Cheap Tricks

My journalistic colleagues engaged in some high decibel howling recently over the news that Pasadena Now, an online publication that purports to be the pulse of Pasadena, was outsourcing its reporting jobs to India.

That's right, folks. The people who brought you sacred cows are now going to be covering the politicians down at city hall.

The reason? It's cheap. After all, since city council meeting are broadcast on the Internet, why not have some low-wage reporter half a world away armed with a laptop do the job?

Publisher James Macpherson sees it this way: "I think it could be a significant way to increase the quality of journalism on the local level without the expense that is a major problem for local publications. Whether you're at a desk in Pasadena or a desk in Mumbai, you're still just a phone call or e-mail away from the interview."

There are a lot of things wrong with this, of course. Accepting the bluster of a sitting politician at face value is nonsense (see George Bush or Bill Clinton), a nuance that will be lost on a reporter who has never been east of Punjab peering at a flickering computer screen.

And as any discerning reader knows, the behind-the-scenes arm twisting and deal making that precede a public political stance, be it a vote in Congress or one in Pasadena, is often more revealing and important than the vote itself. That kind of analysis isn't broadcast on the Internet.

Then again, expecting in-depth reporting at Pasadena Now is like looking for lobster amid the fish sticks.
The web site is mostly a compilation of press releases, hand out photos and parroting of local media, just the thing that a minimum-wage staff can crank out. It's not bad. It's just not going to shape opinions.

And Pasadena Now isn't even the first to embrace outsourcing.

Reuters began farming out financial news reporting to India some three years ago. The beginnings of an outsourcing move to China have already started, a place where the pay is even lower and the job pool even larger.

If that's not bad enough, Thomson Financial, a business information group, has been using computers to generate some stories since last year and is so pleased with the results that it plans to expand the practice.

By using previous results in Thomson's database, the computer stories say whether a company has done better or worse than expected. "This is not about cost but about delivering information to our customers at a speed at which they can make an almost immediate trading decision," said Matthew Burkley, senior vice president of strategy at Thomson Financial. "This means we can free up reporters so they have more time to think."

And what will they be thinking about? How they could any day lose their jobs to a land far away. Or worse, to a machine.

In the meantime, let's take this outsourcing idea and run with it.

I suggest we outsource the entire Pasadena City Council.

Think of how we could fill up the coffers if we farmed out these seven folks and cut back on their $1200 plus perks monthly salary. We'd live in a world free of pot holes.

Think of how free from influence and collusion our council members would be if they were thousands of miles away, operating in complete isolation from one another, perhaps in the Himalayas, far from those pesky constituents.

Think about how cheap elections would be. It would almost be like American Idol. No endless campaigning. No fund raising. One phone call or mouse click and, bang, we have a winner.

Mayor Bill Bogaard has been a fine leader but by outsourcing his job, we might find another Gandhi. Shirtless. Noble. And cheap.

OK, so maybe outsourcing won't get to that point. But I never thought I'd see media jobs shipped overseas in my lifetime.

I have a feeling we better learn to get use to it.

As an old Indian proverb goes, "If you live in the river you should make friends with the crocodile."

Almost True Confessions

I've done some dreadful things in my life. I've removed "do not remove" tags from mattresses. I've rolled through stop signs while turning right. I've used profanity, mostly on the golf course. I have been envious when an unemployed sign painter wins a $300 million lottery. I have visited Hooters and consumed chicken wings in vast amounts.
Pride, envy, sloth, gluttony, greed, lust, anger, I've dabbled in them all.
Now, thanks to the Internet, there is a place for me to unburden myself.
Sites like notproud.com, dailyconfession.com, grouphug.com and ivescrewedup.com, offer an opportunity to those who believe that confession is good for the soul to reveal their deepest secrets.
The postings sometimes make you laugh. And sometimes cry.
"I ordered a pizza for my wife and I but she was running late and I ate the whole thing and she had to heat up yesterday's leftovers," reads one.
"I'm going to break up with him because he doesn't spoil me enough. I'm spoiled. And I think I deserve it," reads another.
"I was flirting with a guy I met on line," confesses a poster. "We have been talking to each other for a few weeks. I lied about the real me - how old I am, where I live, etc. and pretty much expected the same from him. We got to the point of swapping photos and I told him to send me his and I would send him mine. I received it today. It was my brother. My 13-year-old brother! (I am 17). I have not yet figured out just what to do - I haven't told him or anyone yet."
"Everyone talks about the beauty of childbirth," says one woman. "My son was born seven days ago. He was the ugliest, blood covered, prune wrinkled, limp pile of purple flesh I have ever seen. I was mortified. Once they got him all cleaned up and swaddled - he looked much more like the images I had seen of newborns, pink and cuddly. I confess that I am embarrassed with my initial reaction, but with God as my witness, he was one ugly little cuss."
"I've tried to convince myself that I am in love with someone who is addicted to crack cocaine, but the truth is - I'm afraid to leave him for fear that he will hurt me more than he already has..." says one writer.
Another says: "A friend of mine was shot and killed last weekend, by a black guy. I've always been a bit racist, despite the fact that I knew a few very nice, caring, Chrisitan black people. But now that this has happened, I feel like I've just lost all respect for them."
"I am sorry God for not keeping that baby," a confession on ivescrewedup.com reads. "I had an abortion and had kept that secret for over 18 years. I am so ashamed. Please forgive me."
"I loved him so much, but he wouldn't talk to me," says another post. "So I said I had cancer and that I was dying. I would cry to him about fears of the future and dying and what I wish I could have done with my life. Eventually I had to tell the truth, because his mom wanted to call mine about a weekend with them. I hurt him. He has to see a counsellor now because Ive caused him so much pain. I want to cut my wrists, take pills, jump off something-because I know that I deserve this hurt, but it's killing me that he has to deal with it...I played him, abused him, took advantage of what a good person he was. Hours of late night phone calls comforting me. Hours of driving to get me. And I hurt him. And now, I wish I really did have cancer, because, to lie when Im so blessed, while everyone around me suffers, is the worst thing I could do. And I dont believe I deserve anything better."
Funny or tragic, the trouble with all of this is that it's a one-way conversation. Confessing your sins to a computer screen may provide some short-term help but it's not the same as talking to a priest, a therapist, or even a friend.
There's nobody there to say "you're normal," or "it's not as bad as you think," or "you're one sick puppy."
Then there's validity of the posts. In the case of the woman confessing to an abortion, the site is run by a pro-life church in Florida.
And then there was this one:
"I worked with a man we'll call Bill. I had a huge crush on him, and would tease him by wearing thong panties and flash him throughout the day. He was married and even has a daughter and I didn't care. Anyway, one thing led to another, and we had intimate relations. I don't really think we had sex, it was only oral. I have to apologize to his wife and daughter. Hillary, Chelsea, I am sorry. Monica."

As the Crow Flaps

It's been quite a week for singer/environmental activist Cheryl Crow.
First, she and her eco-buddy Laurie David got into a head-on collision with Republican Party political overlord Karl Rove at a White House correspondents dinner Saturday night that went something like this:
Crow and David, upon meeting Rove, urge him to take "a fresh look" at global warming.
"I honestly thought that I was going to change his mind, like, right there and then," David tells the Associated Press, revealing the depth of her political sophistication.
Both celebrities were guests of news organizations: Crow invited by Bloomberg News and David by CNN.
At one point, according to the celebrities, Crow touches Rove's arm and "Karl swung around and spat, 'Don't touch me.' "
"You can't speak to us like that, you work for us," Crow claims to have responded.
"I don't work for you, I work for the American people,' says Rove.
"We are the American people," says Crow."
"She came over to insult me," Rove says, "and she succeeded."
OK, these little misunderstandings sometimes occur, especially when influential and powerful egos get together over drinks. All is not lost, however. Crowe gets some publicity even while her cause gets lost in the hubbub.
Undaunted by her failed attempt to turn Rove into a tree hugger, Crow recently offered a couple of save-the-planet suggestions on her website that sounded like they came straight from Saturday Night Live.
"I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting," she wrote. "Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required."
And then, in game of can-you-top-this, she said she advocates "not using paper napkins, which happen to be made from virgin wood and represent the height of wastefullness".
Crow said she has designed what she calls her "dining sleeve" - a detachable contrivance which offers the user "the convenience of wiping his mouth on his sleeve rather than throwing out yet another barely used paper product". Crow's hairbrained ideas on environmental activism brought her face-to-face with the biggest media frenzy she has faced since she split from Lance Armstrong.
The press had a field day. Tabloids made it front page news. I actually saw several commentators on cable TV soberly discuss her toilet paper propsal as if it was a pending congressional initiative.
Crow later said she was only joking.
Maybe. Maybe not. But it says something about celebrity/activists that we believed she just might be serious.
There are plenty of celebs out there who are using their visibilty to do good deeds. Bono, Angelina Jolie, Oprah, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, have all plunged headlong into righting some of the world's wrongs. They follow in the footsteps of Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye and Elizabeth Taylor, among others.
But many go overboard. Others support liberal causes, or misery chic as some call it, which makes them suspect in the minds of many. America still suffers a hangover from a double shot of Jane Fonda.
Others -- Madonna comes to mind --- talk more than they know.
Cheryl Crow is a fine performer who unfortunately has confused activism with stand up comedy. Does she seriously think that making outlandish statements will actually promote serious discussion of global warming and environmental change? Does she think she can convert Karl Rove at a cocktail party?
For whatever good intentions she may have, Crow now teeters on the edge of joining the mostly ignored. And that would be a shame on such an important issue.

