One man's trash is another man's Ladmo Bag

A reporter here just got a story pitch from a PR person representing a text-messaging firm, suggesting we do a story on his firm and how text-messaging can be used for large-scale emergencies - like, say, a campus shooting. Nothing like a national tragedy to drum up a little publicity for your startup tech company.

(P.S. If you're confused by the headline, it's a reference to this.)

So much information, so little knowledge

 A recent Pew Research study finds that more than 30% of Americans can't name the vice president and 64% can't name the president of Russia. Wow.

The best part:

[T]he survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what’s going on — who were able to identify major public figures, for example — were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news.

In better news, another Pew study says more rich people now say they're Democrats.

Source: New York Times

The true cost of that high-paying job in the city (or low-cost mortgage in the suburbs)

An interesting piece in the New Yorker about one possible reason for Americans' ever-increasing commute: they have a hard time tallying the intangible costs of commuting with the tangible gains of living in a cheaper location or having a higher-paying job.

Three years ago, two economists at the University of Zurich, Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer, released a study called “Stress That Doesn’t Pay: The Commuting Paradox.” They found that, if your trip is an hour each way, you’d have to make forty per cent more in salary to be as “satisfied” with life as a noncommuter is. (Their data come from Germany, where you’d think speedy Autobahns and punctual trains would bring a little Freude to the proceedings, and their methodology is elaborate and thorough, if impenetrable to the layman, relying on equations like U=α+ß₁D+ß₂D²+γX+δ₁w+δ₂w²+δ₃log y.) The commuting paradox reflects the notion that many people, who are supposedly rational (according to classical economic theory, at least), commute even though it makes them miserable. They are not, in the final accounting, adequately compensated.

...

They tend to overvalue the material fruits of their commute—money, house, prestige—and to undervalue what they’re giving up: sleep, exercise, fun.

The article goes on to blame post-WWII zoning laws, which separated residential and commercial areas, but I'm not sure I agree with the thesis: even if workplaces were closer to residential areas, I doubt people would limit their employment options by proximity any more than they do now.

Am I the only one not the least bit suprised by this?

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Of course they lost the e-mail. And Nixon still doesn't know what happened to those 18 minutes of tape.

Source: Yahoo! News

CéU - Lenda

I saw this Brazilian musician's CD in a Starbucks yesterday and was glad to see her getting more attention in the U.S. I got the CD two years ago in Brazil for about $8 -- it was on sale, which I assumed meant it was selling poorly. But I was pleasantly surprised. Newsweek recently featured her, too, in a broader article about new Brazilian singers.

Good stuff.

Another journalist deathwish

The Tribune Co.'s new owner wants to turn away Google's free publicity and the reader traffic it generates.

It's time for newspapers to stop giving away their stories to popular search engines such as Google, according to Samuel Zell, the real estate magnate whose bid for Tribune Co. was accepted this week.

In conversations before and after a speech Zell delivered Thursday night at Stanford Law School in Palo Alto, Calif., the billionaire said newspapers could not economically sustain the practice of allowing their articles, photos and other content to be used free by other Internet news aggregators.

Source: washingtonpost.com

Free ice cream on Tax Day, April 17

For reals. 

Source: Ben & Jerry’s

Half Life 2: The Tower of Terror

Also known as "Too Much Free Time."

Words of wisdom

A blogger criticizes the national media for getting too chummy with politicians. While I don't agree with his contention that reporters can't gather facts for stories and for books at the same time -- and, no, I'm not working on a book myself -- he makes some painfully astute observations.

He singles out a recent incident that galled me, too, when I saw it: NBC's David Gregory yucking it up with Karl Rove, someone he's supposed to be covering, at the Radio and Television Correspondents' dinner last month.

How embarrassing. He looked like -- as the kids would say -- a complete tool.

Come on, David Gregory, when you were working as a summer intern, did you really picture yourself as the kind of person who would yuck it up with Rappin' Rove over a plate of rubber chicken?  Was this your goal?  How can you possibly not come away from these dinners embarrassed for your whole profession?  

