The health care sector continues to add jobs so investor confidence during the past month led the monthly Economic Recovery Reality Index (ERRI) up a modest 4.76 points over July numbers to 16.03 for August. Unemployment dipped slightly and the increase in the number of “discouraged” workers slowed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - but as with prior economic recessions and depressions employment changes are once again trailing the other economic indicators:
The small ERRI gain shows Wall Street's optimism hasn't yet reached most other streets; it will take some time for average Americans to feel - or believe - that this long subtle assault that started with obscure financial "devices" has eased and real recovery has begun. The problem, we know now, was not sub-prime lending, which can and does help people, but aggressive and deliberately predatory sub-prime lending from companies and CEOs who thought they were immune to the risks in an essentially unregulated environment.
The ERRI uses a hypothetical, indexed fund (similar in some ways to a mutual fund) to measure investor confidence across nearly a dozen sectors of the economy, but until jobs and wages show sustained improvements you won't see it move back closer to (or above) the 100 mark no matter how fast stock prices drive the stock/investment component higher.
"Equity investments are volatile, particularly when not carefully diversified and monitored; the ERRI would have shown even less improvement had closing prices from even a day sooner been utilized in the calculations (since that would have reduced the 'ERRI fund' improvement.)"
The modest gain in the August ERRI figures reflect both equity prices as of the close of the NYSE on Friday, August 7th and data released in the monthly update/estimate from the Department of Labor earlier the same day combined using a new calculation. Without the on-going hiring in health care and the slight turn-around in unemployment rate even the robust gains in various stock markets would not have had much impact on the index.
Now as any regular follower of my blogs knows, I'm really happy former Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick's back in the NFL, and even though he's not signed with a team yet, former Indy Coach Tony Dungy said on NBC's telecast of the "Hall of Fame Game" that a team should sign him within the next week. That's great. But just because God's smiling on Vick, doesn't mean he has to lose control of the image he's working to build so quickly, and risk blowing it all.
What do I mean? Well, there's a new set of expectations of Vick from a number of people: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Dungy, and anyone rooting for Vick to get a second chance and most important succeed at it. I count myself here because I embarked on an attack against on PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) for its race-tinged smearing of Vick, and I'm still not done with PETA. But because of that, I expect Michael Vick to be that guy we all want him to be, and not someone sporting the latest in thug attire and saying "I'm gonna always love my N___, you know what I'm sayin" as he did in this video:
When I got wind of this via Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports on Twitter, I pretty much fell out of my chair. I wanted to make sure I wasn't being too anal about the whole deal so I asked my Mom, who's visiting me, to come over and watch the video. Her words came out as soon as she listened to him: "He's not gonna make it," she said.
I informed Mom that Coach Dungy said Vick would be signed by someone and she said "I hope so." So do I.
See, what Mike doens't understand is now, like it or not, everyone black's not only rooting for him and fighting for him, but demands that he represent himself in a way that justifies our actions in defending him. I write "black" because Vick's behavior ignites the age-old argument of what it means to be black in America and the idea that one does not have to act black, but that's another blog post, back to this one.
Allowing ones self to be on camera showing the best of thug life (another code word for "acting black") doesn't help us one bit. I don't know where anyone got the idea that rap culture was desirable, but Vick's got to understand if he wants to establish himself as lovable to corporate sponsors (and if you want to say that's a code word for "acting white" go ahead but my retort is that being clean, intelligent, and presentable to companies has nothing to do with race at all), he's got to lose that shtick, and fast.
Am I being harsh, yes, massively so. Do I care? No way. I'm really ticked-off with Vick's actions; perhaps T.O. (Terrell Owens) can talk me down and talk to him in the process. Protecting the proper image is at the center of this issue of Michael Vick's future. There are people betting that Vick will be just the kind of person he's showing himself to be in that YouTube moment and that's not acceptable to us, his fans. While Michael may feel he's got to "keep it real" as Chris Rock would say, "keeping it real, yeah, real dumb" is what he's doing.
Why in hell would Michael allow someone to point a camera at him and just follow him around without knowing what the digital image was going to be used for? Vick not only didn't care, he got right up to the camera and came off big in his thuggy glory.
Great, man. Just peachy.
What we want to see - Ok, what I want to see is a clean-cut, smooth, thoughtful version of Vick that by its very existence gives a collective finger to his doubters and allows him to regain then surpass the value he had before he was hauled off to jail. In the NFL, where potentially hundreds of millions of dollars can be brought to bear on one person, image is everything. One can't whine and cry about not being able to wear his gangta t-shirt or not "looking black", unless of course he wants to kiss his revenue potential goodbye. If so, then fine. There's thousands of brothers on the street trying to sell their music and "looking black in the process, perhaps Vick can join them.
Call me "Uncle Tom" or whatever. I don't care. I'm keeping it real myself. And the real story is that the Michael Vick I saw in that video is pretty much the same Michael Vick I briefly met at the 2000 EA Sports Party in Atlanta during the Super Bowl. At that event, Vick was playing video games wearing a white tank top shirt some call a "wife beater" shirt. His hair was braided. I was disappointed and wanted to kick the ass of whomever was supposedly advising him.
