From TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com:
The following description of the decline of Las Vegas comes from a recent article in The Telegraph....
But Las Vegas’s days as a boom town are long gone. At 14 percent, unemployment is the highest in America (the national average is 9.1 per cent). House prices have fallen 58.1 per cent since their 2006 high – the biggest losses of anywhere in America, while according to the website RealtyTrac, which specialises in foreclosed properties, Las Vegas is the nation’s foreclosure capital. Some 70 per cent of homes in Las Vegas are thought to be 'under water’, or in negative equity, meaning their value is worth less than the amount owed on the mortgage, while foreclosure notices have been served on one in 16 properties. A survey last year by the local Las Vegas Review-Journal and Channel 8 News Now found that 34 per cent of locals would leave Las Vegas if they could find a job elsewhere, or if they weren’t underwater on their home loan.
Last year, I wrote a piece entitled "The Death of Las Vegas". Since then, things have gotten even worse for the city in many ways.
Today, there are hundreds of people living in the tunnels underneath the streets of Las Vegas. You can see CNN video of some of these people right here.
But at least the "tunnel people" have a "roof" over their heads.
Over in "Lost Angeles", homelessness is absolutely exploding and there are thousands of people living in the streets.
The following is from a recent article by Nick Allen....
In Skid Row, a grimy pocket of downtown Los Angeles, the prostrate forms of homeless people lie strewn across the pavements.
The lucky ones have tents for shelter but others make do with a sliver of cardboard for a bed and a supermarket trolley to carry their rags.
At the last police count 1,662 people live on these streets, twice as many as a year ago.
And now amid the drug addicts and the drunks there are families who not so long ago had homes and ordinary suburban lives.
Wait, wasn't the economy supposed to be getting better?
So why has the number of people living on Skid Row doubled over the past year?
Los Angeles, like much of California, is rapidly falling apart. Decades of very foolish policies have turned the "California Dream" into the "California Nightmare".
Unemployment is rampant, crime is seemingly everywhere and the gangs appear to be getting bolder by the day. For example, 21 machine guns were recently stolen right out of an LAPD training facility.
But there are cities in California that are in even worse shape than Los Angeles is. If you go east of Los Angeles about 100 miles, you will come to the city of San Bernardino. 34.6 percent of the residents of San Bernardino are currently living below the poverty line. Among major U.S. cities, only Detroit has a worse poverty rate.
Heading back to the east coast, the city of Camden, New Jersey is representative of the post-industrial hellholes that you will find all over the mid-Atlantic region and up into New England.
In an extraordinary article entitled "City of Ruins", Chris Hedges did an amazing job of documenting how bad things have gotten in Camden. Today it is estimated that the actual rate of unemployment in Camden is somewhere around 30 or 40 percent. For most young people in Camden, there are very few legitimate opportunities for a better life, so many of them have resorted to selling drugs or selling their bodies in a desperate attempt to survive.
The following is a brief excerpt from "City of Ruins"....
There are perhaps a hundred open-air drug markets, most run by gangs like the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Los Nietos and MS-13. Knots of young men in black leather jackets and baggy sweatshirts sell weed and crack to clients, many of whom drive in from the suburbs. The drug trade is one of the city's few thriving businesses. A weapon, police say, is never more than a few feet away, usually stashed behind a trash can, in the grass or on a porch.
The era of "American exceptionalism" is over. We have rejected the things that made us great. We have forsaken the truth and now we are paying the price.
At this point, we are rapidly becoming a joke to the rest of the world...
The New Reality For U.S. Cities: No Money For Street Lights, Roving Packs Of Wild Dogs And Open-Air Drug Markets
October 19, 2011
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-new-reality-for-u-s-cities-no-money-for-street-lights-roving-packs-of-wild-dogs-and-open-air-drug-markets
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monopoly lost: Atlantic City's rise and fall
WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press
Tue May 31, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110531/ap_on_re_us/us_reshuffling_atlantic_city
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Four years ago, some Atlantic City casino customers were shelling out $1,000 for a brownie sprinkled with edible gold dust in a Baccarat crystal they could take home.
Nowadays, some wait until 11 p.m. to eat so they can get a steak dinner for $2.99.
At the beginning of 2007, Atlantic City's 11 casinos were at the top of a wave of prosperity. Starting with the 1978 opening of Resorts, the nation's first casino outside Nevada, Atlantic City for years was the only place to play slots, cards, dice or roulette in the eastern half of the United States. The cash kept pouring in, the busloads of visitors kept coming and the revenue charts went one way: straight up.
And then, they didn't. Now, battered by competition from casinos all around it, Atlantic City is in a fight for its very survival.
The resort is furiously trying to remake itself into a vacation destination that happens to have gambling, but with no guarantee it has a winning hand even as other threats loom, including the possible expansion of casinos to north Jersey racetracks and a growing push for online gambling.
Intoxicated by years of success, Atlantic City missed numerous opportunities to diversify its offerings, widen its customer base and fend off competition that clearly was on its way even 20 years ago.
"The atmosphere was a total irrational exuberance; it truly was," said Robert Griffin, CEO of Trump Entertainment Resorts, who worked at Trump properties here in the 1980s and 1990s. "There was a feeling that there was no end to the good times and that the money would never end."
Then, disaster struck the nation's second-largest gambling market. A perfect storm of competition right on its doorstep in Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware, coupled with the recession, pummeled Atlantic City worse than any other casino market. In four years, a billion and a half dollars vanished, along with thousands of jobs and tourists. Pennsylvania, with its 10 casinos, is poised to knock Atlantic City into third place at some point next year.
How did things go so wrong so fast?
___
Cars streamed into Atlantic City on May 26, 1978, and people lined the Boardwalk for blocks, waiting to get inside Resorts on the first day it was legal to gamble there.
People bought tickets for buffets they had no intention of eating, just to sneak inside the casino earlier than the rest. Men relieved themselves into plastic coin cups to avoid losing their spot at the tables by going to restrooms. And cash — more than anyone had ever seen and more than management could imagine — flooded into the counting room, to the point that it took nearly an entire day to count it.
"It was euphoria," said Steve Norton, who was Resorts' executive vice president when it opened and now runs a casino consulting firm in Indiana. "I mean, it was an unbelievable time."
One after another in the 1980s, casinos kept coming. Revenues reached a high point of $5.2 billion in 2006.
And then the Pocono Downs harness racing track in Luzerne County, Pa., added slot machines and opened them to the public on Nov. 14, 2006. Suddenly, people in the heart of one of Atlantic City's key feeder markets could drive 10 or 20 minutes to play the slots instead of making a three-hour round trip to Atlantic City. In less than four years, there would be 10 casinos in Pennsylvania, all of which now offer table games, too.
They took in nearly $2.5 billion last year, approaching Atlantic City's $3.6 billion. So far this year, they are running neck-and-neck: $996 million for Pennsylvania, and $1.1 billion for Atlantic City.
"If you didn't anticipate this competition coming, you were asleep at the wheel," said Israel Posner, executive director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute of Gaming at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
David Schwartz, director of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Center for Gaming Research, said Atlantic City can be successful again, "but it's going to require a reinvention."
"Basically, the city needs to stop looking backward and start looking ahead," he said.
A look back reveals many missteps and lost opportunities. The most obvious: a failure to reinvent the resort as a place to go for more than gambling. Atlantic City belatedly jumped on the bandwagon, adding non-gambling amenities over the past eight years like celebrity restaurants, spas, shopping and top-name entertainment. The Borgata even built a stand-alone luxury hotel called the Water Club, and Harrah's indoor pool has become a cash cow, doubling as one of the city's hottest nightspots.
But back then, anything customers couldn't bet on was seen as a waste of money.
"Nobody wanted to build anything other than casinos," Norton said. "The property values shot up so high, it didn't make sense to build anything else."
There's plenty of blame to go around. Casino owners focused only on their own properties instead of the market as a whole, a habit that Atlantic City is only recently shaking off. Competing against each other instead of Las Vegas was the city's playbook for decades.
Now, the casinos are banding together for joint marketing efforts, and will chip in to help sponsor the biggest names in entertainment, rather than letting one casino pay the whole cost of a Britney Spears or Lady Gaga show, or a rodeo. And three casinos are even thinking of jointly funding a new convention or trade show center in Atlantic City to draw badly needed midweek business.
New Jersey also erred by failing to approve legalized sports betting in 1991 when it was given the chance to do so ahead of a nationwide ban, gambling experts say. A state senator sued the federal government in 2009 to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge last month.
___
When Griffin, the Trump CEO, lays his head on the pillow at night, he worries that New Jersey will one day succumb to political pressure from lawmakers in the more populous northern part of the state to expand casino gambling to the Meadowlands racetrack, 10 minutes from New York City. Analysts expect it would instantly become a $1 billion market. State law now allows casino gambling only in Atlantic City.
"That would devastate us," he said. "This would become a two-casino town; it wouldn't even take five years. That's what keeps me up at night."
Maddie Downey, a bartender at the Showboat, has her own worries. The single mom has already lost one casino job when the Sands closed in 2006, and worries that gas prices will stay near $4 a gallon, keeping people away from Atlantic City.
"I'm just glad to have this job," she said. "I just hope it doesn't get any worse, and I hope the price of gas comes down."
When the Indian-run Foxwoods casino opened in Connecticut in 1992, it was the closest casino to Atlantic City — and a sure sign that more were to come. Mohegan Sun, another tribal casino, opened in Connecticut four years later. The resort responded by allowing its casinos to stay open 24 hours a day; they formerly had to close for a few hours in the wee hours of the morning. It also introduced new games like poker, keno and racing simulcasts.
But the money kept coming in, and the two Connecticut casinos didn't prove to be a major problem for Atlantic City, which sat on its cards. No new casinos opened until the Borgata in 2003, which would usher in a new era of grand dreams — very few of which would ever come true.
The Borgata touched off a casino arms race, with companies from across the country vying to build the next mega-resort here. At the start of 2008, there were plans for as many as four new casinos; MGM Mirage unveiled a $5 billion, three-tower casino project that would have been the largest ever built here.
Pinnacle Entertainment blew up the Sands to make way for its own $2 billion casino resort, modeled on a beach house. Before setting off the explosives that would bring it down, then-CEO Dan Lee spoke of the importance of keeping the market fresh, new and exciting. The challenge, he said, is "to compete in this new world, or be the next implosion."
Yet by the end of 2008, Pinnacle and MGM's projects imploded on their own, and Revel, the first of the new projects to actually put shovels in the ground, was limping along. It would run out of money in 2009 and halt construction on the interior. Morgan Stanley, its major financer, walked away from the project, deciding it was better to take a nearly $1 billion bath on the deal than to stay in Atlantic City.
After scouring the globe for financing, including asking the Chinese government, Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis finally secured new financing in February 2011 that allowed the project to resume, with some state tax incentives.
"Every market got hit, but nobody faced the amount of new competition coming online as much as Atlantic City did," said Larry Mullin, who was president of the Borgata at the time and now runs an Australian casino company. "We were just exposed. Nothing was going to stop the convenience customer from trying a product that was closer to them. I just don't think there was any silver, magic bullet. It was a very tough situation."
