Amazon, Overstock.com Jilt California Over Tax Spat

California governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law requiring out-of-state electronic retailers to collect sales tax on purchases from California residents.

Well, it didn't take long for the Web Empire to strike back. Amazon and Overstock.com immediately declared they were cancelled contracts with their respective California affiliates. This move impacts bloggers who generate income from the business they steer to web enterprises. Amazon is a significant player in this market. (Full disclosure: my site does not currently offer any advertising or refer readers to commercial sites for which I receive compensation.)

Amazon's dudgeon in this matter is both striking and troubling. The firm's spokesperson du jour on this matter, bearing the Orwellian title of Vice President for Global Public Policy, basically told the California government to drop dead. What's remarkable is that Amazon has as much power, and perhaps even more clout, than a state that generates the equivalent of the world's eighth largest gross national product. Ironically, given Amazon's and Overstock's formidable ability to create algorithmic solutions to transactional propositions, their ability to collect and tract sales tax is very much within their grasp. It's just not hard to do.

The California sales tax episode illustrates a disturbing trend. More and more, giant firms act as sovereign entities outside the control of the public and its elected officials. Often, these enterprises seem more like medieval dukedoms and appear stronger than the central government to which they would theoretically demonstrate some sense of fealty. They have money, something financially starving state and local governments dramatically lack. The portability of web-based businesses helps them curtly dismiss state regulations they don't want. Interestingly, the organized group that pushed for the California legislation was locally-based brick-and-mortar retailers. A number of them, interviewed in a useful Mercury News story, noted that the web-based firms were essentially tax-free oases. That reality put the brick-and-mortar folks what they characterized at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

As states begin to seek desperately needed revenue, Internet transactions are a likely candidate for taxation. Expect it to come to your state soon.

China Bond Default Looming

The Financial Times reported that a startling number of Chinese firms may default on their bonds. As the British newspaper noted, "international bond investors" lent US$33 billion to Chinese enterprises more or less on faith in the past two years. A wave of defaults from what is supposedly the world's strongest economy would be a destabilizing event.

The odds of Chinese firms skipping bond payments are, historically speaking, pretty strong. Mitigating that tendency are powerful interests who do not want that event to occur, starting with financially strung-out Western banks. Meanwhile, if the Chinese businesses' "so sorry" notes were to occur in tandem with the European sovereign debt crisis and the American Tea Party's nutty notion of pushing the US government into default, we would experience the Black Swan event from which a second Great Recession (at best) might develop. The reasoning why anyone would want to provoke an economic catastrophe, simply to prove an ideological point, is elusive at best.

Myanmar Government Blacklists Actress Michelle Yeoh

The despotic Myanmar military regime recently barred Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh from entering the South Asian country. According to the BBC, Yeoh's offense was to depict Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the upcoming Luc Besson film The Lady. Ms. Kyi (photo), who had been recently released from an interminable, 15-year house arrest, received the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her courageous advocacy of democracy.

A Day in Jury Rooms

I spent today fulfilling my jury duty requirement. Just before lunch, a judge requested forty of my peers and I into the courtroom. The voir dire (i.e., the jury selection process) began in earnest after lunch. One question the judge asked prospective jurors fascinated me. He asked how we the jurors followed the news. What did we read? What did we watch?

The answers were remarkable. The majority clearly didn't have or dedicate much time on a daily basis to following current news events. Think of them as scanners, typically of cable news programs and a couple of MSM websites. Some read local news via the web. Almost no one read a print version of a newspaper. Magazines never entered the conversation. In fact, the very idea of a printed newspaper or periodical seemed alien to this group. One person even claimed he got his news from watching The Daily Show. He wasn't kidding.

The information was in striking contrast to what I observed that morning in the crowded jury assembly room. My informal, visual survey showed that only four people, of the approximately one hundred in the room, had an iPad. (No one had a Nook or a Kindle.) About a dozen brought laptop computers. Just about everyone had a cellphone, and many in that group were actively texting and checking e-mail. Another dozen were reading from printed books, including hardcover versions. (The hardcovers surprised me.) Let's say another ten read printed newspapers or magazines. Some people watched the one television in the room, and seemed content with morning tube content such as The Rachael Ray Show and The View. Others did not immerse themselves in any sort of media, device, or book. They either talked with someone seated near them, or stayed to themselves. Ironically, I finished a paperback version of David Halberstam's The Powers That Be, an informed history of selected, elite American media and its interaction with the nation's social, political, and cultural currents from World War II through Watergate. I wondered what he would have thought of the media choices in today's jury rooms. (A 2003 interview of Halberstam is linked here.)

