Free Speech: A Tenant's Right

On May 12, 2009, a single female Chicago tenant tweeted to a friend:

"You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."
arstechnica.com

The tenant's former landlord, a giant realty company, is suing its former tenant USD$50,000 over a tweet of less than 140 characters (the tweet quoted above). If a tenant wants to tell twenty people about a mold problem that the landlord hasn't fixed then why, in the name of "free speech" shouldn't she be able to do so without punishment? The idea that a tenant has the power to complain is a basic American right protected by the First Amendment which says:

"The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress...that ...infringe the freedom of speech..."

A realty company should focus on action and reputation, not litigation because,

A good reputation is more valuable than money.
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Maxims

What gives a powerful landlord the right to squelch free speech? What kind of reputation does this realty company want? As a very aggressive one operating throughout the "Chicagoland area" as it says. Horizon Group Management's Jeffrey Michael makes this shockingly arrogant assertion:

“We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.”

It claims in a defensive letter that a single, young female tenant is trying to "manipulate the controversial RLTO" Chicago Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance law for her benefit. Like she's expecting quadrillions.

It also claims to have "acted to protect their reputation...in a public forum". With millions of tweets going unnoticed each day, a single tweet is just slightly more public and unusual than a person talking on a cellphone. The company evidently snooped through tweets like prowlers to have checked them for self-references!


"Resident Referral Program"

This case sounds like a frivolous complaint to me, and I hope the judge dismisses it as such. I know a little about renting out (being a landlady) and if a tenant has a complaint it needs to be fixed. I believe I am fair and even-handed and fix complaints as they arise. I have no sympathy with powerful landlords who even think to squelch a tenant's right to free speech. Absolutely none. It is better for landlords to champion honesty and free speech than to create a "Resident Referral Program", a sort of noisy internal public relations stunt that benefits very few if any. Who will want to make use of it? Is this propensity to sue the reason they need one?

William Shakespeare (Othello, Act 3, Sc 3)
He that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

Doubtless, the amount of money isn't that large in the grand scheme for the realty company, it's the principle of the complaint that's important.

For the victim, this single tenant, it's probably a considerable problem, given the sizable sum and the magnitude of harm to her name. It's unfair of a company like that to take advantage of its power to harm the credit prospects of one tenant. It's so heavy-handed, even if they did as they claim, and fixed up the mold problem. How does she feel? What about her life and reputation? She's moved away and on with her life. Good for her.

That company deserves all the tough scrutiny it's getting. I keep hearing anecdotes about the psychological abuses of large American realty companies on their tenants. It is my hope that their honesty and truthfulness will improve.

After all, landlords and big realty companies with nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

Spreading Fame, Money and Happiness On The Internet

Anyone who attended the recent Youtube-led 789gathering in New York can attest that fame, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and spreads especially quickly on the internet. Did you know that Youtube actually sponsors (i.e. pays salaries to) top video makers? Youtube video stars were out in force earlier this month of July, 2009, in Central Park to the delight of many fans at the conference event.

Imagine my surprise to hear exactly a claim that was leveled at the internet in its early years, echoed by Julia Child, one of the first and most successful of all food show stars. She says in her autobiography, My Life in France




that in 1962, she:

"knew nothing at all about television -- other than the running joke that this fabulous new medium would thrive on how-to and pornography programs."

Fleeting fame being created on the internet is inspiring the study of fame as a new field of exploration in psychology. Who knew?

"A new psychology study helps explain why some stars burn bright, long, long after their talent has faded – if it ever was there to begin with.

Simply put, says Nathanael Fast of Stanford University in California, people need something to talk about. The human desire to find common ground in conversation pushes us to discuss already popular people, he says."...

Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, agrees..."It does provide an answer to the question of why fame is self-perpetuating, even when the famous person isn't doing anything fame-worthy anymore." What is less clear is how people, ideas and practices become prominent in the first place, Schaller says.
New Scientist

Is Sarah Palin's "famous at being famous" talent encouraging ongoing media scrutiny? Many journalists and television entertainers have stabilized their careers on Palin impersonations and commentary. Could Palin discourage the media at her will or pleasure?

