MC Hammer, the legendary entertainer and friend (we met at the BizWorld luncheon in December 2007 and then catch up with each other at tech events), is the victim of a nasty, yet very sloppy smear campaign. Someone is reporting that he owes the Internal Revenue Service $600,000, and this wrongheaded information has been spread around the Internet. But not one to back down from a fight, Hammer says that he paid the IRS in an issue that's almost two decades old.
Today, Hammer issued this press release to me:
“I paid the IRS 100 percent of their claim,” said Stanley Burrell, better known by his rap star moniker
MC Hammer. “In the past year or so, they decided--wrongly--that I owed them additional taxes from 15 years ago. I am contesting this claim through my tax attorneys and my case is making its way through the IRS appeal process. I hope to be successful.”
Hammer said that the alleged past due amount of approximately $625,000 is not related to his current successful business ventures and have no impact on them. Hammer owns or works on several businesses including: Dance Jam, his own record label, production company, and musical appearances, as well as other ventures.
He said news reports today incorrectly give the impression that that the music star is facing new financial issues, but that is not the case.
“I think the IRS claim is wrong and unfair,” he said. “When there was a sum of $7 million dollars available, the IRS took the amount they said was due them. Now they want to come back for more now that it's 15 years later? That’s just not right and I’m fighting that nonsense.”
MC Hammer
What I wonder is why anyone would care to put out false information as was done here. I can personally say that Hammer's the kind of person who helps people and is generous, at times to a fault.
[This article first appeared in City Brights - reposted by permission]
The announcement that a new HIV virus has been discovered alarmed many relatively-unflappable people. Does this announcement change safe sex recommendations? To answer that question, first we'll cover The Background. Afterwards, stay tuned for What Are You Gonna Do About It? Finally check out Sext: Acronym Stimulation For A New Generation.
The Background:
A new version of HIV was identified in a 62 year old woman from Cameroon. She tested positive for HIV in 2004, has no evidence of disease, and, because of some irregularities in her HIV viral load tests, had her blood examined by researchers. This new HIV is believed to come from gorillas (not chimps, who are believed to be the originators of our "standard" HIV virus). The woman from Cameroon denies any history of contact with apes, or handling/eating any bush meat. "Bush meat" is an African phrase for eating monkey - a practice I saw often when I worked at the Schweitzer hospital in Gabon, including the time I was offered a monkey entree by a local restaurant's waitress. While no one knows for sure how a virus jumps from ape to human, I can promise you that killing and dressing a monkey involves significant blood exposures.
There are already 3 known versions of HIV - why the flap about this 4th one? To begin with, no one can answer basic questions, such as: 1) will our current tests reliably identify it? [the test did in this one woman, but no one knows yet if it will consistently identify the infection in others] 2) will this version of HIV make you sick/cause AIDS? 3) how many people have it already? and 4) would our current medicines be effective against it, if need be? No one knows.
Right now, there are only two things known for sure - first, that the virus can replicate in human cells. And second, the fact that the woman got on a plane one day, and was in France the next, demonstrates how very easy it is for viruses (including H1N1) to fly the friendly skies. The time from mutation to migration is awfully tiny these days.
So What Are You Gonna Do About It?
What's a reasonable person to do with this kind of news? Other than hide under the bed, that is?
This kind of news is a great reminder for us all to reaffirm healthy sexual practices. You know the drill: consistent condoms and barrier methods, fewer partners, and more sober sex. And then maybe even take safer, healthy sex to a new level. What kind of new level? That's where a 7-foot plush penis comes in (ahem). Byron, the Healthy Penis, is one of our local sex-celebrities (sex-lebrities?). His job? To give us all a "heads up" about the importance of getting checked for syphilis, and the role of syphilis in the spread of HIV.
The author
Go to www.healthypenis.org for info about when/how/who should get checked, as well as some graphic - and by that I mean graphic-novel type graphic - descriptions of symptoms you can watch out for.
