at Dodger Stadium, the season is defined by two words. And I don't mean double plays, line drives or outrageous prices.

I mean Vin Scully.

Vincent Edward Scully has been the mellifluous and knowledgeable voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers for nearly 60 years.

He has been named California Sportscaster of the Year 28 times, he received the Ford Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, was honored with a Life Achievement Emmy Award for sportscasting and induction into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1995, and was named Broadcaster of the Century by the American Sportscasters Association in 2000.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of fame. There is talk of erecting a statue of him at Dodger Stadium.

Through the power of his voice, he has almost single handedly made the Dodgers one of the top drawing franchises in all of sport.

His popularity has crossed generational, economic and racial lines.

But he has been ignored by the Rose Parade.

If you've read this column in the past, you probably know that I've been on a three-year campaign to get Scully named grand marshal of the Rose Parade.

And the public agrees, if my mail is any indication.

So far I've come up a little short. In the last two years, the good folks at the Tournament of Roses have selected Emeril Legase, a TV chef whose career has deflated faster than a bad souffle, and Cloris Leachman, an 82-year-old actress whose most recent claim to fame was remaining upright on a couple of episodes of "Dancing With the Stars."

Vin Scully is a cut above the rest, which just so happens to be the 2010 Rose Parade theme.

Let's get a bandwagon going. E-mail tournament president Gary J. DiSano at rosepr@rosemail.org. Post on the tournament's Facebook page. Send them a copy of this column to: 391 South Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91184. Or call the tournament office at (626) 449-4100.

Play ball.




Despite two daughters, a wife, a sister and multiple nieces, I know next to nothing about women's fashions.

Most of what I've seen in print and on television seems a little out of touch with reality. Or maybe I just run with the wrong crowd.

Against this backdrop, my wife dragged me to a charity fashion show the other day, the first event of this kind I have ever witnessed.

I was exiled to a table with a bunch of other husbands, probably to make sure any comments I made didn't result in a socially awkward moment.

The models appeared to be about 7-feet tall, 6 feet of which were legs. They were poised and willowy, moving like so much warm maple syrup.

Rather like our new First Lady.

Michelle Obama is a Harvard Law School grad but for the first several weeks of her husband's administration, no one is asking what she thinks.

Instead, most of the conversation is about how she looks, a burden she shares, I suspect, with a lot of women.

But she is tall and graceful and appears to enjoy dressing the part, which makes her fair game to the fasionistas. Or fashion police, depending on your view. They've been waiting in the weeds since Jackie Kennedy occupied the White House.

Most recently, Ms. Obama was criticized for showing off her toned triceps and biceps in her first official photo as first lady.

"Post-Title IX arms," Robin Givhan called them in the Washington Post. Some are calling her choice of attire (she also wore a sleeveless dress to her husband's speech before a joint session of Congress), calling it too informal and out of season.

"Oh my God," Cindi Leive, Glamour editor, e-mailed the New York Times after the congressional episode. "The First Lady has bare arms in Congress, in February, at night!"

"The dress was so inappropriate for that occasion. This is not trend setting it is simply poor taste ... I was offended by the disregard for the other people in attendance. Good fashion is never offensive," huffed one reader.

I guess she should have worn a burqa.

Frankly, I never noticed that she wore a sleeveless dress. Had I noticed, I wouldn't have cared. And who makes up these rules, anyway?

But I did like the response from the White House: Social Secretary Desiree Rogers who said that Mrs. Obama's feeling is "If I want to wear no sleeves to hear my husband speak, that's what I'm going to do."

And for the record: In 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy wore a sleeveless black sheath to her husband' State of the Union address.

The Muzak Man

An icon of American pop culture is teetering on the edge of the economic collapse. And maybe that's a good thing.

Muzak Holdings, the maker of background music heard in elevators, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this past week.

If this is indeed The Day the Muzak Died, we will at last be free from decades of ear pollution that threatened to turn our brains to oatmeal.

