Has anyone had as much fun in America this week as newly-crowned Master’s champion, Zach Johnson?
Johnson appeared on Letterman earlier in the week and recited the Top Ten list, which was entitled “The Top Ten things that I can now say that I’ve won the Master’s.” Both Johnson and Letterman are clearly having a good time. My favorite is no. 6: “Even I’ve never heard of me.”
I’m a bit tardy in catching up on Sam Zell’s deal for the Chicago Tribune, which Clear Thinkers favorites the WSJ’s Holman Jenkins ($) and Larry Ribstein have already analyzed with their usual sharp insight. As Jenkins and Professor Ribstein both note, the deal is potentially quite sweet for Zell and, of course, the sale of the Cubs will be a reasonably lucrative sideshow. However, the structure of the deal is that the Tribune employees will be the main owners of newspaper while Zell will control it. So, it’s pretty important to the employee-owners that Zell knows what he is doing in the quickly-changing media business. Based on Zell’s comments in this Washington Post article, my sense is that Tribune employees have much to be worried about:
It’s time for newspapers to stop giving away their stories to popular search engines such as Google, according to Samuel Zell, the real estate magnate whose bid for Tribune Co. was accepted this week.
In conversations before and after a speech Zell delivered Thursday night at Stanford Law School in Palo Alto, Calif., the billionaire said newspapers could not economically sustain the practice of allowing their articles, photos and other content to be used free by other Internet news aggregators.
“If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?” Zell said during the question period after his speech. “Not very.”
Newspapers have allowed Google to use their articles in exchange for a small cut of advertising revenue, but search engines also help to distribute their content to wider online audiences.
My goodness, what on earth is this all about? First, I don’t know much about Google News’ business model, but I’m pretty sure that it does not involve giving newspapers a cut of ad revenue. The reason I know this? Because I use Google News frequently and I haven’t noticed any advertising. Likewise, Google doesn’t steal media content. Rather, it simply indexes the content. Does Zell not understand the difference?
Zell is a smart guy with a track record of success in his ventures. But Zell’s comments indicate that he does not yet appreciate how people find information on the Internet, which is a pretty darn important thing to understand if you are going to run a company that produces a tiny bit of that sea of information. If Zell wants to make money with the Tribune online, then my sense is that he better make friends with Google, not threaten it.
I have avoided the entire Don Imus flap until now, probably because I abhor the type of “entertainment” that Imus provides. Nevertheless, CBS’s decision to fire Imus surprised me, particularly given that Imus’ brusque behavior hasnít prevented from being invited to speak at the National Association of Broadcastersí dinner or from having a line of politicians, media types and other seemingly important people ready and willing to appear on his show. Is anyone really surprised that he insulted the Rutgers women’s basketball team? The hypocrisy of some of Imus’ former supporters who called for his scalp is worse than Imus’ insult.
My sense is that CBS must have had a valid business reason to do this apart from punishing Imus for the insult. Otherwise, the decision would appear to be an overreaction. Given the nature of Imus’ program and his past behavior that CBS willingly indulged, I can’t imagine that CBS had grounds to fire Imus for cause, so CBS is presumably on the hook for the balance of Imus’ contract. And if Imus wants to work and compete with CBS, it’s not as if he is going to have to look hard for a new job. Satellite radio would appear to be ready made for him.
By the way, Jason Whitlock, a bright sports columnist for the Kansas City Star who happens to be a black man, has some interesting thoughts on the Imus affair, as does Radley Balko.
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, the author of fourteen novels including ìSlaughterhouse-Fiveî and ìCatís Cradle,î died last night in Manhattan at the age of 84 after suffering irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.
Vonnegut has always interested me, probably because he rented a house in Iowa City one summer back in the 1960’s next to my big family’s home on Brown Street while he was teaching at the University of Iowa’s heralded Writer’s Workshop. Vonnegut kept to himself mostly, although my brothers, friends and I would occasionally see him watching us play baseball and football in a big open field that adjoined the house he rented. This was around the time he was probably working on “Slaughterhouse Five” (my favorite), which may explain why my friends and I noticed one day a rather extensive array of empty liquor bottles teeming from the trash cans in the back yard of Vonnegut’s house. Chivas Regal was Vonnegut’s preferred brand at the time. May his restless and somewhat tormented soul rest in peace.
Remember awhile back when Barney Frank was actually making some sense in regard to a business matter?
Well, as that post noted, that didn’t last long. Rep. Frank is now advocating that investors in mortgage-backed securities should be liable for the underlying subprime loans that those securities facilitated because the investors violated the “loaned too much money” rule:
“More money was being lent than should have been lent,” Frank said in an interview from Washington. Frank, who last month predicted that the House would approve such a bill this year, said growth in the market for mortgage bonds “provided liquidity without responsibility.” [. . . ]
Lenders this decade have increasingly relied on mortgage-backed securities to fund new loans rather than tap capital from federally insured bank deposits. Frank called the process flawed, saying that as a subprime financing mechanism, banks’ exposure to the risk of default is excessively diluted.
By dispersing risk, the bonds fueled reckless and unscrupulous lending and compromised underwriting standards, he said. “There should be a decrease” in the money available for subprime mortgages, he said.
H’mm, the markets have already caused a dramatic decrease in the money available for subprime mortgages (without new legislation, mind you). Underwriting standards have tightened and the lenders with poor controls are already being washed out of the market. Investors who could affort to do so poured too much money into the subprime mortgage market, those investors got burned, and now the market has adjusted. But after too much money was poured into that market, just how little money does Rep. Frank want to have available in the future for people who cannot qualify for a conventional mortgage?