Progress and Other Abnormalties

Random thoughts.

Progess is good. Without it, we wouldn't have boom boxes, car alarms aand automated telephone answering services.
But I've got to draw the line with the latest hairbrained scheme cooked up by the folks over at Disney,
When Disney debuts its latest Winnie the Pooh series "My Friends Tigger & Pooh," on TV next month, the character Christopher Robin will be largely replaced by a girl named Darby.
Never mind that Darby sounds like a name for a leprechan. Christopher Robin was the centerpiece of A.A. Milne's charming stories around which all the characters---Pooh, Tigger, Eyeore, Rabbit, Kanga---revolved. Indeed, Chrisopher, who Milne patterned after his own son, was the only human inhabitant of the 100-acre wood where their adventures took place.
And now, some 75 years after Christopher and his friends first appeared in print, some chick suddenly barges in? Do I smell the unmistakable arorma of political correctness wafting over this whole affair?
What's next? Robin Curuso?
British author Hugh Fraser put it this way: "For a girl to intrude breaks the spell of the story. They aren't her toys."

A protest movement at Bringham Young University? It's as rare as a 50-year flood but those are the kind of hackles that Dick Cheney can raise these days.
Students and faculty at the conservative Mormon campus want the administration to withdraw an invitation for the Vice President to speak at commencement this month.
Citing his involvement in faulty intelligence before the Iraq war and his role in the CIA leak scandal, critics at the school question whether Cheney sets a good example for graduates.
But just in case you thought BYU was becoming a hotbed of radicalism, the university limited student protest to sitting on the sidewalk and carrying signs.
Then, according to one blogger, "As soon as 1:00 hit and the time for free speech expired, after an impromptu performance of the Star Spangled Banner by the BYU Democrats, men from BYU dressed in suits and sunglasses with Secret Service-style earpieces roughly rounded up all of the signage and banners. "You'll be able to use it all again. We're just going to keep it for you. So you don't carry it around campus, we'll take it to a safe place until the next designated protest."

Don Imus is an idiot. Not only did he allow his radio talk show to become a launching pad for racist, sexist stereotyping, he deeply hurt a bunch of seemingly nice kids from Rutgers who had overcome incredible odds to make the NCAA women's basketball championship.
To Imus, they were just "nappy-headed hos."
And thanks to him, their moment in the sun has forever been clouded.
Despite his characterization that he's a nice guy who did a bad thing, Imus is guy who once called basketball player Patrick Ewing a "knuckle-dragging moron," called the New York Knicks "chest-thumping pimps" and, after being asked what he had in common with Nat Turner, Malcolm X, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Latrell Sprewell and Al Sharpton, said "We all have 12-inch penises."
Nice guy, indeed.
To be fair, Iman is mouthing phraes that have been the hallmark of rap music since its inception. There has been outrage, to be sure, but not enough to clean up what is an unsavory art form, one that has morphed into an even worse life style.
And Iman's most severe critics don't posses spotless records. Al Sharpton once referred to "the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights," a disparaging reference to a Brooklyn neighborhood's Orthodox Jewish population. Jesse Jackson once called New York City "Himietown."
Maybe everybody involved needs to go off the air for two weeks. Or longer.
Iman can say whatever he wants but I have a feeling that his advertisers will continue to distance themselves from him and that his show will shortly be history.
Maybe that's not a bad thing. This country is a melting pot and its future depends on our ability to get along. One less voice that divides us won't be missed.
Iman once said, "My goal is to goad people into saying something that ruins their life."
Little did he know he was writing his own epitath.

Ring Around the Rosie

It has happened again.
Some months back, when actor/producer Mel Gibson made headlines by enagaging in an anti-Semitic tirade, then blamed alcohol for his remarks, I wrote that while Gibson may suffer from the disease of alcoholism, he suffers from the disease of prejudice as well.
Little did I know at the time that actor Michael Richards would come along shortly thereafter and spew anti-black venom at a comedy club that sounded like it was scripted by the White Citizens Council. I wrote that Richards had done the impossible: He made Mel Gibson look like Mahatma Gandhi. Sometime later, I criticized conservative columnist Ann Coulter for being shrill, bombastic, absolutely devoid of any sense of decency.
Then along comes Rosie O'Donnell.
Rosie, from her catbird seat on the daily televised gabfest called The View, has managed to make Coulter look like a learned pundit whose insight and analytical skills bring crystal clarity to complex issues.
Let me say this about Rosie O'Donnell. She's gifted comedian and has devoted much of her time to the care, feeding and education of children.
She is also the sworn enemy of Bill O'Reilly and Donald Trump for which she should receive our undying gratitude.
But somewhere along the line, Rosie has bought into some of the most outlandish conspiracy theories this side of the grassy knoll.
It's not unusual for a somehwat dark world view to emerge among the Hollywood liberal chic who see a lot of right wing secret agents lurking in the shadows, especially during a Republican administration.
Rosie, however, has elevated goofiness to a new level and doesn't care who knows it. Here are a couple of hightlights.
O'Donnell says she believes the Iranian seizure of British Royal Navy personnel was a hoax, intended to provoke a war with Iran. To underscore her beliefs, she writes on her blog in a strange mixture of haiku and text message shorthand:

"the british did it on purpose into iranian waters as US MILITARY BUILD UP ON THE IRANIAN BORDER
we will be in iran before summer as planned
come on people u have 2 c i know u can"

Never mind that almost all evidence points to the fact that the British were in Iraqi waters and that the Iranians were the provacateurs here.
But if that conspiracy isn't deep and dark enough, get a load of this one:
Rosie said she believes 7 World Trade Center had been imploded, in line with 9/11 conspiracy theories. "It is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved." She commented that she had no idea who might be behind such a deed, but argued in a blog entry that the building was blown up to destroy evidence of the corporate financial scandals at Enron and WorldCom.
We needed further evidence that Enron and WorldCom. were scams?
This particular theory moved the decidedly nonpolitical Popular Mechanics magazine to launch into an explanation of the events surrounding the destruction of 9/11 in a gentle attempt to question Rosie's engineering credentials.
By buying into 9/11 conspiracy junk, Rosie puts herself on the same wave length with those who believe the attacks were planned and carried out (1) the U.S. Government, (2) military mad hatters (3) the international Jewish conspiracy, (4) UFOs or (5) all of the above.
Along the way, O'Donnell has ripped the judges on American Idol for racism at the same time she was criticized for mocking the Chinese language while finding time to come to the defense of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, suggesting the government elicited a false confession from the 9/11 mastermind by "using torture, robbing him of his humanity and treating him like an animal."
It must be exhausting to be Rosie. Every way you turn, there's another conspiracy to reveal.
She, of course, has every right to speak her piece. And if ABC television wants to pass off street corner oratory as entertainment, so be it.
Maybe these people will all go away if I stop writing about them.

Guess Who's Coming to Edit?

The print journalism profession is engaged in so much soul searching these days it could pass as a parole hearing.

What does the future hold? Is there a future? Should we move everything lock, stock and printing press to a web site? But how do you make a web site pay, when news is available almost anywhere free of charge? What about blogs? Are they reliable sources for information? And what about citizen journalism? Do you want your newspaper written by the guy next door?

It is this kind of hand wringing that makes some editors attempt what can be charitably described as gimmick-based journalism in attempt to appear cutting edge.

Example A is the latest very public soap opera to be staged down at the Los Angeles Times.

As we join this episode, the Times has decided to turn its Sunday opinion and editorial section over to a "guest editor."

But the first "guest" down the chute is Brian Grazer, a Hollywood producer who, it turns out, is represented by a publicist who is the opinion editor's girlfriend. Questions are immediately raised as to whether Grazer received favorable consideration in landing the assignment.

The debate over the Times sometimes cozy relationship with Hollywood is re-ignited.

Accusations are made. Angry words are exchanged. Feelings are hurt.

The entire Sunday section is scrapped, opinion editor Andres Martinez quits and the "guest editor" program is relegated to the trash heap. In the middle of it all, the mud slinging and finger pointing by editors, columnists, pundits and academics reaches a threshold unmatched since the last presidential campaign.

Other "guest editors" whose work we will never see included Donald Rumsfeld and Magic Johnson. Honest.

And the Times, already staggered by a number of body blows delviered by its greedy corporate owners in Chicago, gets a black eye.

Indeed, the elevated volume of outrage coming from the Times newsroom is in direct proportion to the distain felt for their Tribune overlords, one of which is the publisher who signed off on this "guest editor" nonsense.

Worse yet, instead of becoming the source, the Times becomes the story.

There is no question that citizen voices play an important part in any news publication. There is good reading in the letters column. There is intriguing debate in op-ed pieces.

But I would no more let Donald Rumsfeld run my opinion pages than he would let me run the Department of Defense. Each job requires a professional.

And despite what you may think of journalists, there are skills involved.

Allison Silver, a former editor of the Times Opinion section, put it this way:

"No matter how clever and talented the invited guest is, the decision to go outside journalism suggests indifference to editing as a critical profession. It goes without saying that you wouldn't turn your Sunset Strip restaurant over to your mom for the night no matter how good a cook she is, or take the Jet Propulsion Lab away from Caltech and give it to CalArts to run, just to shake things up. But the newspaper was suggesting that any one of a number of smart amateurs could pull together a Sunday analysis section, given a little guidance. Professional experience and journalistic skill were deemed of secondary value."