No longer will we be subjected to romanticized versions of "Disco Inferno," "Stairway to Heaven" or "Mustang Sally" performed by the 101 Strings and endlessly piped into elevators, doctors offices, restrooms, grocery stores and bank lobbies.

No longer will we be put on hold for a half hour while some orchestra plays "The Sounds of Silence" or "Tired of Waiting for You."

In 1989, rocker Ted Nugent tried to buy the company for $10 million just so he could destroy it. One wag claimed the name was a combination of Music and Prozak.

For whatever else it may have been, Muzak had a dark soul. According to published reports, the company marketed a theory called "stimulus progression" which stated that a person's outlook could be altered with music.

Offices played 15-minute blocks of Muzak tracks that increased in tempo until the final song was so upbeat the workers found themselves happily toiling away when they normally would start to lag.

One man's manipulation is another man's brainwashing.

To give Muzak its due, it has in recent years moved away from the
"elevator music" approach to multiple specialized channels of music, including offering channels of commercially available recordings intended to match the targeted environment.

But live or die, the name Muzak will always be synonymous with music to slack your jaw by.

Pass me my I-Pod.



President Obama's speech to the nation in front of joint session of Congress Tuesday night was remarkable for two reasons.

First, it was a pep talk that Americans needed to hear. But at the conclusion of almost every sentence we were treated to the sight of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leaping to her feet to lead the applause. She looked like a jack-in-the-box that landed on a whoopie cushion.

After a while, it became a distraction. I stopped watching the president and focused on Pelosi, wondering if she was going to break out a set of pompons. Enthusiasm is fine, and I know she had to sit next to Dick Cheney for two years. But next time, Nancy, fasten your seatbelt. It's going to be a long ride.



To hear tell it, Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard showed up on Colorado Boulevard one recent morning, his chain saw glimmering in the sun, the stub of a half-chewed cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, and, aided by a pack of hired goons, started chopping down ficus trees.

I don't necessarily subscribe to this view of events but there's no debating the heated level of rhetoric over the city's tree removal ordinance. The city recently approved a plan to remove three dozen ficus and carrotwood trees and replace them with palm and ginko trees.

Businesses in the area have complained that the ficus trees have caused costly repairs to sidewalks and sewers. And, more to the point, obscured signs. There's a lot of evidence to support this view. Santa Monica, among other cities, has been yanking ficus trees and replacing them for years.

Advocates say the trees provide needed shade and beauty. No argument there. You have to wonder if a little more study would have resulted in a better solution such as better maintenance, better replacement choices.

Several council members said they felt compelled to stick with the original removal plan, since it is part of a phased landscaping plan that dates back to 1996.

So what? Nobody was asking the council to repeal the Bill of Rights. Just reconsider an ordinance. It's too bad patience didn't carry the day.

In These Uncertain Times...

RANDOM ramblings:

I did a highly unofficial survey the other night which I will nonetheless use to draw several major conclusions.

In a two-hour period, I counted at least eight television commercials that began with the phrase "In these uncertain economic times."

"Uncertain"? There's nothing uncertain about it. The economy is in the Dumpster, it appears to be getting worse, no one is sure what to do about it and instead of mounting a unified attack, our lawmakers are playing two-hands-below-the-waist political football.

That doesn't stop advertisers from playing on our fears. Which is nothing new. Our homes smell bad. Our laundry is dull. Our insurance is inadequate. Our dreary lives would sparkle with the right car, the right beer, the right deodorant.

We are continually reminded that we are one step away from the horrors of identity theft, restless leg syndrome and erectile dysfunction.

And now the economy. Send in your unwanted jewelry. Get rid of that timeshare. Borrow money against your next paycheck.

There's one firm, however, that is flying in the face of all this gloom.

An ad in the Los Angeles Times sports section last Sunday promised to free us from the surly bonds of bad news if only we'd slide behind the wheel of their product.