It's not often one can view a cross section of the local population and gain insight into how they obtain information. The jury assembly room, and the trial judge's focused questions in voir dire, provided some surprising results. My conclusion was that print newspapers are in serious trouble, and I can only hope that comedians are not this decade's version of Walter Cronkite.

The poster publicizes the late Sidney Lumet's movie 12 Angry Men.

Skype Execs Axed To Avoid Payout After Microsoft Acquisition

One distinct change in American capitalism over the last half-century has been the buyout. Rather than build firms that would last, and in many cases continue a family legacy, enterprises are created with a notion of selling them to some other entity. The idea, in simplest terms, is to get rich right now.

The gold rush employees after a corporate buyout sounds so easy, so alluring, so deserved. Well, imagine the surprise of a number of Skype executives when they found themselves pink slipped in the wake of Microsoft's acquisition of the Luxembourg-based Internet-calling service. The execs were fired before the Microsoft deal closed. The practical effect of the dismissals was to diminish the value of the execs' payouts. In other words, they're going to get far less money than they had bargained for. It turned out that "getting rich right now" didn't include Skype's executed execs.

The complete story originally appeared in Bloomberg News and was reprinted in the Mercury News.

An Insight On Screenwriting from the Late David Rayfiel

David Rayfiel (photo), who worked on scripts for Sydney Pollock and Robert Redford, passed away earlier this week. In reading his LA Times obit, one of Rayfiel's remarks stood out.

"Someone tells me, 'We've got a script here. It's almost ready, just needs a little work. Shouldn't take more than three weeks to fix it," Rayfiel said. "It's always three weeks. Six months later, I'm finished."

If only Julie Traymor had been able to use Rayfiel's services on the theatrical version of Spiderman!

Congress Passes Patent System "Reform"

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed legislation that will launch a major overhaul of the patent system. A National Journal article notes the passage, its key points, and objections to the legislation.

The action was backed by the Obama administration, high tech firms, and other business interests. The legislation's sponsors expect the new guidelines to ease the lengthy backlog in patent applications, improve procedures to avoid litigation, and place the United States on the same filing system as the rest of the industrialized world.

Big winners in this legislation are major corporations, such as marquee Silicon Valley players, such as Google and Apple, and major pharmaceutical companies.

Serengeti in the Pacific

Earlier this week, the online version of Nature published a remarkable report which found that the eastern Pacific Ocean is the marine equivalent of East Africa's Serengeti Plain. In fact, the undersea area off the American and Baja California coastlines are home to an astonishing number of migratory species.

If the report had simply stopped there, those findings alone would have merited headlines. The report was also significant for the way scientists collected its compelling data. The decade-long project, known as The Census of Marine Life's Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP), "attached electronic tags to oceangoing creatures and sent them out to do the research," according to a Washington Post report.

The project's methodology helped reveal new, precious information about the world underneath the Pacific's surface. It's a realm where, in the words of a Census of Marine Life official quoted in the Post story, "we were literally blind." Now, he added, we can see. "We know what's underneath now."

What went unsaid was that humankind would certainly benefit from knowing more about sea life than we currently do. Even with the TOPP report, the collective human knowledge of the Moon is greater than our understanding of the oceans' depths. Meanwhile, the urgency to illuminate the mysteries of the oceans' ecosystems and their interplay with marine and bird species increases almost exponentially.

Over a century ago, Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea popularized the concept of understanding the oceans' underwater kingdoms. Now, a glimmer of rational science has created a way for humanity to see the great life below the Pacific's surface. One has the uneasy sense, however, that we may never fully understand the nuances of marine environments. They're just too deep, in more ways than one.

The illustration, from the NOAA's Historic Coast and Geodesic Survey Collection, depicts Captain Nemo taking a star sight from the deck of the Nautilus.