Besides the syphilis angle, there's more news on the advanced-safer-sex front (...or back, depending on your preference). In the same edition of the journal Nature that reported the new HIV virus, other researchers reported that herpes virus continues to help spread HIV long after the herpes sores have healed. Treating the herpes doesn't make any difference in HIV transmission. Immune cells stay in the area, lurking under the surface, long after the blisters are gone. HIV uses those same immune cells to hitch a ride into the body. Gonorrhea and chlamydia have both long been known to increase HIV transmission rates, so ask your doctor whether it's worthwhile screening for them, even if you don't have symptoms. Heck - it's like these germs are working together. Yet another reason to "prick" up your ears about healthy sex these days. While both syphilis and herpes can be spread in areas that condoms don't cover, the take home message is the same - condoms are your friend. Now and forever. A-men.
Sext: Acronym Stimulation For A New Generation
So does all this news mean your sex-positive attitude is starting feel, well, kind of wilted? If so, check out this chortle-worthy article at eSarcasm, titled 25 More Sexting Acronyms Parents Need to Know. As the authors put it (tongue firmly in cheek - their own, we presume), "The problem with any list like this is that it's just not comprehensive enough. There are in fact at least 25 other commonly used abbreviations that enable your teens to have 100 percent safe sex via their cells. And we can't have that." My favorites on the list? Number 15: "SC" (translation: still chafing); number 20: "HPIMPNSIM" (translation: I have a popsicle in my pants. No, seriously - it's melting); and number 25, "HWH?" (translation: Herpes? What herpes?).
With all these STD developments in the news, now's a great time to embrace...your health. Pass the news along to friends and loved ones - let's treasure our wellth.
The Twitter natives are restless over the Miley Cyrus issue, where the teen pop star appeared on the Teen Choice Awards Monday and sang and danced to a stripper poll. I gave my take on her "performance" and wondered just how far she would go in promoting the sexual side of herself here:
But on Twitter, Cyrus' controversial dance has been the focus of a "hashtag war" pitting #WeLoveMylieCyrus against #WeHateMylieCyrus factions. What do they write? Here's a taste:
MoNiCa_90 @mileycyrus #WeLoveYouMiley #WeLoveYouMiley #WeLoveYouMiley #WeLoveYouMiley #WeLoveYouMiley #WeLoveYouMiley #WeLoveYouMiley #WeLoveYouMiley less than 20 seconds ago from web
But since the hastag doesn't go to Mylie's Twitter profile it's not directly benefiting her follower count, but indirectly?
Yes. Now, the #WeLoveYouMiley warriors are winning big time, as the #WeHateMylieCyrus hashtag is not within the top trends on Twitter as of this writing, yet the "love" one is.
Meanwhile what's Mylie doing? Well...
Drinkin' a pink lemonade listening to its 5 o'clock somewhere :) http://mypict.me/k3FW
While this may seem meaningless, it's not, and only a fool would ignore it. Marketers should pay attention to how the actions of one person communicated on television are amplified online to the ultimate benefit of that person, in this case, Miley Cyrus. There's a formula at work here that's repeated again and again and it does involve sex. How far this approach will go is anyone's guess, but I can say this: it's now all too mainstream.
Ha! Color me "happy" to learn that Fox News' blowhard Glen Beck, whom I just referred to as part of the "Couch Potato" conservative sect plaguing America with their unique brand of homespun stupidity, is losing major advertisers in the wake of his "Obama is racist" rant and the end of last month on the July 28 episode of "Fox and Friends."
It's a sure sign that the conservatives' baseless attack on President Obama's not working and major image-sensitive companies don't want to be associated with it. Beck's, considered a major right-wing spokesperson, lost Geico Insurance, Proctor and Gamble, and Lexis-Nexus'owned Lawyers.com.
The drive to have companies run away from Beck was established by the organization ColorofChange.org which launched an online petition letter campaign focused on the distribution of this document:
To President/CEO & Board:
I want to alert you to the fact that Glenn Beck--whose show you sponsor on FOX--is using his platform to make outlandish accusations about the President and to advance baseless theories that prey on race-based fears.