___
Torn between demands from the New Jersey casino and horse racing industries, New Jersey's incoming governor, Republican Chris Christie, sided in 2010 with the casinos, which provided more tax revenue to the state's coffers. He refused to allow slot machines at the racetracks — something the racing industry has long wanted to keep pace with its competitors in other states.
New Jersey staged a quasi-takeover of Atlantic City's casino and tourist zones; Christie called it "a partnership." But the new tourism zone is run by the state and takes charge of many functions Atlantic City's often dysfunctional municipal government had long struggled with, including safety, cleanliness and economic development. (At one point just a few years ago, four of the previous eight mayors of Atlantic City had been arrested on corruption charges.)
The $30 million in annual payments that the casinos had to pony up to the horse racing industry, in return for keeping slots out of the tracks, will now be used to market Atlantic City nationally. The state rewrote many of its famously strict regulations for casinos, removing, among other things, minimum staffing requirements. They even allowed casinos to keep some jackpots that had built up on progressive slot machine games that they decide to cancel.
State-mandated economic redevelopment funds collected from each casino will now be used solely for projects within Atlantic City; before, the money was spread around the state.
The help cannot come too soon. Casinos are selling at fire-sale prices. Within the past year, The Tropicana, Resorts and Trump Marina have all sold for about 10 cents on the dollar from their values of just a few years ago. The Atlantic City Hilton stopped paying its mortgage in 2009 and is looking for a buyer. The casinos have shed nearly 15,000 jobs since 1997, with more layoffs to come.
The extra marketing money is crucial to Atlantic City's future, said Frank Fantini, a Delaware casino consultant and publisher.
"If it can create that same, "I gotta go party!' atmosphere that Las Vegas has, it ought to be able to work," he said.
Griffin, the Trump CEO and Casino Association president, said Atlantic City should bottom out at around $3.5 billion, then slowly start to grow again.
"There's a lot of pain coming, but I strongly believe that in 2012 you're going to see us coming back," he said. "I definitely think better days are ahead for Atlantic City."
Could that be a new marketing slogan for Atlantic City? Most of America seems to know that "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." Yet how many people can correctly cite Atlantic City's tourism slogan, "Always Turned On"? The resort is thinking of a new slogan.
The effort has been going on for three years.
___
Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC.
Tue May 31, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110531/ap_on_re_us/us_reshuffling_atlantic_city
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Four years ago, some Atlantic City casino customers were shelling out $1,000 for a brownie sprinkled with edible gold dust in a Baccarat crystal they could take home.
Nowadays, some wait until 11 p.m. to eat so they can get a steak dinner for $2.99.
At the beginning of 2007, Atlantic City's 11 casinos were at the top of a wave of prosperity. Starting with the 1978 opening of Resorts, the nation's first casino outside Nevada, Atlantic City for years was the only place to play slots, cards, dice or roulette in the eastern half of the United States. The cash kept pouring in, the busloads of visitors kept coming and the revenue charts went one way: straight up.
And then, they didn't. Now, battered by competition from casinos all around it, Atlantic City is in a fight for its very survival.
The resort is furiously trying to remake itself into a vacation destination that happens to have gambling, but with no guarantee it has a winning hand even as other threats loom, including the possible expansion of casinos to north Jersey racetracks and a growing push for online gambling.
Intoxicated by years of success, Atlantic City missed numerous opportunities to diversify its offerings, widen its customer base and fend off competition that clearly was on its way even 20 years ago.
"The atmosphere was a total irrational exuberance; it truly was," said Robert Griffin, CEO of Trump Entertainment Resorts, who worked at Trump properties here in the 1980s and 1990s. "There was a feeling that there was no end to the good times and that the money would never end."
Then, disaster struck the nation's second-largest gambling market. A perfect storm of competition right on its doorstep in Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware, coupled with the recession, pummeled Atlantic City worse than any other casino market. In four years, a billion and a half dollars vanished, along with thousands of jobs and tourists. Pennsylvania, with its 10 casinos, is poised to knock Atlantic City into third place at some point next year.
How did things go so wrong so fast?
___
Cars streamed into Atlantic City on May 26, 1978, and people lined the Boardwalk for blocks, waiting to get inside Resorts on the first day it was legal to gamble there.
People bought tickets for buffets they had no intention of eating, just to sneak inside the casino earlier than the rest. Men relieved themselves into plastic coin cups to avoid losing their spot at the tables by going to restrooms. And cash — more than anyone had ever seen and more than management could imagine — flooded into the counting room, to the point that it took nearly an entire day to count it.
"It was euphoria," said Steve Norton, who was Resorts' executive vice president when it opened and now runs a casino consulting firm in Indiana. "I mean, it was an unbelievable time."
One after another in the 1980s, casinos kept coming. Revenues reached a high point of $5.2 billion in 2006.
And then the Pocono Downs harness racing track in Luzerne County, Pa., added slot machines and opened them to the public on Nov. 14, 2006. Suddenly, people in the heart of one of Atlantic City's key feeder markets could drive 10 or 20 minutes to play the slots instead of making a three-hour round trip to Atlantic City. In less than four years, there would be 10 casinos in Pennsylvania, all of which now offer table games, too.
They took in nearly $2.5 billion last year, approaching Atlantic City's $3.6 billion. So far this year, they are running neck-and-neck: $996 million for Pennsylvania, and $1.1 billion for Atlantic City.
"If you didn't anticipate this competition coming, you were asleep at the wheel," said Israel Posner, executive director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute of Gaming at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
David Schwartz, director of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Center for Gaming Research, said Atlantic City can be successful again, "but it's going to require a reinvention."
"Basically, the city needs to stop looking backward and start looking ahead," he said.
A look back reveals many missteps and lost opportunities. The most obvious: a failure to reinvent the resort as a place to go for more than gambling. Atlantic City belatedly jumped on the bandwagon, adding non-gambling amenities over the past eight years like celebrity restaurants, spas, shopping and top-name entertainment. The Borgata even built a stand-alone luxury hotel called the Water Club, and Harrah's indoor pool has become a cash cow, doubling as one of the city's hottest nightspots.
But back then, anything customers couldn't bet on was seen as a waste of money.
"Nobody wanted to build anything other than casinos," Norton said. "The property values shot up so high, it didn't make sense to build anything else."
There's plenty of blame to go around. Casino owners focused only on their own properties instead of the market as a whole, a habit that Atlantic City is only recently shaking off. Competing against each other instead of Las Vegas was the city's playbook for decades.
Now, the casinos are banding together for joint marketing efforts, and will chip in to help sponsor the biggest names in entertainment, rather than letting one casino pay the whole cost of a Britney Spears or Lady Gaga show, or a rodeo. And three casinos are even thinking of jointly funding a new convention or trade show center in Atlantic City to draw badly needed midweek business.
New Jersey also erred by failing to approve legalized sports betting in 1991 when it was given the chance to do so ahead of a nationwide ban, gambling experts say. A state senator sued the federal government in 2009 to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge last month.
___
When Griffin, the Trump CEO, lays his head on the pillow at night, he worries that New Jersey will one day succumb to political pressure from lawmakers in the more populous northern part of the state to expand casino gambling to the Meadowlands racetrack, 10 minutes from New York City. Analysts expect it would instantly become a $1 billion market. State law now allows casino gambling only in Atlantic City.
"That would devastate us," he said. "This would become a two-casino town; it wouldn't even take five years. That's what keeps me up at night."
Maddie Downey, a bartender at the Showboat, has her own worries. The single mom has already lost one casino job when the Sands closed in 2006, and worries that gas prices will stay near $4 a gallon, keeping people away from Atlantic City.
"I'm just glad to have this job," she said. "I just hope it doesn't get any worse, and I hope the price of gas comes down."
When the Indian-run Foxwoods casino opened in Connecticut in 1992, it was the closest casino to Atlantic City — and a sure sign that more were to come. Mohegan Sun, another tribal casino, opened in Connecticut four years later. The resort responded by allowing its casinos to stay open 24 hours a day; they formerly had to close for a few hours in the wee hours of the morning. It also introduced new games like poker, keno and racing simulcasts.
But the money kept coming in, and the two Connecticut casinos didn't prove to be a major problem for Atlantic City, which sat on its cards. No new casinos opened until the Borgata in 2003, which would usher in a new era of grand dreams — very few of which would ever come true.
The Borgata touched off a casino arms race, with companies from across the country vying to build the next mega-resort here. At the start of 2008, there were plans for as many as four new casinos; MGM Mirage unveiled a $5 billion, three-tower casino project that would have been the largest ever built here.
Pinnacle Entertainment blew up the Sands to make way for its own $2 billion casino resort, modeled on a beach house. Before setting off the explosives that would bring it down, then-CEO Dan Lee spoke of the importance of keeping the market fresh, new and exciting. The challenge, he said, is "to compete in this new world, or be the next implosion."
Yet by the end of 2008, Pinnacle and MGM's projects imploded on their own, and Revel, the first of the new projects to actually put shovels in the ground, was limping along. It would run out of money in 2009 and halt construction on the interior. Morgan Stanley, its major financer, walked away from the project, deciding it was better to take a nearly $1 billion bath on the deal than to stay in Atlantic City.
After scouring the globe for financing, including asking the Chinese government, Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis finally secured new financing in February 2011 that allowed the project to resume, with some state tax incentives.
"Every market got hit, but nobody faced the amount of new competition coming online as much as Atlantic City did," said Larry Mullin, who was president of the Borgata at the time and now runs an Australian casino company. "We were just exposed. Nothing was going to stop the convenience customer from trying a product that was closer to them. I just don't think there was any silver, magic bullet. It was a very tough situation."
___
Torn between demands from the New Jersey casino and horse racing industries, New Jersey's incoming governor, Republican Chris Christie, sided in 2010 with the casinos, which provided more tax revenue to the state's coffers. He refused to allow slot machines at the racetracks — something the racing industry has long wanted to keep pace with its competitors in other states.
New Jersey staged a quasi-takeover of Atlantic City's casino and tourist zones; Christie called it "a partnership." But the new tourism zone is run by the state and takes charge of many functions Atlantic City's often dysfunctional municipal government had long struggled with, including safety, cleanliness and economic development. (At one point just a few years ago, four of the previous eight mayors of Atlantic City had been arrested on corruption charges.)
The $30 million in annual payments that the casinos had to pony up to the horse racing industry, in return for keeping slots out of the tracks, will now be used to market Atlantic City nationally. The state rewrote many of its famously strict regulations for casinos, removing, among other things, minimum staffing requirements. They even allowed casinos to keep some jackpots that had built up on progressive slot machine games that they decide to cancel.
State-mandated economic redevelopment funds collected from each casino will now be used solely for projects within Atlantic City; before, the money was spread around the state.
The help cannot come too soon. Casinos are selling at fire-sale prices. Within the past year, The Tropicana, Resorts and Trump Marina have all sold for about 10 cents on the dollar from their values of just a few years ago. The Atlantic City Hilton stopped paying its mortgage in 2009 and is looking for a buyer. The casinos have shed nearly 15,000 jobs since 1997, with more layoffs to come.
The extra marketing money is crucial to Atlantic City's future, said Frank Fantini, a Delaware casino consultant and publisher.
"If it can create that same, "I gotta go party!' atmosphere that Las Vegas has, it ought to be able to work," he said.
Griffin, the Trump CEO and Casino Association president, said Atlantic City should bottom out at around $3.5 billion, then slowly start to grow again.