It's clear that the more we learn about happiness and the ways we learn to achieve it the happier we'll be. Those of us who are less famous can take comfort in a Stanford study that suggests:

Having lots of money, good looks and fame may sound like a sure ticket to happiness, but a new study suggests otherwise...“The attainment of extrinsic, or ‘American Dream,’ goals does not contribute to happiness at all in this group of people, but it actually does contribute to some ill being”

said study author Edward Deci, a psychology professor. The study is published in the June issue of The Journal of Research in Personality. Perhaps this study could apply to overpaid company executives.

Most people who both have had and haven't had money agree that it's preferable to have money. Not having any money can contribute to depression.

An excellent new paperback called "Welcome To Your Brain" by Princeton Psychology professor Sam Wang,




and psychologist Sandra Aamodt suggests ways to lift mild depression.

Focus on positive events:

"Every evening for a month, write down three good things that happened that day and explain what caused each of them. This exercise increased happiness and reduced symptoms of mild depression within a few weeks, and the effects lasted for six months, with particularly good outcomes for people who continued to do the exercise."

Three other ways they suggest to achieve happiness are to:

1) sleep well; it's a bigger determinant of happiness than higher income

2) have sex, even alone; it rates higher than socializing with friends

3) set and achieve realistic goals.

Fame, money, happiness. What is your secret desire?

Yes, Americans Need More Social Equality

Different strokes for different folks is sill alive and well in the United States. Sadly enough, the latest incident with Professor Gates in Cambridge, Massachusetts highlights the ubiquity of the problem. A police officer arrested a householder without reading him his Miranda rights, believing said householder had broken into his own home. This highly respected African-American friend of the President wants to publicize his mistreatment, and rightly so.

Living in America for the last thirty years, I like to think racism isn't as prevalent in Canada, my "country of origin". I believe we all tend to view our own countries with affection and tend to rewrite our memories with happier translations. Perhaps racism is a feature of living that we recognize in others when it happens, but rarely recognize it in ourselves. It has to be pointed out to us to change it. Americans needed to be reminded of how easily racism slips in.

What bothered Whoopi Goldberg on "The View" today about the Gates arrest, was how easily it happened.

What I find rather disturbing is the lack of police supervision. The President last evening in his press conference said that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly". Barbara Walters on "The View" took issue with it, saying that it was his choice of wording that is disturbing. She says that what bothers the press is that he could have used another word, or supposedly phrased it more diplomatically. But why should the President have done that? Expressing his sentiment less forcefully would have sounded supportive of this police action.

President Obama called it as he saw it. He himself holds the position of Chief Enforcement Officer in the United States, with ultimate titular responsibility for all the actions of the local police forces in the country. What an immensely improbable and aspirational title this is. It seems to me that police forces in this country are generally not accountable to a higher authority. After all, the President can't answer for all police officers, and there isn't another layer of supervision in between! While I am someone who has respect for the police, in general, I have to say I often wonder whom they fear. Local police in the next little town to us has "Personalized Police Force" painted onto their cars!

It is true that there is still inequality all over this country, despite the homogeneity of the culture. Some areas, as another example, have less frantic, more personalized postal attention than others. Yes, some in America get better attention than others. Does that have to be the way it is? Social equality is a value that defines a democracy.

The Uncertain Future of Popular Paper-based Publications

Alberto Ibargüen, President and CEO of the Knight Foundation says that

"unless traditional news organizations move from “I write and you read” to partnerships and letting the public participate in shaping the news, “I think the world will pass them by.”

The New York Times, July 19, 2009

The advantage of an individual blog like this is that I link straight to newspapers or other original news sources and I'm independent. Since this is a voluntary effort, no one has to worry that I'm overpaid by sources with ulterior motives (though other blogs can be undisclosed advertisements). The disadvantage is that I'm not a fast-moving news aggregator and just show one post at a time.

Google News, Yahoo News and HuffPost and others pass off content to advertisers as original. Newspapers and magazines relying on advertisers and subscriptions for revenue are finding their buyers balking at content consumers can get for free online.

The First Amendment to the Constitution, "free speech" is an important determinant that makes America a great democracy. It's important to frequently assert that right. Even so, it's easy to understand that the paper-based business model of news delivery is in trouble. Newspapers are expensive; salary expenses are steep and exorbitant healthcare insurance costs can't be helping the bottom line either.