He is claiming that President Obama is a "racist," that he has a "deep-seated hatred for white people," and that he is attempting to use our government to deliver "Obama-brand reparations." The claims are ludicrous, and the rhetoric is racially divisive and pollutes our public discourse.
I presume your company does not want to enable such rhetoric, nor have your products or services associated with the kind of views and tactics espoused by Beck. I urge you to immediately cease all advertising on the Glenn Beck Program on the FOX News Channel.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Today, ColorofChange's James Rucker issued this press release on the Geiko news:
GEICO Car Insurance to Pull Advertisements Away from Glenn Beck Program
Insurance Company Joins Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson in Distancing Themselves from FNC Anchor
OAKLAND, Calif.--Adding to a growing list of advertisers distancing themselves from controversial Fox News personality Glenn Beck, GEICO has pledged to re-direct their advertisements away from Beck's program on the Fox News Channel. The decision by GEICO comes on the heels of announcements made last week that LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson were distancing themselves from Beck after the news host called President Obama a "racist" who "has a deep-seated hatred for white people."
"On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on FOX-TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program," said a spokesperson for GEICO Corporate Communications in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck's program."
"We applaud GEICO and all of the other companies who have stepped forward to pull their ads from Glenn Beck," said James Rucker, executive director of ColorOfChange.org. "Beck's rhetoric is dangerous to the fabric of our democracy, and we are heartened that so many big companies feel the same way. We won't stop here -- we're going to continue our fight to see that as many of Beck's advertisers pull their support as possible."
Two weeks ago, ColorOfChange.org called on its 600,000-plus members to sign a petition urging companies who advertise on Glenn Beck to cut off their advertising support of his work. More than 75,000 members responded to the call by signing a petition directed at advertisers.
Last week, ColorOfChange.org received confirmation from LexisNexis that they pulled their ads from Beck and have no plans to advertise on the program in the future. Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.
The ColorOfChange.org email urged members to go visit http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/, where they could send letters to executives of target companies. With more than 600,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the largest African-American online political organization in the country.
According to TV Newser, Fox reports that the companies who jumped ship were moved to other Fox programs but that was before the Geico news and ColorofChange is not finished with its work.
When I learned that teen star and Twitter mogul Miley Cyrus had literally done a number on a stripper pole at the Teen Choice Awards Monday night, two thoughts entered my mind: first, who convinced the 16 year old to do it, second, does this mean a sex tape's in her future too. I say and write that because I learned she and her father Billy Ray Cyrus came up with the dance production idea. So if her dad's cool with his daughter dancing around that pole at her age, the sky's the limit, right?
Miley Cirus and pole at Teen Choice Awards
Look at how much buzz this act has created for her. In an era where the next ultimate media-based tease is right around the corner, drawing all of us to some news or celebrity website, here's Miley picking up traffic from searches for "stripper pole" in addition to those terms that are to be expected like "Teen Choice Awards". But unless you doubt Miley's turned the corner and so in the moment of what she's doing she's either got no idea of how far she's come or has every idea of how far she's come, she invoked the name of that ever-loving past queen of the flash no-panties shot, Britany Spears in her Twitter updates when she tweeted...
For all the people calling me the "next Britney" THANK U. I couldn't ask for a better compliment :)
Now, with those short shorts, boots and moves, Cyrus did stake her claim as the next Britney, which is why I openly wonder how far she's going to take this over the next 10 years? Moreover, as Miley's seen as teen influencer, what does this say for the trend in the overall habits of teenage women today? Have we so desensitized sex that we should expect to see teen women taking pole dancing courses as a substitute for physical ed? And if that's the case, are we preping them for future employment as strippers?
What's going on here?