"There's a lot of pain coming, but I strongly believe that in 2012 you're going to see us coming back," he said. "I definitely think better days are ahead for Atlantic City."
Could that be a new marketing slogan for Atlantic City? Most of America seems to know that "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." Yet how many people can correctly cite Atlantic City's tourism slogan, "Always Turned On"? The resort is thinking of a new slogan.
The effort has been going on for three years.
___
Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The 5 Most Toxic Cities in America
During the Revolutionary War Philadelphia served as one of America's first capital cities. These days, however, Philadelphia could be considered the capital of toxicity, since the city and its environs ranked No. 1 on our 2011 Most Toxic Cities list. One big reason: The sprawling Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), including parts of four states (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and one county in Maryland), is pocked with more than 50 Superfund sites -- areas no longer in use that contain hazardous waste.
While the East Coast metro, with its old industrial sites, grabbed the top spot, California metropolitan areas claimed four of the 10 spots on our Most Toxic list, primarily due to the chronic air quality problem known as smog.
Now we're not saying that if you reside in one of these areas, you need to pack up and move, or seal your windows shut. But it pays to be aware of the risks in your area. For example, the EPA says when the Air Quality Index for an area climbs above 100 (ratings range from zero to 500, with zero being the best) it can bring on respiratory problems for people with lung disease, children and older adults. Above 150, everyone can suffer. Most cities don't even have a single day each year when the AQI is above 100. But Bakersfield, Calif., which ranks second on our list, had 43 such days in 2009, Fresno (No. 3) had 29 days, and Los Angeles (No. 6) had 14.
No. 5 Baton Rouge, La.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): None
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 33.6 million
EWG top water concern: N/A
No. 4 New York, N.Y.
MSA: New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y./N.J./Pa.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): 5
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 4.1 million
EWG top water concerns: Total haloacetic acids; dieldrin; total trihalomethanes
No. 3 Fresno, Calif.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): 26
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 338,000
EWG top water concern: Nitrates
No. 2 Bakersfield, Calif.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): 43
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 2.2 million
EWG top water concern: N/A
No. 1 Philadelphia, Pa.
MSA: Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa./N.J./Del./Md.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): 2
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 11.3 million
EWG top water concern: Total trihalomethanes
America's Most Toxic Cities, 2011
Morgan Brennan
Feb 28, 2011
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-most-toxic-cities-2011.html
While the East Coast metro, with its old industrial sites, grabbed the top spot, California metropolitan areas claimed four of the 10 spots on our Most Toxic list, primarily due to the chronic air quality problem known as smog.
Now we're not saying that if you reside in one of these areas, you need to pack up and move, or seal your windows shut. But it pays to be aware of the risks in your area. For example, the EPA says when the Air Quality Index for an area climbs above 100 (ratings range from zero to 500, with zero being the best) it can bring on respiratory problems for people with lung disease, children and older adults. Above 150, everyone can suffer. Most cities don't even have a single day each year when the AQI is above 100. But Bakersfield, Calif., which ranks second on our list, had 43 such days in 2009, Fresno (No. 3) had 29 days, and Los Angeles (No. 6) had 14.
No. 5 Baton Rouge, La.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): None
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 33.6 million
EWG top water concern: N/A
No. 4 New York, N.Y.
MSA: New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y./N.J./Pa.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): 5
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 4.1 million
EWG top water concerns: Total haloacetic acids; dieldrin; total trihalomethanes
No. 3 Fresno, Calif.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): 26
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 338,000
EWG top water concern: Nitrates
No. 2 Bakersfield, Calif.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): 43
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 2.2 million
EWG top water concern: N/A
No. 1 Philadelphia, Pa.
MSA: Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa./N.J./Del./Md.
Number of unhealthy air quality days (2009): 2
Pounds of on-site toxic releases reported (2009): 11.3 million
EWG top water concern: Total trihalomethanes
America's Most Toxic Cities, 2011
Morgan Brennan
Feb 28, 2011
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-most-toxic-cities-2011.html
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Jon Bon Jovi appointed to White House council
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/dec/16/jon-bon-jovi-white-house
Jon Bon Jovi appointed to White House council
Barack Obama rewards singer's dedication to 'civic engagement and social innovation' with position on advisory council
Sean Michaels
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010
Jon Bon Jovi has been appointed to a position at the White House by Barack Obama. The singer is to be part of a new committee "mobilising citizens, non-profits, businesses and government to work more effectively together". Bon Jovi is to serve on the new advisory council on community solutions, which includes executives from Starbucks, eBay, Gap and Amnesty International.
"These impressive men and women have dedicated their lives and careers to civic engagement and social innovation," said Obama. "I commend [council members] for their outstanding contributions to their communities ... [and] I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead."
While Bon Jovi is better known for livin' on a prayer than for community organisation, his philanthropic reputation is cemented in the work of the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which builds affordable housing for low-income families. Bon Jovi also campaigned heavily for Obama ahead of the 2008 election, holding a fundraiser at his New Jersey home. After the singer was passed over in yesterday's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announcement, his White House appointment must have been sweet relief.
"I am honored to have been selected by the president," Bon Jovi told the New York Times. "I have seen first-hand the powerful impact when people from the public, private and non-profit sectors work together. All of us have a role to play in helping address some of our nation's most serious problems, and I look forward to working with the rest of the council to help out where I can."
Jon Bon Jovi appointed to White House council
Barack Obama rewards singer's dedication to 'civic engagement and social innovation' with position on advisory council
Sean Michaels
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010
Jon Bon Jovi has been appointed to a position at the White House by Barack Obama. The singer is to be part of a new committee "mobilising citizens, non-profits, businesses and government to work more effectively together". Bon Jovi is to serve on the new advisory council on community solutions, which includes executives from Starbucks, eBay, Gap and Amnesty International.
"These impressive men and women have dedicated their lives and careers to civic engagement and social innovation," said Obama. "I commend [council members] for their outstanding contributions to their communities ... [and] I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead."
While Bon Jovi is better known for livin' on a prayer than for community organisation, his philanthropic reputation is cemented in the work of the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which builds affordable housing for low-income families. Bon Jovi also campaigned heavily for Obama ahead of the 2008 election, holding a fundraiser at his New Jersey home. After the singer was passed over in yesterday's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announcement, his White House appointment must have been sweet relief.
"I am honored to have been selected by the president," Bon Jovi told the New York Times. "I have seen first-hand the powerful impact when people from the public, private and non-profit sectors work together. All of us have a role to play in helping address some of our nation's most serious problems, and I look forward to working with the rest of the council to help out where I can."
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A snowball’s chance: NJ picked for 2014 Super Bowl
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AnRSvYgk3i1PuksZ9xDBejRDubYF?slug=ap-superbowl2014
A snowball’s chance: NJ picked for 2014 Super Bowl
By JAIME ARON, AP Sports Writer
5-25-10
IRVING, Texas — February. Gray skies. Snowflakes. Brrrrrrrr.
Well, grab your boots and plow the snow. The Super Bowl is coming to the Meadowlands.
In New Jersey? In the dead of winter?
“We’ll all pray that it doesn’t snow that day,” Arizona Cardinals president Michael Bidwill said.
NFL owners voted Tuesday to put the 2014 Super Bowl in the new $1.6 billion Meadowlands Stadium that this season will become home to the New York Jets and Giants. It’s the first time the league has gone to a cold weather site that doesn’t have a dome; until now, those places couldn’t even bid on the big game.
So, why the risk?
“Let’s face it,” Giants co-owner John Mara said, “there’s only one New York City.”
“We promise the greatest game in the greatest venue in the greatest city,” added another co-owner, Steve Tisch. “Now we’ve got to deliver.”
Mother Nature may have a lot to say about that.
The coldest kickoff temperature in Super Bowl history was 39 degrees, and that would be considered a warm February day in East Rutherford, N.J. Average February temperatures there are 24 to 40 degrees, with several inches of rain, according to the bid documents.
Remember, the game kicks off after the sun goes down in the Eastern time zone, so temperatures would be dropping throughout the night.
“Everyone knows it’s risky,” said Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, whose bid was eliminated in the second round.
It might end up being another Ice Bowl, Fog Bowl, Freezer Bowl or something else worthy of a frigid nickname. That’s not what the bidders had in mind when they adopted the slogan, “Make Some History,” but for all the inconvenience to those in the stadium, it might look great on TV.
The extended version of Bart Starr’s game-winning sneak in the Ice Bowl in 1967 opens with Cowboys defenders scraping their cleats into the ice to try getting some traction. Teeth chatter just watching the replay of Tom Brady’s fumble that was ruled an incompletion in the snow-filled Tuck Rule game. In Brett Favre’s final game with the Packers, he ends a chilly playoff game by throwing an interception, then runs off with steam coming out of his mouth; it was against the Giants, too.
“People talk about the weather, but, you know, this is football, not beach volleyball,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the NFL Network.
The NFL has required an average temperature of 50 degrees or a dome for a team to even bid on hosting the Super Bowl, but the league bent the rule to let New York bid.
It’s billed as a one-time exception, but just a few years ago, the NHL experimented with an outdoor game on New Year’s Day, and it came off so perfectly that teams now fight to host what’s become the annual Winter Classic. Maybe this will work out that well, too.
“I think it will turn out to be a great event,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said.
The weather worries could even add to the hype. In addition to predicting which teams will make it, fans can guess how nasty it might be.
“We’ve played some (frigid, wet December) games there and I know firsthand that the fans had great experiences even though it was in inclement weather,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said.
Players are split on the decision.
In the Pittsburgh Steelers’ locker room, quarterback Byron Leftwich said the weather doesn’t matter “because it’s the Super Bowl … and you’re not going to let 15 degrees change anything.” But linebacker James Farrior countered, “I play enough games in the cold.”
Giants and Jets players are thrilled.
“There’s something special about this city, man,” Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis said following a rally in Times Square.
“We should’ve done this years ago,” said Giants defensive end Justin Tuck, who also was part of that celebration.
The 50-degree rule was created for the comfort and convenience of fans and players. Anyone who has ever planned an outdoor event can appreciate how much of a relief it is to not worry about the weather. Neutral conditions, like those in a dome, also are supposed to help the caliber of play. It also makes it more comfy for all the practices, parties and other events during the week leading up to the game.
It’s been at least 57 degrees for every Super Bowl since 1975, when it was 46. That’s why Florida and California have been such frequent hosts.
“In the back of everybody’s mind, people want to be in South Florida that time of year,” Ross said.
Tuesday’s vote had been widely considered a formality, but it didn’t play out that way. Even after Miami was eliminated, it took two more rounds of voting for New York to get the nod over Tampa.
“New York knows how to put on an event,” Ross said, putting aside his weather warnings. “It’s not like you lost to some small town that doesn’t know how to put on big events.”
Being just outside the Big Apple means lots of glitz and spectacle, Buildup will include everything from a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade to parties at internationally renowned destinations. There will be game-day shots of the Manhattan skyline in the distance, and thousands watching on the jumbo-screen TVs in Times Square.
The flip side is that security will become a bigger issue, perhaps among the most expensive pieces of the budget. An expected economic impact of $550 million would help offset some of the cost.
Planners are already making the most of the weather. They’re plotting to give out hand warmers and heated seat cushions—and will be selling plenty more NFL-branded merchandise to help fight off the elements. They’ll also have hundreds of folks ready to shovel away snow, and anything else necessary to make the experience more than bearable.