A. Whitney Ellsworth, New York Review of Books' First Publisher -- RIP

A. Whitney Ellsworth, who helped launch The New York Review of Books in the early 1960s, passed away recently in Connecticut.

Ellsworth's prep school and Ivy League background made him a prime candidate for the gentleman's publishing world that existed at the time. What made him different was his dissatisfaction with The Atlantic Monthly, where he was, in the words of Ellsworth's obit in The New York Times, "a frustrated young editor." His desire to create a better literary mousetrap led him, in conjunction with Jason Epstein, Barbara Epstein, Bob Silvers, Robert Lowell, and Elizabeth Hardwick to create The New York Review of Books.

Whatever the Review's flaws are, there is no doubt that it has produced some of the English-speaking world's finest essays and nonfiction pieces. In that sense, the Review became a worthy counterpoint to The New Yorker of the William Shawn era. Ellsworth's role at the Review was crucial, in that he became its publisher. That meant he found the funding to launch the publication and, more importantly, created the structure by which it financially maintained itself. For those who insist government subsidies are the only way a media enterprise of intellectual taste and distinction can survive, the Review is a case study in editorial leadership and modest fiscal success.

Ellsworth, who had wanted to be a Review editor, found his true niche as a publisher. He also was primarily responsible for establishing Amnesty International USA as a financially viable NGO. He accomplished this through his organizational savvy, business acumen, and drive to succeed. Amnesty International USA owes its existence to Ellsworth.

One appealing aspect of Ellsworth's character was how he mastered challenges. Even though he knew very wealthy, socially prominent people, Ellsworth didn't treat them, and himself, as a collection of human checkbooks. Ellsworth had editorial ambitions, but he was self-effacing enough to realize them through his business management skills. The admirable manner in which he cared about political and social issues is a model to understand and emulate.

We need more men and women with A. Whitney Ellsworth's sense of character, ambition, and commitment. And we need them now.

Vanishing New York: H&H Bagels Closing Upper West Side Store

H&H Bagels, the product that epitomized a way of life in New York, closed its Upper West Side store this week. H&H's doom was presaged in May 2010, when its owner pleaded guilty to grand larceny. Earlier this year, there were hints in the air that H&H would vanish. And now it's gone. The New York Times noted the closing in today's online edition.

While the dowdy, no-frills shop served genuinely fresh, hot bagels, it was always more than a store. H&H represented a way of living that celebrated the City's, and especially the Upper West Side's, heart and soul. H&H had New York attitude. It didn't offer any service beyond putting bagels in a bag, and the store didn't offer any type of preparation, such as toasting. Nada: H&H was strictly a cash-and-carry operation.

Sometimes, I would visit H&H and bring to my New Jersey home bagels I could trust. Around my area, bagels resemble the shape of tires from Fred Flintstone's car. Unfortunately, the faux bagels are about as tough as Fred's tires. That just wouldn't do.

H&H will continue to have a City presence, thanks to its more factory-like venue on West 46th Street opposite the Hudson River docks. However, the atmosphere and the neighborhood just aren't the same. H&H's vanishing act leaves New York with a diminishing number of venues where its urban, and specifically Jewish, personality remains vital and even compelling.

Two holdouts that come to mind are both on the currently fashionable Lower East Side. One is Kossar's Bialys on not so soignée Grand Street. Not only do I enjoy Kossur's bialys, I appreciate that the store has made no concession to time or contemporary taste. The other refusenik is Russ & Daughters, the celebrated ne plus ultra for all who enjoy smoked fish. That includes me.

Seed Libraries

We live with the uncomfortable awareness that our country's botanical diversity is diminishing at an increasingly rapid rate. At times, it seems we are bystanders to this alarming phenomenon. However, rather than resemble the proverbial deer in the headlights, some people are working to counteract this dreadful trend. One means to accomplish the goal of saving our nation's fruit and vegetable bounty is the development of seed libraries.

This movement has something of an ad hoc spirit to it. A number of seed libraries have sprouted (sorry about the pun) in California and New York, where the awareness of the crisis' severity is strong. The LA Times recently noted the "opening" of the Seed Library of Los Angeles, a Venice-based venture with two purposes. One is to offer free seeds to gardeners. The other is to become "a preserve of local agricultural diversity," according to the Times piece. The library also has the charming notion of acting as a book lending library would, in that borrowers would return seeds at the end of a growing period. The plan sagaciously encourages members to return far many more seeds than what they were originally provided.