I feel like I'm walking a tightrope between being a schoolmarm who wants to take the spiked punchbowl away and a modern member of our media-driven society who likes that someone like Miley keeps pushing the edges of taste and sensibility. But to what degree and when does it stop? The whole hyper exposure movement has placed extreme pressure on our culture's ability to accept and reject sexually suggestive actions such that we have Miley doing things on camera before millions that she would have gotten kicked out of school for doing before a small class of people at a dance-off.
Does that make any sense at all?
All I ask is how far are we taking this and is it ok? So, I ask you now in my poll:
Now, me? Ok, I had little problem with Miley's act, I'm just concerned she's going the sex tape route to megastardome. What say you? Or maybe you're the type that just doesn't care and wants Rome to burn as long as you get your work done and you're not impacted. Or perhaps you want Mileu to apologize for the act? Whatever the case, share your view. One thing's clear, Miley started the Tuesday after her show with not a care in the world, tweeting...
Good morning people! Doo da friggen doo LIFE IS SO GOOD :) I laughed so hard I literally threw up! Hahahahhahahahahaha34 minutes ago from UberTwitter
Miley Cyrus has been sexually exploited by her father, Billy Ray (one-hit-wonder) Silas for before she reached puberty. The Vanity Fair pictures were a national disgrace, yet her career continues to be supported by Disney, one of America's premier entertainment corporations.
The huge Media conglomerates of the World are merely concerned with inducing the masses to part with their escapist dollars and cents, nothing more.
Our moral decline as a society means nothing to them.
As I was in search of a decent Irish bar and a hot Irish Coffee after a very cold day that was the Inauguration of President Barack Obama in Washington DC, I literally almost walked right into Joe Scarborough of MSNBC's "Morning Joe." If you're a political junkie like me, you certainly catch his show even though it comes on in the wee hours of the morning on the West Coast (ok, most of the time I'm asleep but I do try to watch it.)
After righting myself to avoid a collision I asked Joe if I could interview him on camcorder and get his thoughts on President Obama's speech. He gave permission and I promised to hold it to about 2 minutes. Scarborough said it was the greatest speech he heard since JFK's 1960 inauguration speech but most important, Joe took time to remind us that we're all Americans. I have to explain the context: while it was a great day, with a record 2 million to 3 million people in attendance (I think more than that), some took time to boo George W. Bush and as Joe said in the video, some conservatives thought it was a bad day for America. In reponse to this, Scarborough said "We're Americans. If you can't look at the sea of 2 million people waving American flags and not thank God that you're an American regardless of your political affiliation, there's something wrong with ya."
I thought about this as I considered the constant stream of hate-speech from some conservatives and claims that anyone who wanted to fix our health care system or improve our economy by spending money where needed (we have a great disinvestment problem) was in some way not American. That's when I remembered my talk with good ol' Joe Scarborough.
Conservatives should take a note from Scarborough and remember that while we may disagree on what to do to make America better, we're all interested and committed to improving our country. At least I hope we are. I'm certainly happy Scarborough checked the all-too-ridiculous rant of MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan (from "The Closing Bell") a few days ago, when he asked Ratigan if he's done a few lines (of cocaine) before appearing on "Morning Joe". Ratigan's under the impression that capitalism's under attack, when the fact is America's always had a mixed economy. The sooner folks like Ratigan get that, the better he and others will understand what's happened to our system, but that's another blog post.
Right now, I'm worried that there are two types of conservatives and the one's who aren't like Joe are more in number. We have a few conservatives who are even-tempered and thoughtful like Scarborough, and a lot who are hateful and unintelligent, like Glen Beck. I call the Beck-types "couch potato" conservatives who watch TV, listen to Rush, quote his lines, don't read a lick, never even heard of William F. Buckley, or for that matter can't deal with the fact that much of their brand of conservative behavior (I will not call it thought) is really a cover for a new brand of racism.
In fact, in my experience couch-potato conservatives don't understand economics well enough to talk about what a conservative approach should be separate from parroting tax credits as a term again and again and again, and not knowing why they work or don't work in some cases. But ask them about immigration or affirmative action and they can talk for days. Totally disinterested in rigorous thought they are, and right now, they're doing all they can to wreck this country. I hope they realize one day what Joe Scarborough said to me on January 20th 2009: "We're all Americans", and I would add, we've all got to join together as one and fix the economy of the USA.