That product would be a Rolls-Royce.

---

Which is great if you can come up with the $40,000 or so you need to plunk down at the inception of the lease. And handle the $4500 a month charge,

You have to wonder how many potential Rolls owners are out there in the land of foreclosures and layoffs.

Then it became clear. That ad wasn't aimed at the rest of us. It had to be aimed at our professional athletic class. Who else could afford a ride like that?

Speaking of advertising, there's a new cult classic out there brought to you by the good folks who produce infomercials.

Infomercials are to art what burritos are to fine dining but the cheesy acting and corny products have endeared them to many who find humor in such things.

Most of them have on thing in common: They offer to cure problems you didn't know you had.

The runaway hit of the season is the infomercial for the Snuggie, a kind of blanket with sleeves that you wear as a robe. It promises to keep you warm on the coldest of nights.

The commercial opens with a Women in Distress, a staple in the infomercial genre. This particular lass is struggling to stay warm under a normal blanket. It's too small and as she wiggles seeking warmth she becomes entangled trying to free her hands to answer the phone. Her only alternative is to crank up the thermostat which emits dollar signs when she turns the dial. What to do?

The Snuggie to the rescue. No matter that this article of clothing makes you look like a Druid or a member of a cult that worships comets.

Why, they're perfect for the entire family and one size fits all. We see one Snuggie-adorned family toasting marshmallows by a roaring fire and another enjoying a sporting event from the stands.

Of course, none of the non-Snuggie crowd will have anything to do with them since they look like they may be conducting an Inquisition sometime soon.

This informercial has become such a pop culture stable that a couple of 20-somethings in Chicago are organizing a Snuggie pub crawl next month.

Their aim: To get 1,000 people wearing Snuggies to walk down Clark Street.

It may come as a surprise but journalists have a human side, at least on occasion. Take Gay Talese, for example.

The reporter turned author was running errands the other day, according to his New York Times blog, when he encountered a number of panhandlers seeking money.

Most of them held signs reading "Homeless. Please help."

Under the theory that everyone needs an editor, Talese decided their message needed an upgrade.

So he went home and printed out a new message for them to use: "Please Support Pres. Obama's Stimulus Plan and begin right here at the bottom ... Thank you."

At least one of the panhandlers reported that the new message boosted his daily take by $10 or $20.

Given the state of the newspaper business in this country, journalists may want to consider creative panhandling as an income supplement.

Water Water Everywhere

It was a dark and stormy day.

Snow fell on the San Gabriel Mountains. Mud flowed into Sierra Madre. A cold, hard rain pelted us without stop.

Suddenly, a press conference broke out.

It was none other than Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who picked one of the wettest days of the year to call for increased water restrictions and the adoption of a tiered water rate that would punish Department of Water and Power customers who fail to conserve.

Sprinkler use would be restricted, Hizzoner said, to two days a week under the proposal and could be cut to one day a week if the drought continues. The restrictions and rate changes could be enacted by spring if approved by the City Council and DWP.

Sometimes it's hard to take Villaraigosa seriously. He grapples with a city in perpetual gridlock while his transportation deputy cruises around town in a Hummer.

He calls for water restrictions while, according to a Los Angeles Times article, the mayor and several other top city officials have long been heavy water users themselves.

In Villaraigosa's case, even if he had made a 10 percent reduction at the two homes where he has lived since winning election in 2005, he still would have used nearly twice as much water as comparable properties in the vicinity, the Times article said.

But timing and track record aside, Villaraigosa is on target this time.

---

We are in a drought, a serious one. The Metropolitan Water District - the nation's largest water agency and supplier of wholesale water to L.A., the San Gabriel Valley and all of Southern California - has warned that it may be forced to cut water deliveries by 15 percent to 25 percent.

Court rulings to protect the delta smelt in the Sacramento River Delta and a prolonged drought along the Colorado Basin also have reduced Southern California's water supplies from Northern California and the Colorado River.

