An American Lion: June 2010

Will it Work to Dumb Down Le Monde?

Le Monde (Pardon me while I steal their content)In order to find a business model that works, Le Monde is being sold to a purveyor of porn. Meet the Rupert Murdoch of France:

The journalists of Le Monde, the most prestigious French-language publication in the world, have contemptuously defeated an attempt by President Nicolas Sarkozy to intervene in the sale of their struggling newspaper.

As a result, Le Monde, once known for its uncompromising austerity, will today fall into the hands of the former romantic and business partner of Yves Saint-Laurent and a radical, self-made billionaire who founded his fortune on internet pornography, chat lines and peep shows.

Le Monde's journalists, who have controlled the newspaper for almost half a century, voted by over 90 per cent to accept the majority ownership bid of a consortium headed by Pierre Bergé, 81, the retired fashion impresario, and Xavier Niel, 42, one of France's most successful, and controversial, internet entrepreneurs.

Le Monde has, apparently, been "dumbed down" in order to appear less ponderous and to appeal to a more "online" audience that likes images, simplicity, shorter stories, and, of course, hot women.

Does this work? Does it really matter if a major world publication decides to adopt a leaner look? I think that there is no question--news outlets have to be able to switch to a more online-friendly format. There's no use lamenting the text-only days of broadsheets when there's no chance that maintaining a newspaper format and staying in business.

I hate to see something dumbed down, though. I value content above most other things, and a little esoterica and academic research mixed in with my news and opinion works wonders. I think that that business model works for small niche services but can't work for a major publication trying to garner millions of page views and hits.

And it's nice to see that those of us who purvey porn can be accepted. We just want to be loved. I need to be loved. My safe for work hotties are all that comforts me sometimes.

Don't Do It, LeBron

Given that the New York Knicks are a terrible franchise, why would anyone want to play for them?

Forget cities and towns and arenas. Is the franchise worth a damn? If not, move on. Don't take their money to play for coaches who are routinely fired or undermined and don't play with second-rate overpaid free agents who are there to sit with phony injuries so that they don't "damage" their next payday by putting up terrible numbers in front of the country's biggest media market. You see, when a player goes to New York, they put up decent numbers, figure out how hard it really is, and then they sit. They coast on the swell numbers they put up elsewhere.

Rarely do you see anyone "step up" and do what they are supposed to do when they sign with a team in New York. So, let's say Le Bron shows up and signs a lucrative contract. Anyone who comes in to play for New York--or is already there--instantly knows that the media focus will be on LeBron and not them. So why show up and play? Why put up numbers that suck in New York when it would be safer to dog it in Washington or Portland and maybe be the number one or two guy on the team?

LeBron James will suit up every day and play hard. He will give the fans in New York what they want. But the likelihood that the other players on the team will fold up and look at the rafters is too great. This is the same franchise that bet on Starbury, and couldn't figure out how to solve that problem. The stain of Stephon Marbury taints the New York Knicks even to this day. That's their history. And it's a history of free agent debacles and lousy performances.

This is the problem with the NBA. No matter where LeBron goes, he will have to coax others to play at his level. The risks of failing will drive many players to Atlanta, Dallas, or Phoenix just to avoid that sort of scenario. And it's too bad. Five motivated players can go out and win it all every year. In the player-oriented, contract-ruined NBA, that can only happen once or twice, if that, and even then it takes a team like San Antonio or Los Angeles to pull it off. And how do they do it? Everyone shows up to play, no matter who the number one guy is. For every Tim Duncan or Kobe Bryant, there are other players who can and will play at the level necessary to win. Boston might still have that, but they're getting long in the tooth. How many seasons does Kevin Garnett have left? Does he play three more? Or two more? Or can he play for longer than that and keep Paul Pierce and Boston's new phenom Rajon Rondo with him?

Can that happen for LeBron in New York? History says otherwise.

Danica Crashes, Everyone Says This is a Good Thing

Talk about lowering the bar of expectations:

Danica Patrick didn’t win the NASCAR Nationwide Series race on Saturday

That honor went to Kyle Busch. However, Patrick finished a career-best 30th. And for Patrick, qualifying 25th for Saturday’s New England 200 was also progress.

The NASCAR rookie was far from Brad Keselowski’s pole-winning lap of 29.376 seconds (129.657 mph). And while the JR Motorsports team was hoping for a 30-flat, Patrick’s qualifying lap of 30.292 seconds (125.736 mph) turned out to be her fastest lap of the weekend.

The goal for Patrick and the No. 7 JR Motorsports team this season is taking baby steps. Any improvement is a step in the right direction.

