• WPBSA chairman plans to boost prize money
• Hearn to resign if blueprint is not accepted

Barry Hearn has revealed radical plans to revitalise snooker, including increasing prize money on the circuit to at least £4.5m from £3.5m for each of the next three years. Hearn has also said he will resign as chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association if the plans are not accepted by its membership at an extraordinary general meeting in early summer.

Hearn intends to commit the association's £3m cash reserves to prize money for more tournaments as part of a response to the "poor leadership, lack of events, absence of investment, inefficient organisation and poor brand awareness" which he said he has found at the WPBSA.

There will be a ranking tournament in Berlin and a new supporting tour of 12 events – eight in mainland Europe, four in the UK – from which the top 24 would qualify for a televised Players Championship. There will also be a 64-player one-frame shoot-out with a 25-seconds shot clock, no time-outs and a maximum of 12 minutes per frame.

Following the model of the Professional Darts Council, which he also chairs, Hearn intends to split World Snooker Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary, from WPSBA Ltd, which would become exclusively the sport's regulatory and disciplinary body financed by a modest grant from WSL.

The new WSL would acquire WPBSA's commercial assets for a nominal £1 and issue share capital of £500,000, a figure Hearn deems necessary to set against early losses incurred in rebuilding the circuit. Hearn's own company, Matchroom, would take 51% of the shares with 24% allocated to other commercial partners and 25% to players whose share entitlement would be determined by a formula taking account of a top-64 ranking and previous world- and ranking-title wins.

If the new company fails to meet its targets, Hearn will resign and its commercial rights would revert to WPBSA Ltd.The present £4m a year BBC contract for four events – the Grand Prix, the UK Championship, the Masters and the World Championship – expires with the 2011 World Championship and Hearn is in negotiations for a new one. The BBC do not want to televise the Grand Prix anymore, the weakest of the quartet in terms of viewing figures and profile. In its place Hearn has offered a World Open, which would carry £500,000 in prize money and whose field of 96 professionals would be augmented by 32 amateurs.

The BBC may be wary of the World Open deducting value from the Crucible's World Championship. It has a 60-day option to claim the rights to the new tournament and may consider that it would be better to take it rather than risk it passing to another broadcaster who might build it up into a rival.

If the BBC do not take the World Open, its annual rights fee for the remaining three events is likely to drop below £4m but, regardless of any new BBC contract, Hearn deems it essential to bring other broadcasters into the game. He is in talks with Sky, ITV and ESPN and is shortly to meet Eurosport, which takes a feed of all WPBSA events from other broadcasters and whose viewing figures he describes as "amazing".

The Council for Secular Humanism is proud to announce its 30th anniversary subscribers' conference. "Setting the Agenda: Secular Humanism's Next 30 Years" will be held October 7 - 10, 2010, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, California. Scheduled speakers include Richard Dawkins, who will accept a very special award (to be announced); authors Sam Harris and Robert Wright, who will dialogue on humanist stances toward faith; and a glittering roster of speakers, including James Randi, P. Z. Myers, Eugenie Scott, Paul Kurtz, Lawrence Kruass, Chris Mooney, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Victor Stenger, Shadia Drury, Mark Johnson, Barry Kosmin, Ibn Warraq, and many more. Sounds like a rumble. Details here....

Brand X Files: OJ's transgender prison posse. Tea pary vigilantes. Brad Pitt's ... Los Angeles Times (Gawker) Tea party vigilantes out for Liberal blood: Racist and homophobic slurs give way to death threats and bricks (with Barry Goldwater quotes) thrown ...

AARP CEO A. Barry Rand today sent a letter to every member of the U.S. Senate.� In his letter, Rand urged senators to promptly pass the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 without amendments. Rand highlighted provisions in the legislative package that would address key priorities of AARP members and all older Americans. These provisions include closing the Medicare prescription drug "doughnut hole," making coverage more affordable for American families, and fighting fraud, waste and abuse in health care...

Lately, I've been reading a lot about the effects of the abundance of choice on consumers. With the internet offering limitless choice - from different blogs to any product you imagine to any type of niche community you could want to be a part of or create - we've all got a lot more choices to make.

Technology (ie. the internet) was supposed to make things easier. Email is faster (and cheaper) than a phone call, some would argue. Smartphones allow you to answer your Email even when you're on the go. Digital PVR's allow you to watch TV when you want. RSS readers let you aggregate all your favorite stuff in one place.

We think that more choice equals more opportunity.

The problem? There is to much of it. And our 'free time' is fixed. We can try to squeeze more into it, but there will always be only 24 hours in a day.

The truth is, studies have shown that more choice leads to paralisis - or what some call 'The Decision Paradox' (popularized by Barry Schwartz in his book 'The Paradox of Choice"). The famous example often cited in marketing books occured in a grocery store.

Here is the example from Schwartz book: Researches set up a small table with 24 different jars of jam on it. They offered consumers the ability to try any jam they wanted. Consumers then had the option to purchase any of the jams if they liked what they had (and they could try as many options as they wanted) and get one dollar off on the purchase. Weeks later, the researchers returned and set up the same table in the same place. The difference? They only provided 6 different types of jams. Consumers could then try, and buy, if they liked one of them.

The results were telling: “Thirty per cent of the people exposed to the smaller amount of jams actually bought a jar; only three per cent of those exposed to the large array of jams did so.” The examples go on. From mutual funds to different types of iced tea, Schwartz references a variety of examples that you can't ignore. I'd recommend watching his 2006 TED talk to check out more on this topic.

In digital, and in all communications, we each have a ton of choice. The number of sites that 'aggregate' content are in the millions. I can connect with friends on dozens of platforms and technologies. I can read, write, comment or share anything I want. I have a ton of choices to make on how I use my time.

Deciding how to make these choices doesn't necessarily mean sitting down and truly evaluating every one I have. I don't have time and you don't either. So I fall into patterns, I make choices that are easy and I make ones that are enjoyable and (hopefully) beneficial in the long term.

As a brand communicating, I don't want you to try to do everything. I don't want you to create a site that aggregates every type of content imaginable and let's me find something that's relevant to me. I want you to guess and focus on something that is relevant to you and hopefully a segment of your consumers.

True, you will get people who don't care. But if you give them a simple choice to make, they might actually stick with your communication experience. If you tell them that you do everything and all you have to do is find it, I'm gone.

To end on a quote from Schwartz:

"The more options there are, the easier it is to regret the one you've made".

Richmond v Carlton

First game of the season and a fresh start for both the Tigers and the Blues in 2010. Without the fanfare of last year’s ( Cousin’s Return ) round 1 clash, Richmond seemed to be more realistic with the task at hand.

I just hope for the first proper game of the year doesn’t go down like a lead balloon - much like the ‘new’ football entertainment show on a certain channel.

It is definitely going to be a tough year down at Tigerland but I’m glad they have instilled Damien Hardwick as their coach.

A known hardman as a player and doing his apprenticeship under some decent coaches, Hardwick has all the ingredients to make it as a good coach.

Re-building at a football club hungry for success is a baptism of fire, but I like Hardwick’s realistic, competitive approach to the season.

Meanwhile down at Carlton, the Blues have been trying to wash out the stain that is Brendan Fevola .

Carlton finally decided after years of accepting the the unacceptable, that the Coleman winning goal machine just wasn’t worth it.

But now without a known goal kicker it places question marks over their forward potency. Looking at the NAB results of both teams is like trying to predict Lotto numbers – just not worth the effort.

Richmond have named Ben Cousins to play after suffering from a ‘mysterious’ stomach problem alongside the fresh blood of Dustin Martin, Ben Nason and Relton Roberts.

Mitch Farmer is an exciting player and will also line up for his first game with the Tigers after playing 3 at Port.

The Navy Blues will be missing Chris Judd for 3 weeks for suspension due to impersonating a WWE wrestler but Robbie Warnock will finally get some decent game-time for Carlton in the Ruck.

Just like last year though this time without all the hype it will be a similar result.

Carlton by 36 points

Geelong v Essendon

Geelong have been in cruise control over the past few months with practice games and NAB matches being treated not much more than an opportunity to stretch the legs.