If journalists want to send one clear sign to America that they have the least trace of concern for telling the unvarnished truth, this year's correspondent's dinner will be the last correspondent's dinner.

Global warming, Arizona style

An ongoing series in the New York Times looks at how climate change is hitting Summerhaven, Ariz., a so-called sky island near Mount Lemmon. Though the story acknowledges that the recent changes could fall within the normal range of ecological cycles(unless they're burning down homes, forest fires are considered a natural part of the area's ebb and flow), it also points to mounting evidence that the temperature is rising quickly and steadily.

High above the desert floor, this little alpine town has long served as a natural air-conditioned retreat for people in Tucson, one of the so-called sky islands of southern Arizona. When it is 105 degrees in the city, it is at least 20 degrees cooler up here near the 9,157-foot summit of Mount Lemmon.

But for the past 10 years or so, things have been unraveling. Winter snows melt away earlier, longtime residents say, making for an erratic season at the nearby ski resort, the most southern in the nation.

Source: New York Times

Insurers behaving badly

An interesting story that provides more evidence that our heath care system needs serious reform:

In 2003, a subsidiary of Conseco, Bankers Life and Casualty, sent an 85-year-old woman suffering from dementia the wrong form to fill out, according to a lawsuit, then denied her claim because of improper paperwork. Last year, according to another pending suit, the insurer Penn Treaty American decided that a 92-year-old man had so improved that he should leave his nursing home despite his forgetfulness, anxiety and doctor’s orders to seek continued care. Another suit contended that a company owned by the John Hancock Insurance Company had tried to rescind the coverage of a 72-year-old man when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease four years after buying the policy.

This comes just days after California fined Blue Cross -- my own health insurer -- $1 million for improperly denying claims when customers get sick. In both cases, the problem is a serious imbalance of power.

In a perfect world, everyone would be able to save enough during their working years to pay for their own long-term care. But salaries and long-term costs are unpredictable, hence the need the pool risk through insurance. But it's dangerous to put companies in the position of having to choose between your health and its profit. Because unlike other consumer products and services, you can't just move to a competitor when you grow unhappy with your insurer's cost/service balance.

Source: New York Times

My alma mater grows up

From USA Today:

With 51,000 students on the main campus, plus 10,000 more at three branches around Phoenix, ASU is already among the country's largest traditional universities. But unlike any current rivals for that title, it plans to keep growing -- to about 90,000 students over the next decade.

Sounds like an exciting time to be at ASU, though I do see the point of one critic in the story who complained that students are getting a community college education at a university price.

Source: USA Today

Start++

Like Vista's built-in search but miss some of the functionality of good old Windows Desktop Search (such as Web-search shortcuts)? Fear not: a young Microsoftie created an unofficial add-on that imbues Vista's start-bar search menu with those old functions and more.

Download here.

More heat over fired U.S. attorneys

One Republican, Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire, has publicly urged Bush to fire Gonzales. Another GOP lawmaker, this one in the House and not ready to speak out publicly, said Thursday he planned to call next week for Gonzales to step down. And Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said Thursday that Gonzales had lost the confidence of Congress.

Other Republican lawmakers are trying to quell the uproar until they hear from Gonzales and his aides.

...

Bush on Wednesday defended the firings but criticized how they were explained to Congress. The president said he still had confidence in the attorney general but implied that his support was conditioned on Gonzales patching things up with lawmakers.

So it looks like Gonzales won't be fired today. I give him one or two weeks, tops.

Source: MSNBC.com

Doomed

As if having to download a separate application to read the newspaper wasn't enough of a hassle, The New York Times now wants users of its experimental Reader software (which I've slammed here before) to pay for the hassle. Thanks, but I'll continue reading it for free on the Web.

I've always praised the Times for its cutting-edge use of the Web, but this is a major step backwards. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Source: Poynter Online

Generic drugs, brand-name prices

The Freakonomics Blog examines the wide price disparities among generic drugs from retailer to retailer. It uses the generic equivalent of Prozac as an example; the price for 90 tablets ranges from $117 at Walgreens to $12 at Costco.