The inspiration for the bi-coastal efforts is the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), an Iowa-based non-profit started thirty-six years ago and still going strong today. Its goal, according to the SSE mission statement, is to save and share heirloom seeds. How serious is that need? Here's an example: the SSE maintains a pre-1900 orchard showcasing what the organization is attempting to rescue from otherwise likely extinction. According to the Seed Savers Exchange, in "1900 there were about 8,000 named varieties of apples in the U.S., but the vast majority are already extinct and the rest are steadily dying out. In an attempt to halt this constant genetic erosion, SSE has obtained all of the pre-1900 varieties that still exist in government collections and large private collections, but has only found about 700 that remain of the 8,000 known in 1900."

A sensible way to salvage our nation's vital botanical heritage is to support SSE and like-minded, local ventures. The need is urgent. The stakes are high. The time to act is now.

The photo shows leaves and seeds of a variety of amaranth.

James P. Hosty, Lee Harvey Oswald's FBI Interrogator -- RIP

James P. Hosty (photo), the FBI special agent who interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy's murder, passed away Friday in Kansas City, Missouri. The Kansas City Star's obit provides a very simple overview of the man's life and significance in the JFK story.

Hosty's professional connection to the lurid JFK assassination saga led to an unrelenting light on him that severely diminished his personal privacy for the remainder of his life. Just about any theory about Kennedy's death, no matter how dimwitted, would include Hosty. He spent many years trying to clear his reputation after director Oliver Stone smeared him in the movie JFK. Hosty also submitted his documentation about the Oswald affair to the National Archives.

That this most unfortunate FBI special agent lived and ultimately passed away in Kansas City was not an accident. J. Edgar Hoover had him transferred there one year after JFK was buried. I happen to like Kansas City (my parents lived there). However, it strikes me that, for special agents in the limelight, KC is the FBI's equivalent of the Witness Protection Program.

Hosty's life, with its suggestion of Greek tragedy, has finally ended. May the man rest in peace.

New Apple Patent Application Suggests Video Bootleg KO

Apple recently filed a patent application for its iPhone camera which includes some curious product impacts.

Most significantly, the filing includes information noting how an infrared sensor will be paired with the phone's camera. One practical result of this piggybacked gadgetry is that "interested parties" would be able to disable the camera. Among those "interested" would most likely include live performance producers, the motion picture industry, and transportation security officials.

One question that quickly arises is why Apple would put R&D efforts into the infrared sensor. It's not as if retail consumers have been clamoring for the device. How would Apple market this "upgrade"? And to whom?

For more details, the patentlyapple.com story about the Apple patent filing is a useful starting point.

The image shows an anti-piracy sign displayed at an American movie theater.

Bill Haast/100-Year-Old Snake Handler -- RIP

Bill Haast, who ran a Florida snake farm called The Serpentarium for 37 years, died from natural causes on Wednesday.

Haast's wife estimated her husband had 179 venomous snake bites during his lifetime. None, including one from a King Cobra, killed the charmed snake handler. The poison injected into Haast's system led to his extraordinary immunity to venom. Haast eventually donated blood to snake bite victims, saving the lives of twenty-one people.

The full story, which appeared in today's Miami Herald, also briefly notes that Haase's death represents the passing of South Florida's carny past. In Haast's heydey, Route 1 was the main road for sun seekers to reach Miami. The roadside was filled with what the paper characterized as "quirky" attractions which sun starved tourists enjoyed. Haast's snake act was part of that milieu. He didn't need an algorithm to master his craft. He loved his work: that was enough.

Four Obscure Authors I Enjoy: Kevin Kerrane, Germaine Bree, Paul Krassner, Edwin Denby

Once upon a time, I was something of a compulsive book buyer. If I saw a title, cover, topic, or author that struck my thoughts or mood, I bought it. Sometimes, I read the book; sometimes, it sat among other similar objects in my literary harem, waiting for its summons to pleasure.