What newspapers and news agencies are finding is news aggregators are legally able to copy most of an original newspaper or agency article, and for advertising solicitation purposes claim it as their own original work rather than that of a source. The future of free speech is in jeopardy if the source that paid for the research is not also reaping the benefits. Investigative journalism creates knowledge that is a benefit to all, but requires a lot of time and money.

Many are predicting the downfall of newspapers, and in Sunday's The New York Times is an article claiming that billionaires are taking up the cause of investigative journalism at ProPublica, the professional journalism website. Great! Maybe instead of funding sports teams, billionaires will look at newspapers as their toys of choice. (God help America!)

The same problem that musicians have had with the modernization of the music industry is still roiling it, that iTunes could be the future of the music industry.

Portable, fragrant glossy magazines can entice and satisfy like nothing else. I have long enjoyed relaxing with paper publications, many sadly now not publishing.

Here's my central question to you about the news industry in flux: do you think paper-based leaflets, brochures and magazines add value to a green-conscious economy? Easier, do you like them or dislike them?

Why Does CNBC Oppose Healthcare For All?

CNBC opposes healthcare coverage for all Americans. It's obvious.

It's an inhuman professional stance to take. How can America afford not to pay for healthcare coverage for all? Internationally, everyone knows that as far as healthcare is concerned, unless the Government steps in and takes action, America is going the way of Mexico where "everyone pays for everything"[according to NPR]. The future health and viability of the American economy are at stake. These CNBC anchors wouldn't be so worried if they knew that Britain, France and Canada faced and fixed what America is confronting now in the last hundred years, mostly since the Second World War.

Sue Herera and Michele Caruso-Cabrero on the Power Lunch set

Many older Americans move to Canada in retirement because of the perception that healthcare costs less there and because of the failure of business to rein in American healthcare costs in the last generation and century. It is outrageous that with one quarter of Americans or more without healthcare that any politician can make the false claim that we don't need healthcare because it might adversely affect small businesses.

CNBC anchors are interviewing the Republican extremist anti-healthcare operators, and ignoring the majority view of the Democrats, or at best giving them short shrift. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever when you think about it. If Americans can carry around their healthcare coverage from job to job, it will increase workplace efficiency. Employees will work where they want to, and create good jobs, rather than slave away and stay at jobs for "healthcare coverage" even if they would rather work somewhere else.

Government must step in to organize the costs that business has not been able to control. Business has focused on rewarding top officers in the last generation rather than raising minimum wages and controlling healthcare costs, among other lapses in progressive social policy. The outcome now is that Americans have a wasteful, overbuilt residential and commercial environment with rising foreclosures, rampant unemployment and skyrocketing emergency room healthcare visits. Schools and hospitals are closing, and many benchmarks of civilized societies (gun-control, too) are facing severe stress.

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, CNBC

CNBC should seriously educate Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and Melissa Francis, Sue Herera, Maria Bartiromo and Dennis Kneale among other anchors about taking an obviously anti-healthcare stance. It is inhuman, unpopular and mistakenly anti-business. If they're lucky, they too will get old and need healthcare, and then will they ever be surprised how much it costs! If they could focus on finding companies and doctors with suggestions for reducing costs, I am sure the administration and businesses in the audience would be better served.

It really amazes me that television programs have so much power. Do you think CNBC is aware of it's anti-healthcare power? I suppose Becky Quick has more experience in her healthcare commentary, being a supporter of her wheelchair-bound brother.

Becky Quick, CNBC

These CNBC anchors tend to have more on-the-spot challenges than most of mainstream television, but they tend to be allowed more opinionated commentary than blander, less emotional Bloomberg. As unique, affluent, mostly single individuals (unlikely to be bankrupted by medical costs) their healthcare views oppose the vast mainstream majority of viewers. They do fine work, but perhaps they need to balance their pro-business stridency with humanity and compassionate healthcare experience. That could help one-quarter to one-half of Americans!

Mysterious New Jersey Swine Flu Cases

In my state, New Jersey, there have already been fourteen reported cases of swine flu. Four deaths happened to women this week, all to patients in their fifty, three with pre-existing "health conditions". We'd like to have more details, please. What were those "health conditions" exactly?

The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, linked here gives a breakdown but only in numbers of flu cases and deaths in each county of New Jersey.