“Things are going good,” said crew chief Tony Eury Jr. “She tries to say it’s not hard, but it’s got to be hard going from Indy Car to back stock cars. We coil bind springs. We do different things over here. We’ve been pretty happy with her progress. Every time she goes out she gets quicker over here. That’s all we can ask.

“This whole year is going to be about learning. It’s not about how many races we can win or top fives. It’s more about 'let’s learn about these cars. Let’s learn how they race.' That’s what we have to realize. Next year we’ll come back and say, ‘We want to compete for top fives. We want to compete for wins.’ But she’s got a big learning curve ahead of her and this is her third down-force race. So I’m pretty tickled with it. They’re going to be rough and banging and picking each other up out there all day , so we’ll see how she handles that.”

All of that may be true, but this is Danica Patrick. Does she have the patience and the maturity to handle NASCAR? From what I've seen so far, she doesn't have what it takes. She may be a great race car driver, but she's not competitive enough to make it.

Thems the breaks, kid.

The Koch Snowflake

Cut the Salt Any Way Possible

Your uncle Norman likes to preach, and I preach a mean gospel. Walk a lot. I've started a blog about walking; you should already have it bookmarked. I think people should be prodded into walking in any way possible. Walk yourself to fitness; do not eat yourself thinner. And, for Pete's sake--find a way to cut the salt out of your diet:

Nine out of 10 Americans eat too much salt with most of them getting more than twice the recommended amount, according to a survey by U.S. government researchers.

They said an estimated 77 percent of dietary sodium comes from processed foods and restaurant foods.

"Sodium has become so pervasive in our food supply that it's difficult for the vast majority of Americans to stay within recommended limits," said Janelle Peralez Gunn, public health analyst with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who led the study of salt consumption.

"Public health professionals, together with food manufacturers, retailers and healthcare providers, must take action now to help support people's efforts to reduce their sodium consumption," Peralez Gunn said in a statement.

The study said most Americans consume 3,466 milligrams of sodium a day, more than twice the recommended limit. Much of the excess sodium comes from foods like pizza, cookies and meats, it said.

Want to know what will really change your outlook?

Leave the United States. Briefly. Or, do what I'm doing and hide out overseas until the Census workers stop trying to find me. Get out and see the world. See how the people in wherever the heck do things. Eat the food. Drink the water. Live among them. Explore, walk, and eat better. It will do wonders for you. I love America. But the food will kill you. In April, I had a conniption when some fool said that people should be free to receive their poison through the over-salted food they are served.What a false belief in liberty. No one has the right to poison you, sir. It will bloat you and kill you as sure as I'm sitting here feeling ten times better than I did a year ago.

Where I am living right now, there are dozens of walking paths and trails going in all directions for miles on end. The food is fabulous. The food will make you cry it's so good. Why, two weeks ago I had a cut of pork covered in a white cream sauce with portobello mushrooms. It was shake-the-table and holler at the ceiling good. Eat the bread overseas. Go and pull an onion up out of the ground and crunch on it with your teeth and taste the onion and little bit of the dirt. Oh, don't be scared.

It will revive you.

Posted via email from An American Lion is on Posterous

This is Why I Don't Watch Tennis

[They removed the video -

I had a swell piece of video, and because the Worldwide Leader is a cheap punk in a cheap suit, the video has been yanked. Everyone is so afraid of ESPN that all they have to do is whine to YouTube and the embarrassing video gets yanked. Well, talk about stepping on customer interest in the content you provide as a virtual monopoly.

If that's NOT what happened here, my bad. But, as a blogger, I am sick and goddamned tired of this whole "video has been removed because of a terms of service blah blah blah" thing. Cowboy the hell up, YouTube. Make them sue you. Make them prove that what you've done is wrong. You are not stealing their content. You are letting us show just what a ridiculous jackass they have hired in Pam Shriver. ]

The end is getting sad and ugly for James Blake, but this was just ridiculous.

Blake has lost his confidence, his fire, his want-to. He was crushed Tuesday by Robin Haase, 6-2, 6-4, 6-4, in the first round of Wimbledon, and then talked about the possibility of retiring soon.

But his frustration came out, as Blake got into an argument with ESPN analyst Pam Shriver, a former player. Shriver and Blake were bickering, and he even ended up calling her an ass. On court. During the match.

People will be looking for an apology from Blake now, another embarrassment for an aging former star whose career is going, going ...

And I'll say this: He should apologize for the way he is playing.

But as for the other stuff? Shriver and ESPN should apologize to Blake.