There's no denying Vick's physical talent, but I want to see him bring himself to an NFL-level of character and image, if anything because it's a good, positive message to send to kids. He didn't project that NFL-level of person at the EA Sports party 10 years ago, where he should have dressed business casual, and he's didn't show it on the YouTube video.
Coach Dungy, please talk to Michael before its too late. As my 74-year old Mom said "He's got to stay away from that old crowd. C'mon Vick!"
Now as any regular follower of my blogs knows, I'm really happy former Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick's back in the NFL, and even though he's not signed with a team yet, former Indy Coach Tony Dungy said on NBC's telecast of the "Hall of Fame Game" that a team should sign him within the next week. That's great. But just because God's smiling on Vick, doesn't mean he has to lose control of the image he's working to build so quickly, and risk blowing it all.
What do I mean? Well, there's a new set of expectations of Vick from a number of people: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Dungy, and anyone rooting for Vick to get a second chance and most important succeed at it. I count myself here because I embarked on an attack against on PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) for its race-tinged smearing of Vick, and I'm still not done with PETA. But because of that, I expect Michael Vick to be that guy we all want him to be, and not someone sporting the latest in thug attire and saying "I'm gonna always love my N___, you know what I'm sayin" as he did in this video:
When I got wind of this via Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports on Twitter, I pretty much fell out of my chair. I wanted to make sure I wasn't being too anal about the whole deal so I asked my Mom, who's visiting me, to come over and watch the video. Her words came out as soon as she listened to him: "He's not gonna make it," she said.
I informed Mom that Coach Dungy said Vick would be signed by someone and she said "I hope so." So do I.
See, what Mike doens't understand is now, like it or not, everyone black's not only rooting for him and fighting for him, but demands that he represent himself in a way that justifies our actions in defending him. I write "black" because Vick's behavior ignites the age-old argument of what it means to be black in America and the idea that one does not have to act black, but that's another blog post, back to this one.
Allowing ones self to be on camera showing the best of thug life (another code word for "acting black") doesn't help us one bit. I don't know where anyone got the idea that rap culture was desirable, but Vick's got to understand if he wants to establish himself as lovable to corporate sponsors (and if you want to say that's a code word for "acting white" go ahead but my retort is that being clean, intelligent, and presentable to companies has nothing to do with race at all), he's got to lose that shtick, and fast.
Am I being harsh, yes, massively so. Do I care? No way. I'm really ticked-off with Vick's actions; perhaps T.O. (Terrell Owens) can talk me down and talk to him in the process. Protecting the proper image is at the center of this issue of Michael Vick's future. There are people betting that Vick will be just the kind of person he's showing himself to be in that YouTube moment and that's not acceptable to us, his fans. While Michael may feel he's got to "keep it real" as Chris Rock would say, "keeping it real, yeah, real dumb" is what he's doing.
Why in hell would Michael allow someone to point a camera at him and just follow him around without knowing what the digital image was going to be used for? Vick not only didn't care, he got right up to the camera and came off big in his thuggy glory.
Great, man. Just peachy.
What we want to see - Ok, what I want to see is a clean-cut, smooth, thoughtful version of Vick that by its very existence gives a collective finger to his doubters and allows him to regain then surpass the value he had before he was hauled off to jail. In the NFL, where potentially hundreds of millions of dollars can be brought to bear on one person, image is everything. One can't whine and cry about not being able to wear his gangta t-shirt or not "looking black", unless of course he wants to kiss his revenue potential goodbye. If so, then fine. There's thousands of brothers on the street trying to sell their music and "looking black in the process, perhaps Vick can join them.
Call me "Uncle Tom" or whatever. I don't care. I'm keeping it real myself. And the real story is that the Michael Vick I saw in that video is pretty much the same Michael Vick I briefly met at the 2000 EA Sports Party in Atlanta during the Super Bowl. At that event, Vick was playing video games wearing a white tank top shirt some call a "wife beater" shirt. His hair was braided. I was disappointed and wanted to kick the ass of whomever was supposedly advising him.
There's no denying Vick's physical talent, but I want to see him bring himself to an NFL-level of character and image, if anything because it's a good, positive message to send to kids. He didn't project that NFL-level of person at the EA Sports party 10 years ago, where he should have dressed business casual, and he's didn't show it on the YouTube video.
Coach Dungy, please talk to Michael before its too late. As my 74-year old Mom said "He's got to stay away from that old crowd. C'mon Vick!"
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has called for reform of how police solve problems in the wake of the Oscar Grant shooting.
I'm not sure if it's because we have more digital camcorders around than ever before, or there's something sinister in the way police are being trained today, or some combination of both, but we now have two disturbing examples of excessive force applied by the people we hire to protect and to serve.
The first and most recent example comes from a Walmart in Columbus, Ohio. In the video below this elderly woman named Virginia Dodson reportedly of 84 years old is standing in a parking lot and holding a knife. The reason for holding the knife was that Dodson's daughter left her in her car while she went back into the store. The elder Dodson, an Alzheimer's Patient, got scared because she was alone and cut herself out of the car seat belt, then got out of the automobile in search of her daughter.