The Times is not alone in this quagmire. Vanity Fair magazine is turning an issue over to Bono, the rock musician/activist, to edit.

Is this a trend? If it is, objectivity could be the victim. And the newspaper profession can ill afford that kind of problem at this time and place.

Card Tricks

Everyone has a special credit card memory. Mine involved coming into possession of a Discover card some time back.

I think some telemarketer misunderstood me saying "go away" for "OK" and it arrived unsolicited in the mail. I never used it, didn't want it, yet I was hit with a service charge for simply having it in my possession. If I didn't pay the charge, my credit rating suffered.

Getting rid of that card was harder than ordering prime rib at a PETA convention. It took months, but I eventually got it out of my life. My experience was exasperating. Others get caught in a squeeze that is life altering.

At a recent congressional hearing on credit card reform, Wesley Wannemacher, a Lima, Ohio resident, gave testimony that sheds light on shady practices.

Wannemacher described how he had maxed out his $3,000 Chase Bank card to pay for his wedding, then found himself falling further behind in payments. Despite pleas to Chase to work with him, the bank continued to pile on late fees and penalty fees, according to published reports.

Eventually, Wannemacher ended up owing $7,500 in interest fees, late payment fees, and overlimit fees on an original debt of $3,200. Even after making payments totaling $6,300, he still owed $4,400 in fees.
You might get a better deal down on the corner from Fat Tony the Loan Shark.

The credit card industry seems to get more predatory in its practices with each passing day.

They begin by targeting young people. You don't need to be a sleuth to figure it out. My two daughters, now both grown, continue to get dozens of credit card offers a year in the mail, a practice that started when they were in college, had no extensive work experience and no steady income.

In fact, a 2005 report done by Nellie Mae, the student lender, found that: 76% of undergraduates had a credit card but only 21% of college students with credit cards paid them off each month. Talk about hooking them young.

Then it gets worse.

A recent GAO report said that while credit was available to a wider range of consumers than ever before, fees for late payments and overlimit charges had doubled from 1995 to 2005, and that cardholders experienced rate increases to as much as 30 percent interest for missing a payment.

Worse, it is not uncommon for companies to charge interest and fees on money that has already been repaid.

Of course, the fee schedule is all spelled out for us.

My Capital One bill clearly states: "If the code P (Quarterly Prime), L (Quarterly LIPOR), C (Quarterly CD) or S (Banlcard Prime) appears on the front of this statement next to the periodic rates(s), the periodic rates and corrresponding annual percentage rates may vary quarterly and may increase or decrease based on the stated indices as found in the Wall Street Journal plus the margin previously disclosed to you..."

What's in your wallet? Jibberish, that's what.

The government has already taken some action regarding the credit card industry.

They passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act which actually makes some consumers more vulnerable to credit card companies looking to make money off late fees and less capable of seeking protection in bankruptcy court.

Now it's time to realize that it's the consumer, not the industry, who needs help.

Those recent congressional hearings brought promises from credit card issuers that they would ease penalties and simplify disclosures that few card holders read.

In other words, the fox promised not to go near the hen house again. But at least it was a start.
Congress now needs to assure that those promises are kept. And we, in turn, need to make sure Congress does its job.

After all, there are more than 640 million credit cards in circulation.
That's a lot of votes.

Once Around the News Cycle

NEWS: Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says Jesus would be appalled at how the United States has ignored the plight of the suffering and that he believes children should have private time to pray at school.

Edwards, in an interview with the Web site Beliefnet.com, said Jesus would be most upset with the selfishness of Americans and the country's willingness to go to war "when it's not necessary."

Views: What would really appall Jesus is the state of American political discourse, including invoking his name to underscore your own political ambitions. Talk about trolling for endorsements. And this from a guy who had to fire a couple of bloggers for their anti-Catholic rants.

News: Speaking of political discourse, a story written for the McClatchy Newspapers wonders if the 2008 campaign will test the privacy of candidates' personal lives.

Views: You mean beyond what we know already? Let's see, three Republican candidates have eight marriages among them (John McCain, two; Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich, three each). John Edwards lives in a lavish 28,000-square-foot house on 102 acres in North Carolina while decrying poverty. Hillary Clinton is, well, Hillary Clinton. If you believe the Washington Times and Fox News, Barack Obama was raised as a Muslim fanatic. Giuliani had a widely reported extramarital affair. Mormon Mitt Romney's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12. Stay tuned.

News: Speaking of religion, a company in Stockton is having priests bless bottled water and selling it as Holy Drinking Water. Price: 99cents a pop. The label warns that "if you are a sinner or evil in nature, this product may cause burning, intense heat, sweating, skin irritations, rashes, itchiness, vomiting, bloodshot and watery eyes, pale skin color, and oral irritations."

Views: There's nothing quite as special as the marriage of religion and entrepreneurship. Look at the bucks Mel Gibson made with "The Passion of the Christ." Look what L. Ron Hubbard did with Scientology. I read about a guy who was selling Ziploc bags of Israeli dirt for $20. And consider the folks over at Kentucky Fried Chicken. When they introduced a fish snacker sandwich recently, they asked Pope Benedict XVI to bless it. John O'Reilly, chief marketing officer for KFC, said the sandwich should prove especially popular on Fridays, when Catholics traditionally don't eat meat in the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday. What's next, communion wafers brought to you by Wonder Bread?

News: Why did it take the media so long to expose the shabby treatment of veterans at Walter Reed Hospital? Common Cause advocacy vice president Celia Viggo Wexler tells Poynter Online: "With all the cutbacks in both broadcast and print newsrooms, the emphasis on entertainment and `news you can use,' and the bottom line over solid, investigative journalism, there is little incentive for reporters to go the extra mile and find good stories, stories they might not be able to report because they take too much time or they may rock too many boats, or are `too depressing' for the demographic the news outlet is seeking to court."

Views: That's a popular sentiment but one that doesn't hold a lot of water. While megapapers like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times have the staffs, time and money to delve into big stories, cash-strapped and understaffed small papers have been bringing home the trophies as well. The Pulitzers for investigative reporting in two of the last three years have gone to Nigel Jaquiss of Willamette Week, in Portland, Ore., for his investigation exposing a former governor's long-concealed sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl, and to Michael D. Sallah, Mitch Weiss and Joe Mahr of The Blade in Toledo, Ohio, for their series on atrocities by Tiger Force, an elite U.S. Army platoon, during the Vietnam War. Which goes to prove that good reporters get good stories no matter what the external pressures are.

Fat City

IT'S lunch time. What do you feel like eating?

How about dropping by Ruby Tuesday for a colossal burger. That's two gigantic burger patties, melted American and Monterey Jack cheese in a presentation so big they plunge a steak knife through the middle of it to hold it together.

Don't feel like a burger? Try UNO Chicago Grill for a dish that fuses pizza with stuffed potato skins. "We start with our famous deep dish crust, add mozzarella and red bliss mashed potatoes," the menu says, "and top it off with crispy bacon, cheddar and sour cream." It's described as an appetizer.

Maybe Italian is more to your likening. Get next to the Macaroni Grill's twice baked lasagna with meatballs, described as "six layers of tender pasta stuffed with seasoned meatballs, three cheeses and Bolognese sauce."

Or this sounds healthy: Ruby Tuesday's fresh chicken and broccoli pasta. But they add a generous dollop of parmesan cream sauce and a layer of melted cheese, and you're eating the equivalent of two 12-ounce sirloin steaks, two buttered baked potatoes and two Caesar salads.

For dessert, waddle over to the Cold Stone Creamery for their Founder's Favorite - 14ounces of ice cream with pecans, brownie pieces, fudge and caramel.

These heart-stopping menu selections are brought to you courtesy of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization that describes itself as "a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy and sound science."

The center gained some notoriety as the food police a decade ago by analyzing popular dishes from restaurants and declaring the numbers "shocking."

Now, the center says, "... by today's standards, they appear almost tame. Restaurants now dish out even more calories, even more bad fat and even more sodium."

To bring it into perspective, savor this: most people this side of hod carriers, lumberjacks and aerobics instructors should try to hold their caloric input to 2,000 a day and their fat intake to 20 grams.

The Ruby Tuesday burger has 1,940 calories and 141 grams of fat.

The UNO Chicago Grill checks in at 2,050 calories and 48 grams of fat.

Macaroni Grill's lasagna delivers 1,000 calories and 20 grams of fat.

Ruby Tuesday's chicken and broccoli pasta tips the scales at 2,060 calories and 128 grams of fat.

And Cold Stone's Founder's Favorite hits 1,740 calories and 48 grams of fat.

It sounds like someone passed the Cardiologist Full-Employment Act. They haven't, but politicians, always wanting to appear alert and engaged, are calling for greater nutrition labeling on restaurant menus.

Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) would require larger restaurant chains to include calorie counts on menus. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) would require menus to include fat and carbohydrate amounts.

Hearings will be held. Testimony will be heard.

Such bills have already been introduced in 19 cities and states in recent years, but it apparently hasn't slowed down the onslaught of gut-busting menu selections.

I've got to wonder whether a guy (or gal) who plops down his hard-earned money for a colossal burger or lasagna with meatballs really cares about the nutritional data. If he did, he'd be ordering a salad. Dressing on the side.

Menu labeling won't solve the problems of obesity and diet-related diseases. But other than the fact that the restaurant industry will pass on the cost of labeling to its customers, it can't hurt either. Education often leads to better choices.