The team owners were asked where they would sit—indoors or out?
“Probably both,” Jets owner Woody Johnson said.
Mara laughed and said, “I like that.”
Other cities have built big, expensive stadiums and would love to have the weather rule waived for them.
Odds are, the NFL will wait and see how this foray into the great outdoors in winter goes. Then the league might OK another bid—like for Washington, saying the nation’s capital deserves the nation’s most popular event—but it would take a year or two to figure out the logistics. And votes are taken four years out, so it might be until 2019 or 2020 before it happens again.
The upcoming Super Bowl, in February 2011, will be at Cowboys Stadium, followed by Indianapolis’ new stadium in 2012 and a 2013 return to the Superdome for the first time since Hurricane Katrina ripped off part of the roof.
The 2014 game will be held Feb. 2nd, 9th or 16th, depending on how that season’s schedule is set up.
That leads to one more question: Anybody have a 1,300-day forecast?
A snowball’s chance: NJ picked for 2014 Super Bowl
By JAIME ARON, AP Sports Writer
5-25-10
IRVING, Texas — February. Gray skies. Snowflakes. Brrrrrrrr.
Well, grab your boots and plow the snow. The Super Bowl is coming to the Meadowlands.
In New Jersey? In the dead of winter?
“We’ll all pray that it doesn’t snow that day,” Arizona Cardinals president Michael Bidwill said.
NFL owners voted Tuesday to put the 2014 Super Bowl in the new $1.6 billion Meadowlands Stadium that this season will become home to the New York Jets and Giants. It’s the first time the league has gone to a cold weather site that doesn’t have a dome; until now, those places couldn’t even bid on the big game.
So, why the risk?
“Let’s face it,” Giants co-owner John Mara said, “there’s only one New York City.”
“We promise the greatest game in the greatest venue in the greatest city,” added another co-owner, Steve Tisch. “Now we’ve got to deliver.”
Mother Nature may have a lot to say about that.
The coldest kickoff temperature in Super Bowl history was 39 degrees, and that would be considered a warm February day in East Rutherford, N.J. Average February temperatures there are 24 to 40 degrees, with several inches of rain, according to the bid documents.
Remember, the game kicks off after the sun goes down in the Eastern time zone, so temperatures would be dropping throughout the night.
“Everyone knows it’s risky,” said Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, whose bid was eliminated in the second round.
It might end up being another Ice Bowl, Fog Bowl, Freezer Bowl or something else worthy of a frigid nickname. That’s not what the bidders had in mind when they adopted the slogan, “Make Some History,” but for all the inconvenience to those in the stadium, it might look great on TV.
The extended version of Bart Starr’s game-winning sneak in the Ice Bowl in 1967 opens with Cowboys defenders scraping their cleats into the ice to try getting some traction. Teeth chatter just watching the replay of Tom Brady’s fumble that was ruled an incompletion in the snow-filled Tuck Rule game. In Brett Favre’s final game with the Packers, he ends a chilly playoff game by throwing an interception, then runs off with steam coming out of his mouth; it was against the Giants, too.
“People talk about the weather, but, you know, this is football, not beach volleyball,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the NFL Network.
The NFL has required an average temperature of 50 degrees or a dome for a team to even bid on hosting the Super Bowl, but the league bent the rule to let New York bid.
It’s billed as a one-time exception, but just a few years ago, the NHL experimented with an outdoor game on New Year’s Day, and it came off so perfectly that teams now fight to host what’s become the annual Winter Classic. Maybe this will work out that well, too.
“I think it will turn out to be a great event,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said.
The weather worries could even add to the hype. In addition to predicting which teams will make it, fans can guess how nasty it might be.
“We’ve played some (frigid, wet December) games there and I know firsthand that the fans had great experiences even though it was in inclement weather,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said.
Players are split on the decision.
In the Pittsburgh Steelers’ locker room, quarterback Byron Leftwich said the weather doesn’t matter “because it’s the Super Bowl … and you’re not going to let 15 degrees change anything.” But linebacker James Farrior countered, “I play enough games in the cold.”
Giants and Jets players are thrilled.
“There’s something special about this city, man,” Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis said following a rally in Times Square.
“We should’ve done this years ago,” said Giants defensive end Justin Tuck, who also was part of that celebration.
The 50-degree rule was created for the comfort and convenience of fans and players. Anyone who has ever planned an outdoor event can appreciate how much of a relief it is to not worry about the weather. Neutral conditions, like those in a dome, also are supposed to help the caliber of play. It also makes it more comfy for all the practices, parties and other events during the week leading up to the game.
It’s been at least 57 degrees for every Super Bowl since 1975, when it was 46. That’s why Florida and California have been such frequent hosts.
“In the back of everybody’s mind, people want to be in South Florida that time of year,” Ross said.
Tuesday’s vote had been widely considered a formality, but it didn’t play out that way. Even after Miami was eliminated, it took two more rounds of voting for New York to get the nod over Tampa.
“New York knows how to put on an event,” Ross said, putting aside his weather warnings. “It’s not like you lost to some small town that doesn’t know how to put on big events.”
Being just outside the Big Apple means lots of glitz and spectacle, Buildup will include everything from a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade to parties at internationally renowned destinations. There will be game-day shots of the Manhattan skyline in the distance, and thousands watching on the jumbo-screen TVs in Times Square.
The flip side is that security will become a bigger issue, perhaps among the most expensive pieces of the budget. An expected economic impact of $550 million would help offset some of the cost.
Planners are already making the most of the weather. They’re plotting to give out hand warmers and heated seat cushions—and will be selling plenty more NFL-branded merchandise to help fight off the elements. They’ll also have hundreds of folks ready to shovel away snow, and anything else necessary to make the experience more than bearable.
The team owners were asked where they would sit—indoors or out?
“Probably both,” Jets owner Woody Johnson said.
Mara laughed and said, “I like that.”
Other cities have built big, expensive stadiums and would love to have the weather rule waived for them.
Odds are, the NFL will wait and see how this foray into the great outdoors in winter goes. Then the league might OK another bid—like for Washington, saying the nation’s capital deserves the nation’s most popular event—but it would take a year or two to figure out the logistics. And votes are taken four years out, so it might be until 2019 or 2020 before it happens again.
The upcoming Super Bowl, in February 2011, will be at Cowboys Stadium, followed by Indianapolis’ new stadium in 2012 and a 2013 return to the Superdome for the first time since Hurricane Katrina ripped off part of the roof.
The 2014 game will be held Feb. 2nd, 9th or 16th, depending on how that season’s schedule is set up.
That leads to one more question: Anybody have a 1,300-day forecast?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
SPRINGSTEEN RETURN TO NEW JERSEY
SPRINGSTEEN ANNOUNCES RETURN TO NEW JERSEY AS FINAL MAJOR MUSICAL ACT TO PLAY GIANTS STADIUM SEPT 30, OCT 2, & OCT 3
Bruce Springsteen announced from the stage at his Izod Center concert in East Rutherford, NJ that he and the "legendary" E Street Band will return as the final major musical act to play Giants Stadium on September 30, October 2, and October 3. Tickets go on sale June 1 at 10am Eastern. Springsteen holds the record as the number one selling artist at the Meadowlands (which includes Giants Stadium) in New Jersey, having sold out 56 concerts to date with the E Street Band.The Working on a Dream tour has earned rave reviews, with Shawn Courchesne of the Hartford Courant proclaiming, "It just got better and better... perfect, simply perfect." Rolling Stone Online proclaimed of a rehearsal concert, "Springsteen seemed to offer a renewed sense of purpose and optimism onstage, rejuvenating and uniting a people in danger of losing their faith."
"He's the best there is," exclaimed Melissa Baron of SF Weekly, "Springsteen played so hard that sweat dripped off his whole body." Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post wrote, "Springsteen is a better showman today than in 1984," while Mike Ragogna said in the Huffington Post, "If you haven't been to one of Springsteen's shows in a while, you need to catch this tour." Meanwhile Sarah Rodman of the Boston Globe writes, "Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band don't have to play for two hours and 40 minutes. Nor, when they play, is it a requirement that Springsteen fall to his knees, shimmy and shake, attack his guitar like he's still discovering new sounds it can make, or take audience requests that he and his band don't know how to play... Springsteen and his band did all of that and more." Martin Cizmar of The Phoenix New Times had never seen Springsteen live. "I'm not from Jersey, I didn't grow up with The Boss and I'd never seen him play before," Cizmar admits, "but I will say that nearly everything you've heard or read about a Springsteen show is true. The fans are rabid, the set marathon, Springsteen a first-rate showman."
'Working on a Dream' (Columbia Records) debuted at #1 in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and New Zealand and received exemplary reviews in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, People, and elsewhere.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Springsteen's New Monster Mash
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b66575_happy_halloween_springsteens_new.html
Happy Halloween! Springsteen's New Monster Mash
10-31-8
For his next trick, Bruce Springsteen's offering a sweet treat for his fans.
Just in time for Halloween, the Boss is giving away a song paying tribute to his home state's spookiest urban legend. And we're not talking about Jimmy Hoffa under Giants Stadium.
"A Night With the Jersey Devil" is available as a free download on BruceSpringsteen.net.
To see the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seMBtD_zawI
***
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/ANightWithTheJerseyDevil.html
Hear me now!
I was born 13th child, 'neath the 13th moon
Spit out hungry and born anew
Daddy drag me to the river tie me in rocks
Throw me in where it's deep and wide
I go down, I don't die
Hole in the river bottom, I crawl through
Come back kill six brothers and sisters, kill papa too
Sway down Mama, sway down low
They gonna know me wherever I go
Into my bed with her kerosene my mama creep
Set my flesh to burning, whilst I sleep
I burn, burn, burn, till my soul burn black
Black rains fall, I come back, I come back
Get down Mama, get down low
They gonna know me wherever I go
16 witches, cast 16 spells
Make me guitar outta skin and human skull
Sing you a song like the wind in the sandy loam
Bring you baby out'cha your happy home
Ram's head, forked tail, clove hoof, love's my trail
I sup on your body, sip on your blood like wine
Out world theirs, this world mine
So kiss me baby till it hurts
God lost in heaven, we lost on earth
Sway down Mama, sway down low
They gonna know me wherever I go
Wherever I go, wherever I go
Well I got a brand new lover
I love her yes I do,
She's my one and only and her name is Baby Blue...
Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP) / EMI Music Publishing (BMI)
Monday, October 20, 2008
Bon Jovi Raises (Mc)Cain Over Palin Tune
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b63961_bon_jovi_raises_mccain_over_palin_tune.html
Bon Jovi Raises (Mc)Cain Over Palin Tune
10-15-8
by Gina Serpe
Add Bon Jovi to the ever-growing list of liberal-leaning artistes taking umbrage at being used as pied pipers for Sarah Palin.
Avowed Democrat Jon Bon Jovi, who earlier this year threw a fundraising dinner at his New Jersey home for Barack Obama, has spoken out against the Republican candidate appropriating his band's tunes for her Middle America stump stops.
"We are surprised to hear that our song, 'Who Says You Can't Go Home' was used by the McCain campaign at rallies yesterday and today," the rocker said in a statement. "We wrote this song as a thank you to those who have supported us over the past 25 years."