Some young people had talked to Virginia in such a way that she brandished the knife. In turn they called 911. When the police officer arrived she walked up to Dodson and after asking her to drop the knife, violently slammed her to the ground.
Here's the video:
What's got me is that since it's obvious the female officer (proving that its not a gender-based issue) was strong enough to take her down with ease, why not just grab the knife from her instead? All of the other moves were excessive and caused Dodson to bleed. Thankfully she was rushed to the hospital and no charges were filed.
To me, police officers are supposed to be trained to be super people in judgment not just strength. Yes, I know that what they do is dangerous, but the job doesn't have to be a thankless one. Somewhere along the way, deep in our long term backslide in education spending and the decline of leisure time we produced a society of people impatient to study a situation then react in a non-violent way. Great classic books on negotiation like "Getting to Yes" have given way to the ideas of "Ask A Ninja". Police seem to be expected to strike and make arrests by any means necessary rather than intelligently work to resolve a problem without arrests or violence. Want another example? Take the case of the Oakland A's fan who was tasered by police basically for being a big mouth.
Why taser a man sitting in his chair? What was the deal? Well, he was drunk, unruly, and refused to leave the stadium upon Oakland police orders. But here's the rub, yet again: why the totally unintelligent way of just saying "Just do as I say?" Yes, you should always follow police orders, period. That's for you and me. But what about those stupid people who don't? Why is the answer hitting them or tasering them? Why not another kind of weapon: words? It seems like we're really going backward as a society if you or anyone else feels you have to defend such an action. Again, the police are supposed to be SUPER PEOPLE. People we look up to for their extraordinary decision making skill, not people we fear because of the idea that they may go too far and harm someone.
I miss the days of community policing, when officers on the beat knew folks in the neighborhood and at the stadium. Those guys and women were a unique breed of talkers that knew how to use their brains to solve problems. At least the one's I knew in Oakland; they're retired for the most part. It seems that we have a national problem of not teaching good negotiating tactics to officers, who because of that are more prone to take a physical approach to problem resolution.
We've got to insist on smart cops. In fact, I'll call for a "smart cop" movement: a detailed list of changes in law enforcement systems that will produce more of the kind of modern problem solvers we need today. The first change should be monetary bonuses of $3,000 per officer per event for anyone that manages to defuse a situation without violence. That's a great incentive for an officer to think twice before flipping an elderly woman to the ground.
LakeFest is a street fair that was held last Saturday and Sunday August 1st and 2nd on Lakeshore Avenue between Lake Park and Mandana near the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. After a long absence, it's back for its second year and with great bands and vendors selling clothes and representing everything from the new Lake Chalet restaurant to "Friends of the Oakland Public Library."
I talked with a number of Oaklanders about the festival because there was a long period of time that, well, there was not an event of this kind at this location. That is until Helen Wyman stepped in.
Helen Wyman is an event producer currently best known for the first, successful Uptown street fair held June 18th of this year. She explained that this event has nothing to do with the version of year's past and is brand new. "'LakeFest' was a concept we came up with through my company Oakland Events. We decided that Lakeshore was a great spot because of the community and the neighborhood, location and the weather and so many people that can walk here. And they didn't have a festival so we wanted to bring the festival back here."
But what happened to the first version of what is now called "LakeFest"? For the answer to that question I turned to long-time Oaklander Pam Drake, who is Executive Director of the Lakeshore Business Improvement District (LBID). "WE had put it on with an art organization that didn't work with the vendors and it ended up costing us a lot of money and didn't involve our stores as much as it should. So the businesses, we weren't really sure if we wanted to go on with it.
"So, we hadn't done anything in a while and we felt like even though we have the wonderful farmers market, that people wanted to see Lakeshore on the map again. So Helen Wyman, who's someone who I worked with her mom, came up and said 'We've done all these events and I'd really like to do an event for this district.'"
LakeFest was Wyman's first independent event so she wrote a proposal to the LBID's Drake and she liked and endorsed Wyman's idea. Last year was the first one; this is the second year in a row for Wyman's festival concept.
Personally, I love what she's done. It captures the feel and the sprit of Oakland without really any "trick" other than organizing businesses and entertainment and booths. But with that, I have to complement Oakland Events on taking steps to guard against overcrowding. Many street fairs in San Francisco have the booths so close to the side walk that its hard to walk back-and-forth because folks are pressed so close together; not so at LakeFest.
LakeFest also helped the businesses along Lakeshore, especially Easy Lounge, which was perpetually crowded with a great mix of people and Starbucks and Noah's Bagels, which benefited from being near the music stage at the Mandana Avenue end of the street fair. Combined with the Grand Lake Farmers Market, the whole neighborhood was just one big party.
So, congrats to Wyman and Oakland Events for a fun time. But I look forward to the day when both Grand Avenue and Lakeshore are both closed down for one big Grand Lake Festival.
Today's Friday August 7th and for any regular Twitter user it it's "Follow Friday". But just what is Follow Friday and why is it so popular? I've got to admit I had no idea why the habit started. Whatever the case, it's a popular Internet happening, so let me explain what it is.