In the meantime, I'm off to Starbucks for a white chocolate mocha and a blueberry scone. What's that? It's 1,100 calories - or about as much as you'd get in a Burger King bacon double cheeseburger, medium fries and medium Coke, according to the CSPI.

OK, make that a dry bagel and a cup of tea.

Wrath From the Right

I had an e-mail debate, some time back, with a reader who took issue with me for describing columnist Ann Coulter as wishing to rain "death and destruction" upon her enemies.

I was scolded for mistaking her "sharp wit" for actual malice and told that she had never actually threatened anyone.

I pointed out that she once stated that "my only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

Not only was it not witty, it made the 168 people who perished in Oklahoma City in 1995 the punch line of a joke.

Did I believe she meant it? Absolutely. This is a woman who wrote of the Mideast that "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Shrill, bombastic, absolutely devoid of any sense of decency, that's Coulter. Her disdain for anyone to the left of Gen. George Patton manifests itself in a weekly rant thinly disguised as journalism.

Her most recent foray into tastelessness came in a recent speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in which she described Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards as a "faggot."

Aside from spewing derogatory slurs like so much buckshot, what point was Coulter trying to make? Absolutely none. It was just vintage Coulter viewing life through the prism of a frat house smoker.

This is not new territory for Coulter. Last year, on MSNBC, she said, "I don't know if (former U.S. President Bill Clinton is) gay. But (former U.S. Vice President) Al Gore - total fag."

Her remarks about Edwards were too much even for her beloved Republicans. Presidential contenders John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney all repudiated her remarks. She responded on her Web site: "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing!"

For the record, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, a lawyer, are happily married with three children. The couple lost a teenage son in an auto accident. Elizabeth Edwards has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is being treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Just the kind of target for Coulter's wrath.

She was the one, of course, who described the widows of 9/11 victims thus: "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. ... I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much ... the Democrat ratpack gals endorsed John Kerry for president ... cutting campaign commercials ... how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf-life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy."

I would take great comfort in discovering that I somehow assigned too much importance to Coulter in the grand scheme of things, that her views represent nothing more than baying at the moon.

But two things stand out. One, she's a best-selling author, which means there's an audience for this kind of bilge. And two, and most troubling, is that she represents the shrill and divisive tone that has defined politics in America in recent years. This country need less mud and more moderation.

Ann Coulter, of course, has every right to her opinions. So do Mel Gibson and Michael Richards and Louis Farrakhan and Pat Robertson.

But I've heard quite enough.

Holding the Mao

By ROBERT RECTOR

I was watching a golf tournament on a recent weekend when I spied a guy in the gallery wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.

The image of a Cuban Marxist revolutionary amid a crowd of wealthy people watching even wealthier people at play at a club whose green fees exceed most people's mortgage payment was, well, unusual.

Of course, Che is much more than a romanticized guerilla fighter these days. He's a full-blown pop icon whose image appears on coffee cups and baseball hats, all for sale at a tidy profit. Nothing says "boutique revolutionary" like Che on your chest.

But Guevara is not the only dead Marxist to get the rock star treatment.

The image of Mao Zedong, or Chairman Mao if you will, is the most reproduced in history this side of Jesus Christ, according to some scholars. His likeness adorns restaurants, taxi cabs, tourist trinkets of every size and shape. Books spin Mao's wartime survival tactics into management tips and hip-hop music recordings are made of his trademark theories.

It comes as a bit of surprise, therefore, that the city of Alhambra pulled an artistic Chicken Little act this past week and removed a painting of the former Chinese communist leader from a lunar new year celebration. Someone found the painting an act of "moral perversion" that makes light of a tyrant.

The city, acting in its own tyrannical fashion, decided the sky was falling, yanked the painting, and in the process touched off a loud debate over censorship and the arts. As a result, every artist in the exhibit packed up and left.

The picture in question was no heroic depiction of Mao. This was not the Mao of the Long March. Instead, it was Mao juxtaposed with George Washington, both their faces imposed on piggy banks. It was done in the style of Andy Warhol, whose original Mao portraits made him the darling of the pinot and pop art set some years back.

Adding fuel to this fire was the fact that the debate took place in the San Gabriel Valley, home to America's largest population of Chinese immigrants. Many fled the oppressive yoke of the Communist regime. Others, however, take a longer view, that Mao made China into a global power.

One wonders what kind of civics lessons the immigrant community received from the city of Alhambra.

In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech, which has been extended to a generous sense of "expression" - verbal, non-verbal, visual, symbolic.

In China, government censorship, while not total, is pervasive and highly effective, and denies Chinese citizens the freedoms of speech and of the press guaranteed to them in the Chinese Constitution, according to Congressional reports.

If those who are convinced that a fanciful portrait of Mao will somehow result in mass historical amnesia by the Chinese people, here's a suggestion.

Have your own exhibit. Get Mao off the coffee cups and into people's consciousness. Show how his Great Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number of citizens while creating economic and social chaos. Show how his Great Leap Forward economic reforms resulted in the starvation of millions of peasants.

Use our hard-earned freedom of expression to make your point.

In the meantime, Alhambra city officials should remember this point, made by scholar Sheila Kennedy:

"The government that can determine which ideas are worthy of consideration and which are not is a government with power over the most important of all human functions - the power of the intellect."

Prisoners on a Plane

By ROBERT RECTOR

LAST summer, I sat in the Denver airport for nearly four hours waiting for my flight to take off.

It was maddening. The entire United Airlines terminal was packed with angry travelers whose flights were on hold. There were no weather delays. There were no explanations.

But I was lucky. I waited in the terminal where there was fresh air, food and functioning bathrooms.

With increasing regularity, passengers are being held prisoner on airplanes for eight, 10, even 11 hours while they wait to fly. Air conditioning fails, flight attendants run out of food and toilets back up.

It happened on American Airlines when passengers sat for eight hours in Austin, waiting for heavy storms to dissipate in Dallas.

It happened in New York where some JetBlue passengers sat for 11 hours in a snowstorm.

It happened in Detroit when passengers sat on planes for eight hours because of weather.

And it culminated when JetBlue, through a series of admitted missteps, had its flight schedule paralyzed for nearly a week, throwing the plans of thousands of passengers into chaos.

Now, a "Passenger Bill of Rights" is in the works, being endorsed by frustrated travelers and politicians eager to make capital out of a bad situation. JetBlue, reeling from a public relations disaster, has introduced its own plan which would compensate travelers for delays.

So weather happens. Icy conditions and severe thunderstorms can cause delays anywhere, anytime. We've all been there. But it's how airlines are reacting to those unexpected delays that has become an issue.

Consider this from a JetBlue passenger: "The plane was like a `sound-proofed coffin' when the windows were iced over," she told CNN. Another said she and other passengers were getting testy because the flight attendants told them they couldn't hand out food or water until the plane had been grounded for at least four hours, citing a Federal Aviation Administration rule. At least two of the passengers were diabetic.

Another passenger said there was no power, and flight attendants had to keep opening the doors so they could breathe comfortably.

Or this, in the case of the American Airlines flight in Austin: "There was a woman who was having to make diapers out of torn-up T-shirts for her baby," said passenger Tim Hanni, a Napa resident who together with his wife, Kate, launched a blog and an online petition calling for passage of a new Passenger Bill of Rights.

How did it come to this?

Sure, customer service isn't what it used to be. In fact, it's damn near nonexistent in most industries.

But there are other factors at play.

Since 9/11, airlines have engaged in massive cost cutting to offset losses. There are fewer flights with more passengers on those flights. That makes it harder to rebook passengers when large amounts of flights are canceled. So cancellations are avoided. Planes will load up and wait for a break in the weather. If it comes

Now, here come the feds to the rescue. California Sen. Barbara Boxer said she plans to introduce a Passengers' Bill of Rights that would give passengers the right to deplane when an aircraft has been on the ground for more than three hours past its scheduled departure time.

"... To keep passengers - which usually include infants and the elderly - on a plane for 11 hours in the worst of conditions is absurd," Boxer said on her Web site. "If a plane is stuck on the tarmac or at the gate for hours, a passenger should have the right to deplane. No one should be held hostage on an aircraft when clearly they can find a way to get people off safely."

Currently, there are no government regulations limiting the time an airline can keep passengers on grounded aircraft.

But like the problem it seeks to eliminate, this bill may end up grounded. Powerful airline interests will fight it. Security concerns will be raised. A pro-business president will be reluctant to endorse it. And the government has had a checkered record of helping people in need. Just ask the people of New Orleans.

Holding people hostage is intolerable. And we clearly can no longer expect the airline industry, which has been allowed to become unaccountable to the flying public, to do the right thing.

Hail to the Also Rans

By ROBERT RECTOR

IF you think Nov. 4, 2008, is a long way off, it is clear that you are not running for the office of president of the United States. If you are a candidate - and it appears that almost anyone who owns a suit is - you've already broken into a full gallop.

As of this writing, 11 Democrats, 15 Republicans and dozens of assorted aspirants from other political spectrums have either declared, formed exploratory committees or expressed enough serious interest in the office to attract some attention.

And we're just warming up.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being raised, liaisons are being formed, strategies are being developed, platform planks are being sawed and hammered, all with the intent of grabbing and holding your attention when you walk into the polling place next year.

Election 2008 will be notable for two reasons. One, it will be the first presidential election since 1928 in which neither a sitting president nor vice president will be a candidate. Unless Dick Cheney changes his mind and decides to run - unlikely since he can't bank on the support of the Dixie Chicks.