According to Bill Patzert, a NASA climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "Mother Nature is converging with human nature. With population growth and the decline in water there are the elements in the equation which you could call the perfect drought."

State officials are even more blunt.

"We may be at the start of the worst California drought in modern history," said Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources.

None of this should take us by surprise. I remember some years back putting bricks in the toilet tanks to cut back on water use and collecting water in buckets from our showers to use on outdoor plants.

We put water restrictors in the faucets. We learned to brush our teeth and shave without continually running water. We took shorter showers. We stopped hosing off the driveway and sidewalks.

Over the years, we bought more energy efficient appliances and used many of them at off-peak hours.

Now, it is time to relearn those lessons. And more.

Conservation efforts are increasingly focused on outdoor water use. That's because the majority of residential water use occurs outdoors.

A study by the Pacific Institute determined that outdoor water use could be reduced by at least 32 percent by using better irrigation schedules, smart irrigation controllers and drip irrigation systems. Further significant reductions could be made by the use of drought-tolerant or California native plants for landscaping.

The same study concluded that an estimated that 12 percent of indoor water use in California can be attributed to leaks. Since toilets use the most water indoors, replacing inefficient older toilets with newer, high-efficiency models would result in significant water savings. The report concluded that indoor water use could be reduced by 40 percent if everyone would fix their leaks, replace showerheads and inefficient toilets, washing machines and dishwashers.

Well and good. But will these efforts be enough this time? Or do we face brown lawns and dirty cars for the rest of our days?

The Pacific Institute concluded that California's urban water needs can be met in the foreseeable future by reducing water waste through cost-effective water saving technologies, revised economic policies, appropriate state and local regulations and public education.

That's a lot to ask for. But there aren't a lot of options.

In the meantime, enjoy the rainy season. It won't last for long.

Animal Acts

I love animals. I really do. With the possible exception of venemous cobras, flesh eating pirannahs, great white sharks and killer bees.

Come to think of it, I'm not crazy about large hairy spiders, mosquitos or bats either.

I lose patience, however, with animal rights organizations like PETA ( People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, not to be confused with another group calling itself People Eating Tasty Animals).

PETA has either raised the public awareness of animal rights or engaged in wholesale acts of terrorism, depending on who you ask.

I come down somewhere in the middle. They certainly have made the humane treatment of animals a compelling topic of discussion, if not debate.

But for whatever good the organization has done, it is often offset by acts of wholesale goofiness.

They have on occasion trotted out "Lettuce Ladies"' who appear publicly in bikinis made to look like lettuce leaves, and distribute information about the vegan diet. There is a lesser-known male counterpart to the Lettuce Ladies, called the Broccoli Boys. It is unclear how they dress.

In April 2008, PETA ponied up --- excuse me, offered --- a $1 million prize for the creation of "commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012." The announcement caused what the New York Times called a "near civil war" within the organization, since many of PETA's members oppose eating animal tissue even if no animals are killed in its creation.

According to one Internet report, PETA regularly asks towns and cities whose names, in its view, are suggestive of animal exploitation to change their names. In April 2003, they offered free veggie burgers to the city of Hamburg, New York, in exchange for changing its name to Veggieburg; the town declined the offer.

PETA also campaigned to have the town of Fishkill, New York, change its name, claiming the name suggests cruelty to fish. (The root "kill", found in many New York town names, is Dutch for "creek".)

If that's not enough, Chris Garnett, then a PETA youth outreach coordinator, changed his name to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com. Early in 2008, activist Rachel Feather changed her name to Rachel Fishinghurts.

Now, in its never ending attempt to appear crazy as a loon --- excuse me, I mean nuttier than a fruitcake --- the PETA folks have cranked up a campaign to discourage the consumption of fish by renaming them "sea kittens."

"Would people think twice about ordering fish sticks if they were called Sea Kitten sticks? the group says on its website.

"...Fish need to fire their PR guy...," the group explains. "Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone.