You can just see  ‘Bomber’  Thompson knows this is going to be a long season with two strong contenders staring menacingly at the 2010 premiership cup.

This season could come down to a battle of attrition, with the best team managing to have their best team on the park peaking at the right time.

Late last year, a lot of people were worried about whether the Cats have their best team for the Grand Final with a few injury worries.

But the only problem Mark Thompson had was choosing which player was going to miss out on a medallion. For round 1 the Cats go into the clash with their strongest lineup possible.

Tom Harley has retired, Matthew Stokes (suspended indefinitely due to White Line Fever of a different kind), Travis Varcoe (thumb) and Max Rooke (knee tendinitis) are the only players missing from last year’s best line up.

Essendon meanwhile have a few players missing due to suspension ( Nathan Lovett-Murray , Mark McVeigh , Michael Hurley ).

Both Leroy Jetta and Tyson Slattery will also be missing due to injury.

Matthew Knights has a young team full of untested potential and this will definitely find out how well the Bombers have recruited over recent years.

If Scott Gumbleton can stay fit, he just might be able to show us why Essendon have patiently waited for his injuries to come right.

The Bombers picked up Mark  Williams from the Hawks during the offseason and will be hoping at the age of  26, he has matured enough to handle a consistent season of AFL.

Once the rustiness of round one has worn off, the class of the Cats will be too strong for the Matthew Knights’ young Bombers.

Geelong by 42 points

Melbourne v Hawthorn

Both teams pre-seasons have been less than ideal with mounting injury lists and very ordinary performances in both practice and NAB games.

While The Hawks are aiming to make finals this year after reaching the pinnacle in 08, Melbourne you get the feeling just want to be a lot more competitive than last year.

Hawthorn seem to missing  a whole Ruckman division with Max Bailey and Simon Taylor out long-term and mature-age rookie Wayde Skipper out for a few weeks with hamstring troubles.

Big name recruit Shaun Burgoyne and the dynamic Cyril Rioli are in doubt for the match. While it remains unclear how long Brad Sewell will take to come back from a broken collarbone.

Buddy Franklin maybe looking fitter after a slimming pre season, but will miss the game due to suspension.

Melbourne have a number injuries to key player Jurrah, Morton, Bell, Watts,Johnson and Sylvia. Getting through this match with no further injuries would almost be seen as a win in Dean Bailey’s eyes.

Hawthorn still have a decent midfield with Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis known ball magnets and looking fit and firing for this round 1 game. Lets face it a wet sock would be more competitive than the Demons at the moment.

Hawthorn by 54 points

Sydney Swans v St Kilda

The Swans play a tight game of football that may not be visually edge of your seat kind of stuff, but gets them within a cat’s whisker of winning against much more talented teams like the Saints.

A 1 point loss to St Kilda in a pre season game might not be saying much but the Saints were genuinely having a crack at the NAB cup and the Swans were playing solidly in other games too. New recruit Mark Seaby will help the Swans big man stocks, but Daniel Bradshaw has not featured much for Sydney after undergoing minor knee surgery.

The big towering, Jesse White might have to take the next step up and show us the form that he gave glimpses of last year to lead the Swannie’s forwards. The Irish leprechaun Tadgh Kennelly is back looking, refreshed from a self imposed hiatus and might be just the experience Paul Roos needs in a developing Sydney outfit.

The Saints have had a encouraging start to the year with wins in every pre season game except the NAB Grand final against a hungrier pack of Bulldogs. Recruiting Andrew Lovett has been a disaster and Brett Peake has been less than convincing.  Key players Sam Fisher and Lenny Hayes are suffering injuries, but on the other hand Nick Riewoldt and Brendon Goddard look raring to go with a solid pre season fitness campaign.

Both teams stick to a structured game-plan and this similarity is no surprise with Ross Lyon being Paul Roos’ apprentice for many years.

The game is at ANZ stadium which might suit the Saints better than a match at the SCG.

St Kilda by 24 points

Brisbane Lions v West Coast

The storm of controversy that followed Fevola to Brisvegas mimicked the weather the Lions had in a few of their rain soaked pre season matches. It has been less than ideal for Michael Voss and Brendan Fevola’s infield form has set the world alight either.

Jamie Charman is out for at least 6 weeks but the Lions should be able to cope with Mitch Clark finding a new lease on life as Brisbane’s No.1 ruck choice. New recruits Brent Staker, Aamon Buchanan, Andrew Raines and Matt Maguire have all looked great. Maguire especially if he can stay injury free could be the recruit of the year.

The Eagles are still believing the hype of the ‘new breed’ but realistically unless this ‘new breed’ has been genetically engineered we could see inconsistent performances from Woosha’s young group of players.

Their pre-season game against bogey side Port Adelaide might of given a glimpse of this.

West Coast definitely need a season where both Dean Cox and Daniel Kerr stay fit in order to support and lead the young talented players like Nic Naitanui, Chris Masten and Scott Selwood.

The formidable combination of Brown and Fevola coupled with Rich, Black and a maybe fit Power will give Brisbane the edge up at the GABBA.

Brisbane by 20 points

Port Adelaide v North Melbourne

Port Adelaide have been scarily consistently good in all their pre season games. The Power and the word ‘consistent’ go together like chalk and cheese but the signs are there that their season might not be as bad a people are predicting.

There has been good form from Travis Boak and Justin Westhoff and these are just the type of players Mark Williams needs to make that next step up. Williams has recruited Dean Laidley to help stem the flow of Port’s leaky defense and sometimes it takes two mad geniuses to invent something new.

Injuries to important players David Rodan and Daniel Motlop won’t help Port Adelaide’s cause.

North Melbourne’s form leading into round one hasn’t been great but a new coach and new facilities just might spark the Kangaroos into some sort of action this year.

North Melbourne seem to have fallen into the trap of recruiting the same type of players that have good pace and run but have been too inconsistent and too small to play key match-winning roles.

Drew Petrie if injury free seems to be their only focus up forward, and if running midfielders like Daniel Wells,Leigh Harding and Brent Harvey can’t kick bags of goals, quite simply the Roos will be caught in the headlights.

Port Adelaide by 18 points

Western Bulldogs v Collingwood

The match of the round should be a closer encounter than last time they met when the Pies went down by 24 points. The Western Bulldogs seem to be the genuine article this year and if they stay injury free will be disappointed with no less than a top 2 finish.

Denial is not a river in Egypt but what a lot of Bulldogs fans suffered from, when looking at their forward line solution to complement their excellent midfield. Barry Hall could be that cherry on top of the Bulldog’s cake, if his old body holds up and he keeps attending those anger management therapy sessions.

He may never be godfather to Brian Lake’s children but as long as Hall keeps kicking bags of goals for the Dogs, I’m sure they’ll get along just fine. A super midfield of Ryan Griffen, Adam Cooney, Matthew Boyd, Daniel Cross and Shaun Higgins should have ‘Rocket’ Rodney Eade sleeping easy most nights of the week.

Collingwood definitely have a top 5 side with a lineup now complemented by ‘new’ recruits Luke Ball and Darren Jolly. Jolly might solve the Magpies Ruckman problems but there are still question marks over forward firepower and a defensively weak midfield that might not keep up with the Bulldog’s guns.

Western Bulldogs by 16 points

Fremantle v Adelaide

Fremantle after years of making excuses for poor performances really need to bring something fresh to the table.

Recruiting a ready made AFL player in Anthony Morabito and solid performances from other newbies – Michael Barlow, Alex Silvagni and Jay van Berlo. Dockers players seem to hang around like cobwebs and some serious cleaning out of players like Des Headland and Dean Solomon (recently retired) would help.

The more experienced players like Mundy, Schammer, Crowley and Bradley need to shape up or ship out and ‘re-recruit’ (another Docker bad habit) Adam McPhee hasn’t looked worth the effort.

Meanwhile the Crows have been battling a poor pre season riddled with injuries and average form. The Crows will be missing players like  Jason Porplyzia,Nathan van Berlo, Chris Knights and Brett Burton with injury concerns and there is a steady longterm injury list growing as well.