Rep. Frank’s proposal to penalize bondholders reflects that he doesn’t understand what has happened or simply doesn’t care because of political considerations. The growth of mortgage-backed securities has made the U.S. mortgage market the most efficient and productive mortgage market in the world. Rep. Frank wants to harm that market. Go figure.
The Lives of Others is a masterful Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck film about the Stasi, the East German secret police force, during the final days of the Communist government. I highly recommend that you see it if you have the chance.
This Roger Boyes/Times article about the movie passes along Alex Latotzky’s clever observation, which you will understand perfectly once you see the movie:
“Some ex-Stasi became taxi drivers, and very good ones, too; you just had to give your name and they knew the address.”
Whether to buy or rent is not always an easy decision, so I’ve been meaning to pass along this nifty NY Times calculator that provides you with a quick and easy calculation whether competing buy or rent offers make sense. This related David Leonhardt article that addresses a number of the issues, including the following observation:
Clearly, there are benefits to owning a house beyond the financial, like the comfort of knowing you can stay as long as you want or can fix the roof without permission. But real estate has been sold as more than a good way to spend money. It has been sold as a canít-miss investment. Back in 2005, near the peak of the market, the chief economist of the Realtorsí association, David Lereah, published a book called ìAre You Missing the Real Estate Boom?î The canít-miss argument was wrong then, and it may still be wrong today.
Check it out. Felix Salmon provides further analysis.
Please excuse the all-sports day here today, but newly-crowned Master’s champion Zach Johnson has seemingly been everywhere over the past couple of days and he is proving to be a refreshingly normal fellow amidst all the attention. Here is the Damon Hack/NY Times profile, but this Joe Posnanski/Kansas City Star profile captures how Johnson’s Midwestern roots define the man. And if you are really into Johnson, check out the Des Moines Register’s wall-to-wall coverage of Johnson’s Masters victory and the aftermath.
Meanwhile, Geoff Shackelford passes along the following interesting thoughts about the mindset of those who enjoy watching professional golfers struggle on tricked-up courses:
On the news that ratings were actually up for this hardly satisfying 2007 Masters, I’ve heard from a number of people that they argued with friends over the weekend about the setup and the joys of watching great players suffer.
There is a sizeable audience of the viewing public that enjoys watching the best players struggle. They like seeing them humiliated and brought down to a lower level of skill.
“They know how I feel now.”
This mentality has been around a long time and many of the games lesser-informed writers have celebrated the notion of pro golfers serving as modern day gladiators served up for the people to devour in humiliating spectacles.
So I’m wondering if championship golf is going to go the way of everything else in our society. Will it have to become “relatable” (as the marketing folks like to say) for big-time golf to succeed? In other words, will professional golfers eventually serve at the pleasure of the people, with major events played to publicly humiliate millionaire golfers on overcooked layouts in order to make the average man feel better about his lousy game?
Personally, I find it to be an incredibly selfish way to view golf. It’s a lot more fun to see the talent of these great players exposed, celebrated and savored. But maybe that’s old school?
By the way, a number of folks have asked me about my observation in an earlier post that Zach is a classic one-plane swinger along the lines that Houston-based teaching professional Jim Hardy (see also here) has written extensively about over the past several years. Here is a short video clip of Johnson working with his teaching pro, Mike Bender:
Finally, in case you didn’t catch it on Sunday, make sure you catch the video below of Rory Sabbatini’s incredible putt on Augusta National’s 8th hole. Sabbatini — who has been a jerk at times while on the Tour — has a fun-loving response to the crowd’s reaction:
It’s been a tough past few days for Texas A&M faithful, what with losing their up-and-coming basketball coach to Kentucky and all. But at least the Ags have hired former Wichita State head coach Mark Turgeon as their new basketball coach and they have their true second favorite sport (behind football) — spring football practice — to fall back on. With the annual Maroon & White intrasquad game coming up this weekend, a friend passed along the following progression of how a typical Aggie football fan sizes up the upcoming football season as the off-season progresses toward the first game in the fall:
In December, immediately after the conclusion of the last game of the prior season: “We are full of more holes than a block of swiss cheese. In all likelihood, we win 5 games next season.”
In March: “Well, we signed a solid class with some kids that can contribute. Add in the guys that redshirted and we’ll surprise some folks next year. Pencil at least 7 in the win column for 2004.”
In May: “Spring practices went well, and after seeing our squad in action at the Maroon & White Game, we’ve come a long way since the end of last year. I think 9 wins is do-able.”
In August: “Everyone really hit the weightroom hard this summer, and the team stayed polished with the voluntary workouts on the practice fields. We are much bigger and faster across the board, and reports from two-a-days are very, very positive. A BCS bowl game is within this team’s grasp.”
After first game: “Wow, Wyoming will probably win 10 games this year. That was a close one.”
The Stros seem to be steadying a bit after a horrendous 1-5 start, but if you think the hometown team’s start has been bad, get a load of what happened on Monday to Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins.
Over this past off-season, Rollins provided New York and Philadelphia sports columnists a season full of material by declaring that the Phillies — who finished a mere 12 games behind the Mets last season in the NL East — were the team to beat this season in the division.
The two teams met on Monday for the Mets’ home owner, during which Rollins proceeded to hit into a double play with the bases loaded, booted a potential double-play grounder with the bases loaded, and wound up with 56,000 Met fans mockingly chanting his name. The Mets came from behind to pound the Phillies, 11-5 and are off to a 5-2 start. The Phils are 1-6. Philly sports columnist Bob Ford puts it all in perspective:
“If you haven’t really arrived until they notice you in New York, then Jimmy Rollins made his official major-league debut yesterday. ‘Jim-my Roll-ins, Jim-my Roll-ins,’ came the mocking singsong from the stands at Shea Stadium. The fans added a verb occasionally, just for effect, but it wasn’t all that necessary. Fifty thousand people chanting your name is testament enough.”