"You've done enough damage, buddy. We've got it from here. And we're going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it's time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?"

PETA has even set up a webpage complete with Sea Kitten Bedtime stories for the kiddies (example: "With no room to swim, and no chance for escape, Tara looks forward to the end.")

Of course, we already have catfish but apparently that doesn't have the same ring to it. And I guess we can next expect cattle to be called Bovine Buddies or chickens Poultry Pals.

There are several possible outcomes for this campaign: People will stop eating fish. People will start eating cat smothered in tartar sauce. People will stop taking PETA seriously.


Speaking of food, here is something else for PETA to worry about.

According to an article in the Kansas City Star, raccoon is making it to the dinner table.

Simply brine the meat. Soak it overnight. Parboil for two hours. Then slow-roast or smoke or barbecue to perfection.

Raccoons, the story says, go for $3 to $7 each, not per pound, and will feed about five adults. Four, if they're really hungry.

"Those who dine on raccoon meat sound the same refrain: It's good eatin, according to the article.

"Raccoon meat is some of the healthiest meat you can eat," says Jeff Beringer, a furbearer resource biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation.

"During grad school, my roommate and I ate 32 coons one winter. It was all free, and it was really good. If you think about being green and eating organically, raccoon meat is the ultimate organic food," with no steroids, no antibiotics, no growth hormones.

I'll take his word for it. The only raccoon I see here in the big city is roadkill and that takes the edge off my appetite.

A Cold Day in Hell

Imagine, if you will, a street the size of Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena packed with people, jammed sidewalk to sidewalk for blocks on end.

Then imagine that this mass of humanity is pressed up against a fence, impatiently awaiting an experience so important to them individually and collectively that they are willing to wait for hours in freezing weather for it to begin.

Add to this scenario complete ineptitude on the part of authorities to control the situation, leaving thousands of people angry and clueless as to what to do and where to go.

This was no figament of imagination, however. This was no training exercise. This was no dispatch from the Third World.

This was Inauguration Day, 2009, Washington, D.C.

A combination of official miscaluclations and inadequate response combined to a breakdown in order at half a dozen ticket locations, entrances and intersections around the Capitol before the swearing-in of President Obama, according to published reports and eyewitness accounts.

The result left as many as 10,000 people abandoned and outraged.

And we found ourselves smack in the middle of it.

We had traveled to Washington to be with our younger daughter who had spent her weekends working for the Obama campaign and wanted to celebrate his victory with us.

We had originally decided to pass on the swearing-in ceremonies, wanting to avoid the crowds and instead attend a few select events. But at the last moment, our daughter secured prime tickets for the oath of office ceremony from a friend who worked for a U.S. Senator.

So we rose at dawn, walked miles to the designated entrance for our tickets and waited in the 20 degree weather for admittance to the grounds.

The tickets were color coded. Ours were purple and there was a gate designated for people with those tickets.

I knew we were in trouble when we arrived. Thousands of people milled about, unsure of where to line up. A handful of cops at the scene remained mute, sipping coffee, uncommuicative. There were no amenities.

But we dutifully joined a queue that wound its way toward to the Capitol in hopes that we would be allowed onto the grounds.

Without exception, everyone near us had tickets. Most of them had worked for the Obama campaign in one capacity of another. A person near me was a political consultant from Palos Verdes Penninsula. Another was a volunteer from Michigan, yet another from Ohio. Many in the crowd had traveled from every corner of America to be there.

In the midst of anxiety and chaos, people remained good natured and calm, even when an ambulance in our area tried to make its way through the crowd to help someone who was ill. People tried to clear a path but there was no place for them to go.

A Washington Post reporter said she saw two door-size openings at the entrance for purple ticket holders. Once through those entries, people were supposed to be routed through lanes where Secret Service or Transportation Security Administration agents ran magnetometers.