Follow Friday is the act of copying a Twitter account reference (@zennie62) and other Twitter accounts references (@handsongourmet), then in the "What are you doing" field paste those references and add this before them - Follow Friday - so the result looks like this:
And then click on "update". What will happen is others will see those references and click on them to follow if they want. But at times just making that kind of update will not do the trick, so many people add more account references, like so:
The reason for adding so many accounts is that the more people you encourage to be followed, the more likely they are to place you in their Follow Friday update post and the more times you will be "seen" to be followed by their followers.
Got it?
It's like this: let's say there's a 50 percent chance that you will get new followers if you have just two Twitter reference accounts, ok? So, if we have six, we go from one possible new follower to three. But you don't stop there, you add more Twitter account holders as you go along in new updates for Friday. The ideal system is to help those account holders who are following you first. What you want is for everyone following you to gain the benefit of your follower base, and vice versa. The overall objective is more followers, and a greater base from which to issue your message.
It's also the best free way to gain followers in addition to tweeting everyday, and retweeting (copying someone's tweet, pasting it into your "What are you doing? field, adding "RT" before it, and then pressing "update. On the matter of free, I don't recommend buying into a service as many of them don't work as advertised.)
Now, who started all of this?
According to Mashable the first Follow Friday tweet was issued in mid January of 2009 by @micah (Micah Baldwin), then @myklroventine came up with the hashtag #followfriday (which you can use or just "Follow Friday" as I do). But the very next week, the trend went viral, with about two Follow Friday's per second at its highest rate of activity.
TopFollowFriday a great tool
Wondering what online tool to use to "watch" your Follow Friday activity? I learned about something called TopFollowFriday, which is where can see who's endorsing them and who you've endorsed.
So give Follow Friday a try today, which is...Friday!
(Topics: John Hughes, Chicago, movies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Zennie Abraham)
When I learned that John Hughes passed away, SFGate.com referred to one of his films "Sixteen Candles" and I thought: What?! Heck with that; the best John Hughes film ever was "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"! That is one of my top 10 movies of all time. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is tops in my movie collection and when I think of Chicago, my hometown, that's the movie I think of.
Why?
Because "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" was and is the ultimate "coming of age" story but with a twist. Ferris Bueller already came of age before the movie; we come of age watching Ferris take over Chicago for a day, even as he was thought to be very sick by everyone at his school except the principal and his nosy sister.
That movie was the epicenter of popular sayings like "Who do you think you are? Abe Froeman?" (The mythical "Sausage King of Chicago" that Bueller claims to be while trying to worm his way into an expensive Friench restaurant), or "Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy... Ssssswwiiiinng batter!" , which Alan Ruck, who played Cameron, was actually ad-libbing "He can't hit-he can't hit-he can't hit-he can't hit". It had, front and center, every young man's fantasy: to drive a hot red car all over the place, have your hot girl friend and best friend in it, and absolutely no responsibility for paying for it (because your friend's parents own it).
(Of course, it took Cameron to cause its destruction, just as he was going through his pivotal change where he's ready to argue with his dad.)
"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" was Chicago: big, brash, bold, old and yet young, all in the body of Ferris Bueller. We saw every inch of the downtown of the City with The Big Shoulders, from State Street and Michigan Avenue, to The Sears Tower (I refuse to use its new name) and Grant Park and the Lake Front. It was a moving, wonderful travelogue of a city I love to this day.
"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" was our introduction to one of America's bad boys: Charlie Sheen. Playing a drug addict who makes the moves on Ferris' sister (played by Jennifer Grey), Sheen's "James Dean" take was the hit of the show behind Matthew Broderick, who is Ferris Bueller.
I've got to admit because Broderick played his role so effortlessly, it's hard for me to think of him as anyone else he's played in his long and distinguished career. As much as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" was a coming of age movie, it was Broderick's coming of age movie.
From NFLMedia.com Unrestricted Free Agency Period Ends; 86 Re-sign, 128 Switch Teams 08/04/2009 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 8/4/09
UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENCY PERIOD ENDS; 86 RE-SIGN, 128 SWITCH TEAMS
Eighty-six unrestrictedfree agents re-signed with their old teams this year during the free-agencysigning period, while 128 signed with new teams, the National Football Leagueannounced today. The five-month UFAsigning period, under terms of the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement betweenthe league and players, ended July 27.
The Denver Broncos signed the most unrestricted free agentsfrom other teams (14), followed by the Detroit Lions with nine.
As per the Collective Bargaining Agreement, players without2009 contracts who had four or more seasons of free agency experience qualifiedto be "unrestricted free agents" and were free to sign with any clubbetween February 27 and July 27.
There were a total of 336 unrestricted free agents thisyear. The total player pool isapproximately 1,700.
If an unrestricted free agent’s prior club made a 110percent tender on or before June 1, the prior club retained exclusivenegotiating rights if the player did not sign with another club during the UFAsigning period. If the player and clubare unable to negotiate a contract by the 10th week of the regular season(November 17), the player may not play the remainder of the season. If the player sits out the season, he becomesan unrestricted free agent next year.