A lack of game time due to injuries from players like Andrew McLeod, Bernie Vince, and Ivan Maric would also have Neil Craig sweating if weren’t for the fact they are playing the Dockers.

Coach Craig still has a decent lineup with Kurt Tippett and Richard Douglas leading up forward and a settled backline.

Adelaide by 12 points

Your Round One Tips & Observations

So what are your tips & observations for the first round of the 2010 AFL season? Do you agree with Johnnytruent? if yes or no please post your tips and observations about the NAB competition in the comments section.

We will keep a running tally of the tips throughout the year, so make sure you get your tips in on time & you never know there could be a prize for the winner…

Share with Someone:

Related K2K Posts

• AFL Betting Round 1, 2010 (3)
• 2010 NAB Grand Final Tips (3)
• 2010 NAB Round 3 Tips (6)
• 2010 NAB Round 1 pt2 Wrapup (5)
• 2010 NAB Round 1 tips pt2 (13)

Someone sent us this blog post written by a man in Israel. Since his point of view regarding Britain’s latest move against Israel is similar to mine, I’m reposting what he has to say.

We haven’t publicly talked about the death of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. There has been much discussion about it in the media, but so far more heat than light has been generated and crucial questions have yet to be answered. Such a strange situation, and so many odd occurrences.

I look forward to the book someone is no doubt writing about it. Nonetheless, this is a story certain to bring paranoia bounding out into the daylight, gnashing its teeth and looking for something to gnaw.

The blogger, Barry Shaw, whose post I am using to build my own comments ‘round, lives in Israel. He calls his blog simply The View from Israel. Israeli Advocacy in a Difficult World. In his profile Mr. Shaw explains his reason for blogging:

Usually public opinion is formed from newspapers or TV reporting. My opinion was formed from living in Israel, witnessing the horror of terror, reading the misinformation and downright lies perpetrated by the Western media, seen the incompetence of Israeli leaders to project the facts. This blog comes from a particularly personal perspective. The articles may be controversial and provocative. I hope so. They are intended to make you think. They are intended to revise your opinion of the driving forces not only in the Middle East but also where you live. For whatever strikes Israel today will surely visit you tomorrow…

This story is a particularly explosive topic. Anything about Israel or coming out of that country turns contentious very quickly. No doubt people have strong feelings one way or another about this incident. However, I would remind commenters that just because the subject is Israel doesn’t mean the usual rules don’t apply - i.e., courtesy, civility, and reasonable discourse. The comment thread is to be limited to the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh and its aftermath, including this latest move by Britain.

Theories are fine, as long as they are civil, reasonable, adult conclusions, not global accusations we've all heard before. None of us knows enough about this situation to be able to declare with finality what “really” happened or why. However, that doesn’t keep us from making a best guess and you’re welcome to give us your opinion. Reasonably. Politely… You know the drill by now.


Wednesday, 24 March 2010

Britain Shoots Itself in The Foot

The recent public revelation from Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, that the British Government has expelled a leading Israeli diplomat over the copying of British passports is worrying on a number of levels.

It has not been proven that Israel is responsible for the execution of a Hamas terrorist in Dubai. There are lawyers [sic] of uncertainty over the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Normally, I’d correct an obvious typo in an essay, but this one is too delicious to fix. The image of lawyers stacked up like cordwood, ready to make money off the situation is beyond Freudian. But he’s right…there are indeed layers of uncertainty here. But also to be sure, the lawyers are slavering off stage.

The most compelling fact was that the door to his hotel room was locked and bolted from the inside. Hardly a scenario of a planned hit job by any intelligence agency.

No proof, video or forensic, points to any individual or organisation responsible for removing a Hamas killer from the international covert world of terror and espionage.

The hotel door is a real puzzle.
- - - - - - - - -
If I remember correctly, it took a while for that piece of information to be revealed. And I agree with him that the videos are not proof. The videos supplied so far have a Keystone Kops amateur hour quality to them. A normal paranoid (say, me) wonders if the Israelis have a macabre sense of humor, what with the wigs and glasses and caps and quick changes in the bathrooms, or if they - or some other ‘entity’ - deliberately made this into an overkill situation. So to speak. At any rate, the videos are bizarre…when they’re not aimless. Definitely, layer upon lawyer of uncertainty.

There was supposed to be close coordination between Israel and Britain in security and intelligence information sharing. Britain has been the beneficiary of vital classified information provided by Israel that has led to the prevention of a number of terror attacks in Britain.

We know how grateful and gracious Britain is to Israel. About the same level of courtesy that our American president shows to Britain. But it makes you wonder: why did they take so long to expel someone? And is there anything Israel could’ve done to prevent this action by Britain? I don’t think so.

Now, in a rare public display, Britain has expelled Israel’s leading intelligence official in the U.K. from the Israeli Embassy at the Court of St. James.

It’s not only rare, it’s quite tardy. What is the reason for this timing? You know it’s not arbitrary. You know they weren’t asleep and suddenly awakened to say, “Harrumph. Bad play. Out you go.” Lots of whys and whats remain to be answered here, including timing.

This act of ‘political correctness’ is foolhardy and dangerous, not for Israel but for Britain. Anyone with any knowledge of the workings at the Israeli Embassy know that it is short-staffed and under-resourced. His removal will reduce the effectiveness of Israel’s cooperation with the British authorities over terror threats that include information sharing.

I wonder if this is at all connected to the White House’s display of rudeness toward Netanyahu during his visit here? No photo ops, no diplomatic protocol. The American Congress greeted Netanyahu warmly and reiterated their support for Israel. That support is not shared by this administration as has been amply demonstrated by Obama, SecState Clinton, and Joe Biden.

At any rate, I wonder if Britain’s timing is connected to Netanyahu’s American visit?

[…]

Britain has been protected by the intelligence provided by Israel. Now, due to political considerations and their recent decision, Britain has slapped Israel in the face. More importantly, it has deprived itself of a significant link in the intelligence and security chain that keeps British citizens safe. It will pay the painful consequence of this action.

This was a political decision, not an intelligence or security one.

I disagree. Political maneuverings, intelligence and security are all intertwined. They always have been. The pols posture while the intelligence and security folks fight over territorial prerogatives. Sometimes it’s amazing that things don’t turn out worse than they do. In this case, there could well be a distinct disconnect between what British intelligence wants (and knows) and what the politicians are saying publicly. We won’t know until the main players write their memoirs.

Millibrand is a shrewd politician. Clobbering Israel will win him valuable brownie points as he makes a run for the leadership of the Labour Party after Gordon Brown’s anticipated loss in the upcoming British General Election.

He knows the colour of his constituents. His announcement in the House of Commons against Israel will play to the Left wing of his party and to the Muslim population who will now see him as yet another dhimmi Jew serving their cause.

Meanwhile, there has been nothing proved in the Dubai claim regarding Mossad. It is a situation in which no response can be made and none would be accepted. Or rather, what Dubai wants Israel to claim would be suicide for Israel.

As I’ve said before, Israel is the West’s canary in the coal mine. We would be best served if the canary is protected from the poison gas emanating from her enemies. Why? Because Israel is the only canary. We can't go to the small state store and buy another one. So if the only democracy in the Middle East were to fail, the rest of the actors in that region would immediately begin killing one another. They know that and they know that Israel knows that and they know we know they know, etc.

Unfortunately, there are sufficient numbers of crazies among the Arab states (and Iran) that enlightened self-interest may not be enough to stay the hands of all of them.

Meanwhile, the fuzzy beards and baseball caps and quick changes on those videos are some strange stuff. It’s as though someone in the Middle East was playing Mossad as they thought Mossad might carry out an assassination. That’s one idea I’ve seen floated, though I find it a leaky boat. Entertaining, though.

Mossad can’t be that stupid - or that wasteful of human intel to use eleven operatives to go after one man. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even high on their hit list so why would they destroy eleven agents to go after an ostensibly low-value target?

Mr Shaw has some suggestions about this operation and the value of its target here. He talks about a computer disc in Britain that went missing last year. Never found. He asks if the Arabs had it and if Dubai used it…see what you think.