I can vouch for Costco's low prices, at least when it comes to the generic Claratin D. The allergy drug averages about $1 or so per pill (for the 24-hour dosage) at most stores and 33 cents at Costco.

The typical price seems to have actually increased a little over the last year, since stores stopped selling it on shelves (the drug can be used to make meth, so the rest of us suffer -- but that's another rant). My theory: comparison shopping has become more cumbersome.

Anyway, I didn't realize prices swung that wildly for other drugs, too.

By the way, if you haven't read the book Freakonomics, you should. It's a fascinating and thought-provoking read.

Source: Freakonomics Blog

Gonzo is gone gone...

Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican in Congress to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' dismissal, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in his embattled Cabinet officer.

"I think the president should replace him," Sununu said in an interview with The Associated Press.

And according to the story, several others are equivocating.

The only question is whether the "resignation" will come tomorrow or Friday. I'm betting Friday afternoon (because nobody reads news between noon Friday and 7 a.m. Monday).

Either way, good riddance. Lets hope he's replaced by someone who respects the rule of law and actually gives a damn about the U.S. Constitution. 

Source: MSNBC

Clueless

 San Francisco Chronicle columnist David Lazarous proposes trying to extract licensing fees from sites that link to newspaper stories.

If newspapers aren't going to collectively reach into the pockets of online readers, they should at least focus their attention on other Internet players that are profiting from newspapers' content.

First off, there are the aggregators, sites like the Drudge Report and Huffington Post that pull together stories from a wide array of media sources (and charge advertisers a fee to appear beside links to content that they had nothing to do with creating).

This is not only impractical -- hyperlinking isn't just a feature of the Web, but its very structure -- it's business suicide. Why would you purposely drive away all the potential advertising?

Newspapers need to get over the idea that people are going to pay for content online. With a few notable exceptions -- The Wall Street Journal and maybe The New York Times -- they just aren't. Sad but true. Instead, newspapers need to focus their energies on getting advertisers online.

Google, which in many ways is far more useful than the typical local newspaper, doesn't charge subscription fees and somehow manages to rake in the dough. Why can't newspapers?

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

There is hope...

It appears that reading -- as in books, not text messaging or blogs -- is on the rebound. Better still, says this story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the writing quality is improving, too, at least for teen lit.

Like a lot of teens, Leslie Cornaby has a crowded schedule -- her days crammed with homework, hobbies and an array of techno diversions. When she's not checking e-mail, she's cruising YouTube or scrolling her iPod to tunes by Pink or Christina Aguilera.

She's also reading -- just for the glorious fun of it -- and says, "Most of my friends are readers, too."

The Shorecrest High School sophomore may not realize it, but she's enjoying the fruits of one of the most fertile periods in the history of young adult literature.

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Exactly

Duncan Black, responding to this piece from Joe Klein, hammers home an argument I've tried to make before against citing a rude lefty blog posts or nameless antiwar protesters when making the argument that Democrats are "just as bad" as Republicans.

To be sure, Democrats have their issues (see this shady lobbyist-sponsored trip for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer for an example), but party spokesmen != some random person with a Web site.

Anyway, as his commenters try to explain to him over and over again, the point is that to the extent that the people Klein was trying to caricature with his list of left wing extremist characteristics actually exist (stipulating for sake of discussion at the moment that they do), they aren't members of congress, they don't have prominent positions in the Democratic party, they don't have columns in Time magazine, they don't get invited to discuss the issues on CNN or NPR, they don't write Op-Eds for the New York Times and, most relevant for this discussion, they aren't even prominent dirty ... hippie bloggers.

On the flip side, the caricature he offers up of right wing extremists are members of Congress, prominent members of the Bush administration, run the Republican party, have columns in Time magazine, regularly come on CNN to discuss the issues, and pretty much define the right wing blogosphere.

Source: Eschaton