Second, it will be a billion-dollar baby. Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner has already declared it to be "the most expensive election in American history." Toner estimated that to be "taken seriously," a candidate will need to raise at least $100 million by the end of this year.

Big hitters like Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Barack Obama, John McCain and John Edwards have that stashed in petty cash. But that price tag is going to leave a lot of aspirants stuck at the starting gate. So, as a public service, we hereby bestow awards on some presidential pretenders that won't win the grand prize.

Winner of the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Award is Michael Charles Smith, a Republican from Oregon who describes himself as "zealous moderate." He has a wife, two kids, a house and a mortgage and a job at Hewlett-Packard. He plays the tuba in the community band. His goal, he says, is to nudge his party back toward the center from what he sees as an extremist brand of right-wing rhetoric. It seems running for president is an odd way of getting heard, but maybe that's what tuba players do.

Tonight We're Going to Party Like It's 1920 Award: To Gene Amondson, a prohibitionist whose platform is simply stated: "Prohibition was America's greatest 13 years. Drinking responsibly is like teaching a pig to eat with a spoon. Can't happen."

Don't Tread on Me Award: To the Personal Choice Party, whose candidate, Charles Jay, ran in 2004 and is contemplating another try. The party expresses the philosophy of "live and let live." Personal Choice demands that, "as long as I am not hurting anyone else, only I have the right to choose how I spend my time, my wealth, my life, my honor." Spending her time and honor as their vice presidential candidate in 2004 was porn movie star Marilyn Chambers.

The Whatever Happened To Award: To Michael Moriarity, the Emmy and Tony award- winning actor who starred as Benjamin Stone in "Law and Order" from 1990 to 1994. It seems Moriarity became disenchanted with the United States and moved to Canada, declaring himself a political exile. He, nonetheless, intends to run from afar in 2008. A passionate foe of abortion, he was quoted as saying, "Like the collaborating Vichy government in France under the Nazis, America will surrender to laws and ideologies that contradict the American Constitution and the most simple Human Rights. The Supreme Court took a once individually free nation and corrupted it by the lie of science that fetuses are, in their first two trimesters, no more than egg yolk. Ultimately, our American Intellectual Supremacists bought the `Population Problem,' in the same way Europe fell under the thrall of the so-called `Jewish Problem."'

The Maybe This Isn't Such a Bad Idea Award: To David Koch and his running mate Ken Goldstein. Despite their political differences - Koch professes to have a conservative outlook, and Goldstein balances his outlook to the left - they are longtime friends who often debate their political viewpoints. When they conceived their plans to run for president, they found these differences to be an advantage, according to their Web site. Rather than the traditional choice of running mates from similar political viewpoints, they built their campaign with a team with alternate viewpoints. Koch claims the pair has a strange ability "to argue through issues we disagree on and come to common ground." "Neither left nor right, but what is right" is their slogan.

All Anna, All the Time

By ROBERT RECTOR

AMERICA Held Hostage by Anna Nicole Smith: Day 6.

I take no satisfaction in the passing of a human being at the young age of 39, especially one that leaves a baby motherless.

Bt at the same time, I am slack jawed at the fact that the death of a Grade B celebrity whose claim to fame was a pair of oversized breasts and a sketchy marriage to an aging oil billionaire continues to dominate the media.

Welcome to the brave new world of tabloid-driven news where tawdry trumps substance time and time again.

Consider: NBC's "Nightly News" devoted 14 seconds to Iraq compared to 3 minutes and 13 seconds to Anna Nicole, according to one report. CNN referenced Anna Nicole 52.2 percent more frequently than it did Iraq. MSNBC was even worse - 70.8 percent more references to Anna Nicole than Iraq.

Over this weekend, almost every cable network I saw wallowed in the Smith story, highlighted by Fox News' hour-long special "Anna Nicole: Tragic Beauty."

This, of course, occurred at the same time Barack Obama was announcing his historic presidential bid and a trial involving the outing of a CIA agent was winding its way toward the vice president of the United States.

The heck with that.

Anna had them all coming out of the woodwork. Geraldo Rivera and Greta van Susteren were pulling 24/7 shifts since Smith died Thursday. Panel discussions were formed. Windbags described as experts were interviewed. The contents of Smith's refrigerator qualified as breaking news.

Boxing promoter Don King held a press conference to reminisce about Anna Nicole Smith. Zsa-Zsa Gabor's 59-year-old husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, proclaimed he was the father of Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern. So have assorted other characters in her life. Can O.J. be far behind?

The luckiest woman in America is NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak, whose alleged attack on a romantic rival was headline news until Smith's death booted her off the front page and into relative obscurity.

Does anybody watch this stuff, read it, revel in it? Apparently, and unfortunately, yes.

Fox's prime-time viewership on the night of Smith's death jumped to 2,225,000, an increase of at least 400,000 over a typical weeknight, the cable station said.

Traffic on entertainment and personality Web sites leapt 54 percent compared with the day before Smith's death became public, Matt Tatham of Hitwise, a firm that tracks Web traffic, told the Los Angeles Times.

More than 14,000 blogs posted information, opinions and rants about her death, according to another tracking service, Technorati.com.

"I loved her," one blog gushed. "I miss her," others wrote. "She was beautiful."

"I truly believe she had a lot of love to give and just wanted to be loved back," a blogger said. Added another, "We'll certainly miss her charm, her on-cam blunders and bloopers and we'll pray she's making the sandy shores in the hereafter very happy."

Here, on the rocky shores of journalism, we are left scratching our heads. Do we watch what we are fed? Is the drive for ratings the altar at which all media worship? Or is it what Newsweek calls the "Girls Gone Wild Effect," a combination of out-of-control celebs and online sleaze?

Or does the life and death of a stripper turned Playboy bunny turned Marilyn Monroe wannabe turned wealthy widow provide a brief respite from the agony of Iraq and Katrina?

If so, it's an odd exchange to make, one sort of tragedy for another.

Soon enough, Iraq and Katrina and Barack Obama and Dick Cheney will dominate our news and our thoughts again.

Until then, rest in peace Anna Nicole.

Let the Sunshine In

By ROBERT RECTOR

EVERY spring when daylight-saving time rolled around, my grandmother would draw a distinction between "God's time and Mr. Roosevelt's time."

Not that she minded the extra sunshine.

It's just that grandmother was a Southern-born, rock-ribbed Republican, and the words "Mr. Roosevelt" would roll off her tongue with the same disagreeing tone usually reserved for "Yankees" or "canker sores."

I mention this because, love it or loathe it, daylight-saving time is just around the corner. In case you didn't notice, under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the U.S. will begin observing daylight-saving time from the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November beginning this year.

Most of Canada will also observe the new period to avoid possible economic losses from confusion with the United States. Which gives the Canadians another reason to dislike us.

And if you don't like it, it will give you another reason to dislike President Bush. It happened on his watch.

Whether this remains permanent depends on studies conducted by some faceless government bureaucracy that will undoubtedly consider the effects of extra daylight while meeting in some windowless room.

In the meantime, come March 11, we can all spring forward.

Not that there is anything new under the sun.
Benjamin Franklin, living in Paris, first conceived the notion of daylight-saving time, according to David Prerau, who wrote "Seize the Daylight: A Brief History of Daylight Saving Time."

He wrote that he was awakened early and was surprised that the sun was up, well before his usual noon rising. He humorously described how he checked the next two days and found that, yes, it actually did rise so early every day. Imagine, he said, how many candles could be saved if people awakened earlier, and he suggested firing cannons in each square at dawn "to wake the sluggards and open their eyes to their true interest."

Franklin, as usual, was ahead of his time, even if he was engaging in a bit of whimsy. Some historians even attribute Franklin's dictum "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" to his experience.

Next on stage was British builder William Willett who was known to lament that few people enjoyed the "best part of a summer day," and he came up with the idea of moving the clocks forward in summer to take advantage of the bright beautiful mornings and to give more light in the evening.

What was unsaid is that he wanted his workers to arrive at construction sites earlier and to labor longer. He died never seeing his idea adopted.

It took World War I to get the concept off the ground. The Germans adopted it, followed closely by the British. The U.S. followed, but the law proved unpopular because it obliged people to rise and go to bed earlier than had become customary since the advent of electricity. It was repealed in 1919, when Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson's veto of the repeal. After fits and starts, it was revived during World War II and continues to this day.

Whether daylight-saving time works as an energy saver is open to some debate. The U.S. Department of Transportation insists that daylight-saving time trims the entire country's electricity usage by a small but significant amount, about 1 percent each day, because less electricity is used for lighting and appliances.

However, there are complaints about the inconvenience of changing many clocks and adjusting to a new sleep schedule. Some argue that the supposed energy savings is offset by by those living in warm climates to cool their homes during summer afternoons and evenings. Others contend that more evening hours of light encourage people to run errands and visit friends, thus consuming more gasoline.

The bottom line, however, is that the majority of people like daylight-saving time.

What is clear is that it leads to some unusual occurrences.

Example: To keep to published timetables, trains cannot leave a station before the scheduled time. So when the clocks fall back one hour in the autumn, all Amtrak trains in the United States that are running on time stop at 2 a.m. and wait one hour before resuming. Overnight passengers are often surprised to find their train at a dead stop and their travel time an hour longer than expected. At the spring DST change, trains instantaneously become an hour behind schedule at 2a.m., but they just keep going and do their best to make up the time.