As I said, we won’t know the reality for a long time. All we can do is judge and guess.

Judge away, dear reader, but if you do it via the comment thread, stay reasonable.

It all makes sense now.

The Best Links:

1. Barry Yanowitz’s photostream
2. via random nyc

View Image ›

British filmmaker Simon Robson has assembled a crack international team of animators to make a collaborative, web-based film that advocates for collective online action as a way to solve the climate crisis.

The British animator Simon Robson, who works under the nom de filme Knife Party, specializes in what he calls “issue animation”—short-form polemics and parables that marry the perspectives of thinkers he admires, like Naomi Klein and George Mombiot, with evocative moving imagery. He came to the approach early in the last decade, after several years of developing his animation skills on behalf of big corporations with ethical credentials he found problematic . After listening to a neighbor named Barry McNamara—“a firebrand blessed with a really great speaking voice”—expatiate on the...

iTunes has the list up right now. I’m working on it…

See the complete list HERE.  Compete list below (125 songs)

• At Your Best You Are Love – Aaliya
• Try Again – Aaliya
• Tell It Like It Is – Aaron Neville
• Let’s Stay Together – Al Green
• Tired of Being Alone – Al Green
• No One – Alicia Keys
• Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart – Alicia Keys
• Sweet Love – Anita Baker
• Chain of Fools – Aretha Franklin
• Respect Aretha Franklin
• You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman – Aretha Franklin
• Every Time I Close My Eyes – Baby Face
• Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love – Barry White
• Stand by Me – Ben E. King
• Don’t Be Cruel – Bobby Brown
• My Prerogotive – Bobby Brown
• A Song For Momma – Boyz II Men
• I’ll Make You Love to You – Boyz II Men
• It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday – Boyz II Men
• On Bended Knee – Boyz II Men
• Have You Ever – Brandy
• The Boy Is Mine (feat. Monica) – Brandy
• Back At One – Brian McKnight
• Rainy Night in Georgia – Brook Benton
• Tell Me Something Good – Chaka Khan & Rufas
• Forever – Chris Brown
• With You – Chris Brown
• Treat Her Like a Lady – Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose
• It’s All Right – Cutis Mayfield & The Impressions
• Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Diana Ross
• Let’s Groove – Earth Wind and Fire
• September – Earth Wind and Fire
• Knock on Wood  – Eddie Floyd
• I Heard it Through the Grapevine – Gladys Knight and the Pips
• Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Knight and the Pips
• (You’re Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher – Jackie Wilson
• I Want You Back – Jackson 5
• Never Can Say Goodbye – Jackson 5
• Who’s Lovin’ You – Jackson 5
• I Got You (I Feel Good) – James Brown
• On the Wings of Love – Jeffrey Osbourne
• What Becomes of the Brokenhearted – Jimmy Ruffin
• I Wanna Know – Joe
• Superwoman – Karyn White
• Here and Now – Luther Vandross
• If Only For One Night – Luther Vandross
• Never Too Much – Luther Vandross
• Stop to Love – Luther Vandross
• Love Won’t Let Me Wait – Major Harris
• Vision of Love – Mariah Carey
• We Belong Together – Maria Carey
• (Love is Like a) Heat Wave – Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
• Dancing in the Street – Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
• Nowhere to Run – Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
• Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
• I Heard it Through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye
• Mercy Mercy me (The Ecology) – Marvin Gaye
• Be Without You (Kendu Mix) Mary J. Blige
• I Am – Mary J. Blige
• My Guy – Mary Wells
• Human Nature – Michael Jackson
• Rock With You – Michael Jackson
• Angel of Mine – Monica
• For You I Will – Monica
• Because of You – Ne Yo
• Mad – Ne Yo
• I’ve Been Loving You Too Long – Otis Redding
• (Sittin on) The Dock of the Bay – Otis Redding
• Georgia On My Mind – Ray Charles
• Unchain my Heart – Ray Charles
• Shut Up and Drive – Rihanna
• Umbrella – Rihanna & Jay-Z
• Hold On I’m Coming – Sam & Dave
• Soul Man – Sam & Dave
• Bring it on Home to Me – Sam Cooke
• Crusin’ – Smokey Robinson
• I Second that Emotion – Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
• The Tears of a Clown – Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
• The Tracks of My Tears – Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
• Home – Stephanie Mills
• Superstition – Stevie Wonder
• I Wish – Stevie Wonder
• Living For the City – Stevie Wonder
• Uptight (Everything is Alright) – Stevie Wonder
• Easy – The Commodores
• Watcha See is Whatcha Get – The Dramatics
• Baby I Need Your Loving – The Four Tops
• I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) – The Four Tops
• Reach Out I’ll Be There – The Four Tops
• People Get Ready – The Impressions
• It’s Your Thing – The Isley Brothers
• This Old Heart of Mine – The Isley Brothers
• Shop Around – The Miracles
• You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me – The Miracles
• Could It Be I’m Falling In Love – The Spinners
• People Make the World Go Round – The Stylistics
• You Make me Feel Brand New – The Stylistics
• Back in My Arms Again – The Supremes
• Stop! In the Name of Love – The Supremes
• Where Did Our Love Go – The Supremes
• You Can’t Hurray Love – The Supremes
• You Keep Me Hangin’ On – The Supremes
• Ain’t Too Proud to Beg – The Temptations
• Just My Imagination – The Tempatations
• Papa Was a Rolling Stone – The Temptations
• Don’t Leave Me This Way – Thelma Houston
• I Can’t Stand the Rain – Tina Turner
• We Don’t Need Another Hero – Tina Turner
• Waterfalls – TLC
• Un-Break My Heart – Toni Braxton
• Burn – Usher
• My Boo (feat. Alicia Keys) – Usher
• Nice & Slow – Usher
• U Got it Bad – Usher
• U Remind Me – Usher
• Save the Best for Last – Vanessa Williams
• Greatest Love of All – Whitney Houston
• How Will I Know – Whitney Houston
• Saving All My Love For You – Whitney Houston
• In the Midnight Hour – Wilson Pickett
• Land of 1000 Dances – Wilson Pickett
• Mustang Sally – Wilson Pickett

Michelle, post-meal Rumor has it that while Barry was doing this, Michelle, the kids and First Grandmother Marian Robinson lunched at Dinosaur BBQ this afternoon. The Obamas-sans-POTUS are in town this week, catching Broadway shows and apparently sizing up Manhattanville. Do you realize that means 3/4 of the Obama family breathed the same air as you today? [...]

Motorcycle designer and builder Andrew Morris is the kind of fan that gets stuff done from special reasons and he recently presented his 250bhp turbocharged tribute to Barry Sheene at Goodwood. The bike is called the Icon Sheene and dubbed ‘the ultimate road bike’. A simple look at it is what it takes to understand why.

When asked about his favorite Grand Prix motorcycle road racer Morris said: “Barry Sheene was a hero – of mine and everyone else. I believe the Icon Sheene is a fitting tribute to this remarkable man and I’m very fortunate to have his family’s backing for the project,” he adds.

250bhp turbocharged Icon Sheene tribute bike originally appeared on topspeed.com on Wednesday, 24 March 2010 12:07 EST.

read more

---

‘American Idol’ Season 9 Top 11 – Worst Episode Ever?

American Idol’ 9’s Top 11 is bound to go down in ‘Idol’ history as one of the worst nights of ‘Idol’ performances EVER — from the lame and generic song choices to the trainwreck performances to the teenaged mentor, Miley Cyrus, speed-talking as she offered up super-obvious performance tips to the kids.

AOL.Television.com

‘American Idol’: On the scene for Top 11 ‘performance’ night

When Your. Top. 11. took the stage at the top of the show, I had a few observations: I would like Katie Stevens to start wearing more age-appropriate shoes. Didi Benami cuts a Carrie Underwood-esque figure. Crystal Bowersox looks great in a hippie dress. Siobhan Magnus needed to be singing Pat Benatar in her outfit/fauxhawk, or nothing at all. Michael Lynch could devour up to three of his fellow contestants without noticeably changing in size. With about 20 seconds to go, Debbie — whose wide-leg pants I now covet — directed Ryan Seacrest toward two audience girls sharing a single sign proposing marriage. He gestured the world’s least-sincere yesss fist-pump at the prospect of statutory polygamy. And THIS. was American Idol.