The 128 unrestricted free agents whoswitched teams represent only 7.5 percent of all NFL players. Of the 400 players who were free agents inthe various categories of the system, 275 signed new contracts with either newteams or their old clubs. An additional44 players with fewer than four seasons of free agency experience received noqualifying offer or minimum tender from their prior clubs.
Restrictedfree agents are those players who have threeseasons of free agency experience and are subject to compensation and/or rightof first refusal.
For the first time since the current CBA went into effect 17seasons ago, none of this year's 55 restricted free agents signed with a newteam and 54 restricted free agents returned to their former clubs. The period for restricted free agents toaccept offers from other teams ended April 17.
A transitionplayer is a designated restricted or unrestricted free agent whose teammust tender a one-year contract at the average of the 10 highest-paid playersof 2008 at the transition player's position, or a 20 percent increase,whichever is greater. A franchise player is a designated restrictedor unrestricted free agent whose team must tender a one-year contract at theaverage of the five highest-paid players at the franchise player's position in2008, or a 20 percent increase, whichever is greater.
A comparison of free agent movement sincethe current CBA went into effect 17 seasons ago:
NFL FREE AGENCY MOVEMENT (VeteranFree Agents Who Signed With New Teams)
FINAL2009 NFL UNRESTRICTED & RESTRICTED FREE-AGENT SIGNINGS (Basedon official notification to NFL office) 1) 128 UNRESTRICTED free agents have signed with a NEWteam:
TEAM PLAYER FORMER TEAM DATE REPORTED Arizona Cardinals CB Bryant McFadden Pittsburgh 3/11
RB Jason Wright Cleveland 3/18 Atlanta Falcons LB Mike Peterson Jacksonville 3/11
C Brett Romberg St. Louis 3/10 Baltimore Ravens C Matt Birk Minnesota 3/5
CB Chris Carr Tennessee 3/18
CB Dominique Foxworth Atlanta 2/27
TE L.J. Smith Philadelphia 3/20 Buffalo Bills QB Ryan Fitzpatrick Cincinnati 2/28
C Geoff Hangartner Carolina 3/2
G Seth McKinney Cleveland 4/8
RB Dominic Rhodes Indianapolis 4/20
LB Patrick Thomas Kansas City 3/20 Chicago Bears S Josh Bullocks New Orleans 3/12
T Frank Omiyale Carolina 2/28 Cincinnati Bengals WR Laveranues Coles NY Jets 3/5
DT Tank Johnson Dallas 4/8
QB J.T. O’Sullivan San Francisco 3/10 Cleveland Browns LB Eric Barton NY Jets 3/16
CB Corey Ivy Baltimore 3/19
DE C.J. Mosley NY Jets 3/9
CB Hank Poteat NY Jets 3/10
T John St. Clair Chicago 3/18
T Floyd Womack Seattle 3/16 Dallas Cowboys LB Keith Brooking Atlanta 3/2
LB Ray Lewis 3/9 Buffalo Bills T Kirk Chambers 3/4
RB Corey McIntyre 3/3 Chicago Bears RB Kevin Jones 3/9 Cincinnati Bengals RB Cedric Benson 3/4
LB Darryl Blackstock 3/2
S Chris Crocker 3/5 Cleveland Browns S Mike Adams 3/6 Denver Broncos DT Kenny Peterson 3/10
TE Jeb Putzier 3/16 Detroit Lions RB Aveion Cason 3/9
G Damion Cook 3/5
WR Keary Colbert 5/7
T George Foster 4/6 Green Bay Packers DE Mike Montgomery 3/23 Houston Texans S Nick Ferguson 3/12
C Chris White 2/27
CB Eugene Wilson 2/27 Indianapolis Colts S Matt Giordano 4/17
LB Tyjuan Hagler 4/8
C Jeff Saturday 2/27 Jacksonville Jaguars C Brad Meester 2/27
CB Scott Starks 2/27 Kansas City Chiefs S Jon McGraw 3/6 Miami Dolphins S Yeremiah Bell 2/27 Minnesota Vikings LB Heath Farwell 3/6
DT Jimmy Kennedy 3/11
TE Jim Kleinsasser 2/28
S Benny Sapp 3/10 New England Patriots P Chris Hanson 3/5
G Russ Hochstein 3/2
S James Sanders 3/5
DT Kenny Smith 4/22
S Tank Williams 3/16
DE Mike Wright 3/16 New Orleans Saints QB Joey Harrington 3/30
WR Devery Henderson 3/4
T Jon Stinchcomb 3/3
LB Jonathan Vilma 3/3 New York Jets CB Ahmad Carroll 3/16
K Jay Feely 3/9
TE Bubba Franks 5/12
RB Tony Richardson 3/3 Oakland Raiders G Cooper Carlisle 3/3
LB Isaiah Ekejiuba 3/3
NT William Joseph 3/16
CB Justin Miller 3/16
TE Tony Stewart 3/3
LB Sam Williams 4/1 Pittsburgh Steelers QB Charlie Batch 4/16
CB Fernando Bryant 3/18
T Trai Essex 3/17
LB Keyaron Fox 4/6
LB Andre Frazier 3/16