H1N1 Confirmed Cases, and Deaths :
Cases Deaths
Atlantic--------- 20
Bergen--------- 61, 1
Burlington----- 62
Camden--------- 32, 1
Cape May------- 3
Cumberland---- 14
Essex------------ 103, 1
Gloucester----- 10
Hudson--------- 81, 1
Hunterdon------ 17
Mercer----------- 43
Middlesex------ 113, 2
Monmouth----- 56, 1
Morris--------- 43
Ocean---------- 47, 2
Passaic-------- 58
Salem---------- 2
Somerset------ 35, 1
Sussex--------- 13, 1
Union---------- 60, 3
Warren--------- 22
NJ Total------- 895, 14
Probable Cases----- 455
updated as of 7/15/09, 3:00 pm

I fear the number of cases (895) is vague and inaccurate. For example, my own fifteen-year-old girl twice came down with strong flu as others close to her in school were diagnosed with swine flu. We suspect without knowing for sure that she had a mild case and that wouldn't be listed on this site of confirmed cases.

Optimistically, an article in The Wall Street Journal claims that schools will work intensively this fall to fight the flu.

The number of confirmed U.S. infections is now 40,617, with 263 deaths, the CDC said Friday. But the agency believes that more than one million people have been infected and weren't tested for the virus or didn't visit a doctor. WSJ

The Star Ledger newspaper is reporting that the state of New Jersey will receive USD$10 million in federal funding to prepare for the fall flu season.

While a vaccination will arrive too late to help the families of these flu victims, it can't come soon enough as the flu is hitting many, especially the young. A provisional one may be available earlier than the fully licensed one expected to be available at year's end. [Star Ledger] Luckily, those who've had a mild case might not get it again this fall. We can only hope.

CNN: "Mark Cuban's Insider Trading Case Dropped"

Whatever Mark Cuban's culpability is as far as being an "insider trader" is concerned, this girl has to admit, he's a talented and assiduous writer. He's also very forthcoming with advice in his own blog maverick.

He defends his side quite succinctly in his post called "The SEC". It's hard for a girl to disagree with such a nice guy. That is, nice in a very, very assertive way.


Mark Cuban, wikimedia

Another reason to like him is (drum-roll, please): he has two girls, and if that doesn't make parents political, I don't know what does! Maybe with his money and writing skills he should head into politics. Of course, he's not a lawyer...yet.

A Fool's Woes

Now there are tweets and an article here saying that the South Carolina Governor's Communications Director (press spokesperson) has just up and quit. After hearing that Sanford owes nearly USD$40,000.00 and has only repaid $3,000.00, it's not surprising that his co-workers are suddenly feigning forgetfulness, if not outright fear and misgiving. They can't "remember" whether they flew first class or not here and there. Conveniently they won't therefore be able to repay taxpayers.


South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford

Pity it happened to such a good-looking man! Would a black governor have had his power stripped away immediately, as one twitterer suggests? Whether or not that's true, it just goes to show that there must be something in the water in the great state of Strom Thurmond.

His wife:

Jennifer "Jenny" Sullivan Sanford (born 1962), is the First Lady of South Carolina, heiress, and former investment banker.[1] She is married to Governor Mark Sanford, whose initial campaigns she substantially funded.[wikipedia]

His governorship:


His family:


For her?


Maria Chapur in Argentina, The Huffington Post

According to him, Maria Chapur would be his "Bathsheba" to his new role as "King David." That sort of statement makes a person sound like he's entered the la-la land of lunacy. He can fool some of the people some of the time, but he can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Emma Watson's Fashion Debut

Then, in "Harry Potter"


Harry, Ron, Hermione


Emma Watson, Now in "The Huffington Post"


Emma Watson, despereaux

Love that style. Welcome to America, Emma!

Young Republicans Resemble KKK

Audra Shay's remarks described here in Daily Beast make me angry. It's clear as day to me that she's just a racist and prejudiced beyond belief. Where did she pick up her attitudes? On whose knees did she learn to "choose hate"? Let's try and ignore her. It'll be easy, I hope, as I had never heard of her before yesterday.

Who cares about Young Republicans anyway? Who cares if they elect anyone? Obviously it's full of immature people with narrow views, like some modern day version of the KKK...Tragic.

Definitely they're not in my list of what makes America great. A future post will be a list of what I think differentiates America and makes America great.