Another example: In September 1999, the West Bank was on daylight-saving time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. West Bank terrorists prepared time bombs and smuggled them to their Israeli counterparts, who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As the bombs were being planted, they exploded one hour too early, killing three terrorists instead of the intended victims, two busloads of people.

Everyone in to the Pool

By ROBERT RECTOR

IF the California state bureaucracy were a reality TV show, it might very well be called "American Idle."

Two news stories that appeared over the weekend underscore the point:

One reported that there is so much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that even if concentrations remained at current levels, the effects of global warming would continue for centuries.

That grim assessment came from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, which also concluded that the world was in for centuries of climbing temperatures, rising seas and shifting weather patterns.

There is still hope, the panel concluded, that prompt and decisive worldwide effort could blunt the most serious consequences of global warming.

The other story told us that the state Department of Motor Vehicles had issued all 85,000 car-pool lane stickers available to hybrid drivers under a state law passed in 2005.

The passes allowed drivers of hybrids that get at least 45 miles per gallon to drive in freeway car-pool lanes, even if they are alone. Three vehicles qualified: the Toyota Prius, the Honda Insight and the hybrid Honda Civic. But no more. Those still contemplating a hybrid purchase have one other option: buying a used hybrid that already has a sticker. The stickers stay with the vehicles when they are sold.

Taken together, we can can surmise the following from these two stories: At the same time the world teeters on an environmental precipice, the folks in Sacramento led by our Hummer-hugging governor are telling potential owners of cars that reduce gasoline consumption and air pollution to put it in park. Incentives? We don't need no stinking incentives.

Lawmakers, it seems, are becoming concerned that car-pool lanes are filling up with those pesky hybrids. They want to reserve those lanes for car-poolers. Of course, car-pooling in this country has never exceeded 20 percent of the commuting public, according to studies by the Transportation Research Board which used census data to determine its findings.

The fact is that 85,000 carpool stickers is not a big deal in a state that has nearly 33 million registered vehicles. Indeed, a California Department of Transportation study revealed that only about 4 percent of car pools showed more congestion between April 2005 and 2006.

According to a published report, the study said there was "no clear indication" that car-pool lanes were becoming congested after stickers were introduced.

So here's a plan: Not only should current and future hybrid owners have continued access to car-pool lanes, they should be given free and unlimited parking whenever feasible on public streets and they should receive substantial savings on their insurance - plus a generous tax break on top of that.

If we are going to get serious about global warming - and it would appear the time has come to do exactly that - it is folly for the state of California to throw up a roadblock at hybrid transportation.

The Road to the Super Bowl

By ROBERT RECTOR

THE first Super Bowl. Jan. 15, 1967. I remember it well.

Not that I was in attendance. Nope, the tickets were going for the unheard of price of $12 a head, way too rich for this young man, fresh out of the Army and newly employed.

Worse, the first Super Bowl was blacked out on television locally, even though it was broadcast on two networks, NBC and CBS.

That's because it was played at the Los Angeles Coliseum and a blackout seemed like a good way to boost ticket sales.

So what is a football fan without the price of a ticket to do?

Road trip, that's what.

A buddy and I hopped in my car and took off for San Diego, where a friend lived and the game was on TV.

Other people I knew were headed for San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield to take in the game. That's what you do when you're young and stupid.

The contest featured the legendary Green Bay Packers coached by Vince Lombardi against the upstart Kansas City Chiefs of the relatively new American Football League.

We rooted for Kansas City. It was the '60s, after all, an era when people embraced underdogs and sneered at the establishment.

Sentiment doesn't win football games, however. The Packers were a machine and crushed the Chiefs, 35-10.

Strangely, what I remember most about the game didn't take place on the field. It took place outside the house where we had gathered to watch it.

It turns out my friend lived on a hill directly under the flight path to San Diego International Airport.

Like clockwork, jets would rumble over his house at 15-minute intervals, so close you could count the rivets in the wings.

This, naturally, skewed the television reception, calling for frequent horizontal/vertical/focus adjustments. At times, it looked like it was snowing in Los Angeles.

But at least I can say I saw it. Intermittently.

Now, it's 40 years later. This year's contestants are the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts, and the game will be played in Miami.

Face value for tickets are $600 to $700, but brokers are charging - and getting - as high as $3,000 per seat.

A 30-second commercial that cost $42,000 in 1967 will go for $2.6 million this year.
Prince will be the featured entertainment. In 1967, it was trumpeter Al Hirt backed up by bands from the universities of Arizona and Michigan.

There will be only one network broadcast, CBS. But networks from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Denmark, South Korea, Brazil, Germany, Russia, China and Sweden will televise the game.

I'll be traveling again, but this time on foot. Older and wiser, I'll be in my own den, watching in high definition and eating too much junk food.

Life is good, even when you mark the passing years in football games.

Complex Problem, Simplistic Solution

By ROBERT RECTOR

IN a society where it has become fashionable to dress like a prison inmate, glorify violence in song and lyric and converse like a street thug, it should come as no surprise that gang membership has soared and the body count along with it.

Just for the record, law enforcement officials are aware of more than 1,300 street gangs with over 150,000 members in Los Angeles County. Gangs account for approximately 51 percent of all homicides in Los Angeles County. Of the 1,156 homicides in 2001, 587 were gang-related. The majority of gang homicides are committed with handguns.

What to do is a complex problem. What not to do is what the Los Angeles City Council did.
That council this past week voted unanimously to ask voters to cough up $50 million through a new property tax to fight gang violence. The money, collected through a $72-per-parcel levy, would be spent to expand anti-gang and prevention efforts.

If one was cynical enough, one might consider this civic extortion. Pay protection money or get run over by murderous thugs.

But more likely it was a typical politician's solution: appear to be solving a problem by throwing money at it.

Whatever else it was, it was a lesson in tortured governance for us all.

"We have 40,000 gang members in this city and only 61 gang workers," complained L.A. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn."

Not to split hairs, Janice, but aren't all law enforcement personnel - from cops to parole officers to prosecutors - "gang workers" if that's what the moment demands? And don't we already pay their salaries?

There are 23 anti-gang programs currently in operation in the city of Los Angeles, with an annual budget of $86 million. That suggests there are plenty of dedicated people and money, but what is missing is a single, comprehensive strategy.

In the meantime, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, pumping the feds for millions to aid in the fight against gangs.

Against that backdrop, do city officials really expect property owners in Los Angeles to believe that taxation trumps better government as the answer to the gang crisis?

Next, they'll be telling them that when the problem is past, the tax will be rescinded. Yeah, right.

I couldn't help but notice a story in the Los Angeles Times the other day that a police crackdown in Skid Row has dramatically lowered the crime rate. Last year, an aggressive Sheriff's Department crackdown led to a dramatic drop in killings in Compton.

"I think the more gang members realize that that level of field force is present, it's going to cause them to back off," Capt. Ray Peavy, who heads the sheriff's Homicide Bureau, told the Times.
"Everyone says: `What are we going to do about the gang problem?' It's the same thing you do about cockroaches or insects; you get someone in there to do whatever they can do to get rid of those creatures."

That strategy is at least a start. More jobs and better education are the long-term solution.
Said Jorja Leap, a social welfare professor and gang expert at UCLA, "Until we get those gangsters into real jobs, we are going to have a lethal ongoing problem, pure and simple."

The Mud Is Beginning to Fly

By ROBERT RECTOR

I got my real first taste of political dirty deeds some years back when, as a young editor, I was directing the coverage of a Los Angeles city council campaign.

One candidate, for reasons that weren't entirely clear, decided that her opponent had planted a spy in her camp.

So she fired off a letter to the city attorney's office accusing her opponent of stealing campaign secrets.

Then she demanded the media write a story that her opponent was "under investigation" by the city attorney's office for ethical misconduct.

Since asking for an investigation doesn't constitute the existence of one, we declined. It was clear she was trying to use the media to smear her opponent by portraying him as some morally compromised KGB agent.

It was minor stuff at a minor level. But it's a game played with varying degrees of success at the highest levels.

Consider: It didn't take long for the smear-mongers to take dead aim at prospective presidential candidate Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois.

Just this past week, Insight, a magazine owned by the conservative Washington Times, raised the specter that Obama is actually a Muslim. Maybe even a radical one.

Playing a skewed game of connect the dots, the article said that the young Barack attanded a mandrassah, or Muslim religious school, in Indonesia where he lived with his stepfather and mother. He was 6 at the time and had attended Catholic school for two years.

The implication is that Barack was schooled in Islamic radicalism while attending that school even though there is no evidence that terrorism or anything like it was part of the curriculum some 40 years ago.

I guess what we're suppose to read between the lines is that Obama, if elected president, will deliver the country lock, stock and oil barrel over to Islamic jihadists who will convert our churches to mosques, veil our women, toss our liquor into the Pacific Ocean and pack the halls of Congress with radical clerics.

But if that kind of political mud isn't bad enough, some members of the media had a large hand in slinging it. The boys over at Fox News picked up this nonsense on several of their programs and played up an angle in the magazine story that unnamed researchers "connected" to Hillary Clinton were spreading this information about her potential rival.

By doing so, Fox performed the difficult double smear move almost flawlessly: First cover Obama with mud, then blame it on Clinton.

As Howard Kurtz reported in the Washington Post, "in the first media controversy of the 2008 campaign, two of the leading candidates find themselves forced to respond to allegations lacking a single named source.