Popwatch

More Idol Recaps after the jump…keep checking back for more.

‘American Idol’ recap: 10 Mileys of Bad Road

I’ve never quite understood the inherent sadism of American Idol’s summer tour policy. Every year the show names 12 (or last year, 13) finalists, but only makes room on the sightseeing bus for 10 of ‘em.

Okay, yeah, so last season’s Kradison Festival of Awesome wouldn’t have benefited much from the vocal stylings of Jasmine Murray or Jorge Nuñez (although Alexis Grace is quite another matter…hmph!), but as Simon pointed out tonight, finishing 11th on Idol is akin to getting five out of six lottery numbers: ”It’s the worst night to go home.”

Entertainment Weekly

Ann Powers: Underconfident, the Idols overreach

Hubris. Whomever remains to sing and, eventually, go on the summer tour after Wednesday’s elimination round on “American Idol” should spend some time pondering that very old but suddenly relevant term. Though this season’s remaining bunch is hardly overconfident, the ridiculous song choices and emotionally tone-deaf performances this week showed a lack of self-awareness that translated into fatal overreaching.

LA Times

Miley Cyrus gives back on ‘American Idol’

It’s Billboard No. 1’s night on “American Idol” and Miley Cyrus mentor night too! Let’s see how many times Miley can make it all about her!

Show host Ryan Seacrest asks judge Randy Jackson to explain the mysteries of ‘Idol’ arithmetic to him; it goes like this. There are 11 Idolettes. The top 10 get to go on tour, the one who gets the hook this week does not get to go on tour because 11 is one more than 10. The 1 Idolette will lose out in the Giant Opportunity. Judge Ellen The Generous talks about the importance of something called “voting” because it’s votes from viewers that determine which of the Idolettes has the fewest “votes” and that person will be the one who is not part of the 10. Judge Simon Cowell, however, says it’s like if you were an Idolette who had six numbers on a lottery ticket and only get five, because then you don’t get to go on tour, you lose a lot of money and it’s damaging to your career. “That’s why I love this night”. Cowell adds.

Washington Post

American Idol: The Top 11 Tackle No. 1 Hits

Given free reign to pick any song that’s been a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, which one – which era – the “Idol” contestants choose says a lot. Is Casey James a tacky goofball? He most certainly is, as was clear from his selection of “The Power of Love,” by Huey Lewis and the News. It’s a square, stiff song, moldy even upon its release, and its terse vocal lines did little to show off Casey’s rough edges.

NY Times

Forget ‘Idols’ singing No. 1 hits — focus is Miley

In many ways, Tuesday was a typical night on “American Idol.” Crystal Bowersox was good, Paige Miles and Tim Urban were bad, Ellen DeGeneres compared one singer to a pen and quoted Oliver Twist to praise another … you know, the usual.

MSNBC

‘American Idol’ Top 11: Crystal Bowersox, Aaron Kelly Find Hits On #1 Night

With Tuesday night’s (March 23) broad theme of #1 Billboard hits to choose from, “American Idol” contestants had the opportunity to choose the perfect vehicles to establish themselves as artists worthy of making the top 10 — and the lucrative Idols Live! summer tour. But several stumbled anyway, leaving the judges baffled by their wrong or too-easy song choices. Only Crystal Bowersox, Aaron Kelly and Katie Stevens earned praise across the board.

MTV

‘American Idol’ Recap: Michael Lynche Loves A Woman, Crystal Bowersox Parties With Bobby McGee

Expectations are now so low on this season of “American Idol” that when news broke that Miley Cyrus was going to “mentor” the Top 11 as they sang “Teen Idol Hits No Wait Billboard #1 Hits No Wait Both Maybe,” I shrugged and said, “Eh, they’ve had worse.” (I’m still laughing at producers for letting Jennifer Lopez give singing tips to Melinda Doolittle.) Looking back on my reaction, I now see I was dead wrong.

MTV

Alexis Grace: ‘I secretly want Crystal and Siobhan to duke it out’

Last night on American Idol, the stakes were high!

The top 11 contestants performed on what Simon said to be “one of the most important shows of the season.” Tonight, one will say goodbye to the Idol stage and the top 10 tour for good.

The theme: Billboard’s Number One hits.

USA Today

Miley Cyrus Dishes Out Advice On ‘American Idol’

While previous “American Idol” mentors have included Barry Manilow, Randy Travis and Diana Ross, the show took things a bit younger this week with Miley Cyrus coaching the top 11 contestants. The theme of the week was #1 hits, and, as Ryan Seacrest pointed out at the top of the show, “This pop princess may only be 17, but she has a lifetime of experience.”

MTV

American Idol’ recap, rankings, polls, top 11 performances,

The show should have stuck with “teen idols.” We might have been more entertained than this overly broad “Billboard Number Ones” theme.

Overall, this night was uninspired at best. I only truly enjoyed Crystal Bowersox as usual. A few folks were okay – Casey, Michael, Lee, Katie. Everybody else left me in the cold – with no coat.

Atlanta Journal Constitution

‘American Idol’ Season 9, Top 11 Perform; Miley Cyrus Mentors: TV Recap

The Idols picked their way through Billboard’s best Wednesday night in an episode that raised many questions:

Okay, that wasn’t a real concern. But it was strange that the seasoned veteran mentor could have been many of the Idol’s 17-year-old kid sister.

Wall Street Journal

‘American Idol’ Recap: Idols Take on Billboard No. 1s

Wooo! Billboard No. 1s is the theme this week! The “AI” behind-the-scenes people have been running around our offices this week — alas, no Miley Cyrus sightings, though. Let’s get to it. Oh wait, let’s get to it after 10 minutes of inane chatter between the judges.

First up, Miley’s advice for the contestants: Have a famous dad, and hook up with Disney when you’re 11. Failing that, be true to yourself and connect with your fans.

Billboard

American Idol: The Final Eleven

Legendary music veteran Miley Cyrus imparted her decades of showbiz wisdom to the young whippersnappers of tonight as they chose #1 songs from the Billboard Hot 100 (a list that’s three times as old as Cyrus is). Who benefited from her mentoring? We’ll find out… after the break! (Or, actually, by clicking on the pictures below.)

TIME

Miley Cyrus Guides “American Idol” Through Disastrous Number Ones

You may not like “Party in the U.S.A.” You may not understand the significance of the response, “She’s just bein’ Miley.” But it would be hard to claim that mentor Miley Cyrus was the weak link on last night’s horrendous American Idol. Which songs were up for grabs? Every single Hot 100 Number One in history. So why did history range from 1967 to 1998 with one little detour into the present century for a Fergie ballad? And perhaps more importantly, why did every contestant respond to their critique by announcing they “had fun with it”? What’s fun about disastrous, awkward songs? And even more importantly why did nobody mention the passing of Memphis legend Alex Chilton when Lee DeWyze sang a song by his early band the Box Tops? Disgraceful stuff, Idol.

Rolling Stone

The ‘American Idol’ Top 11: Just Being Miley

I admit that when I first learned that teen-queen Miley Cyrus would be the guest mentor on “American Idol” this week, I bristled and balked. Considering that past “Idol” mentors have been veterans with decades of experience–Smokey Robinson, Dolly Parton, Burt Bacharach, Stevie Wonder, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, Gladys Knight–the idea that Miley (who, at 17, is younger than all of this season’s remaining contestants except for Aaron Kelly) would be doling out advice seemed very suspect. But Crystal Bowersox, arguably the most indie-credible contestant of Season 9, showed Miley some real respect Tuesday night by asking Miley to autograph her six-string. (“I always have powerful and beautiful women sign my guitar,” Crystal explained; other honorable signees include Melissa Etheridge and past guest judge Shania Twain.)

Yahoo.music.com

Final 11: It’s Karaoke Time

This is what Idol has fallen to. A night of Karaoke Klassics sung by the weakest Final 11 yet, while being mentored by a 17 year-old singing Disney automaton. It’s safe to say this night will not go down in the annals of history.