G Chris Kemoeatu 3/12 St. Louis Rams CB Ron Bartell 3/5
G Adam Goldberg 3/23
DE Eric Moore 3/16 San Francisco 49ers CB Allen Rossum 3/11
LB Takeo Spikes 3/4 Seattle Seahawks LB Leroy Hill 5/1
LB D.D. Lewis 3/16
T Ray Willis 3/9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers S Will Allen 3/3
WR Michael Clayton 3/2
WR Cortez Hankton 3/5
S Jermaine Phillips 3/6
TE Jerramy Stevens 3/5 Tennessee Titans QB Kerry Collins 2/28
S Vincent Fuller 3/2
P Craig Hentrich 3/6 Washington Redskins DE Phillip Daniels 4/2
LB Alfred Fincher 3/10
CB DeAngelo Hall 3/4 3) 0 RESTRICTED free agents have signed with NEWteams:
TEAM PLAYER FORMER TEAM DATE REPORTED
4) 54 RESTRICTED free agents have re-signed with their OLDteam:
TEAM PLAYER DATE REPORTED Arizona Cardinals TE Leonard Pope 3/31
DT Gabe Watson 3/31 Atlanta Falcons T Tyson Clabo 6/2
G Harvey Dahl 4/15 Baltimore Ravens P Sam Koch 3/27
S Dawan Landry 4/2
TE Quinn Sypniewski 4/9
WR Demetrius Williams 4/9 Buffalo Bills LB Keith Ellison 3/23
S George Wilson 3/31 Carolina Panthers LB James Anderson 4/17
TE Jeff King 3/18
S Nate Salley 4/20 Cincinnati Bengals LB Brandon Johnson 4/16
LB Rashad Jeanty 4/17 Dallas Cowboys WR Miles Austin 4/23
DE Stephen Bowen 4/6
WR Sam Hurd 4/21
G Cory Proctor 4/2 Green Bay Packers S Atari Bigby 4/17
CB Jarrett Bush 3/16
DE Jason Hunter 3/16
RB John Kuhn 4/17
WR Ruvell Martin 4/17 Houston Texans WR David Anderson 3/13
T Rashad Butler 4/7
TE Owen Daniels 6/15
TE Joel Dreessen 3/4 Kansas City Chiefs C Rudy Niswanger 4/24
S Jarrad Page 5/29
WR Jeff Webb 4/20 Minnesota Vikings DT Fred Evans 4/6
RB Naufahu Tahi 3/27 New England Patriots LB Pierre Woods 4/21 New Orleans Saints G Jahri Evans 4/21
WR Lance Moore 4/22
T Zach Strief 4/13
CB Leigh Torrance 4/13 New York Giants CB Kevin Dockery 4/13 New York Jets S Abram Elam 3/17 Oakland Raiders LB Ricky Brown 3/16 Philadelphia Eagles WR Hank Baskett 4/23
C Nick Cole 3/31 Pittsburgh Steelers T Willie Colon 3/10
S Anthony Madison 3/20
TE Sean McHugh 3/2 St. Louis Rams DE Victor Adenyanju 4/20
G Richie Incognito 5/1 San Diego Chargers WR Malcom Floyd 5/15
CB Cletis Gordon 4/14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers T Donald Penn 4/14 Washington Redskins DT Kedric Golston 4/10
DT Anthony Montgomery 3/25
K Shaun Suisham 3/16 5) 0 FRANCHISE players have signed with NEWteams:
TEAM PLAYER FORMER TEAM DATE REPORTED
6) 7 FRANCHISE players re-signed with their OLDteam:
TEAM PLAYER DATE REPORTED Arizona Cardinals LB Karlos Dansby 3/4 Baltimore Ravens LB Terrell Suggs 7/15 Carolina Panthers DE Julius Peppers 6/24 Cincinnati Bengals K Shayne Graham 4/30 St. Louis Rams S Oshiomogho Atogwe 7/16 San Diego Chargers RB Darren Sproles 4/28 Tennessee Titans TE Bo Scaife 4/28 # # #
In the ongoing gaga of the Parkway and Cerrito theaters in Oakland and El Cerrito respectively we have read or heard the views of many people over the past seven months except two: Catherine and Kyle Fisher, who created both the Parkway Theater in Oakland, California and the Cerrito Theater in El Cerrito, California. I was honored to be given the exclusive first video interview with the Fishers over brunch at the Lakeshore Cafe in Oakland.
They talked with me on video for 19 straight minutes - nothing edited - about what happened that led to the closure of the Oakland Parkway Theater and that led to the current very messy relationship between the Fishers and the El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency (ERA) regarding the Cerrito Theater, a situation which saw the Fishers lose that business too, and watch as the owners of the Rialto stepped in to take over.
First, some house cleaning: this is the Fisher's platform. The interview style was to give them a place to explain what happened in their own words and with comfort. This blog entry is not a text transcript for the video: I'd prefer you watch or listen to the video because how anyone says what they say is as important as what they say. Got that? Lastly, I do have my views on this matter - no surprise there - which I present at the end of this post.