However, many of the books nourished me in ways nothing else could, except music. I've kept a number of these through all the years, a variety of residences and circumstances, and personal taste shifts. I have a particular fondness for the more obscure titles in which lively writing, a sense of engagement, and a distaste for bullshit clearly emerge. I've picked four titles that suggest the books' character and something of my own reading preferences.

1. Dollar Sign on the Muscle/Kevin Kerrane -- The author interviewed scouts, front office management, coaches, and former players to paint a picture of talent scouting in the pre-steroid era. His best move was to let the characters speak for themselves. Their language is worth the price of the book -- if you can find it.

2. Marcel Proust and Deliverance From Time/Germaine Bree -- I became aware of Bree's fascinating work on French authors while I was an undergrad at Wisconsin. She was a real scholar who also happened to have personally known some of the writers whose works and thoughts she illuminated for a generation of Americans. No, she didn't know Proust. However, this book provides a very satisfying, lucid exploration of Proust's life and work.

3. Paul Krassner's Impolite Interviews/Paul Krassner -- The author (shown in the photo) edited a magazine of sorts called The Realist in the late 1950s and 1960s. American underground journalism was getting ready to sprout, and Krassner's publication was part of that phenomenon. (Internet hipsters should take note of this historic episode.) Krassner's subjects and questioning style was provocative and stimulating for the time. Some interviews retain a freshness free from hovering publicists, "personal brands," and "image managers." Lenny Bruce as a personal brand?

4. Collected Poems/Edwin Denby -- Denby was a New York dance critic closely connected to the City's art scene. As with many modern poets, he wrote verse because he was driven to do it, and wasn't too concerned about his "audience." To hear Denby read his work, follow this link to the University of Pennsylvania's "Penn Sound/Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing." I don't care for all of Denby's poetry, but I do like Mediterranean Cities, principally because I either lived or visited some of them. Here's Rome; I hope you enjoy it.

Pear-brown Rome, dyed for the days whose blue is sweet

Disencoils as a garden would the wreaths and noses

Waists and loose fountains it adores to prodigate

A fair-weather darling as loose as roses

Soft up to the scar, dead Imperial Rome's;

But an American in the exposed ruins

They meet him like a face unrecognized from home

The mute wide-angle look, to Europe alien;

A stare of big men worried about their weight

Gaze of bounty, but too clumsy to have mourned

Or held, listening to the heartbeat which was a fate

Sky-hues that will return, the slope of solemn ground;

And I to whom darling Europe is foreign

Look home from here, to its mystery, with longing

Bedbug Registry

If you're uptight about bedbugs, there's a website in which reports of critter sightings are duly noted. The site, http://bedbugregistry.com/, offers an Anglo-Saxon perspective on the pesty creatures, with maps featuring identification of alleged American, Canadian, and UK bedbug infestations. The champ, unsurprisingly, is the Northeastern United States, with the epicenter in New York.

Over the years, I've lived in a number of New York apartments. To satisfy my curiosity, I researched most of my former addresses. First candidate -- a Lower East Side apartment that featured a bathtub in the kitchen, a hole in the wall behind the tub, and hugged the adjacent abandoned building. It came up with a clean bill of health, so to speak. Phew.

Next up was a small Soho tenement apartment above a neighborhood social club. Clean again. Well, you can't say those very good fellas in the club weren't tidy.

Batting third was a Turtle Bay studio that I sublet for a year. Nada. No bugs.

Meanwhile, many of Manhattan's currently fashionable apartments, hotels, stores, entertainment venues, and offices come complete with a bedbug population. Despite official New York's best efforts to hush the bedbug story, another sighting in a high profile location emerges and makes the Internet or (far less likely) mainstream media rounds.

The irony in my digging on the Bedbug Registry are the ads that appeared on its search page. One ad linked to hotels.com. Another connected to Google information about travel packages to the Big Apple. A third offered information on nightly rates for stays in New York condos. Frankly, bedbug phobia would inspire me to book elsewhere for a relaxing vacation.

I'll just use the Bedbug Registry in my search.

Android Pushes Americans Into a World Without Cash

Google, which does not lack for ambition, has been talking up its vision for the Android phone. Andy Rubin, the firm's #1 mobile phone exec, recently talked with the Mercury News about a cash-free world featuring Android applications and appropriate Google algorithms.