This season is horrible. There’s no getting around it. The category could be “The Greatest Songs Of All Time” and they’d still manage to find the duds. Tonight was about horribly over-played songs ruined in all new horrible… and funny ways.

Vote For the Worst

Top 11 Recap- Miley Cyrus Saves The Season With The Best Episode Yet

Bless you, Miley Cyrus. I don’t care that you’re a trashy baby hooker that mentored contestants 10 years older than you for #1 hits week even though you’ve never had a #1 hit. And I don’t care that you somehow thought it was appropriate to introduce yourself to each contestant that you mentored as if they don’t know you. For you, Miley Cyrus, have taken an incredibly dull season of American Idol and made it hilariously entertaining. I don’t know what you did, but whatever you told the contestants suddenly made them all hilariously terrible. Tonight, there were so many classic VFTW performances, I couldn’t contain myself. It was one of the best episodes of Idol all season, if not in the last few years.

Vote For the Worst

When Eggheads Attack: An American Idol Debate

Miley Cyrus’s mentoring skills on last night’s American Idol were no match for the train wreck of vocals that followed. Fortunately, we have assembled a trio of experts who can help Cyrus assess what exactly went wrong with each performance. The panel includes: Susan Fast, a music professor at Ontario’s McMaster University and author of “In the House of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music”; Dr. Avi Rubin, who studies electronic voting as a professor of computer science at John Hopkins University and was a former research scientist at AT&T Labs; and Richard Drews, a professor of voice at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. Here’s the advice they have for the final 11.

Newsweek

Top 11 Perform

Hi there, American Idol watchers! I would call you “fans”, but you would only deny it. You=Peter, Simon Cowell=Christ. Claire is out doing the things she does that make her so undeniably Zulkey, so I’m here to miss Lost and keep you apprised of what these eleven dingalings are up to tonight. This week’s theme is “Billboard #1 Hits”, which is boringly broad, but at least leaves open the possibility that someone will sing “In the Year 2525″.

AV Club

“American Idol” recap: Wake up, Ellen!

Tuesday’s episode of “American Idol” featured the top 11 finalists singing #1 Billboard hits. The good news was that the contestants had literally thousands of songs to choose from — songs they could make their own, be original and strut their stuff. The bad news was that even that couldn’t save Billboard’s #1 night.

Salon

Miley Cyrus a surprisingly good mentor to the final 11, four of whom should go home now

The good news: American Idol 9 is starting to show some signs of life, with a few great performances, a couple good ones, and a surprise. The bad news: We still have to wait a month until after Tim Urban, Paige Miles, Andrew Garcia, and Katie Stevens get voted off for the performance shows to not drag. Then again, I might just be holding the show to the same standard that Ellen applied to Paige: As long as it doesn’t fall on its ass, it looks good. And no one is doing anything truly stunning.

Reality Blurred

‘American Idol’ Throws Its Very Own Party in the U.S.A.

Tuesday’s ‘American Idol‘ paid homage to songs that reached No. 1 on the pop charts, with the singers being mentored by a teenaged starlet who has never achieved that feat. (Oh, ‘American Idol,’ your logic this season continues to be impeccable!)

‘Hannah Montana‘ star Miley Cyrus helped the 11 remaining contestants navigate their way through songs that were more often than not older than everyone involved, and the results were, to put it kindly, not all that great.

Fancast

In honor of the Winter Olympics (which were truly fabulous) and female athletes everywhere, I've been thinking a lot about teen girls in sports. This of course has led me to thoughts of sporty female protags in books and the enormous lack thereof. So I asked the panel to give a thought to literary girls and sports. This ended up being a tough one for many as they responded that they were not athletes and so had never thought about this. I hope that after seeing the books that those who did respond came up with that they will rethink their initial reticence. I think the point is that you don't need to be an athlete to love a book about athletic girls - just as I didn't need to be a downhill skier to love Julia Mancuso. Sports are just another way to be excited about being a girl and honestly the more ways we can encourage that, the better.

So the questions: What books can you think of about famous female athletes in history? Do we honor them on the same level as male athletes? And what about game playing girls in MG & YA novels? Can you think of some great ones and do familiar teen girl tropes (like mean girls and romance) play into those novels? In other words, is a book about boys playing ball crafted the same as one about girls playing ball? Is the sport enough when selling a book about girl athletes?

Jenny Davidson: "I don't know that I'm widely read enough in this field to give a very good answer, but I've approached the question of girls' books about sport with new interest in the past couple years as I have become increasingly obsessed with triathlon. I don't think there's a clear equivalent of, say Chris Crutcher's books if we are thinking about very popular young-adult books and wanting ones that feature female rather than male athletes. I suspect that there aren't a ton of great sport biographies for teenage readers seeking books about athletes of either (any!) sex, since a would-be biographer would almost certainly be wiser to write the book for an adult market and hope that it found its way into the hands of suitable teenagers. (Michael Silver's biography of Natalie Coughlin, for instance, would be highly interesting and enjoyable to a teenager with an interest in swimming or collegiate sport more generally.)

A favorite book of mine of recent years that would fit the criteria you describe, Colleen, is Catherine Gilbert Murdock's novels DAIRY QUEEN and THE OFF SEASON. An older book, about a swimmer, is Tessa Duder's IN LANE THREE, ALEX ARCHER. We think of Noel Streatfeild's series (which I grew up rereading obsessively) as being mostly about children who aspire to work professionally as dancers or actors, but she also wrote several ones about girls pursuing sports such as WHITE BOOTS and TENNIS SHOES. And then, of course, there are the copious books about girls who are serious about horse-riding...

In short, I guess if I have an 'answer' to this question, it's that there is lots of good stuff out there, but perhaps it's not collected under a single rubric - as I often want to say, it's children's librarians who can do the best work here, reading widely and making recommendations to individual readers that will be most suitable."

Loree Griffin Burns: "My thinking around this question surprised me. It’s a great topic, and being both a girl and an athlete, I thought I would really sink my teeth into it. And then I sat down and tried to think of books that I adore in this arena … and came up with exactly two: WILMA UNLIMITED, a picture book biography of Wilma Rudolph by Kathleen Krull and David Diaz, and THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z., a middle-grade novel by Kate Messner. I did some exploring and while I found this nice-looking list of sports book from the Women’s Sports Foundation, I was surprised at how few of the books on it I had read.

What’s up with that? I’m not sure. I think personal reading taste is a big part of it, though. Even though I’m a girl and even though I’m an athlete, these are apparently not what I crave in the books I read. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

For the purposes of your questions, though, Kate’s book is definitely worth discussing. (Full disclosure: Kate is a good friend of mine.) It’s a contemporary novel about a middle schooler with all the pressures you would expect: homework (the dreaded Leaf Project), friends (her best one is a boy, and that is getting harder and harder), family (hers has its share of sadness, including a grandmother struggling with signs of dementia), and sports (Gianna is a cross country runner, and the book takes place just before sectionals). There are mean girls (well, one in particular) and romance (remember that best friend?). GIANNA Z. is definitely not just a “playing ball” book. It’s a book about being a thirteen-year-old girl.

One last thought: horse books. They were a staple of my childhood. Walter Farley's Black Stallion books were the highlight, but really anything with a horse and a kid (boy or girl) found its way into my book bag. I’m not sure these books are considered “sports books”, but they definitely filled that niche for me when I was a young athlete."

Lorie Ann Grover: "I haven’t had female sports books cross my desk like male sports books have. There is no Chris Crutcher for girls, right? The closest is maybe Catherine Gilbert Murdock with her Dairy Queen, Front and Center, and Off Season. I do think also of Justina Chen’s Girl Overboard, snowboarding at its best. Justine Larbalestier’s novel How to Ditch Your Fairy is another excellent example of sporty girls.

Thinking of Justine brought to mind this post at her blog where she discusses the topic with Doret, who recommended several titles. (They are all listed below in Doret's response this week - Lorie Ann and I were on the same wavelength as I thought of her right away when I came up with this topic! - CM)

Despite these examples, it’s obvious we don’t feature female athletes at the rate we feature male athletes. How athletic are our female YA novelists? Can they draw from their own history? Certainly our experiences aren't still limited like my mother-in-law's who found sports radically limited in her high school due to “the delicate constitution of females.” Rather, is the lack of YA female sports books simply because publishers deny their marketability?