Regarding what happened in El Cerrito, the Fishers said its hard to expand a business and especially do when you can't rely on all of the players involved in that process. Kyle Fisher said that they were approached by the City of El Cerrito in 2001 with the idea of starting a new theater in that town. The Fishers said "no" because they didn't have the financial resources required to open a second location. The agency came back to them in 2002, and had what Kyle Fisher called a "back and forth" such that the Agency said "What if we pay for it?" in other words, the ERA would give the Fisher's money to open what's now called The Cerrito Theater.
The Fishers were excited that the public private partnership served as a template for community centers in America. But the time they spent on the development of the Cerrito hurt the Parkway, and the ERA and City of El Cerrito's promise of money to help them never came through.
The Parkway was always profitable
The popular perception is the Parkway closed because it wasn't making money; not true. "The Parkway was always profitable", Kyle Fisher said. But the Fishers were using money from the Parkway to keep the Cerrito going with the idea that the City of El Cerrito's promise of money to help them with the Cerrito would come through; again, it never did. Because of this, the Parkway was "crippled" as Catherine put it. So the Cerrito's underfunded condition cost the Parkway. If they closed the Cerrito, the Parkway would have survived.
On the Parkway employees and the last minute closure
I said to the Fishers that many Parkway employees felt like they had the rug pulled out from under them. They got the notice that the Parkway would be closing, and they would be losing their jobs, just four days before the March 22nd Sunday it closed. Kyle said "I completely screwed that up, and there's no excuses for that. I misread a notice. I misread a legal notice. I'm an attorney and misread a legal notice. We had fully intended to give our employees a month's notice before closing." Kyle was under the impression the Alameda County Sheriff was coming to evict them but that was not the case. But Kyle admits he made the mistake and did so right on camera. Good for him.
The Parkway was the Fisher's labor of love
The Parkway started in 1996 because the Fishers wanted to have a place where their friends could get together and watch movies over pizza and beer. Then-Councilmember John Russo was one of their earliest supporters. He contacted them because some neighbors were concerned about what their plans were for the building the theater was to be located in. He connected them with the right people and essentially "held their hand" through the process of working with the City of Oakland. As a gift, they gave John what he wanted: a sandwich named after him.
The Parkway was the Fisher's labor of love. They were a young couple when they got involved in making the facility and essentially grew together and had kids - two now - while they were growing the Parkway.
The future of The Cerrito
Now, the Cerrito has a new operator who's currently running it in a conventional fashion. They're the same group that operates the Elmwood Theater. Kyle says that eventually they want to have the "pizza and beer and couches" formula that the Fisher's established. I shared the view that it seems like the City of El Cerrito has stolen their business. Again, that's my personal view. Kyle doesn't see whatever they do as being a speakeasy theater.
Support for the Parkway
The Fishers support whatever the Oakland Redevelopment Agency does with the building that was the Parkway Theater on 1834 Park Blvd near E. 18th. They love the community and the theater and would do anything to help if asked. Catherine says it needs a lot of work and investment, some of it the person or group may not get back. For them the Parkway was an expression of their love for Oakland and the community.
The Thrill Ville
This entire episode has broken up the close relationship between Will Vaharo and the Fishers. Will has been one of the main driving forces behind the planned resurrection of the Parkway. Vaharo and the Fisher's have known each other for 25 years, having worked together at the Berkeley Faculty Club, and before that published a book for him called "Love Storues are Too Violent for Me." According to the Fisher's it was Will who started the "Thrill Ville" on Thursday nights to bring more people in.
The Thrill Ville was a kind of celebration of B-movies that featured a kind of weird and funky movie preview with Will and Kyle. It's also the place where, according to the Fishers in the video, Will met the woman that would become his second wife. (In fact, the Parkway was the scene for a lot of dates and pairings!) A lot of memories, but for reasons we didn't talk about on or off camera, Will and the Fishers are not the friends they used to be. Sad, because it was their collective creative energy that made the Parkway go.
The Fishers' next stop
Right now, the Fishers are living on unemployment, taking care of their kids and trying to deal with the horror that has become the Cerrito issue. After the close of the Parkway, they put materials from that theater into storage at the Cerrito, but they can't get them back for reasons that are not clear to me. One thing is certain just from reading this webpage report of the March 19th 2007 minutes of the City of El Cerrito City Council meeting, the City had a really unrealistic view of what was capable with the Cerrito: they wanted first-run movies. If not getting them was the City Council's reason for not supporting the Cerrito, it was really bad for them to ask for that to begin with.
Ok, it was just plain stupid.
The Fishers speciality was second-run and "B-movies" and getting first run movies calls for number of distribution deals and relationships they weren't set up to do. In my view, the City of El Cerrito should at least take responsibility for bring the Fishers in and making representations that they would give them money to operate.
There's a lot of mess here. The El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency had recently offered to help the Fishers make a business plan for presentation to the City Council, but due to "personalities" that didn't happen. But the ERA did put that in writing. Also, while the ERA expained in a letter dated January 27, 2009 that Downey Street Productions was not paying rent but when businesses are having that kind of problem, where they're saddled with more debt than they can handle, the ERA's job is to step in and help. That didn't happen.