If you have any suggestions for me to add to my list, please email me.

The Long Line Isn't the Correct One

slopeofhope.com

In America, on the right are the mainstream cable channels and on the left are many blogs and some of the financial news channels, such as Bloomberg and some foreign newspapers. What would you label left and right?

It amazes me that someone as abrasive and irritating as Elizabeth Hasselbeck might make $5 million a year on "The View" for sitting there, making off-the-cuff remarks, some casual and some heated. She makes me switch to Bloomberg which is one of the few channels making sense. I've emailed ABC many times to object to her, but I didn't know then how much she might be paid. Ridiculous.

As far as Bloomberg is concerned, evening and weekend commercials could be more family friendly (Cialis and all?). CNBC's commercials and paid announcements and promotions during the weekend could be more carefully vetted, too. CNBC keeps having paid infomercials on the weekend that have wildly insane titles, such as "Houses for $300."

Reminds me that the recently late Robert S. McNamara, who became"the first president of Ford from outside the family of Henry Ford" then took a very powerful post as eighth Secretary of Defense in 1960. Would that happen today? Unlikely a CEO would give up that much money now.

John Malone, the mathematician and investor and so on is today saying on Bloomberg that the internet may have gotten ahead of itself. He claims it's too late for many newspapers to make money from something that is free now. He thinks the only way to do that is to bundle. Bad news for consumers, but could it create a new business paradigm?

A scary article in the Financial Times yesterday was brought to my attention by Mark Haines of CNBC, and it concerns the credit market, which needs to improve:

"Whereas $2,500bn (€1,800bn, £1,500bn) of loans were securitised in 2007, in the US last year almost none were sold to private-sector buyers."
ft.com

While I am not saying I understand all that article, it just goes to reinforce the news that unemployment, foreclosures and the credit markets are all ailing in America today.

With my apologies in this unusually rambling post, I will just finish by remarking that a lot of homeowners in high end real estate in many places, especially in California and Britain, are still on the right hand side of this drawing. Looks to me like all the green shoots are out in my garden, and it's a stock pickers market. See my investment blog for some amazing stock winners.

Justice Eludes Many Canadian Indians

First Nations and the Pacific Northwest: Change and Tradition, by Jacqueline Windh


Jacqueline Windh, The Tyee

For those who didn't know, many native Canadian Indians were taken into residential schools in the 1970s to assimilate them into the culture of the southern region of Canada. Most Canadians live within a drive of one and a half hours of the American border, because that's where the climate is generally most hospitable to live in Canada. Canadian winters tend to be cold and harsh, and the southern region of Canada is more like the northern section of the United States.

Vancouver Island tends to exist as a dreamy location for most Canadians because of the sheer heavenly beauty of ocean views and for the relatively mild climate. It's a shangri-la venue Canadians associate with a worry-free lifestyle.

A book now being released sheds new light on the seamier underside of that idyllic wilderness. Native Canadians, aboriginals as they're now called, were moved to schools to learn the social customs of the mainstream south of the continent and suffered significant harm in the process.

If it hadn't been for the painstaking and patient research of Jacqueline Windh, Ph.D., University of Washington, this sad saga would have been lost in the mists of time. It took Windh years to learn about these atrocities, and that's why it's all so believable. This sad story is a window into a Canadian freak show of inhuman treatment. But what makes it worse in my view is that nothing has been done or shows any signs of ever being done in the future in the Canadian legal system to mitigate the horrors of the abuse victims suffered in these schools.

Windh is a first responder and the first to uncover reports of acts of violence that have still to be discovered. Students were punished for speaking their native languages. They say they watched their teachers perform sex acts. Then the news gets worse. Her book reveals reports of rape, physical abuse, and borderline torture that were sanctioned by teachers, nuns and priests at the school. Sounds like the authority figures could have gotten away with murder.

Most disturbingly, the perpetrators of these crimes are still even now living amongst the abused. Teachers and clergy haven't been prosecuted, and so far haven't faced the justice system at all. In fact, Windh is saying that as justice still isn't being done, parents are struggling, uninspired to treat their own children better. It is horrible that the legal system isn't rectifying this social problem or no one's even talking about it very much. It's tragic that many of the perpetrators and victims are dying of old age without seeing justice.