About 10 a.m., though, TSA agents were standing idly because Capitol Police officers weren't funneling crowds through the gate, according to the reporter. The Secret Service said there were two dozen magnetometers at the checkpoint, each machine capable of screening about 400 people an hour. But some security officials say that wasn't enough.

At another section, according to reports, there was one gate for 100,000 ticket holders.

Several sources reported that the Capitol Police had turned down an offer of National Guard reinforcement and additional volunteers. They said they weren't needed.

The reason for the chaos remains a mystery to this day.

As the 11:30 inaugural ceremony time approached, people began to panic. Some scaled the fence to scream at the police. The crowd began to chant, "2-4-6-8, Open Up the Purple Gate" and "Let Us In!"

Fearing trouble, I maneuvered my family to the periphery of the crowd. It became clear we were not going to be admitted. My daughter broke down in tears. I held her and rocked her as I did when she was a child with a skinned knee. It was all I could do.

She wasn't the only one. Many of those around us cried and hugged.

Forunately for us, my daughter lived close by. We were able to make it back to her apartment and watch most of the proceedings on television.

As we watched, she signed on to a Washington Post web site where the D.C. police chief proudly announced that everyone with a ticket had gotten into the ceremony.

The swearing-in event wasn't the only bad experience.

The night before, we had attended a black tie event presented by the Illinois State Society. Security managed to take two hours to get everybody into the hotel. And nobody even asked me for a ticket.

That afternoon, our very own congressman Adam Schiff had scheduled a reception at his office. When we arrived, we saw lines of people blocks long who had apparently arrived to pick up their tickets for the Inaugural ceremonies. I called Schiff's office to see if they were aware of the crowds outside. They apparently weren't.

So it sounded like one lousy time, right?

Not really.

For those few days, Washington was Woodstock. People were friendly and courteous often in the face of frustration. More than 500,000 people showed up at the pre-Inaugural concert and more than a million watched the ceremony itself on the national mall. There were no arrests.

After dinner one night, a man and I struck up a conversation while waiting for our families at the door. He was African American and from the Virgin Islands.

"Look at these people," he said, gesturing to all the restaurant patrons. "All colors, all ages, all having a wonderful time."

He went on to tell me he was a former undercover narcotics cop from North Carolina who was astonished that crime had ceased to exist in town this particular week.

"This is truly historic," he said. "Let's hope this is the first day of the world we all imagined."

I agreed, shook hands and we went our separate ways into the night. Somehow, it didn't seem quite so cold.

We Regret the Error

Unlike Wall Street executives, journalists don't get $20 million bonuses for botching the job.

Instead, they are subjected to a sort of public flogging in the form of corrections that are displayed in print for all to see.

Some are minor. Others are so serious that the offending reporter might find himself working at Jiffe Lube the next week.

Whatever the case, we in the profession, while devoted to accuracy, find some dark humor in the corrections that appear in the publications for which we toil.

And this column, being no stranger to dark humor, has traditionally marked the passing of the year with some of more noteworthy mea culpas from the past 12 months. Many have been collected by Craig Silverman, a Montreal freelance writer and author a book called "Regret the Error." Others were sent to me by fellow aficionados.

We present them for your reading pleasure, hopefully in correct form:

Early exit: Sportswriter Dave Pratt offered up this explanation after he was found plagerizing noted Sports Illustrated and ESPN columnist Rick Reilly: "It was a Saturday and I wanted to get out of [the office] before noon."

Did They Get Anything Right?: In articles published on 23 and 26 May 2008, we gave the impression that Mr. (David) Gest had contracted a sexually transmitted infection and alleged that he had Liza Minnelli's dog killed without her knowledge. This was wrong. David Gest has never had a sexually transmitted infection and did not have Ms. Minnelli's dog killed. (Daily Mail, UK).