It's a sentiment that's been gaining ground in recent months, with the Republican suffering a string of highly-publicized backlash after selecting one politically-opposed rallying cry after another.
The good news for the McCain-Palin ticket is that Bon Jovi, unlike some other musical dissidents, has not yet threatened legal action.
"The song has since become a banner for our home state of New Jersey and the de facto theme song for our partnerships around the country to build homes and rebuild communities," he said. "Although we have not asked, we do not approve of their use of 'Home.' "
Just yesterday, Survivor joined the bashing bandwagon, requesting that the McCain-Palin campaign stop playing the band's hit Rocky theme, "Eye of the Tiger," for appearances by John McCain; last week, the Foo Fighters issued a terse statement demanding that the GOP contender refrain from using "My Hero."
Last month, Heart issued a cease-and-desist notice to the campaign after their hit "Barracuda" was twice used at Palin's campaign theme, including being used at the Republican National Convention. In August, Van Halen groused about "Right Now" being used at rallies, while John Mellencamp protested the lifting of "Pink Houses" and "Our Country." Jackson Browne even filed a copyright infringement suit against McCain and the Republican National Committee for using his biggest hit, "Running on Empty," in campaign ads.
There is, of course, a light at the end of the tunnel to the onslaught of negative publicity deriving from the Republican party's ill-advised song selections: The campaign's nearly over.
Bon Jovi Raises (Mc)Cain Over Palin Tune
10-15-8
by Gina Serpe
Add Bon Jovi to the ever-growing list of liberal-leaning artistes taking umbrage at being used as pied pipers for Sarah Palin.
Avowed Democrat Jon Bon Jovi, who earlier this year threw a fundraising dinner at his New Jersey home for Barack Obama, has spoken out against the Republican candidate appropriating his band's tunes for her Middle America stump stops.
"We are surprised to hear that our song, 'Who Says You Can't Go Home' was used by the McCain campaign at rallies yesterday and today," the rocker said in a statement. "We wrote this song as a thank you to those who have supported us over the past 25 years."
It's a sentiment that's been gaining ground in recent months, with the Republican suffering a string of highly-publicized backlash after selecting one politically-opposed rallying cry after another.
The good news for the McCain-Palin ticket is that Bon Jovi, unlike some other musical dissidents, has not yet threatened legal action.
"The song has since become a banner for our home state of New Jersey and the de facto theme song for our partnerships around the country to build homes and rebuild communities," he said. "Although we have not asked, we do not approve of their use of 'Home.' "
Just yesterday, Survivor joined the bashing bandwagon, requesting that the McCain-Palin campaign stop playing the band's hit Rocky theme, "Eye of the Tiger," for appearances by John McCain; last week, the Foo Fighters issued a terse statement demanding that the GOP contender refrain from using "My Hero."
Last month, Heart issued a cease-and-desist notice to the campaign after their hit "Barracuda" was twice used at Palin's campaign theme, including being used at the Republican National Convention. In August, Van Halen groused about "Right Now" being used at rallies, while John Mellencamp protested the lifting of "Pink Houses" and "Our Country." Jackson Browne even filed a copyright infringement suit against McCain and the Republican National Committee for using his biggest hit, "Running on Empty," in campaign ads.
There is, of course, a light at the end of the tunnel to the onslaught of negative publicity deriving from the Republican party's ill-advised song selections: The campaign's nearly over.
Friday, May 9, 2008
'Grand Theft Auto IV' is exhilarating adventure
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/marcsaltzman/2008-04-28-grand-theft-auto-iv_N.htm
'Grand Theft Auto IV' is exhilarating adventure
Let's cut right to the chase: Grand Theft Auto IV is not a video game for kids, tweens or even young teenagers. As with its controversial predecessors, the latest in the 70 million unit-selling series is a Mature-rated adventure, created for players 17 years of age and older as it gives you a virtual taste of the criminal underworld. Think of it as an interactive episode of The Sopranos, if you will.
Because of its tremendous following and the fact it's available on both high-definition consoles, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV will likely be the best-selling game of 2008. It also helps that it's the first game in the series to offer online multiplayer modes. Having spent the better part of 10 days living this dangerous alternate life, rest assured this GTA sequel more than lives up to the hype.
In Grand Theft Auto IV, you play as Niko Bellic, a tough-looking character who arrives in the U.S. from somewhere in Eastern Europe, expecting the streets to be paved with gold. It seems Niko's American cousin, Roman, lied about his extravagant lifestyle: Instead of being wealthy and living in a mansion, Roman is indebted to loan sharks and lives in a cockroach-infested apartment the size of a walk-in closet.
Nevertheless, Niko decides to help Roman with his rundown cabstand and keep thugs off his back until he can figure out how to make money and connections in Liberty City, the same city as 2001's Grand Theft Auto III, modeled after New York City and New Jersey. If you're questioning how Niko could forgive his scheming cousin, you'll discover a few hours into the game that there are other reasons why Niko left his homeland.
Grand Theft Auto games offer "sandbox" play, meaning you can virtually go anywhere and do anything in this fully realized 3-D city with pedestrians, traffic and storefronts. This play from a third-person perspective includes carjacking any vehicle, listening to more than a hundred songs on car radios and playing minigames such as billiards, darts, bowling or arcade games. Niko can go on dates, swim, surf the Internet and buy clothing and weapons.
But it's the seedy missions that unravel the lengthy single-player story. In person or via his cellphone, Niko will be asked to perform missions that include escorting someone, taking out drug dealers, evading police cruisers, racing to one end of the city before someone else, flying a helicopter, retrieving stolen money or looking up an informant's address. In many cases you'll have three offers at once and will be forced to make decisions, which will affect the storyline and your friendships.
Grand Theft Auto IV offers high-definition graphics that trump 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, including impressive lip-synching, non-interactive story sequences that were motion-captured for added realism, varying weather and a new physics engine that models everything authentically. This sequel also adds more hand-to-hand combat and optional in-car GPS to help you better navigate the city.
Without question, though, the biggest new feature is something gamers have been asking about for years: multiplayer modes. In Grand Theft Auto IV, up to 16 gamers can play online in a host of cooperative and competitive games including "Deathmatch" (every person for himself), "Team Deathmatch" and "Cops & Crooks" (a racing game). Because we reviewed the game before launch, however, this online component was disabled.
Xbox 360 gamers will also be able to download bonus missions and other content later this year, via the Xbox Live service.
Controversy is unavoidable with this game. As with past GTA titles you can shoot at cops, drive into pedestrians and request "services" from a prostitute. This sequel is also laced with foul language, plus you can drink and drive and watch pole dancers at a strip club. Again, take heed to the "M" rating.
Aside from a slightly choppy frame rate at times, when the action stutters a bit, and hard-to-read green GPS directions on your map, there is little to complain about with Grand Theft Auto IV. Adult gamers will find a single-player story that can easily last a month, not to mention the ability to hop online and play with friends anywhere, anytime. Expect a lot of bang for your buck in this highly polished sequel.
'Grand Theft Auto IV' is exhilarating adventure
Let's cut right to the chase: Grand Theft Auto IV is not a video game for kids, tweens or even young teenagers. As with its controversial predecessors, the latest in the 70 million unit-selling series is a Mature-rated adventure, created for players 17 years of age and older as it gives you a virtual taste of the criminal underworld. Think of it as an interactive episode of The Sopranos, if you will.
Because of its tremendous following and the fact it's available on both high-definition consoles, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV will likely be the best-selling game of 2008. It also helps that it's the first game in the series to offer online multiplayer modes. Having spent the better part of 10 days living this dangerous alternate life, rest assured this GTA sequel more than lives up to the hype.
In Grand Theft Auto IV, you play as Niko Bellic, a tough-looking character who arrives in the U.S. from somewhere in Eastern Europe, expecting the streets to be paved with gold. It seems Niko's American cousin, Roman, lied about his extravagant lifestyle: Instead of being wealthy and living in a mansion, Roman is indebted to loan sharks and lives in a cockroach-infested apartment the size of a walk-in closet.
Nevertheless, Niko decides to help Roman with his rundown cabstand and keep thugs off his back until he can figure out how to make money and connections in Liberty City, the same city as 2001's Grand Theft Auto III, modeled after New York City and New Jersey. If you're questioning how Niko could forgive his scheming cousin, you'll discover a few hours into the game that there are other reasons why Niko left his homeland.
Grand Theft Auto games offer "sandbox" play, meaning you can virtually go anywhere and do anything in this fully realized 3-D city with pedestrians, traffic and storefronts. This play from a third-person perspective includes carjacking any vehicle, listening to more than a hundred songs on car radios and playing minigames such as billiards, darts, bowling or arcade games. Niko can go on dates, swim, surf the Internet and buy clothing and weapons.
But it's the seedy missions that unravel the lengthy single-player story. In person or via his cellphone, Niko will be asked to perform missions that include escorting someone, taking out drug dealers, evading police cruisers, racing to one end of the city before someone else, flying a helicopter, retrieving stolen money or looking up an informant's address. In many cases you'll have three offers at once and will be forced to make decisions, which will affect the storyline and your friendships.
Grand Theft Auto IV offers high-definition graphics that trump 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, including impressive lip-synching, non-interactive story sequences that were motion-captured for added realism, varying weather and a new physics engine that models everything authentically. This sequel also adds more hand-to-hand combat and optional in-car GPS to help you better navigate the city.
Without question, though, the biggest new feature is something gamers have been asking about for years: multiplayer modes. In Grand Theft Auto IV, up to 16 gamers can play online in a host of cooperative and competitive games including "Deathmatch" (every person for himself), "Team Deathmatch" and "Cops & Crooks" (a racing game). Because we reviewed the game before launch, however, this online component was disabled.
Xbox 360 gamers will also be able to download bonus missions and other content later this year, via the Xbox Live service.
Controversy is unavoidable with this game. As with past GTA titles you can shoot at cops, drive into pedestrians and request "services" from a prostitute. This sequel is also laced with foul language, plus you can drink and drive and watch pole dancers at a strip club. Again, take heed to the "M" rating.
Aside from a slightly choppy frame rate at times, when the action stutters a bit, and hard-to-read green GPS directions on your map, there is little to complain about with Grand Theft Auto IV. Adult gamers will find a single-player story that can easily last a month, not to mention the ability to hop online and play with friends anywhere, anytime. Expect a lot of bang for your buck in this highly polished sequel.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Democrats Need to Hear From Florida and Michigan
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-e-zelizer/democrats-need-to-hear-fr_b_90335.html
Julian E. Zelizer
Democrats Need to Hear From Florida and Michigan
Posted March 6, 2008
Read More: 2008 Election, Democrats, Dnc, Florida, Howard Dean, Michigan, Breaking Politics News
Democrats have a big problem on their hands. As a result, they need to redo the Florida and Michigan primaries. Today, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that party leaders in both states need to design proposals for holding new nominating contests.
The Democratic National Committee stripped both states of their delegates when they moved their votes earlier in the schedule. Senator Clinton won in both states. But most of the Democratic candidates -- including Senator Obama -- had withdrawn their name from the ballot in Michigan. Based on a pledge, none of the candidates conducted campaigns in Florida, although some of Clinton's opponents claim that she violated the agreement by making a few appearances in the Sunshine State before the day of the vote.