One use for Google's new toy is to become a universal remote to manage household appliances. This is hardly a new concept. However, its application on a phone makes the Android and its market-leading device a formidable entry into this market.

Massive Machine Assembled to Dig First Tunnel Across San Francisco Bay

When one thinks of San Francisco Bay, one imagines its beautiful and not-so beautiful bridges spanning it. Tunnels in an active earthquake zone just don't seem to be the way the right approach to reach California's version of the Promised Land.

However, that perspective would be a mistaken one for utilities such as the area's water supply. Right now, the Bay Area is witnessing the beginning of a useful public works project involving the creation of the first-ever tunnel across San Francisco Bay. The Mercury News ran a story on the massive machine that will dig the ditch one hundred feet under the bottom of the bay. The dig will create a five-mile-long tunnel housing pipes for the San Francisco area's Hetch Hetchy water system. They will replace the current dual pipes, which are at risk of rupture in the event of a major seismic event. The photograph, from Jacobs Associates, the project's prime consultants, shows the area where the tunnel will be built.

If you thought the BART connection under the Bay, linking the City and the East Bay, was a tunnel, you would be mistaken. (I admit to being among the fooled.) The BART tracks are housed in a pre-constructed tube that sits on the bay floor, according to the Mercury News story.

For the Bay Area, this story is a big deal. I briefly lived in San Francisco, and I can appreciate how difficult it is to improve the area's infrastructure, and understand (as few East Coasters truly grasp) the impact of water and water rights in the West.

There's history in the pipeline story, as well, and not all of it is wonderful. In particular, the Hetch Hetchy dam, which provides the containment for the San Francisco peninsula's water supply, submerged a particularly lovely valley in Yosemite National Park.

Finally, there's the intersection of technology, hope, and necessity that the pipeline represents. It's an interesting story, even if one doesn't live in the Bay Area.

Apple -- World's #1 Chip Buyer

Here's a quickie note from the Mercury News: Apple has leaped ahead of HP as the planet's numero uno semiconductor buyer.

What this factoid implies is that sales of handheld devices are now beginning to pull away from those of personal computers. Does that shift suggest a move into the world of devices and a move out of PCs? Well, that may depend on the public's embrace of tablets as de facto computers. We're not quite at that threshold yet. Keyboards on tablets offer disappointing user experiences. Tablet screens just aren't as big as those on desktops, a key factor for most detailed visual work.

However, it wasn't so long ago that the supposedly smart Wall Street money looked at Apple -- when the herd looked at Apple at all -- as a niche company with a fanatical following. Microsoft ruled the roost. Whatever Apple's flaws (notably its annoying hubris), the company's success is living proof that the not-so-smart consumer may be a lot smarter than Lower Manhattan's bulls.

Hockey Night From Canada

I have an admission to make: I am a team sports fan. However, I've been away from the games in recent months. The action, the franchises, the players just weren't compelling enough to watch.

Last night was a different and refreshing experience. Ironically, I wasn't feeling well, so I turned on the Stanley Cup ice hockey finals. This was the fifth game of a seven-game event, with the series tied. The series featured the Boston Bruins (an "Original Six" team) and the Vancouver Canucks, one of the NHL's "expansion" success stories.

A Canadian team in the championship round of Canada's national sport gives this Stanley Cup competition special flavor. (The Cup is shown in the photo.) Hockey is our northern cousin's shared passion. I got a taste of this sentiment when I hitchhiked through Western Canada a generation ago. One of my rides came from a family that lived outside Vancouver. We began a conversation, and as I paid attention to the NHL at the time, I could easily talk about the teams and players. I told them about my first game as an NHL spectator, a playoff game in the old Madison Square Garden between the New York Rangers and a Montreal Canadiens squad captained by the great Jean Beliveau. My dad, somewhat out of character, approached a scalper and bought a pair of tickets high above the action. The story made a good impression, and our discussion remained lively for the duration of the trip.

While there's been some doubt raised about Canada's complete embrace of this year's Canuck team, for me the Stanley Cup is truly complete when a Canadian team competes for it. That gave me some motivation to watch Game Five.