Regardless, I’m betting you will find mean girls, romance, and coming of age in the sports novels that do reach the shelves. It’s not as if those elements aren’t in the athletic arena. Here’s to challenging YA authors to represent female athletes andpublishers to back them. I’m off to think…

Sara Ryan: If punk rock were a sport run by surly chicks on roller skates, the result would be Roller Derby. Every one of the Derby Girls is completely gorgeous in her own way: There are skinny girls, chubby girls, tall girls, short girls, girls with big butts, girls with big boobs, girls with no boobs, girls with tattoos, girls without -- and the crowd adores them all.

"I'm quoting from Whip It, the novel by Shauna Cross formerly known as Derby Girls that inspired the Drew Barrymore-directed film. I was delighted by this book, with its hilarious narrator, vivid small-town Texas setting, solid and realistically portrayed friendships, parents who seem one-dimensional at first but take on depth as the narrative progresses, and even a romance that seems too good to be -- but no, I won't reveal any spoilers. And oh, yeah, there's roller derby! Derby is clearly a sport, and an intense sport at that, but it's not a traditional sport. So it's especially compelling for Whip It's tradition-averse protagonist, Bliss Calendar.

Because there's so much else going on besides derby, you could argue that Whip It isn't a sports book per se. But it contains elements common to many sports-focused narratives -- the discovery and development of the protagonist's talent; the experience of being part of a team; rivalry; injury; and perhaps most importantly, the way the protagonist's new sports-infused sense of self affects the rest of their life.

I'll confess that deadline pressure prevented me from exploring other titles, which is why I'm pleased that Karen Healey, author of Guardian of the Dead, recently wrote a post at Inside A Dog all about girls in sporty books! So I'd also like to draw your attention to Karen's recommendations: "I Once Read Through An International Rugby Match."

(Roller derby fans should keep an eye out for Down and Derby: The Insider's Guide to Roller Derby by Alex Cohen and Jennifer Barbee, due out from Soft Skull Press in June. - CM)

Doret Canton: " I recently read a children's biography called Amelia to Zora: Twenty Six Women Who Changed the World. B was for Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Born in 1914, she excelled at every sport she played - including softball, basketball, track and field and golf. She was so dominant that during the 1932 Olympics she was only allowed to participate in three events. She would've gone home with 3 gold medals if she hadn't been disqualified for her high jump technique, which is now standard practice.

Where are the books on Babe?. And what about Jackie Joyner Kersey who has 11 Olympic medals (8 gold) A male athlete with half of their talent would never be ignored like this. The only female Olympic athlete that I know there are several children's biographies on is Wilma Rudolph. In 2004 Michelle Green wrote a great bio. on Mamie "Peanut" Johnson called A Strong Right Arm. Johnson was one of three women to play in the Negro Leagues and the only pitcher. Satchel Paige thought Johnson had good stuff and taught her to throw a curveball.

Last year after, I learned it was the 37th anniversary of Title IX, so I decided to go on a female athlete protagonist kick. In my search I found some wonderful titles. I really enjoyed Kathy Mackel's YA novel Boost. The main character Savvy, reminded me of Murdock's - D.J. Schwenk from the very popular Dairy Queen trilogy. Both characters had the same workout regime - farm fitness. D.J. loves to play football and basketball -many readers embraced her. Nina Revoyr's YA novel The Necessary Hunger was published in 1997 and was ahead of its time. Besides having spot on good basketball, its diverse, and the two main characters are lesbians and it's not a coming out story.

I really enjoyed Bobbie Pyron's YA debut The Ring. Like Revoyr, Pyron has a diverse cast. Mardie takes up boxing to get her life back on track. And then, if Meg Cabot wrote an MG sports novel it would read something like Fitzgerald's Soccer Chick Rules.

The most frustrating thing about all this is having to search out sports titles with girls. The sales on these books are low because they can't be easily found. People can't read what they don't know about. Its a vicious cycle that makes me want to scream.

I don't read mean girl novels so I can't speak too much on that. Though I have read YA novels that have both romance and sports. In Elizabeth Chandler's novel Love at First Click, Hayley dreams of becoming a sports photographer and loves the game of football. She also falls for one of the football players. In Debbie Rigaud's Perfect Shot, London is the star on her volleyball team. She enters a modeling competition to catch the eye of her crush. In Rachel Hawthorne's The Boyfriend League, Dani and her best friend love baseball and they want baseball player boyfriends for the summer. I like to think of books like these as Sports and Boys (S&B;) chick lit. I am trying to get S&B; chick lit into the YA vernacular so please use as often as you can!

We are well past era, when Billie Jean King had to play Bobby Riggs to get a little respect for female athletes. There are female announcers in the NBA and NCAA football. The WNBA has been around since 1996. The US women's soccer team is constantly one of the best in the World. In 2009 Serena Williams was ranked #67 (right above Derek Jeter) in the Forbes Celebrity 100 poll. The other day while flipping through Jet magazine I learned that Wendy Lewis is Senior VP of Diversity and Strategic Alliances for MLB In 2009 12 yr old Mackenzie Brown, a little league pitcher threw a perfect game. Some girls don't play, they simply love the games. So yes the game alone is more than enough to sell a book about a female athlete.

The only thing that's the same in boy and girls sports novels is the action on the field, ice, court, etc. Sports novels with girls have more obvious emotions. Three sports novels with female protagonists I think boys will enjoy are Smith's Comeback Season, Linda Sue Park's Keeping Score and Joseph Wallace's soon to be released Diamond Ruby, It's fiction and a YA crossover. I know men and boys will love Ruby.

For the most part though I don't think boys would read sports books with girls, since many of these novels openly discuss feelings. Also there are probably still boys who can't imagine that girls got game too and don't want to read about them. Though boys not reading these books is not a reason for the lack of sports novels with female protagonists. For at least the last 15 yrs, MG and YA has been geared toward a female audience. There are many bestselling series or books with female protagonists that many boys would have no interest in, so why not sports books?"

[In 1960 Wilma Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympic Games, despite running on a sprained ankle at the time. She was awesome.]

The grand and largely theoretical joke of All About Me—the dueling-divas Broadway concert starring Michael Feinstein and Dame Edna Everage that opened at Henry Miller’s Theatre late last week—is that both performers believe the show, like their usual gigs, to be a solo act.

The concept for this paired show is credited to Mr. Feinstein and Barry Humphries, Edna’s nom d’offstage, plus their respective spouses, Terrence Flannery and Lizzie Spender, and it’s a vaguely though...

New York Daily News

Miley Cyrus Dishes Out Advice On 'American Idol' MTV.com While previous "American Idol" mentors have included Barry Manilow, Randy Travis and Diana Ross, the show took things a bit younger this week ... 'American Idol' Top 11: Who was Billboard No. 1-worthy after a 'mentoring ...Entertainment Weekly Katie Stevens transformed after meeting Miley Cyrus on 'American Idol'Newsday (subscription) 'American Idol' recap: Top 11 performBaltimore Sun (blog) Los Angeles Times -People Magazine -Chicago Sun-Times (blog) all 469 news articles »

Disney superstar has kind words (and words of warning) for the top 11.
By Katie Byrne

Miley Cyrus on "American Idol" Tuesday
Photo: Fox

While previous "American Idol" mentors have included Barry Manilow, Randy Travis and Diana Ross, the show took things a bit younger this week with Miley Cyrus coaching the top 11 contestants. The theme of the week was #1 hits, and, as Ryan Seacrest pointed out at the top of the show, "This pop princess may only be 17, but she has a lifetime of experience."

When Seacrest caught up with Cyrus in the audience, she admitted that she was worried about critiquing the singers because, "I'm a fan of theirs." But she didn't hold back, offering just as much praise as constructive criticism.