Now the context has changed. Super Tuesday did not decide the contest. Democrats are facing a brutal contest that will last into the summer convention. Senator John McCain is grinning as he watches the Democratic bloodbath. The irony that an embattled Republican Party managed to unite around a candidate relatively quickly and Democrats are fighting each other tooth and nail is hard to ignore.
Neither faction in the Democratic Party can argue that the primaries will produce a decisive winner. To be sure, the delegate count favors Obama. He has done extraordinarily well in small states, especially those that depend on caucuses, as well as in several battle ground states like Missouri. At the same time, Clinton won the popular vote in almost all of the large states: California, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas.
The situation won't be clarified in the months ahead. Obama will likely win in Wyoming and Mississippi while Clinton has an excellent chance of taking Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico.
This is why a new vote in Florida and Michigan is essential. Democrats have no choice. Obama's supporters sometimes complain that holding a new vote in those states would be akin to changing the rules in middle of the game. Yet the decision of the Democratic Party was a poor one, and bad rules sometimes need to be corrected. Obama supporters have themselves made this argument when warning against having "superdelegates" decide this contest. The rules, as created in the 1980s, empower superdelegates to make this kind of choice. Moreover, it seems odd that a candidate whose campaign has promised to create a better political system would be happy if voters in Florida and Michigan were silenced.
At the same time, counting the votes that already took place would not be fair. Obama did not have his name on the ballot in Michigan and he did not campaign in Florida. The results simply do not reflect a genuine contest. If Clinton wins this campaign by relying on the votes that took place, the selection would cause just as much bitterness as if those voters are left out. Democrats should also stick to the conventional process in those states to avoid any claims that the process was changed to favor one or the other candidate.
Democrats have two excellent candidates to choose from. Even though the contest has been rough and Republicans quickly united behind a formidable candidate, there is still reason to believe that the high enthusiasm for both candidates bodes well for the party. All the more reason to get this decision right. And if the contest does come down to superdelegates, they need to at least see what voters in Michigan and Florida are thinking before making their decision.
Democrats can't afford to let votes not be counted. After all, Democrats were the party burned in the 2000 election when the Supreme Court stopped recounts from taking place in Florida. The bitterness that resulted from that decision remains with the party until this day.
For all these reasons, let's bring Florida and Michigan back into the picture. That should be something that all Democrats should be able to unite on.
Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the co-editor of "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s," which will be published this spring by Harvard University Press.
Julian E. Zelizer
Democrats Need to Hear From Florida and Michigan
Posted March 6, 2008
Read More: 2008 Election, Democrats, Dnc, Florida, Howard Dean, Michigan, Breaking Politics News
Democrats have a big problem on their hands. As a result, they need to redo the Florida and Michigan primaries. Today, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that party leaders in both states need to design proposals for holding new nominating contests.
The Democratic National Committee stripped both states of their delegates when they moved their votes earlier in the schedule. Senator Clinton won in both states. But most of the Democratic candidates -- including Senator Obama -- had withdrawn their name from the ballot in Michigan. Based on a pledge, none of the candidates conducted campaigns in Florida, although some of Clinton's opponents claim that she violated the agreement by making a few appearances in the Sunshine State before the day of the vote.
Now the context has changed. Super Tuesday did not decide the contest. Democrats are facing a brutal contest that will last into the summer convention. Senator John McCain is grinning as he watches the Democratic bloodbath. The irony that an embattled Republican Party managed to unite around a candidate relatively quickly and Democrats are fighting each other tooth and nail is hard to ignore.
Neither faction in the Democratic Party can argue that the primaries will produce a decisive winner. To be sure, the delegate count favors Obama. He has done extraordinarily well in small states, especially those that depend on caucuses, as well as in several battle ground states like Missouri. At the same time, Clinton won the popular vote in almost all of the large states: California, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas.
The situation won't be clarified in the months ahead. Obama will likely win in Wyoming and Mississippi while Clinton has an excellent chance of taking Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico.
This is why a new vote in Florida and Michigan is essential. Democrats have no choice. Obama's supporters sometimes complain that holding a new vote in those states would be akin to changing the rules in middle of the game. Yet the decision of the Democratic Party was a poor one, and bad rules sometimes need to be corrected. Obama supporters have themselves made this argument when warning against having "superdelegates" decide this contest. The rules, as created in the 1980s, empower superdelegates to make this kind of choice. Moreover, it seems odd that a candidate whose campaign has promised to create a better political system would be happy if voters in Florida and Michigan were silenced.
At the same time, counting the votes that already took place would not be fair. Obama did not have his name on the ballot in Michigan and he did not campaign in Florida. The results simply do not reflect a genuine contest. If Clinton wins this campaign by relying on the votes that took place, the selection would cause just as much bitterness as if those voters are left out. Democrats should also stick to the conventional process in those states to avoid any claims that the process was changed to favor one or the other candidate.
Democrats have two excellent candidates to choose from. Even though the contest has been rough and Republicans quickly united behind a formidable candidate, there is still reason to believe that the high enthusiasm for both candidates bodes well for the party. All the more reason to get this decision right. And if the contest does come down to superdelegates, they need to at least see what voters in Michigan and Florida are thinking before making their decision.
Democrats can't afford to let votes not be counted. After all, Democrats were the party burned in the 2000 election when the Supreme Court stopped recounts from taking place in Florida. The bitterness that resulted from that decision remains with the party until this day.
For all these reasons, let's bring Florida and Michigan back into the picture. That should be something that all Democrats should be able to unite on.
Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the co-editor of "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s," which will be published this spring by Harvard University Press.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Parker long has thrived on matchup with Kidd
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Ak2hAirJ8hVsuBgENSOH43K8vLYF?slug=jy-parkerkidd022808
Parker long has thrived on matchup with Kidd
By Johnny Ludden, Yahoo! Sports
Feb 28, 2008
The call came from the Bahamas. Tony Parker was on the other line, and he wasn’t happy. He had gone to the Caribbean to soak up some sun, and yet his mind kept drifting 1,300 miles to the northwest. The San Antonio Spurs were actually interviewing someone for his job.
This wasn’t news to Parker. He knew the Spurs had planned to bring Jason Kidd to town. Parker had said all the right things, too. Publicly, and in private to his coach, Gregg Popovich. He told everyone he understood why the Spurs would want to shower their free-agent dollars on Kidd. This wasn’t any point guard. It was Jason Kidd! The NBA’s best. Who wouldn’t want him?
Deep down in his heart, though, Parker was never comfortable with the idea. Hadn’t he just beaten Kidd in the NBA Finals? He didn’t play his best, but he was only 21. He would get better. Kidd was 30. And all this talk about the two of them playing together? Neither of them could shoot. Someone would eventually have to go. Parker was betting it wouldn’t be the guy getting the $94 million contract.
Parker’s family and friends called to tell him the Spurs had rolled out the red carpet for Kidd the second his private jet touched down at San Antonio International Airport. Tim Duncan drove Kidd around town. Popovich arranged for a chef to cook dinner for Kidd and his wife. Parker grew more frustrated. Finally, he picked up the phone and called a reporter.
“I know I’m the best point guard for this team,” Parker said. “I can lead this team.”
The following morning Kidd announced he was staying in New Jersey. Parker’s comments didn’t have much, if any, impact on his decision. The Nets had secured a commitment from Alonzo Mourning to join them, and Kidd’s friends had always doubted his wife would ever agree to move to San Antonio.
But what happened next said something about Parker and why the Spurs should feel optimistic Thursday night when Kidd again visits. Every time the two point guards have met since that fateful week in July 2003, Parker has walked away the winner.
Kidd never had the benefit of playing next to a big man of Duncan’s caliber in New Jersey, and he has a significantly better supporting cast now that he’s lining up next to Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard. But there’s also a reason why Parker said he was “very happy” to hear that the Dallas Mavericks had traded for Kidd: It meant he no longer had to worry about Devin Harris.
No team has matched up better with the Spurs in recent seasons than the Mavericks. Harris was a part of that. He’s one of the few guards quick enough to stay in front of Parker, and he also gives him trouble on the other end of the floor. The trade also cost Dallas 7-foot backup center DeSagana Diop, whose length had bothered Duncan on occasion.
Kidd’s arrival in Dallas very well may end up being filed in the Spurs’ be-careful-what-you-wish-for folder. The Mavericks need an on-court leader experienced enough to wrestle away some of the sideline play-calling from coach Avery Johnson. The hope, at least, is that Kidd will coax his new teammates to run and to cut back on Dallas’ isolation-heavy offense. The Mavericks also welcome Kidd’s toughness.
“You can’t say Jason Kidd isn’t going to help them,” Parker told reporters in San Antonio. Privately, however, Parker is surprised Dallas made the trade. He never understood why Mavericks owner Mark Cuban didn’t re-sign Steve Nash and he doesn’t understand now why he would part with Harris. When Chris Paul used his own quickness to expose Kidd during Dallas’ loss to the New Orleans Hornets last week, Parker smiled.
Parker never had a problem with Kidd listening to the Spurs’ recruiting pitch. He likes Kidd and has long marveled at his game. Popovich and GM RC Buford were the targets of Parker’s frustration, and there are other reasons why their decision to pursue Kidd, while entirely justifiable, wasn’t the best.
To free up more salary-cap room to sign Kidd, the Spurs traded their first-round pick that summer. Duncan had urged them to consider drafting a fellow Wake Forest product. When the Spurs sent the pick to Phoenix and Dallas immediately followed by taking Duncan’s preferred choice – the same Josh Howard who will be running alongside Kidd Thursday – Popovich wondered aloud in the draft room whether they had made a mistake. The Suns, meanwhile, used the Spurs’ pick on Leandro Barbosa, who developed into the NBA’s reigning Sixth Man of the Year.
Looking back, the Spurs helped improve their two biggest rivals all for the right to insult their own young point guard. Two championships later, Buford can afford to joke that his tombstone won’t be complete if the names “Howard” and “Barbosa” aren’t engraved under his own. At times, Popovich has sounded more than willing to even hammer them onto Buford’s granite himself.
But there’s something else that came from the Spurs’ interest in Kidd: It made Parker better. Parker may never admit it, but whenever he sees Kidd there’s part of him that feels like he needs to prove himself all over again.
After Parker arrived for training camp in the fall of 2003, Popovich reminded him of his comments. You think you’re the best point guard for us? You think you can lead this team? Then show me.
For the next month whenever Parker threw away a pass, whenever he took an ill-advised shot, Popovich was in his ear again. Show me.
Sitting on a podium in Cleveland last June, Parker showed his coach and everyone else. The best point guard for the Spurs?
In one hand he cradled the Finals MVP award. The other held his third championship trophy.
Johnny Ludden is the NBA editor for Yahoo! Sports.
Parker long has thrived on matchup with Kidd
By Johnny Ludden, Yahoo! Sports
Feb 28, 2008
The call came from the Bahamas. Tony Parker was on the other line, and he wasn’t happy. He had gone to the Caribbean to soak up some sun, and yet his mind kept drifting 1,300 miles to the northwest. The San Antonio Spurs were actually interviewing someone for his job.
This wasn’t news to Parker. He knew the Spurs had planned to bring Jason Kidd to town. Parker had said all the right things, too. Publicly, and in private to his coach, Gregg Popovich. He told everyone he understood why the Spurs would want to shower their free-agent dollars on Kidd. This wasn’t any point guard. It was Jason Kidd! The NBA’s best. Who wouldn’t want him?