Since October 2008, a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" a formal inquiry intended to give voice to and document the experiences of residential school survivors, has lay in shambles after the commissioners resigned over internal disputes. Earlier this month, however, the government welcomed new commissioners, promising the commission will be up and running soon.The Tyee

How can "reconciliation" be possible? Exactly what reconciliation is being promoted between abuser and abused and why? Why is reconciliation even being considered in lieu of harsh legal penalties?

Let's hear more about this "Truth Commission". We'll be watching.

FBI Shouldn't Favorite: Palin vs. Bloggers

Jodie Foster carrying FBI ID

The FBI inexplicably came out this morning saying,

"We are not investigating her," FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said on Sunday. "Normally we don't confirm or deny those kind of allegations out there, but by not doing so it just casts her in a very bad light. There is just no truth to those rumors out there in the blogosphere."....
Anchorage Daily News

The FBI shouldn't have come out with comments about "the blogosphere" condemning individual rumors wholesale (of which I have passed none). There is no need to deny any "allegations", which are just media rumors. There is no need to officially take a side at all and get involved.

The powerful reason is that freedom of speech rests on individual effort. Writing takes effort and not everyone is interested in making their own views known in a blog.

Might I assert that the world of journalists is changing in this age of Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Palin herself is now using Twitter and Facebook for her own communications. The old method of waiting around for radio reports and paper print for news is not where a lot of people these days are getting their information. They're going online.

With the need to get telephone numbers from the internet because there aren't as many phone books being handed out, why is the FBI making value judgements about "the blogosphere" without also taking on rumors in Facebook and Twitter? Doesn't make sense for them to single out bloggers.

Why aren't they applauding the individual efforts of bloggers trying to balance the old and sometimes stale news that is peddled by large news outlets. Historically news outlets have had all the power. Whatever they say is usually taken as the "Word from God" and believed by a large segment of the population.

Of course, what's in news reports has to be taken with a grain of salt some of the time and sources must be considered. But at the same time, that's all anyone has to go on. Journalists learn from other journalists as they conduct independent research.

What's the better alternative for bloggers, to keep quiet when the need to speak up is obvious and doable? It would be remiss of the population, especially those who know and who may be experts, not to pour out ideas as they happen when it's possible to do so.

Bloggers aren't necessarily journalists, but they should know what their own point of view is.
In other words, it's good to blog, and the FBI shouldn't somewhat automatically take the side of a suspiciously rogue soon-to-be-ex-Governor who twitters and uses Facebook with impunity. That to me smacks of high-handed police intervention in a democratic process.

Palin Tarnishes Christians and Christianity

If Sarah Palin is personalizing Christianity as a side issue with her campaign, she's making the classic political mistake of mixing church and state.


Alaska shoreline, courtesy Carnival Cruiselines

Why is Palin pulling "Christianity" into her speeches and expecting voters to accept that a "higher calling" might cause her to conduct another future political campaign? My view is that she's besmirching a good religion and embarrassing those who defend it, incidentally aggrandizing herself at every opportunity.

Just please, Sarah, if you read this, don't drag your religion into the muck. It's my religion, too, except mine's a little different and isn't manifest the same way.

And fighting for revenge against innocent bloggers and big news services is bananas. What's the saying about hot kitchens? "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!" The White House is a much bigger, hotter kitchen than any place in Alaska.

Worse, Palin is beginning to sound a little crazy as well as conflicted. Now she's threatening to sue a blogger meekly calling herself the nickname, "just a girl from Homer". Who does Palin think she is? Mary, Queen of Scots? No, just a girl from Wasilla, that's who! Her vindictive rages and small world view aren't assets.

If she thinks she can sue bloggers just because she thinks she can, she's nuts. Aren't we bloggers protected by the First Amendment? After all, most writing and blogging compare to looking after children because it's necessary and useful work but not extremely well paid. Of course, lucrative writing such as producing bestselling novels is an exception. Palin herself should prove able to write a bestseller, if the hype of her supporters is any indication. Bluster, intimidation and threats have limited usefulness.

If Palin thinks she can squash free speech, she's the one who needs to learn a lesson. How is the rest of the country learning about the state of Alaska and how it's being run? Actually, I had little idea until now how different it is, how many fewer laws there are in Alaska than in, say, New Jersey, my state for more than two decades.