This was Shriver's fault, and she should have been kicked out.

Leaving aside the ridiculousness of yelling at someone in a broadcast booth who can be overheard calling you a putz, where on Earth does any sport allow this to happen?

If this happened on a golf course, they'd wear out the turnstiles throwing people out.

Albert Haynesworth Needs to Sit Down With His Banker

Former Coach Jim Zorn and Albert Haynesworth

These are not good times for poor Albert Haynesworth:

Disgruntled Washington Redskins star Albert Haynesworth is potentially facing financial trouble off the field, according to a report.

Clayton Bank and Trust in Tennessee is suing the defensive tackle for almost $2.4 million, according to USA Today's website. The report said the bank is suing because Haynesworth hasn't been making payments on a loan received last June. The suit was filed last week.

The Redskins are going to see if they can recoup all or part of a $21 million bonus from the two-time All Pro defensive tackle. The team decided to take the action after Haynesworth, who signed a $100 million contract before last season, failed to report for a mandatory two-day minicamp earlier this month. He is unhappy because the Redskins are switch to a 3-4 defense where he has to play nose tackle.

What with his inability to understand that, if you refuse to show up for work, your team can take away your bonus and his inability to understand that, by signing with one of the most unstable franchises in all of professional sports that he would not get to have any say in how the Washington Redskins organize their defense, it's hard to say what will happen to Haynesworth.

Can you see him whining about having to play nose tackle? Listen, if the Redskins actually go more than one season with the same coaches in place, it's a miracle. Who's to say that Haynesworth wouldn't play nose tackle for a few games and then end up returning punts by Thanksgiving?

Yes. Oakland. That's where they'll dump him. Oakland or Cincinnati. And they'll probably take a huge slice of his money away from him, too.

What Did I Tell You About Phineas and Ferb?

Phineas and FerbBetter than the Simpsons, and now an honest-to-goodness hit:

As Disney Channel prepared to launch the cartoon series "Phineas and Ferb," one top company executive thought the hard, geometric shapes of the characters' heads represented too radical a departure from Disney's round-faced animation tradition.

But talk of forcing the creators to soften the edges of Phineas' isosceles dome to make him and the other angular characters less jarring was quelled.

"I said 'no,' " said Disney Channel Entertainment President Gary Marsh. "This is what I love about this show. It is different, and driven by someone's unique vision — as opposed to compacted by a committee."

Two seasons later, "Phineas and Ferb" has emerged as Disney Channel's first breakthrough original animated series, attracting more children and young teens than even rival Nickelodeon's 11-year juggernaut "SpongeBob SquarePants," according to Nielsen Media Research.

The bottom line is, it's funny as hell. They hit the jackpot by turning Ashley Tisdale into an insecure teenaged nutjob, and she is doing award-worthy voiceover work for that show. Was it last year that I was telling everyone that this was a hit? Apparently, it was...

Manute Bol 1962-2010

Is This the Right Way to Sell Beer?

Have a gander at the latest from the World Cup:

It was, the authorities claim, a gimmick cynically designed to capture the attention of the world's media - and, if so, it was wildly successful.

When 36 young women wearing orange mini-dresses associated with the Dutch brewers Bavaria entered the stands at South Africa's Soccer City Stadium for the Netherlands versus Denmark match, the cameras, predictably, turned towards them en masse, capturing shots that would grab the attention of picture editors worldwide.

The reaction of those in charge was swift and ruthless.

All of the mini-skirted ladies were ejected from the venue and two were arrested on charges of organising "unlawful commercial activities". Meanwhile, a spokesman for the tournament's governing body Fifa said it was looking into "all available legal remedies" against the brewery.

I think you would have a hard time making the case that this was unlawful in the United States. I think that someone would be able to weasel their way out of it and get away with it. Guerilla marketing is what I call it because there were no guns used in this ambush. They are serious about making sure no one makes money from the World Cup, I guess. I don't know.

Noah Wyle Doesn't Look Like a Hobo to Me

Noah Wyle hits the magazine rack in Malibu

I don't understand the criticisms listed here at all:

He was once one of ER’s biggest heart-throbs.

But Noah Wyle’s scruffy haircut and big bushy beard make him almost unrecognisable from his days as a sex symbol on the hit U.S. TV series.

Unlike his one-time co-star George Clooney, it seems that 39-year-old Wyle, best known as Dr John Carter on the show, hasn’t exactly improved with age.

The dishevelled Wyle was snapped in a loose shirt and baggy black trousers browsing a Malibu magazine store yesterday.