In a sign that Facebook's not happy with Twitter being the "pulse of the planet", it acquired rival social network FriendFeed today. Yes, Facebook gets all of the FriendFeed ex-Google employees. Bully for them. But what does it mean for a person like me who's on both sites? For the answer, I checked Friend Feed's blog.
Well, to the unaided eye nothing. But then everything. Here's my hypothesis: look for Facebook to morph into FriendFeed such that all of the content from your social networks will easily find their way into your Facebook profile. On Flickr and uploaded a new photo? You'll see it on Facebook. And you can already see your tweets on Facebook, but if you're on about 14 main sites like I am (and 34 in all) you can't see all of them on Facebook; look for that to change too. That's just my prediction, but one thing's clear: Facebook just bought itself "Citizen Kane-style", the best engineers around. This is the press release that one can see at Friend Feed:
PALO ALTO, CALIF.—August 10, 2009—Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed’s four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams.
“Facebook and FriendFeed share a common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends,” said Bret Taylor, a FriendFeed co-founder and, previously, the group product manager who launched Google Maps. “We can’t wait to join the team and bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world.”
“As we spent time with Mark and his leadership team, we were impressed by the open, creative culture they’ve built and their desire to have us contribute to it,” said Paul Buchheit, another FriendFeed co-founder. Buchheit, the Google engineer behind Gmail and the originator of Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto, added, “It was immediately obvious to us how passionate Facebook’s engineers are about creating simple, ground-breaking ways for people to share, and we are extremely excited to join such a like-minded group.”
Taylor and Buchheit founded FriendFeed along with Jim Norris and Sanjeev Singh in October 2007 after all four played key roles at Google for products like Gmail and Google Maps. At FriendFeed, they’ve brought together a world-class team of engineers and designers.
“Since I first tried FriendFeed, I’ve admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use.”
FriendFeed is based in Mountain View, Calif. and has 12 employees. FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being as the teams determine the longer term plans for the product.
Financial terms of the acquisition were not released.
Mark Zuckerberg is Charles Foster Kane
In the classic movie and one of my favorites "Citizen Kane" when Kane (played by the late Orson Wells) acquired a little known paper called "The Enquirer" it was far behind the rival Chronicle in circulation and the Chronicle had the best writers around. Six years later, Kane built the Enquirer's circulation and bought the Chronicle's writers and moved them to the Enquirer. That's essentially what Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook has done; bring it the best talent. It's certainly an epic move because it's one that will boost Facebook's already lofty online presence.
Who's Facebook aiming after?
The popular view, advanced by TechCrunch because it's take and readership, is that Facebook got FriendFeed to go after Twitter, but legendary tech blogger Robert Scoble has a different view: he thinks its Google that's their target and has some great points, foremost is that Google does not have "real time search" and FriendFeed does.
What's real time search? It's an on-the-spot updating of your content. Check Robert's blog for an example of this now (just look on the right at the scrolling widget). It's a great way for searching for "who's chatting about what, now" unlike what was written years ago, which is what Google does today. Now, Facebook has an advantage over Google here in an area that Google considered a priority. Robert likes the move and so do I.
In the wake of my interview with Chevron employee Dennis Roos I've gotten a number of email and calls updating me on the matter of the negotiations to restart the stopped construction of the improvements to the Richmond refinery.
One of them was this "Meet The Mayor" community meeting held Friday, August 7th at 5:30 PM. Here, one could ask questions of Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin for one hour, but my intent was to attend, film residents who were concerned about the project, pro and con, and after it was over, get the Mayor's direct point of view if she would give it to me. (Take note of that.)