It's rather odd to me that Ann Coulter and Margo Howard, daughter of Ann Landers, are saying that Sarah Palin is leaving her governorship because she is "too big" for the job. Why are they supporting her? Rumors abound about Palin and some facts haven't been released.

Do you think Palin goes too far invoking loyalty with whiffs of religious superiority, dragging bloggers into her rages?

Tennis, anyone?

Timothy Gowers

Timothy Gowers is a mathematician educated at Eton College and Cambridge University, who writes a fascinating blog, Gowers's Weblog, as well as currently being Rouse Ball Professor at Cambridge. While his blog is aimed at mathematicians, anyone can read it and comment and it's highly recommended.

Wimbledon, England

Today he is writing about the mathematics of tennis, in a post called "A mathematician watches tennis." He takes his study a lot farther than you would ever imagine mathematics could take tennis.

It's worth reading just in case a few hot tennis tips might give your game an edge. Even for the armchair spectator, it's fun to exercise your mathematical potential and possibly attempt someday to have a thoughtful conversation about tennis, or at least ponder the advantage of first serve or second. Isn't that a question you've always burned to understand?

I love his elegant turn of phrase, like

"After all, the best strategy cannot be anything other than to maximize the probability that you win the point, so if it ever makes sense to serve a reasonably powerful second serve and risk serving a double fault, then it makes sense even if you are match point down"

and

"It makes my head spin like the ball on a heavily sliced second serve"

Whew! He seems to have covered all the bases oops! courts. He even points out psychological and physical challenges to winning.

Finally, after wading through the math, in his words he claims his advice is impractical:

One final remark: I do not for one moment think that anything in this post, even when fully developed, would be of the slightest use to a tennis player. I just thought I'd better make that clear.

Apropos Wimbledon championships currently playing, it's interesting to read new highbrow work about such an old and simple game.

Timothy Gowers' The Princeton Companion to Mathematics and Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction make fascinating reading.

Bombshell News

Grizzly Bay: Barbarians for Palin (Original unedited photo)

Republican Sarah Palin's abandoning Alaska's Governorship.

Would Alaskans have elected her had she warned them while running for office that she might quit being a first-term Governor a year-and-a-half early?

Supposedly for their own good, she's giving up her title. Her term will be incomplete for personal reasons, no doubt.

Every Governor who, for sure, doesn't want to run again becomes a lame duck halfway through first term and can resign rather than keep the job merely to hold the title. Sounds like there needs to be a new law to stop lame duck politicians from quitting.

Her "reasons for leaving" come across as petulant and tired. She's cute enough, and I think that's why cameras continue focusing on her and her beautiful state, rarely known for "big news". Her constituents call her the "Ice Queen". Palin preaches but has lost her moral compass as she rarely gives others credit in her speeches. I would characterize her as lucky and assertive rather than talented as some say. She's said to be narcissistic by Purdum in Vanity Fair, and now London's Daily Telegraph is calling her a joke, and selfish.


Ann Coulter

In the same way, photogenic Republican Ann Coulter comes across as a debater while looking like a Viking Norsewoman with long, slender arms, and long, blond hair. But what a viper with her words.

Republicans are sounding like extremists now. Democrats are making so much more sense and speaking up about our daily concerns.

Just as the Republicans won over an entire generation in the early eighties, so the Democrats are now winning over this generation completely (from NPR). Republicans are pulling at straws, desperately grasping, reacting negatively and fighting, fighting, fighting about nearly everything.

This shocking political resignation takes our attention away from the unpleasant challenges of roadside bombs, booby traps and dangerous blindness in the newest military initiative in Afghanistan. With all the intensive high tech advantages and accumulated knowledge of the superior American military, low tech random attacks from the enemy side are achieving more than their share of surprises.

America needs to refocus. There is actual fighting going on -- in Afghanistan, being paid for with tax dollars.

Who are our fallen heroes and how did they fall? How expensive is this war ultimately going to be?

Chicago's Best View

CHICAGO: The view from the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere just got better.

Children stand on "The Ledge" a five-sided glass box 1,353 feet (412 meters) above the street in Chicago July 1, 2009. The Ledge is part of Skydeck Chicago located on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower. It opens to the public on July 2.
China Daily