He seems to have let himself go a bit following his separation from his make-up artist wife Tracy.

They don't allow hobos in Malibu, as anyone knows. Wyle doesn't look like a hobo; he's just out in his knocking around clothes. Anyone who gets dressed up to go pick up some reading material for the bathroom is either bucking for a part or unable to stop staring at themselves in the mirror.

If Wyle really is living like a hobo in Malibu, then he has to be careful to avoid the Malibu police department. They have special vans--soccer mom vans--that drive around and pick up vagrants and people who don't belong in Malibu. They drive them down to City of Industry and roll them out of the side door and drive off, leaving the undesireables in the middle of some warehouse complex where there are no buses or trains.

For all the Daily Mail knows, he's filming a Civil War era project and has to look that way on purpose. I hate to break it to the wonderful journalists still employed by one of Britain's worst newspapers, but sometimes a professional actor looks a certain way because they're in the middle of doing their job.

Albert Haynesworth Wants to Sit Around And Watch His Stories

More dysfunction for the Washington Redskins:

Washington Redskins players are calling Albert Haynesworth selfish for skipping the team's mandatory minicamp and demanding a trade.

Haynesworth wasn't present Wednesday morning when the team took the field for practice. The two-time All-Pro defensive tackle is staying away because he doesn't want to play in the Redskins' new defensive scheme.

Players responded with some of the harshest comments that can be directed at a teammate.

“

I think I speak for every guy on this team: We all feel like he turned his back on us.

”

-- Phillip Daniels

"Albert made a very selfish decision," veteran linebacker London Fletcher said. "When you decide to play a team sport, you have to look at it and think about everybody involved in the situation. This is not golf, tennis, things like that, where it's an all-about-you sport. What he's decided to do is make a decision based on all-about-him.

"It's no different than his attitude and approach to last year's defense, about wanting everything to revolve around him and him making plays. And if it didn't benefit him, he wasn't really willing to do it."

Coach Mike Shanahan revealed that the Redskins told Haynesworth in February that they would agree to release him and let him go to another team -- in exchange for not paying him a $21 million bonus due April 1.

Ought to be a great season. Maybe they'll go 6 and 10 with limited distractions.

Is this the end of the road for Chipper Jones?

This makes me sad on a number of levels:

With reports of retirement swirling aboutChipper Jones, When might he officially address them? "At some point during the home stand," he said (and the Braves are home for only six days). Was an announcement just being held up by red tape issues? Jones smiled at the question. "I've got some things I've got to take care of," he said. He wasn't supposed to publicly address the issue at all. When news leaked earlier in the day, he even asked the Braves to put out a news release informing the media that Jones would not speak on the topic. But his media-friendly persona got the best of him.

There is no sentimentality when it comes to baseball--produce or get out of the way. Chipper isn't producing and there's no easy way to admit that or say that. I can remember a lot of evenings and afternoons spent watching the Braves on TBS. I'm sure that we can all remember how wonderful it was to have baseball when it was on almost every night of the week. I go back, of course, to the very early years of the TBS broadcasts, but that's another fading memory to share some other time.

Watching the Braves over the last twenty or so years meant watching a well-managed team compete and compete at a very high level. There were a lot of years of quality pitching, quality baseball, and quality games that were broadcast during this era. And while the steroid era has been a real nasty piece of business, I think that one of the few good memories of watching baseball that I have left involves watching games where Greg Maddux was pitching, where Chipper was getting his hits, and where Bobby Cox was being thrown out of the game. How many times did I sit down and watch the Braves without really noticing the quality and the unique value of every day baseball?

Well, I won't forget the quality of Chipper Jones. First Ken Griffey Junior, now Chipper.

My friends, do I feel old.

The Great Realignment of 2010

I still happen to think that what happened this year, in terms of the realignment of college football, is a huge deal (Relax, ladies. Florida State isn't going anywhere). It's a much bigger deal to see Colorado leave the Big XII and Nebraska join the Big Ten than it was to see Boston College go to the ACC.

So I mostly agree with what Stewart Mandel is saying here:

And so there are a lot of very happy, very relieved administrators around the country today -- not because they staved off a playoff (that was never imminent), but because their prevailing power structure will remain largely unchanged. The Mountain West, which will essentially swap Utah for Boise, will likely remain relegated to the kiddie table while the "Big Six" further solidify themselves. Nearly everyone with a stake in this thing managed to emerge a winner.