Deep down in his heart, though, Parker was never comfortable with the idea. Hadn’t he just beaten Kidd in the NBA Finals? He didn’t play his best, but he was only 21. He would get better. Kidd was 30. And all this talk about the two of them playing together? Neither of them could shoot. Someone would eventually have to go. Parker was betting it wouldn’t be the guy getting the $94 million contract.
Parker’s family and friends called to tell him the Spurs had rolled out the red carpet for Kidd the second his private jet touched down at San Antonio International Airport. Tim Duncan drove Kidd around town. Popovich arranged for a chef to cook dinner for Kidd and his wife. Parker grew more frustrated. Finally, he picked up the phone and called a reporter.
“I know I’m the best point guard for this team,” Parker said. “I can lead this team.”
The following morning Kidd announced he was staying in New Jersey. Parker’s comments didn’t have much, if any, impact on his decision. The Nets had secured a commitment from Alonzo Mourning to join them, and Kidd’s friends had always doubted his wife would ever agree to move to San Antonio.
But what happened next said something about Parker and why the Spurs should feel optimistic Thursday night when Kidd again visits. Every time the two point guards have met since that fateful week in July 2003, Parker has walked away the winner.
Kidd never had the benefit of playing next to a big man of Duncan’s caliber in New Jersey, and he has a significantly better supporting cast now that he’s lining up next to Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard. But there’s also a reason why Parker said he was “very happy” to hear that the Dallas Mavericks had traded for Kidd: It meant he no longer had to worry about Devin Harris.
No team has matched up better with the Spurs in recent seasons than the Mavericks. Harris was a part of that. He’s one of the few guards quick enough to stay in front of Parker, and he also gives him trouble on the other end of the floor. The trade also cost Dallas 7-foot backup center DeSagana Diop, whose length had bothered Duncan on occasion.
Kidd’s arrival in Dallas very well may end up being filed in the Spurs’ be-careful-what-you-wish-for folder. The Mavericks need an on-court leader experienced enough to wrestle away some of the sideline play-calling from coach Avery Johnson. The hope, at least, is that Kidd will coax his new teammates to run and to cut back on Dallas’ isolation-heavy offense. The Mavericks also welcome Kidd’s toughness.
“You can’t say Jason Kidd isn’t going to help them,” Parker told reporters in San Antonio. Privately, however, Parker is surprised Dallas made the trade. He never understood why Mavericks owner Mark Cuban didn’t re-sign Steve Nash and he doesn’t understand now why he would part with Harris. When Chris Paul used his own quickness to expose Kidd during Dallas’ loss to the New Orleans Hornets last week, Parker smiled.
Parker never had a problem with Kidd listening to the Spurs’ recruiting pitch. He likes Kidd and has long marveled at his game. Popovich and GM RC Buford were the targets of Parker’s frustration, and there are other reasons why their decision to pursue Kidd, while entirely justifiable, wasn’t the best.
To free up more salary-cap room to sign Kidd, the Spurs traded their first-round pick that summer. Duncan had urged them to consider drafting a fellow Wake Forest product. When the Spurs sent the pick to Phoenix and Dallas immediately followed by taking Duncan’s preferred choice – the same Josh Howard who will be running alongside Kidd Thursday – Popovich wondered aloud in the draft room whether they had made a mistake. The Suns, meanwhile, used the Spurs’ pick on Leandro Barbosa, who developed into the NBA’s reigning Sixth Man of the Year.
Looking back, the Spurs helped improve their two biggest rivals all for the right to insult their own young point guard. Two championships later, Buford can afford to joke that his tombstone won’t be complete if the names “Howard” and “Barbosa” aren’t engraved under his own. At times, Popovich has sounded more than willing to even hammer them onto Buford’s granite himself.
But there’s something else that came from the Spurs’ interest in Kidd: It made Parker better. Parker may never admit it, but whenever he sees Kidd there’s part of him that feels like he needs to prove himself all over again.
After Parker arrived for training camp in the fall of 2003, Popovich reminded him of his comments. You think you’re the best point guard for us? You think you can lead this team? Then show me.
For the next month whenever Parker threw away a pass, whenever he took an ill-advised shot, Popovich was in his ear again. Show me.
Sitting on a podium in Cleveland last June, Parker showed his coach and everyone else. The best point guard for the Spurs?
In one hand he cradled the Finals MVP award. The other held his third championship trophy.
Johnny Ludden is the NBA editor for Yahoo! Sports.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Jay-Z, James relationship should worry Cavs
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=At.hobCz9yapxql.FNlU2SPTjdIF?slug=aw-lebronjayz022508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Jay-Z, James relationship should worry Cavs
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Feb 25, 2008
As Jay-Z made a toast next to his co-host, LeBron James, at a VIP dinner during All-Star weekend, he spoke of branding, about a new world order of celebrity businessmen. They declared this the Two Kings dinner in New Orleans and the star-studded list of invitees included NBA owners and stars, music label executives and A-list performers. Jay-Z talked of a tomorrow when these two monuments to music and basketball will transform the rules of engagement for the iconic performer, one witness said. He talked of making history.
For the Cavaliers officials watching, there had to be something of a collective gulp. They have been uneasy witnesses to a dance between James and Jay-Z, a bond between a generation’s most celebrated entertainer and athlete. These two spend a lot of time together – traveling, talking and sharing big ideas.
What’s unnerving to Cleveland is that Jay-Z happens to be a part owner of the New Jersey Nets with unlimited access to James’ heart, mind and ambitions. Of course, the Nets are plotting a move to a sparkling new arena in Brooklyn, perhaps as soon as the 2011-2012 season. They’re clearing cap space and planning a pursuit of James when he can opt out of his contract in the summer of 2010.
Cleveland officials won’t talk about James and Jay-Z, but if you were wondering about the franchise’s fear of losing him to the brighter lights and bigger city, understand that the trade owner Dan Gilbert and general manager Danny Ferry made had everything to do with winning now and crushing James’ concerns that Cleveland is unable to surround him with a championship cast.
LeBron doesn’t want to just win titles. His stated wants include becoming sport’s first billionaire athlete. Among his advisors, he counts Warren Buffet. Jay-Z has helped James focus his mind on chasing something bigger than basketball. The question will be this: For the kid out of Akron, will his hometown – will even winning – be enough to hold onto LeBron James?
So yes, Sonny Vaccaro has been fascinated to study the burgeoning partnership since the days Jay-Z – whose real name is Shawn Carter – visited James at Vaccaro’s high school All-American camp in New Jersey. Vaccaro is responsible for some of the most profound marketing marriages in basketball history. He sold Nike on paying college coaches to be billboards for shoe companies, on spending everything they had on North Carolina’s Michael Jordan. When everyone else believed Jordan had a chance to be an excellent pro player, Vaccaro was convinced he would be transcendent for the company.
Vaccaro is out of the game, but forever connecting and consulting with those shaping the landscape. If nothing else, he is sure of this: In two years, Cleveland could be fighting a perfect storm of circumstances.
“I think that LeBron will have to look long and hard about leaving Cleveland,” Vaccaro said. “Dan Gilbert and the city have embraced him. They’ve done everything they can to make a championship-type trade. Danny Ferry did a good job with that. But knowing LeBron and knowing the world as I see it, the most appetizing thing would not be the New York Knicks for him, but the Nets with Jay-Z.
“Jay-Z is the one person that I can put in a parallel universe with LeBron from where they started and where they are now. If LeBron has a role model in life, it’s Jay-Z. I’ve never been around a more perfect match of young genius. What would be better than these two kids in New York?
“Maybe this is only able to happen once, when the money is there in New Jersey, and his contract is up in Cleveland. When you think of the marketing roll that LeBron could be on after winning gold in Beijing, wow. …I’m not sure the sun and moon have ever aligned like this.”
Jay-Z is a Grammy Award-winning rapper, the ex-president of a record label, a club owner, a clothier, a hotelier. Now, he has started a new ad company – Translation Advertising. This is the kind of fortune, the kind of legacy, that James is chasing for the long run.
This drive and determination isn’t lost on Gilbert, the Cavaliers owner who absorbed several million more dollars in salary and luxury tax with the trade that brought Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, Wally Szczerbiak and Delonte West to the team on Thursday.
James initially sounded cautious about the trade. After a blowout victory over Memphis on Sunday night, James gushed over its promise. Ferry delivered James shooting and the ultimate wildcard, Wallace. If Wallace has nothing left from his Detroit days, this deal could be doomed. Still, Cleveland feared the status quo in the East. Between the Cavs and the conference’s two best teams, Boston and Detroit, the gap has grown too profound.
Two years ago, the Cavaliers heard Jay-Z’s public position on LeBron’s future and could only imagine what might be said in private. When asked about the possibility of him someday joining the franchise, the Nets’ part-owner paid no mind to league tampering rules and gushed, “How amazing would that be? I tell people all the time, he’s my friend first. If Cleveland is building a championship team around him then my advice is to stay there. If it’s the Nets who are building a championship team that could be around him then my advice is to come to the Nets.”
The league office noticed the comments, but never leveled a fine for tampering. What can Cleveland do? Complain? No chance the Cavs will try to tell James who his friends can be, especially when they pre-date his days in the NBA.
When it comes to branding, nothing and nowhere could be bigger for James’ global profile than becoming the King of New York. There has always been a belief that his endorsement deals, including Nike, include clauses that trigger bigger payouts if James lands in a major market.
The Nets are clearing cap space for a free-agent class that includes James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, but James is the unmistakable target. So much so, the Nets have an internal business plan for the move into the new Brooklyn arena that includes a modest section on his eventual recruitment, estimates of his marketing worth and the salary-cap space that needs to be cleared for his signing.
This is the kind of advanced planning every team does, but there’s a credibility to the Nets’ pursuit that comes out of Jay-Z’s relationship. As for changing the landscape as iconic branders, it was no coincidence that James showed up at a New York-Cleveland American League division series game in October wearing a Yankees cap. Whatever calls of traitor ensued in Cleveland, the deed was done: Suddenly, the world identified LeBron as a Yankees fan.
Mere months later, Nike has a LeBron-Yankees shoe planned for March release. For those wanting to believe James is setting the stage for a move to the big city, the line of shoes does forward the idea that he wants to be identified with New York.
Between now and the summer of 2010, this promises to be a fascinating story line. Jay-Z has opened LeBron James’ mind to looking far beyond basketball, beyond the traditional journeys to superstardom. Together, they talked about changing everything for the global icon. Between now and 2010, the Cavaliers have to sell LeBron James that all that can still happen in Cleveland.
Adrian Wojnarowski is the NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports.
Jay-Z, James relationship should worry Cavs
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Feb 25, 2008
As Jay-Z made a toast next to his co-host, LeBron James, at a VIP dinner during All-Star weekend, he spoke of branding, about a new world order of celebrity businessmen. They declared this the Two Kings dinner in New Orleans and the star-studded list of invitees included NBA owners and stars, music label executives and A-list performers. Jay-Z talked of a tomorrow when these two monuments to music and basketball will transform the rules of engagement for the iconic performer, one witness said. He talked of making history.