Current Events: The compilers and suppliers of our On This Day column deserve to learn a lot more about electric execution. The recidivist column wrongly stated that the first electric chair execution took place on July 7, 1890. In fact, it was Wednesday, August 6, 1890 in New York - ironically then known as the Electric City of the Future - that wife-killer William Kemmler became the first man executed in an electric chair. Although Dr George C. Fell said Kemmler "never suffered a bit of pain," a reporter who also witnessed the execution wrote in the New York Herald the next day that "strong men fainted and fell like logs upon the floor." (The Guardian, UK).

Current Events, Part 2: We said that, in the American TV drama "24," Jack Bauer, the counter-terrorism agent, resorted to electrocution to extract information. You cannot extract information from someone who has been electrocuted because they are dead. (The Guardian, UK).

Spell Check: In yesterday's column about badminton, I misspelled the name of Guatemalan player Kevin Cordon. I apologize. In my defense, I want to note that in the same column I correctly spelled Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarak, Poompat Sapkulchananart and Porntip Buranapraseatsuk. So by the time I got to Kevin Cordon, my fingers were exhausted. (Dave Barry).

Did He Enjoy the Film? A film review on Sept. 5 about "Save Me" confused some characters and actors. It is Mark, not Chad, who is sent to the Genesis House retreat for converting gay men to heterosexuality. (Mark is played by Chad Allen; there is no character named Chad). The hunky fellow resident is Scott (played by Robert Gant), not Ted (Stephen Lang). And it is Mark and Scott - not Chad and Ted - who partake of cigarettes and "furtive man-on-man action." (New York Times).

In the Pink: We have been asked to point out that Stuart Kennedy, of Flat E, 38 Don Street, Aberdeen, who appeared at Peterhead Sheriff Court on Monday, had 316 pink, frilly garters confiscated not 316 pink, frilly knickers. (Press and Journal, UK).

Family Values: Our article last Tuesday...pictured Mr. Eriksson in a hotel restaurant with a young lady. We wrongly assumed that the lady was an admirer and suggested that he was fondling her. In fact the lady was Lina, Mr Eriksson's daughter, with whom he was sharing a normal fatherly embrace. (Daily Star, UK).

Choice Words: A photo caption in the Oct. 22 Style section incorrectly referred to Bill O'Reilly as a "right-wing pundit." The Fox News host presents himself as an independent. (Washington Post). Note that the correction uses the term "presents himself" indicating a certain level of disagreement with O'Reilly's view of himself. Which reminds us of this classic:

An Oct. 1 editorial referred to Washington state Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Colville as a "classy candidate." This page regrets the error. (Lewiston Morning Tribune).

Skip the Salad Course: Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has apologized after accidentally recommending a potentially deadly plant in organic salads. The chef and TV presenter said in a magazine article that the weed henbane, also known as stinking nightshade, made an excellent addition to summertime meals. Henbane, or Hyoscyamus niger, is toxic and can cause hallucinations, convulsions, vomiting and in extreme cases death. (Reuters).

Dangers of Technology: The American Family Association's OneNewsNow site has a standard practice of using the word "homosexual" instead of "gay." They even set up a filter to automatically make the change. This didn't serve ONN well when a sprinter named Tyson Gay made news at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials. He suddenly became Tyson Homosexual when the site's filter got a hold of an AP story. The same thing happened several year's ago at a different publication when a filter changed the name of the airplane which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima to the "Enola Homosexual."

Dangers of Technology, Part 2: "Please note the important 4th writethru to SCOC-Cromwell which corrects the name of the former Supreme Court judge to Michel Bastarache, which had been changed to Bastard by a spellcheck error." (Canadian Press).
Food for Thought: The source who told us last week about Michelle Obama getting lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria must have been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. She was not even staying at the Waldorf. We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too...(New York Post).

Last But Not Least: Readers of the New Hampshire-based Valley News couldn't help but shake their heads. On July 21, the paper's lead story reported Barack Obama had called the situation in Afghanistan "precarious," but the biggest news was far above the fold: the paper had misspelled its own name. People were reading the Valley Newss.
"Readers may have noticed that the Valley News misspelled its own name on yesterday's front page," read a subsequent editor's note. "Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold themselves accountable for their mistakes, let us say for the record: we sure feel silly." (Craig Silverman).