As I stated on camera and will write here, the El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency seems to have engaged in a kind of taking of their business without just compensation for it. That's a serious legal issue the Agency should answer for; the question is will it do so? It would be great for them to do something that at least gets the Fishers out of their current financial situation. After all, it was their business and they say their property is still behind the walls of the Cerrito Theater.
For those who bring up the matter of reported taxes owed by the Fisher's business Downey Street Productions, that too is something the El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency can take care of; it could have forgave (and still can forgive) the tax debt . When I worked for the Oakland Mayor's office, I personally worked to eliminate a $989,000 tax owed to the City of Oakland for a property owner so that person would have enough money to refurbish his building. If I can do that, El Cerrito can certainly handle $200,000. When I look at it, there are more questions I have for the City of El Cerrito and the way they handled this matter, but for the present someone needs to hire the Fishers as theater consultants.
Tonight on the Football Reporters Online Show on Blog talk radio: Peter Schwartz of Sirius Radio and former NY Dragons Play by Play voice to discuss what looks like sadly, the end of the AFL as we knew it. Ken Palmer of Giants Insider.com joins us to talk Giants and NFL East Preview. Plus Bill Carroll From Consensus Draft Services helps us finish our Divisional previews..
A funny thing - well ok, not so funny thing - happened this morning at 6 am while I slept comfortably and soundly: Twitter was down. Something called a "Denial of Service" which resulted in this message according to TechCrunch:
We are defending against a denial of service attack, and will update status again shortly.
As of 8:16 PST Twitter was up again, and seems to be fine now, but they're still defending against the attack! What does all this mean? It signals just how vulnerable these small business private sector Internet systems are, and this is a matter of national security. It's far beyond Twitter Phishing, which I talked about here:
...but it underscores the point that Twitter is the constant focus of some kind of attack.
Let's not forget that for all of its 44 million visitors last month and its powerful role in the Iran protest, the San Francisco-based company is a small one with just 29 employees, no constant revenue stream, and a bed of venture money. If I told you a company of that size was actually the communications hub for much of America and the industrialized world, you'd laugh at me. But that's the case.
It's also why making sure Twitter consistently works and is impervious to future attacks is a national security issue. Remember how The U.S. State Department contacted Twitter to convince them to change their maintenance schedule as it happened during the Iran protest? Do you have any idea how many people have been saved, helped, or advanced by the existence and operation of Twitter? It's become the modern telephone (ironically one can access it with a phone) for our society.
In my view, Twitter should want, and the U.S. Government should be open to, some level of investment and assistance in creating a powerful backup system and a better method of data protection. I write this because Twitter has had problems with "server stress" in the recent past and even though the link to MG Sigler's Venture Beat post refers to a problem in 2008, there have been others since then.
Then there's the matter of protection of information.
During Easter of this year a teenager attacked Twitter with a worm (a self-copying computer program or "bot"). In July a hacker called "Hacker Croll" broke into the personal accounts of a number of Twitter employees. That led to a "document leak fiaso" where Twitter information was spread around the Internet. TechCrnuch's Michael Arrington was sent copies of a number of emails between Twitter staffers, and while he did an excellent job of sharing his new gift with Twitter, the fact that this information was sent to him means that others may have gotten it too. What kind of information was gotten? According to TechCrunch, basically all that comprises the lives of the Twitter employees who were effected:
1) the complete list of employees
2) their food preferences
3) their credit card numbers
4) some confidential contracts with Nokia, Samsung, Dell, AOL, Microsoft and others
5) direct emails with web and showbizz personalities
6) phone numbers
7) meeting reports (very informative)
8) internal document templates
9) time sheet
10) applicant resumes
11) salary grid
Hacker Croll got a lot of information, which which may have led to today's attack if it was spread around.
Who is Hacker Croll?
According to BlogPirate, Hacker Croll is a Frenchman and that's not his real name; it's his "handle", his fake name. Moreover, he's not the diabolical genius you might think he is, he actually just plain guessed at the answer to a secret question assigned to the account of a single Twitter employee!
While it's not clear that what Hacker Croll did directly led to today's "Denial of Service" attack, it's certainly clear that Twitter needs a dramatically beefed-up security system if only to protect the many millions of people who use it. But more important, a country like Iran is certainly looking at these developments with interest and has a reason to like what they see. That's why Twitter's protection is a national security issue of top priority.
up a modest 4.76 points over July numbers to 16.03 for August. Unemployment dipped slightly and the increase in the number of “discouraged” workers slowed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - but as with prior economic recessions and depressions employment changes are once again trailing the other economic indicators:
The modest gain in the August ERRI figures reflect both equity prices as of the close of the NYSE on Friday, August 7th and data released in the monthly update/estimate from the Department of Labor earlier the same day combined using a new calculation. Without the on-going hiring in health care and the slight turn-around in unemployment rate even the robust gains in various stock markets would not have had much impact on the index.