To review, Chevron's planned upgrade of their giant Richmond oil refinery was stalled because environmentalists sued them in court regarding what was viewed to be an inadequate environmental impact report (EIR) regarding how emissions were going to be lessened over current levels. Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Barbara Zuniga agreed with their view and ordered planed construction stopped until Chevron could create a "better" EIR. The judge's decision threw over 1,000 construction employees out of work and threatened the future of Chevron in Richmond.
So I did arrive and sat next to a white-haired gentleman who as it happened gave me a copy of a letter I'd not seen from Richmond's Mechanics Bank. The letter stressed the importance of keeping Chevron in Richmond and arriving at a settlement to get the plant project going again.
So the meeting started and as the Mayor listened to people introduce themselves I explained that I was a video-blogger who wanted to ask her about the plant matter after the meeting was over if I could. She did say that was fine.
There were only two people who came to the meeting to talk about the refinery issue. The first person, an African American man, said that the Mayor seemed not to care about the people who need jobs and more about her own agenda (this is in the video). The Mayor said that she does did support a support a substitute to the the resolution voted on by the Richmond City Council two weeks ago calling for settlement talks (with California Attorney General Jerry Brown involved) so that all the workers can get back to their jobs and she's working to make that happen. The Mayor said doing this is important because Richmond has a 17 percent unemployment rate.
A few minutes later, and after a number of residents expressed concern for and presented programs to stop the violence plaguing young African Americans in Richmond (which was heart-breaking to see, no matter how many times I am presented with this issue), the man I was sitting next to, who's name was Richard Lompa, asked the Mayor about the bank letter, and explained that he didn't understand "why do we continuously bash Chevron" and quoted the letter written by Mechanics Bank President and CEO Stephen Foster which said the reason given for opposing Chevron doesn't stand up to scrutiny . He said no one would support Chevron putting out more pollution, and that it was as if she was plunging a dagger in the heart of the city.
The Mayor's response was that the judge made the decision and then she threw in that Chevron does not pay its fair share of taxes and talked about the company's court battle against Measure T which imposed a new tax structure for manufacturers like Chevron. She also pointed to Chevron's appeal of its property tax assessment.
After the meeting and people left the room, the Mayor did give me her time and put to rest the idea some have expressed that she was not talking to Chevron, stating that she talks to representatives of the firm every day.
Mayor McLaughlin then essentially repeated her claim that Chevron doesn't pay its taxes in response to my question that as a person trained and who's practiced economic development, tax reductions are a normal part of negotiations to make it easier for employers to maintain their business in a city. She asked if I was referring to the Measure T issue, and repeated what she said before regarding the firm not paying its fair share of taxes. Then, weirdly and after presenting herself well on camera but before I could deactivate it, suddenly turned and said "I have a community meeting" but I turned the camera to show that the meeting had ended long ago. Moreover, the Mayor agreed to give me just a moment of her time, and I gave her a platform to present herself; the Mayor didn't say she had more people to meet when we started the interview. She didn't have to essentially rain on her own parade but that's what happened as one can see and I'm really disappointed that she did that. I turned off the camcorder.
As I went outside, Mr. Lompa was talking to another person, but after he finished gave me his view. "The Mayor," he said, "was being shallow and not grounded with reality" regarding her repeating of the idea that Chevron has a $24 billion profit. He also said that he appeals his tax bill if he thinks it's not valid.
I agree with Mr. Lompa, but I'm really concerned that the good Mayor seems to have more of a personal agenda that may cloud her ability to effectively negotiate with Chevron. It's common practice for businesses to want and ask for tax reductions and its equally normal for city economic development officials (and that includes the Mayor) to structure rates that help businesses.
In all of my years in the public sector I've not seen or met a Mayor that didn't understand that, but Mayor McLaughlin's a new breed of activist city official. That's all well and good for getting elected but it seems to cloud one's ability to conduct the business of maintaining a municipality's economy. One can have their personal beliefs but when a city's unemployment rate is at almost 20 percent as is the case in Richmond, its a recession, and the job base has decreased by over 50 percent in the last two years, it's time to be more pragmatic and less antagonistic.
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!"