Goodby to American Cars

Like many Americans, I am a certified car nut.

When I was young, I spent many a happy hour with pencil and paper doodling cars of my own design. When I got older, I'd ride my bike to the new car showrooms to pick up the glossy literature on the latest models every fall.

When I turned 16, my father bought what was charitably called a "business coupe" meaning one sun visor, no radio. It gave basic transportation a bad name. But I could get my fingernails dirty working on it to my great joy.

It is not surprising, therefore, that I've owned a lot of cars over the years. Among them: Fords, Chevys, Buicks and Chryslers.

Every one of them was a beauty in the eye of this beholder. And every one of them was flawed.

My first Ford burned oil by the barrel. The Chevy came equipped with a assembly line worker's coffee cup still wedged into the engine compartment. The Buick ran hot even when it was going downhill in neutral. The Chrysler was oversized and underpowered.

My experience was the rule rather than the exception. It didn't matter. We loved our cars. They meant freedom. They meant status.

We Americans were taught that if you worked hard you would get ahead and when you got ahead, you could reap life's rewards. What better way to show off those rewards than with some Big Iron from Detroit.

They were chromed, they were sleek. Even though they were built on the philosophy of planned obsolescence, we as a nation of automotive junkies kept coming back for another fix.

Now we stand on a precipice. The Big Three automakers, after years of mismanagement, are in Washington begging for money.

If they don't get a cash injection soon, they could fail, throwing millions out of work, something this economy can't tolerate.

Many experts put the price tag for saving Detroit at between $75 billion and $125 billion.

As dire as the consequences may be, many in Congress are taking the Rhett Butler approach. Frankly, they don't give a damn.

You could make the point that we should. Aside from the economic conseqeunces, Ford, General Motors and Chyrsler are American as apple pie. Preserving them is almost like preserving a part of our country's heritage. It seems like the patriotic thing to do.

Do I care enough to rush out and buy an American car? No. Most of them still don't measure up to the imports. Besides, it wouldn't make any difference.

The automakers are damned by their failure to innovate, cursed by a lack of vision, hogtied by outlandish union contracts.

Thomas L. Friedman, writing in the New York Times, gave another reason for the collapse of the industry.

"General Motors could make money only by selling big, gas-guzzling S.U.V.s and trucks. Therefore, instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency, productivity and design, GM threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers."

General Motors, for their part, bought a full-page ad in the trade publication Automotive News, apologizing for its failures.

"While we're still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you," the ad says. "At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs become lackluster. We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we lost adequate focus on our core U.S. market."

GM also says it "biased" its product to too heavily favor trucks and SUVs, and "we made commitments to compensations plans" that are unsustainable in today's auto industry. "We have paid dearly for these decisions, learned from them and are working to correct them."

I'm guessing it's too late.

The Japanese and European automakers have been filling the void for more than 30 years by providing reliable, fuel efficient cars to American consumers.

The imports, not Detroit, have become part of the American fabric. Who's won the last five Indy 500s? Honda, that's who. Who's building factories throughout the South? The Japanese and Koreans.

I didn't bat an eye when I traded my big old Chrysler in on a Datsun. Somebody had offered me an alternative to costly repairs and shoddy workmanship and threw in fuel economy as a bonus. It wasn't a hard decision to make.

Now, Americans will will be introduced to car companies like Tata from India and SAIC Motor Corp. and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. from China. Undoubtedly, they will likely follow the Japanese model and build factories in the United States because of the cost of transporting fleets of automobiles across the Pacific.

I'll miss American cars. They were the visible manifestation of America's manufacturing muscle.

But it's hard to shed a tear over an industry that became so bloated and self satisifed that it let it all slip through their fingers.