Not feeling well meant I was forced to listen to much of the televised game. What a pleasure! The game had splendid, swift movement which perfectly lent itself to a fluid, radio-style play-by-play. There were blessedly few play stoppages, thus avoiding the pitfalls of dull, slow-mo replays (this technology has killed televised baseball enjoyment, in my opinion). The event had the rhythm and excitement of a sport in constant movement, hockey's link to the broadcasts of thoroughbred horse racing and soccer. In the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan's scheme, radio's "hot" aspect compelled the listener to use imagination to complete the experience. That's what I did, although I did sit up to watch the game's final, dramatic five minutes. Those 300 seconds were plenty "hot," even with the "cool" TV picture. In short, Game Five was an excellent contest, a one-zero game in which players and spectators really cared about the outcome, and viewers such as I became involved -- the ideal scenario for a sports fan.

The Vancouver Canucks have never hoisted a Stanley Cup in the franchise's history. The Boston Bruins have not won a Cup in 39 years. Now I'm curious about who wins, although I admit my heart is with the Canucks. Besides, I'm too much of a New Yorker to root for Boston in anything.

Vancouver wins it in seven, eh?

US Equities Feel Pinch As Outflows Crest

The Financial Times noted in today's editions that investors made their largest withdrawals in the past ten months from American equity markets. Retail investors have led the rush to the exits.

The wisdom of small investors (I am among them) has been questioned in the past. "Smart" money has been associated, correctly or otherwise, with "big" money. While the Madoff scandal should have torpedoed that perspective, the lingering sense is that bigger is better. Once one enters into the realm of the giants, the argument gets muddy. Hedge funds are presumed "smarter" than mutual funds, and both are superior to 401(k) account options, many of which are dimly managed. Private equity might be the smartest money of all; the trick is to get a seat at the PE table.

If all of these options are troubling, there's always the mattress approach. Just beware of the bedbugs.

Miami Fans Put HooDoo on Big D

When the New Orleans Saints made their Super Bowl run a couple of years ago, a few stories emerged about certain locals' use of voodoo to help their team win the championship. Of course, the Crescent City has an historic association with these "underground religious practices," as Wikipedia characterizes it.

Miami's version of the dark arts comes from Haiti, and is called vodou. Now, fans of the Miami Heat are buying vodou items to help the team win the NBA title. It's a breath of fresh air in a sport dominated by footwear endorsement packages.

The Miami Herald has the story. The photograph is by my wife, the fine art photographer Amy Becker.

Hedge Funds' African "Land Grab"

The Oakland Institute, a liberal policy think tank focusing on social, economic, and environmental issues, recently issued a report criticizing the African land acquisition activities of certain hedge funds. The BBC provided a story about it in today's editions.

The charges essentially evoke the bad old days of 19th Century colonialism, in which European nations carved up the mother continent in order to exploit its resources. The hedge funds are hardly the only "guilty" parties in this land grab. Various Chinese enterprises, many connected to the central state apparatus, have made their foothold in Africa. Energy companies from all over the world have strong connections to mostly unsavory governments in countries where oil flows. And some of the original colonial-era players remain, especially in francophone West Africa.

The land grab in Africa deserves more attention, and the Oakland Institute's report helps bring a spotlight to this troubling issue.

Fin Whales Find UK Waters Just Fine, Thank You

Fin whales, listed among the world's endangered species, have recently been spotted in record numbers in waters off Britain's Atlantic coast. The animals, the second largest on Earth, surprised scientists who saw them while conducting research on sardines. The BBC has the story.

Arts Blossoming in Miami?

Yesterday's Miami Herald ran a feature piece on how the arts have managed to survive and even thrive in the South Florida city. From the tenor of the piece, even the pro-arts drum beaters have been surprised by this unlikely event. The success feels like a top-down driven situation, with major local players such as the Arison family publicly involved. It's not clear how many working artists are feeling whatever magnetic pull the Miami arts scene has.

Still, one has to admire Miami's tenacity promoting the arts, especially in light of South Florida's dreadful real estate disaster and economic malaise.

The image shows a poster promoting a popular concert in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood.

Hollywood Directors Pan for TV Gold

A trend in the American movie making business is the movement of big-name Hollywood directors to television. The LA Times offers an interesting story on the topic in today's editions, including quotes from Curtis Hanson, Neil Jordan, and Michael Mann.