For their part, Obama's office said that "the idea that Senator Barack Obama attended some radical Islamic school is completely ludicrous. Senator Obama is a committed Christian and attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago."

Clinton's people called it "an obvious right-wing hit job by a Moonie publication that was designed to attack Senator Clinton and Senator Obama at the same time." Insight, like the Washington Times, is owned by a company controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

In the meantime, the newly declared Clinton has other media matters on her mind. The New York Times, a paper that can only be described as friendly toward her, has already declared that she "has to combat her image...of being radically liberal, ruthlessly ambitious, or ethically compromised."

And to think election day is still almost two years away.

Spank a Child, Go to Jail

By ROBERT RECTOR
In a state beset with myriad knotty problems ranging from immigration to the governor's broken leg, Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has hit on an issue that many of us will get behind. So to speak.

The Mountain View Democrat has proposed banning the spanking of young children.

That's right, folks. Spank a child, go to jail.

Lieber's proposal would make spanking, hitting and slapping a child under 4-years-old a misdemeanor. Adults could face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Presumembly, doctors who give a child a whack at birth would be exempted.

No less a father figure than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he thinks the proposal was well intentioned but had doubts about how a ban would be enforced.

Having the police respond to spanking calls seems like a bad use of public safety personnel. Maybe they could create a swat team.

But the governor said he "got smacked about everything" as a child in Austria but has never hit his own kids.

As for me, I got a couple of slaps on the ear from Dad when I was out of line as a child. Mom never raised a hand against us, although I do remember her chasing my brother with a broom once. And she once threatened to stick my head in the oven if I didn't behave. She was kidding. I think.

Not everyone thinks a ban on spanking is something we need on the books.

One critic called it ``nanny-politics.'' Another said. ``Fine, then a bill should be passed to allow other parents to smack the parents of undisciplined children.''

``Where do you stop?'' asked Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, who said he personally agrees children under 3 shouldn't be spanked but has no desire to make it the law. ``At what point are we going to say we should pass a bill that every parent has to read a minimum of 30 minutes every night to their child? This is right along those same lines.''

Still, spanking of children within families is illegal in some countries (for example, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Germany, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, Croatia, Israel and Latvia). New Zealand is currently debating whether or not to outlaw parental spanking, having outlawed corporal punishment within its educational institutions in 1989. Similar initiatives in the U.S. have repeatedly failed.

Indeed, one parent-teacher group called Operation No Spank puts it this way:

"Children should no longer be excluded from the legal protections against assault and battery that apply to adults. Moreover, the defense of children should be more vigorous because they are more vulnerable; because the consequences of their early mistreatment are difficult to reverse; because damaged children tend to grow into damaged adults who are likely to avenge themselves in one way or another.

"If they will not harm others, then they will likely harm themselves, and they may passively support the mistreatment of children perpetrated by others. Current research in the field of child development overwhelmingly confirms the theory that the earlier and the worse the mistreatment of children, the worse the outcome."

Nobody wants to see young children get slapped around. And most parents don't abuse their children.

But even fewer people want to see the government tell them how to raise their family.

As one reader wrote to the San Jose Mercury News:

"The day that the [government] gives birth to my children, then they have a right to raise them. Till then they are mine to do with as I please. I will raise them the way I see fit. If I think that those little butts need a swat … I will be the one to give it to them."

Frank, as in Frankfurter

By ROBERT RECTOR
An open letter to: Frank McCourt President, Los Angeles Dodgers Los Angeles, Calif.
Dear Mr. McCourt: IT warms my heart when a prominent citizen, such as yourself, reaches out to enrich the lives of the common man, such as myself.
I mean, you own the Dodgers and you don't have to lift a finger to get 3 million people flocking to Chavez Ravine to see your team, win or lose.
But you're a giver, Frank. And you'll be giving fans what could be a a life-altering experience when they come to the ballpark this year.
Starting this season, the right field pavilion at Dodger Stadium will be converted into a special section, giving around 3,000 fans as many hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, nachos and sodas as they want.
Of course, you're nobody's fool, Frank. Tickets that are usually 10 bucks will sell for $35 in advance and $40 on gameday, and some items at the concession stand aren't in play - beer, ice cream and candy will be sold separately at regular prices.
That means Joe Fan will have to eat like a lumberjack to break even on the deal.
But I realize, Frank, there will be some additional expenses involved that you'll need to cover.
You're going to need to brace up the right field pavilion because I suspect the fan base out there will resemble nothing short of a gathering of sumo wrestlers and nose tackles.
Sitting there will give new meaning to the term " squeeze play."
And I'm betting that on a hot summer day, you'll be able to smell the crowd from San Diego.
Then you'll need additional paramedic support for those fans who try to pound down 12 Dodger dogs in three innings. Of course, if you're really enterprising, you could hawk cholesterol-lowering pills to those junk food zealots who are sucking up a thousand fat grams per game.
Then's there's the additional security you'll need to prevent fans from showering the opposing team's fielder with nachos when a fly ball is in play. That is, if they're able to get out of there seats to throw anything.
I'm betting the first home run ball that lands in the right field pavilion won't be caught. It will be eaten.
It's a brilliant plan, Frank, because gluttony and baseball go together like hot dogs and heart attacks.
No less than the immortal Babe Ruth, arguably the greatest player of all time, would love your idea. Legend has it that the Babe, one day in Coney Island, ate four porterhouse steaks and eight hot dogs, and drank eight sodas. That, of course, was just a pre-game snack.
Now, with your plan, Frank, anyone can be the Babe.
And who can't work up an appetite watching players like Catfish Hunter, Chili Davis, Candy Maldonaldo, Goose Gossage, Cookie Lavagetto and Pie Traynor?
I have just one suggestion, Frank. If you really want to get this promotion off the ground, name the right field pavilion after Tommy Lasorda.
That will give those hungry fans a real role model.
Sincerely,
Robert (I'd Rather Have Sushi) Rector.

Smog Over Hollywood

By ROBERT RECTOR
The next time your eyes run like a faucet, the air tastes like diesel fumes and your chest feels like you inhaled oven cleaner, blame Hollywood.
According to a recent report out of UCLA, 140,000 tons of year of ozone and diesel particulate pollutant emissions from trucks, generators, special effects explosions and fires are being produced by the sames folks who brought you "Gone With the Wind."
Show biz tops hotels, aerospace, apparel and semiconductor manufacturing in traditional air pollutant emissions in Southern California, the study says, and is probably second only to petroleum refineries. Enterntainment ranks third in greenhouse gas emissions.
This is particularly noteworthy in an industry that produces more environmental activists than a Greenpeace convention.
That crashing sound you hear is George Clooney, Ed Begley Jr., Ted Danson, Robert Redford, Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Rob Reiner, et al bouncing off their solar panels.
According to the study, researchers considered the emissions created directly and indirectly by the film and television industry. For example, they factored in both the pollution caused by a diesel generator used to power a movie set, as well as the emissions created by a power plant that provides electricity to a studio lot.
Call me simple minded but that's like saying I'm to blame for using my toaster which is connected by wall plug to a massive emissions-generating power plant that was once constucted by fume-spewing heavy equipment.
But I digress. Researchers also interviewed 43 people who worked in a variety of areas within the industry, and reviewed major trade publications to see the level of attention paid to environmental issues. In doing so, researchers found that some studios have recycling programs and green building practices.
"Nevertheless, our overall impression is that these practices are the exception and not the rule, and that more could be done within the industry to foster environmentally friendly approaches," the study said.
I guess we can be thankful that so many films are being produced in Canada or the skies above Hollywood would resemble turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh.
The enterntainment industry, to nobody's surprise, wasn't quick to embrace the study.
Lisa Day, spokeswoman for Participant Productions which worked on offsetting carbon emissions from the making of "Syriana" and "An Inconvenient Truth," said she was a little surprised by the study's findings, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.
"I think the industry as a whole does look at itself," she said. "The studios have done a lot in terms of waste reduction. I think that energy is the new thing the industry is looking at and what impact they have."
The industry might also look at the fact that a good film doesn't need a dozen 20-megaton explosions to hold our attention.
Since Hollywood usually finds itself on the cutting edge of social activism, I suspect this will cause more than a few ripples through the industry.
It will be interesting to see how quickly Hollywood's social activism turns inward.
But since that same industry generates a combined $29 billion in revenue and employs 252,000 in greater Los Angeles, don't look for a lot of new regulations to emerge from the study.
Now, if we can just convince the industry to stop polluting the screens, we may have accomplished something.
All ready this year we have been subjected to such noxious offerings such as "Snakes on a Plane," "Beerfest," "She's the Man" and "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector."
Cough, cough.

Anals of the Absurd

By ROBERT RECTOR
Many men were probably heartened recently by a study that concluded women who exercise by doing housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer.
That's right, guys. The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found that doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport. Dusting, mopping and vacuuming was also better than having a physical job.
So, all along, we weren't really being slobs. We were merely advancing the cause of women's health.
Of course, men get breast cancer too. So does that mean they should man the mop?
Good question. But an even better one is: who concocts this kind of weird research anyway? And what, if anything, does it prove?
Turns out we're not the only ones intrigued by that question.
No less than Harvard University is the site each year of the Ig Noble prizes, given for achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."
According to the a scientific humor journal called the Anals of Improbable Research, examples range from the discovery that the presence of humans tends to sexually arouse ostriches, to the statement that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell.
This year's Ig Nobel winners include:
-Ivan R. Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles, for exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches. -Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, for showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters. -Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying high-pitched noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but probably not to their teachers.
-D. Lynn Halpern (of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and Brandeis University, and Northwestern University), Randolph Blake (of Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University) and James Hillenbrand (of Western Michigan University and Northwestern University) for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard. -Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed. -And last but not least: Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly." Fine efforts, every one. Personally, I am attracted to an award from 2005 that went to Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people DO get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.
Or the 2004 award nabbed by Steven Stack of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, and James Gundlach of Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, for their published report "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
Compared to these studies, the breast cancer/housework research ranks alongside Sir Isaac Newton's three laws of motion.