The Pac-10 may not have revolutionized college sports, but Scott still sent a strong signal that his league's days as a passive spectator on the national scene are over. His conference will still wind up adding two sensible new members (Colorado and, most likely, Utah). As both the ACC and the 10-team Big 12 have demonstrated in recent weeks, the ceiling for college television contracts has increased dramatically, and there's little doubt the business-savvy Scott will make his conference significantly richer when its contracts come up next year.

The Big Ten will continue to hold out for its ever-elusive dream girl, Notre Dame, but in the meantime, it quite seamlessly added one of the most prestigious programs in the sport to an already stable league. Nebraska, a big winner itself, got out from under the rule of the Texas-Texas A&M-Oklahoma triumvirate while joining a new set of 11 colleagues with which it already shares much in common academically and geographically.

The Big East can breathe easier knowing its league is not facing any sort of grave danger like it did in 2003, and like many predicted it would again this time around. While it remains possible the Big Ten will try to grab an East Coast school sometime before its seemingly interminable "timetable" expires, it looks more and more like Rutgers/Syracuse will only come into play if Notre Dame ever does an about face -- and this sudden halt to the conference dominos gives the Irish little reason to do so.

There will be a time when Notre Dame won't even get a call from the lowliest of conferences as it continues to slide into "Ivy League" status and join my beloved Princeton on the pile of has-beens and also-rans in terms of college football. Television contract notwithstanding, what is the value of a program that never wins and can't compete at the same level with the other big name teams that it plays each year?

Just out of principle, the Big Ten should never consist of a single East Coast school. It should n't expand any further East than Penn State and it should rate a little more national coverage and consideration.

We Must Work to End the Reign of Terror of the Vuvuzela

Even though I never wrote a blog post about this subject, I have always said that the people who go to outdoor sporting events and blow vuvuzelas are a menace to polite society. Someone finally agrees with me:

South Africa's World Cup organising chief Danny Jordaan may ban vuvuzelas from inside stadiums after complaints from broadcasters and supporters.

The constant sound of the high-pitched horn-like instrument has so far drowned out much of the atmosphere-generating singing usually associated with games.

And Jordaan, when asked if he would get rid of them, told BBC Sport: "If there are grounds to do so, yes.

"We did say that if any land on the pitch in anger we will take action."

France captain Patrice Evra has already blamed the noise generated by the vuvuzelas, which has been likened to the drone of thousands of bees, for his side's poor showing in their opening group game against Uruguay, which finished goalless.

He said: "We can't sleep at night because of the vuvuzelas. People start playing them from 6am.

That's because if you practically give away something that can make a lot of noise, you can't help but expect a bunch of drunken, simple-minded people from blowing them at all hours of the day. It's a little bit like handing a loaded shotgun to a fourth grader. It's not a question as to when the thing will go off--it's a question as to which room in the house will be leveled and blasted within two or three minutes. People blow them to announce that they have just gone to the bathroom. People blow them when they want everyone to know they've just had a water burp. I lived next door to a man who used one to clear the birds from his garden.

They are a deafening, frightful implement of aural torture. They must be banned, stopped, and turned into harmless little funnels or tubes.

You've gotta duck, Dickie V

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=42dd445f-b0c7-4d08-a1e0-9d084650548d" target="_new" title="">Vitale hit by foul ball</a>
This is what happens when you go to a ballgame and get hit by a foul ball. If someone at ESPN or Fox Sports knows who you are, your goofy ass is going to be the new "hot" clip on the video pages.

You've gotta duck, Dickie V

Chicago Wins the Stanley Cup

I got it totally wrong--I thought the East was more dominant this season and I thought Philly could pull it off.

Kudos to the Chicago Blackhawks. The cup returns to Chicago.

An American Lion

Will it Work to Dumb Down Le Monde?

Don't Do It, LeBron

Danica Crashes, Everyone Says This is a Good Thing

The Koch Snowflake

Cut the Salt Any Way Possible

This is Why I Don't Watch Tennis

Albert Haynesworth Needs to Sit Down With His Banker

What Did I Tell You About Phineas and Ferb?

Manute Bol 1962-2010

Is This the Right Way to Sell Beer?

Noah Wyle Doesn't Look Like a Hobo to Me

Albert Haynesworth Wants to Sit Around And Watch His Stories

Is this the end of the road for Chipper Jones?

The Great Realignment of 2010

We Must Work to End the Reign of Terror of the Vuvuzela

You've gotta duck, Dickie V

You've gotta duck, Dickie V

Chicago Wins the Stanley Cup

Herman Hesse (Statue)

The Darling Buds "You've Got to Choose" Twelve Inch Single Cover

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