For the Cavaliers officials watching, there had to be something of a collective gulp. They have been uneasy witnesses to a dance between James and Jay-Z, a bond between a generation’s most celebrated entertainer and athlete. These two spend a lot of time together – traveling, talking and sharing big ideas.
What’s unnerving to Cleveland is that Jay-Z happens to be a part owner of the New Jersey Nets with unlimited access to James’ heart, mind and ambitions. Of course, the Nets are plotting a move to a sparkling new arena in Brooklyn, perhaps as soon as the 2011-2012 season. They’re clearing cap space and planning a pursuit of James when he can opt out of his contract in the summer of 2010.
Cleveland officials won’t talk about James and Jay-Z, but if you were wondering about the franchise’s fear of losing him to the brighter lights and bigger city, understand that the trade owner Dan Gilbert and general manager Danny Ferry made had everything to do with winning now and crushing James’ concerns that Cleveland is unable to surround him with a championship cast.
LeBron doesn’t want to just win titles. His stated wants include becoming sport’s first billionaire athlete. Among his advisors, he counts Warren Buffet. Jay-Z has helped James focus his mind on chasing something bigger than basketball. The question will be this: For the kid out of Akron, will his hometown – will even winning – be enough to hold onto LeBron James?
So yes, Sonny Vaccaro has been fascinated to study the burgeoning partnership since the days Jay-Z – whose real name is Shawn Carter – visited James at Vaccaro’s high school All-American camp in New Jersey. Vaccaro is responsible for some of the most profound marketing marriages in basketball history. He sold Nike on paying college coaches to be billboards for shoe companies, on spending everything they had on North Carolina’s Michael Jordan. When everyone else believed Jordan had a chance to be an excellent pro player, Vaccaro was convinced he would be transcendent for the company.
Vaccaro is out of the game, but forever connecting and consulting with those shaping the landscape. If nothing else, he is sure of this: In two years, Cleveland could be fighting a perfect storm of circumstances.
“I think that LeBron will have to look long and hard about leaving Cleveland,” Vaccaro said. “Dan Gilbert and the city have embraced him. They’ve done everything they can to make a championship-type trade. Danny Ferry did a good job with that. But knowing LeBron and knowing the world as I see it, the most appetizing thing would not be the New York Knicks for him, but the Nets with Jay-Z.
“Jay-Z is the one person that I can put in a parallel universe with LeBron from where they started and where they are now. If LeBron has a role model in life, it’s Jay-Z. I’ve never been around a more perfect match of young genius. What would be better than these two kids in New York?
“Maybe this is only able to happen once, when the money is there in New Jersey, and his contract is up in Cleveland. When you think of the marketing roll that LeBron could be on after winning gold in Beijing, wow. …I’m not sure the sun and moon have ever aligned like this.”
Jay-Z is a Grammy Award-winning rapper, the ex-president of a record label, a club owner, a clothier, a hotelier. Now, he has started a new ad company – Translation Advertising. This is the kind of fortune, the kind of legacy, that James is chasing for the long run.
This drive and determination isn’t lost on Gilbert, the Cavaliers owner who absorbed several million more dollars in salary and luxury tax with the trade that brought Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, Wally Szczerbiak and Delonte West to the team on Thursday.
James initially sounded cautious about the trade. After a blowout victory over Memphis on Sunday night, James gushed over its promise. Ferry delivered James shooting and the ultimate wildcard, Wallace. If Wallace has nothing left from his Detroit days, this deal could be doomed. Still, Cleveland feared the status quo in the East. Between the Cavs and the conference’s two best teams, Boston and Detroit, the gap has grown too profound.
Two years ago, the Cavaliers heard Jay-Z’s public position on LeBron’s future and could only imagine what might be said in private. When asked about the possibility of him someday joining the franchise, the Nets’ part-owner paid no mind to league tampering rules and gushed, “How amazing would that be? I tell people all the time, he’s my friend first. If Cleveland is building a championship team around him then my advice is to stay there. If it’s the Nets who are building a championship team that could be around him then my advice is to come to the Nets.”
The league office noticed the comments, but never leveled a fine for tampering. What can Cleveland do? Complain? No chance the Cavs will try to tell James who his friends can be, especially when they pre-date his days in the NBA.
When it comes to branding, nothing and nowhere could be bigger for James’ global profile than becoming the King of New York. There has always been a belief that his endorsement deals, including Nike, include clauses that trigger bigger payouts if James lands in a major market.
The Nets are clearing cap space for a free-agent class that includes James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, but James is the unmistakable target. So much so, the Nets have an internal business plan for the move into the new Brooklyn arena that includes a modest section on his eventual recruitment, estimates of his marketing worth and the salary-cap space that needs to be cleared for his signing.
This is the kind of advanced planning every team does, but there’s a credibility to the Nets’ pursuit that comes out of Jay-Z’s relationship. As for changing the landscape as iconic branders, it was no coincidence that James showed up at a New York-Cleveland American League division series game in October wearing a Yankees cap. Whatever calls of traitor ensued in Cleveland, the deed was done: Suddenly, the world identified LeBron as a Yankees fan.
Mere months later, Nike has a LeBron-Yankees shoe planned for March release. For those wanting to believe James is setting the stage for a move to the big city, the line of shoes does forward the idea that he wants to be identified with New York.
Between now and the summer of 2010, this promises to be a fascinating story line. Jay-Z has opened LeBron James’ mind to looking far beyond basketball, beyond the traditional journeys to superstardom. Together, they talked about changing everything for the global icon. Between now and 2010, the Cavaliers have to sell LeBron James that all that can still happen in Cleveland.
Adrian Wojnarowski is the NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports.
Monday, September 3, 2007
The Richest (and Poorest) Places in the U.S.
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/103432/The-Richest-(and-Poorest)-Places-in-the-U.S.
The Richest (and Poorest) Places in the U.S.
by Les Christie
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Maryland knocked New Jersey out of the top spot this year, while Mississippi and West Virginia were the poorest states in the Union.
Maryland is now the wealthiest state in the union, as measured by median household income, according to the latest stats from the Census Bureau.
The typical Maryland household earned $65,144 in 2006, propelling it past New Jersey, which came in second with earnings of $64,470, but had led the nation in 2005. Connecticut finished in third place both years, recording a median income of $63,422 in 2006.
Maryland's income was nearly double that of Mississippi, which, with a median of $34,473, was the nation's poorest state. West Virginia, where the median household earned $35,059, was second poorest and Arkansas, at $36,599, was third.
The median income for the United States as a whole came to $48,451.
Income growth was highest in the District of Columbia, where it rose 6.4 percent for the year. Median income in both Nevada and New Mexico jumped 4.5 percent. Delaware, down 2.9 percent, took the biggest dip, followed by Rhode Island (down 2.0 percent) and Maine (down 1.6 percent).
Among places with 250,000 or more residents, the affluent Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, boasts the highest median income: $77,038. San Jose came in second at $73,804 and San Francisco was third with $65,497.
The list of the 10 poorest cities was filled with mostly old, northeastern and mid-western industrial locales. Cleveland had the lowest median income of any city in the nation with more than 250,000 residents; households there earned just $26,535. Miami was the next poorest at $27,088, followed by Buffalo ($27,850), Detroit ($28,364), St. Louis ($30,936) and Cincinnati ($31,103).
Other poor sun-belt cities included Memphis ($32, 593) and El Paso (33,103). With median income of $33,229, Philadelphia was the only city among the nation's 10 biggest that was also among the 10 poorest cities.
Among towns of between 65,000 and 250,000 in population, Yorba Linda, California, where six-figure incomes are the rule, had the highest median income at $121,075. The Orange County town is considerably wealthier than the second place city, Pleasanton, California, in the Bay area, which had a median income of $105,956.
The lowest income town of any with more than 65,000 population was Youngstown, Ohio at $21,850, which finished last by a large margin. Muncie, Indiana was its closest rival for this dubious distinction, with residents there earning $25,859, a difference of 18 percent.
Top 10 wealthiest states
Here's where the median household income is highest
State Income
Maryland $65,144
New Jersey $64,470
Connecticut $63,422
Hawaii $61,160
Massachusetts $59,963
New Hampshire $59,683
Alaska $59,393
California $56,645
Virginia $56,277
Minnesota $54,023
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
The 10 poorest states
The states with the lowest median household income
State Income
Montana $40,627
Tennessee $40,315
Kentucky $39,372
Louisiana $39,337
Alabama $38,783
Oklahoma $38,770
Arkansas $36,599
West Virginia $35,059
Mississippi $34,473
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
CNNMoney.com
The Richest (and Poorest) Places in the U.S.
by Les Christie
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Maryland knocked New Jersey out of the top spot this year, while Mississippi and West Virginia were the poorest states in the Union.
Maryland is now the wealthiest state in the union, as measured by median household income, according to the latest stats from the Census Bureau.
The typical Maryland household earned $65,144 in 2006, propelling it past New Jersey, which came in second with earnings of $64,470, but had led the nation in 2005. Connecticut finished in third place both years, recording a median income of $63,422 in 2006.
Maryland's income was nearly double that of Mississippi, which, with a median of $34,473, was the nation's poorest state. West Virginia, where the median household earned $35,059, was second poorest and Arkansas, at $36,599, was third.
The median income for the United States as a whole came to $48,451.
Income growth was highest in the District of Columbia, where it rose 6.4 percent for the year. Median income in both Nevada and New Mexico jumped 4.5 percent. Delaware, down 2.9 percent, took the biggest dip, followed by Rhode Island (down 2.0 percent) and Maine (down 1.6 percent).
Among places with 250,000 or more residents, the affluent Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, boasts the highest median income: $77,038. San Jose came in second at $73,804 and San Francisco was third with $65,497.
The list of the 10 poorest cities was filled with mostly old, northeastern and mid-western industrial locales. Cleveland had the lowest median income of any city in the nation with more than 250,000 residents; households there earned just $26,535. Miami was the next poorest at $27,088, followed by Buffalo ($27,850), Detroit ($28,364), St. Louis ($30,936) and Cincinnati ($31,103).
Other poor sun-belt cities included Memphis ($32, 593) and El Paso (33,103). With median income of $33,229, Philadelphia was the only city among the nation's 10 biggest that was also among the 10 poorest cities.
Among towns of between 65,000 and 250,000 in population, Yorba Linda, California, where six-figure incomes are the rule, had the highest median income at $121,075. The Orange County town is considerably wealthier than the second place city, Pleasanton, California, in the Bay area, which had a median income of $105,956.
The lowest income town of any with more than 65,000 population was Youngstown, Ohio at $21,850, which finished last by a large margin. Muncie, Indiana was its closest rival for this dubious distinction, with residents there earning $25,859, a difference of 18 percent.
Top 10 wealthiest states
Here's where the median household income is highest
State Income
Maryland $65,144
New Jersey $64,470
Connecticut $63,422
Hawaii $61,160
Massachusetts $59,963
New Hampshire $59,683
Alaska $59,393
California $56,645
Virginia $56,277
Minnesota $54,023
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
The 10 poorest states
The states with the lowest median household income
State Income
Montana $40,627
Tennessee $40,315
Kentucky $39,372
Louisiana $39,337
Alabama $38,783
Oklahoma $38,770
Arkansas $36,599
West Virginia $35,059
Mississippi $34,473
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
CNNMoney.com
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