Party On

By ROBERT RECTOR
I am a freelancer. I am unencumbered, unattached, unleashed.
And one of the best things about my status is that I am longer required to attend an office Christmas party.
I'v seem enough lampshade-on-the-head, photocopy-your-butt merriment to last me a lifetime.
Or as Corey Ford wrote way back in 1951:
"The annual office party starts along about noon on December 24 and ends two or three months later, depending on how long it takes the boss to find out who set fire to his waste basket, threw the water cooler out the window, and betrayed Miss O'Malley in the men's washroom."
It hasn't changed a lot since then.
Among other oddities, I've seen a couple of careers blindsided over the years.
There was the time when an ambitious new employee decided to take the opportunity to show off his sophisitication and smarts with every boss in the room. After an evening of working the room like a politician running for office, he discovered his fly was unzipped the entire time.
Then there was the occasion when a young married couple decided to bring their 2 year-old for reasons I can't begin to fathom. The kid headed straight to the nut dish, consumed its contents then proceeded to get sick all over the bosses new carpet.
I've seen drunk and disorderly. I've seen employees boo Santa Claus. I've seen boozy romantic liaisons that disolved in the cold light of dawn.
I've also seen deadly dull. There's nothing like compulsory attendance to sap the holiday spirit right out of a party. One such affair I attended resembled a wax museum.
Want a receipe for potential disaster? Try this: Mix superiors and subordinates, cronies and rivals, the ambitious and the apathetic, stir in weird secret Santa gifts and social anxiety, add a generous dose of alcohol and see what happens.
A recent survey by a professional women's group found that drinking too much was the number one regret of women at their office parties. Sixty percent of the women surveyed changed their opinion of a co-worker after experiencing chardonay-fueled hijinks, according to one report.
But if you really need a reason to avoid, or to party lite, at the annual holiday bash, consider this: Drunken antics at office Christmas parties are increasingly being filmed and posted on the Internet, a report from ViralVideoChart.com says. The web chart firm says footage from office bashes posted on video share websites tripled in 2006 to 150,000.
Clips included a woman complaining about her boss, who, unknown to her, was standing behind her.
It would smart to avoid seeing your Yuletide on YouTube.
One historian traces the office party to the feast of Saturn, the god of agriculture, a Roman favorite. Citizens would untie the bound feet of the god's statue on Dec. 17, and a week of carrying on would begin.
"Loose reins are given to public dissipation," the philosopher Seneca reported.
Gifts were exchanged. Masters and slaves swapped roles. Drinking, gambling, feasting and "singing naked" would take place, according to one writer of the time.
Sounds just like the party over at Acme Widgets.
But even if you behave yourself, the holiday party can contain hidden pitfalls, according to authors Noel Boivin and Christopher Lombardo:
"While you may want to skip home in sheer delight at not having offended anyone during your company's holiday hootenanny, remember to step lively and keep a keen eye out for open manhole covers. If you don't you might end up like a Korean man did following his company's year-end blowout: the man fell 18 feet into an open sewer, where he spent the next 8 days sleeping on a foam mat and sipping from a puddle of clean water before his screams for help caught the attention of a passerby."

I Hereby Resolve

By ROBERT RECTOR
According to some historical sources, the tradition of the New Year's resolutions goes back to 153 B.C. It was then that Janus, a mythical king of early Rome, was placed at the head of the calendar.
With two faces, Janus could look back on past events and forward to the future. Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions and many Romans looked for forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year.
Historians don't tell us, however, when the first resolution was broken. I peg it at one minute after midnight, 153 B.C. thereby starting an entirely new tradition, one that continues unabated to this day.
For example, I resolved not to write any more columns on lightweight topics like new year's resolutions. And, well, here I am.
No less an authority than the U.S. government says the most popular resolutions are to lose weight, pay off debt, save money, get a better job, get fit, eat right, get a better education, drink less alcohol, quit smoking, reduce stress, take a trip, help others.
A poll taken by Marist College has losing weight at the top of the list. In a tie for second is "be a better person" and "stop smoking."
Pollsters from the college's Institute of Public Opinion surveyed nearly 1,300 people. And the survey found 71 percent of men and 57 percent of women say they stuck to their resolutions of last year.
Apparently, "telling the truth" doesn't rank high on the resolution scale.
All of this data reveals a kind of schizophrenic quality to our lives. We eat like there's no tomorrow over the holidays, then vow to lose weight in a cycle that repeats itself every year.
We go head over heels in debt, then promise not only to pay off debt but save money at the same time, a road Bill Gates would have trouble traveling.
We try to stop drinking and smoking at the same time we try to reduce stress, which led us to drinking and smoking in the first place.
And how can you be a better person or help others if you're overweight, unfit, under educated, in debt, drinking, smoking and stressed out? Mother Theresa couldn't do it.
So I resolve to eliminate all resolutions.
Instead, I suggest we adopt "new rules" for the new year. I offer these examples as formulated by comedian/ social commentator George Carlin:

"Stop giving me that pop-up ad for classmates.com! There's a reason you don't talk to people for 25 years. Because you don't particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn. "Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless you're a seagull. People are acting all shocked that a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What did you expect it to contain? Trout? "Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here's how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? OK, we're done. "I'm not the cashier! By the time I look up from sliding my card, entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying the amount, deciding, "No, I don't want cash back", and pressing "Enter" again, the kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is standing there eating my Almond Joy. "If you're going to insist on making movies based on... old television shows, then you have to give everyone in the Cineplex a remote so we can see what's playing on the other screens. Let's remember the reason something was a television show in the first place is that the idea wasn't good enough to be a movie. "No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just for weddings. Now it's for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab. Picking out the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn't gift giving, it's the Caucasian version of looting. "

A New Bloom

By ROBERT RECTOR

I've been hanging around the Rose Bowl for some 50 years or so.
When I was very young, my older brother took me to my first football game, a New Year's Day headbanger featuring USC and Wisconsin in 1953. Even though we sat in the rain all day, I loved every minute of it.
Later, my father and I had an annual tradition. We'd go to something called the Junior Rose Bowl game every year, which pitted the two best community college teams in the country. We usually didn't know much about who was playing but even then, my dad figured I had community college written all over me. He was right.
When I was in high school in Glendale, the annual Glendale-Hoover titanic was played at the Rose Bowl annually, a real adrenalin rush.
Then, when UCLA took up residence in 1982, we bought season tickets which we own to this day.
To the casual fan, not much as changed at the Rose Bowl since the 1950s. The scoreboards are new, there are a few more restrooms, a few more concession stands.
And the seats. In the old days, you sat on benches, no seatbacks, no arms. When someone at the other end sat down, 50 people had to slide to one side to make room. It didn't do much for the game experience but it was a great cardio-vascular workout.
Now, most of the stadium has theater-style seats. An improvement? Not necesarily. The leg room is so bad that you almost need to assume the prenatal position when you sit down. Remember when you sat at your kid's desk at back-to-school night? It's kinda like that.
So I was glad to receive an e-mail recently, soliciting my opinions about a potential renovation of the 84-year-old stadium.
Nobody questions the need for renovation. But financing it is another thing. The city of Pasadena and the Rose Bowl Operation Committee had a great plan: stick the National Football League with the bill.
But since that dog won't hunt, it's time for Plan B.
The Rose Bowl is already an international attraction. So is Stonhenge but that doesn't make it a comfortable place to hang out.
Plan B would change all that, providing first-class comfort and luxury.
We're talking luxury boxes, preferred seating, plentiful rest rooms, actual leg room, easy access and egress, a real showplace.
The cost: $100 million to $200 million.
That's not outrageous. The Univsrsity of Michigan is coughing up $200 million for a redo of its stadium. Not to be outdone, Ohio State has a $194 million plan.
So who around here has that kind of money? The city of Pasadena? No. The University of California system? Nope. UCLA? They have their share of high-roller alums and a good sized fan base, but guess what? They're about to get touched for a major re-do of Pauley Pavillion, the on-campus basketball venue. Estimated cost: $70 million. And at UCLA, basketball is king.
And you can bet those same high rollers and fans will be in the marketing cross hairs if an NFL team comes to town soon.
The competition for the sports dollar in this town is getting fierce.
Nonetheless, if you read the survey, it seems clear that luxury suites, premium seats, better parking and other amenities along with various naming rights are the cornerstone of a plan that would raise revenue to pay for a renovation bond.
And the city of Pasadena along with UCLA and the Tournament of Roses are putting up $250,000 to spend on a strategic plan to make it work.
Here's how this Rose Bowl user comes out in the survey.
Would I buy a luxury box? Nope, the high cost pretty much limits those to big corporations.
Would I pay for preferred seating? Probably, provided I could get it in a location I wanted.
Would I spend extra to preserve the Rose Bowl for future genetations?
Absolutely. And I hope there are many more like me.