Intriguingly, the directors note that the current cable TV formats allow them to tell stories, develop characters, and use naturalistic locations. In contrast, they noted the current big screen tendency toward leveraging special effects, having characters straight from Fantasyland, and cutting corners on storytelling craft.

The Times story also notes some strong reasons why big screen pictures maintain their allure. Oliver Stone provides the quotes, and they're surprisingly reasonable.

How Apple's App Store Really Emerged

A fascinating interview in the Mercury News reveals how Apple nearly blew the success of the iPhone.

Mercury News columnist Chris O'Brien interviewed Bob Borchers (photo), Apple's former senior director of worldwide product marketing for the iPhone. Borchers was also part of the original iPhone team, according to the article.

The critical choice, according to Borchers, was the distinction between limiting the iPhone to Web apps and expanding its reach to native apps. Apple, which by all accounts grudgingly admits to the genius of others, listened to the market, especially game developers. By going against its own personality, Apple was able to make the iPhone a breakthrough product.

The article is interesting, and it's good to see someone pop Apple's balloon of insufferable arrogance and make the firm a far more human, and consequently more interesting and approachable, enterprise.

"Gunsmoke" Marshal James Arness -- RIP

James Arness, who played Marshal Matt Dillon in the Gunsmoke TV series, died this week at age 88. The New York Times obit does a reasonable overview of his professional and personal life. A couple of curiosities emerged from the obit. One was that Peter Graves, the Mr. Phelps of the Mission Impossible television series, was Arness' brother. Another was that John Wayne recommended Arness for the Marshal Dillon role.

Having grown up in the black-and-white TV era, I vaguely recall watching a Gunsmoke episode or two. My parents told me that, as a child, I rarely watched television programs. However, TV commercials fascinated me and I would stop whatever I was doing to watch them.

Consequently, Marshal Dillon didn't make a strong impression on me at the time. Many years later, I worked for an insurance company. Our department occasionally entertained top producing salespeople. One day, we were given the "honor" of entertaining an agent from Los Angeles the big shots wanted to avoid. I recall two things about the agent. He insisted on having lunch in the "executive dining room." After that, he let anyone who would listen know that wrote a policy for a number of Hollywood actors, including Jim Arness.

The insurance company had a number of "executive dining rooms" and we did, in fact, have lunch in one of them. The agent looked suspiciously around the room. "Is this the executive dining room?" My boss, a rare female in the boy's club, assuaged his doubts.

We all ate well that day, and I have Jim Arness to thank for it.

Ex-NPR Boss Lands On Her Feet At NBC

Remember Vivian Schiller? She was NPR's former boss who fell on her sword in the wake of a network fundraiser soliciting donations by characterizing the Tea Party as racist. That was in March.

Fast forward to June. Presto! Schiller has a new job. She's NBC's (read Comcast) "chief digital officer." The Washington Post version of events, taken from an AP story, provides the bare bones on Schiller's adios from the unemployment line.

What's got NBC/Comcast's heart palpitating so wildly? NBC President Steve Capus talked about Schiller's skill in building a "multi-platform organization." Oh, yes, he "raved about NPR's tablet app..." I see: she understands how to appeal to a liberal bourgeois audience.

What's ironic is that NBC News "has new digital properties in...theGrio.com...a site devoted to news particularly affecting black Americans."

The odds on Schiller hiring Juan Williams to be a commentator on theGrio.com start at a million to one.

Worms Discovered One Mile Under Earth's Surface

The current issue of Nature features an article in which two researchers claim to have found worms one mile under the surface of the earth.

They made their discovery while conducting exploratory experiments in a South African mine. One of the more amazing aspects of their research is that they conducted it so far beneath our collective feet. It makes one marvel at the engineering that can create safe conditions, with fresh air and light, so far from the earth's surface.

One also wonders how the pair of scientists set about discovering these multicellular creatures, called nematodes, whose existence in these extreme conditions had been the subject of speculation only a relatively short time ago.

The significance of the discovery was succinctly stated by Gaetan Borgonie (photo), one of the researchers. "It doesn't happen often," the Belgian nematologist said, "that you can redraw the boundaries of a biosphere on a planet."