With Lee Dewyze, Miley took the season's lone rocker to task for his lack of charisma onstage. "Lee, I think, has an amazing voice," Cyrus said. "The only thing that is lacking sometimes is his stage presence." She also called out his straightforward arrangement of the Box Tops' "The Letter." "Give them a few notes they wouldn't expect from you," she suggested.

Cyrus had Paige Miles' number from the start, warning: "I think as long as she watches her pitch, she'll be great." We all know how that turned out, but Miley also had some kind words for the smiley singer. "Your voice is just as powerful when you sing really soft as when you belt it out," Cyrus said.

Tim Urban's Bieber hairstyle must have cast a spell on Miley, because she was putty in his hands. "I would give you two thumbs up," she told him after a run-through of Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." "I think you rock." She also answered the judges' concerns about Urban being boring. "It's not the personality he's lacking," she said. "It's just adding riffs or switching it up somehow."

Aaron Kelly, who sang Miley's "The Climb" during his audition, got a thumbs-up from the singer herself on his version. When he started singing Aerosmith's "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing," Cyrus' jaw dropped, which she later explained: "I made a face because I didn't realize how good he was."

Miley immediately praised Crystal Bowersox's "different" take on Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee." She did encourage the front-runner to take a few more risks at the end of the song. "There were some times when she hit those high notes that it sounded gospel," Cyrus said.

After Michael Lynche maintained eye contact with Miley the entire time he crooned "When a Man Loves a Woman," the pop star "had nothing bad to say" about the big teddy bear. "He sang that song to me the entire way," she marveled. "I couldn't do that. It's very nerve-racking to stare at someone and sing."

Andrew Garcia took some risky advice from Miley, agreeing to set his guitar aside so the performance wouldn't be so "stiff." "I feel like you could do it just singing and working the crowd. I think the chicks would dig it," she laughed. After he flubbed the lyrics to Marvin Gaye's "Heard It Through the Grapevine," Cyrus had one last piece of advice: "Learn your words!"

Miley met up with fellow 17-year-old Katie Stevens and urged her to "remember who you are as a musician and why you love music." She also had three words for Katie as she tackled Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" on the "Idol" stage: "Edge it up."

Cyrus was big on eye contact during her mentoring stint, and she repeated that advice to Casey James, relaying how important it is to her fans when she looks them in the eyes. "When I'm onstage, I always try to make eye contact with the people in the first few rows," she said. "If he does that and brings personality to it, I think he'll do great."

Didi Benami took advantage of her time with Cyrus by asking about stage fright. "Anyone that tells you that they're not nervous at all, you've got to be a little nervous," she said. "That's what drives you." But you just can't let the nerves "take over," Miley told Didi. As for the singing, Cyrus praised Benami's vibrato. "I think this is a really good song for her, because she can really showcase that," she said.

Miley admitted right off the bat that she was a Siobhan Magnus fan. "Siobhan stuck out for me," she said. "She's just got something very interesting about her." But Magnus was really excited by one of Miley's compliments: "Your voice has such a swagger to it."

How do you think Miley did as a mentor? Are you excited to see her perform on "American Idol" on Wednesday night? Let us know in the comments!

Get your "Idol" fix on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.

Related Photos

• 'American Idol' Season Nine Performances

Related Artists

• Miley Cyrus

There was a time, during the presidency of James Monroe (1817-25), that came to be called the “era of good feelings”. When Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, tens of millions of Americans shared his own dream: that after the rage and bitterness of the previous administration, another such era would return.

Nothing of the kind has occurred: as the president’s health-reform plan struggles past the finishing-post, partisan bitterness is sharper than ever. Washington veterans cannot remember a time when the political atmosphere was as noxious as it is today.

There were disgraceful scenes at the Capitol as the Senate health-insurance reform bill - important, though a much depleted version of what the president originally wanted - passed narrowly by 219-212, and without a single Republican vote in favour. Republican congressmen conducted frenzied protesters from the balcony of the House of Representatives as if they were bandleaders. African-American congressmen were insulted and even spat upon. The Republican leadership shouted defiance as their followers screamed “socialism!” at the president of the United States. 

Such behaviour was all the more striking as the president had “reached across the aisle” in search of bipartisan action to address the national emergency of millions of Americans facing their daily lives without the security of health-protection (see James A Morone & Lawrence R Jacobs, "American sickness: diagnosis and cure", 16 October 2007). He has found virtually no response from Republicans. The shrill abuse of the rightwing blogosphere; the relentless hostility of the conservative shock-jocks and TV broadcasters; and now the fervent partisans of the “tea-party” movement - all this creates a sort of competitive cacophony of suspicious denunciation of the president and liberals of every stripe. Their absolutism of temperament is more than matched by many liberals, who - already bruised by the failure of Barack Obama to live up to the hopes raised during his candidacy - refuse to acknowledge the existence of wisdom, patriotism or even reason in any of their conservative adversaries (see “Barack Obama and America”, 12 March 2010).

Some analysts express the belief that the passage of the weakened healthcare-reform bill will help to clear the fetid air. The precedent of the financial-stimulus package in February 2009 suggests otherwise. There too Congress passed significant legislation, albeit the bare minimum demanded by the scale of the economic crisis; but the result has if anything only intensified the atmosphere of partisan animosity in Washington.

It is just possible that tempers were as sour and enmities as raw during Senator Joseph McCarthy’s zealous pursuit of “reds” in the fear-filled early 1950s. But I was in Washington during the Vietnam years - indeed for much of the time in the cockpit that was the Washington Post’s newsroom - and even at that period of national convulsion the atmosphere did not reach the sulphurous toxicity of 2010 (see Ronald Brownstein, The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America [Penguin, 2008]).

There are, I suggest, two distinct though related reasons for this “era of ill feelings”. The first is the consequence of a historic change in the character of political-party conflict in the United States, and its system of reference. The second is the widespread sense on the part of many conservatives that the two most recent Democratic presidents - Bill Clinton and Barack Obama - lack legitimacy.

An epic dissolution

In the late 1960s, the difference between the United States’s two great parties seemed to me rooted in the pivotal events of the 1860s. The origin of the great fissures between Republicans and Democrats - I would explain at the time to non-Americans - lay in the civil war, the emancipation of slaves, the defeat and humiliation of the Confederacy, the failure of reconstruction and the re-establishment of what was euphemistically called “redemption” (more truly the system of reimposed racial subjection known as “Jim Crow”).

In 2010, the key to understanding the new party conflict seems to me to lie precisely in that 1960s era. The civil-rights movement tore the “solid south” to pieces, and the peace movement inspired by the Vietnam war did the same to  much of the rest of the country. But the anti-war movement was also part of a wider social-political rebellion against all structures of entrenched authority - in the bedroom and classroom, the pulpit and the armed forces, in the political hierarchy with the presidency at its apex. Millions were drawn in to this exhilirating whirlwind; but - as the election of Richard M Nixon in 1968 had demonstrated - the attempt to hold on to the solid ground of patriotism, order, security and hierarchy was helping to invigorate a new conservatism (see Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America [Scribner, 2008]).

Before the 1960s, each of the two major parties was an unwieldy coalition of incoherent groups and voices. The master politician of the 1930s, Franklin D Roosevelt, had forged a “Roosevelt coalition” out of some of these fragments - reactionary southerners, the trade unions, urban bosses, the northern working class, and a small but influential elite of progressive intellectuals - and in doing so created the modern Democratic Party. The ideology of the Republican Party was less dramatically contradictory, though moderate and even liberal Republicans existed in significant numbers.

Before the eruptions of the 1960s, Americans rejoiced that their politics did not follow the European model, where parties were locked into rooted left-right ideological conflict that reflected in turn deep divisions of class and life-chances. (I well remember the first time I went to interview Robert F Kennedy in his vast office in the justice department. He made the argument that the United States was too big, too disparate and too divided by history to be able to afford parties organised (and divided) by ideology. To my surprise, the reputedly pragmatic attorney-general - then at the vortex of the civil-rights movement - pulled out of the lower drawer of his enormous desk a shoebox full of five-by-eight cards on which he had been laboriously collecting pronouncements by political scientists on the point.) 

The moment is made all the more piquant by the fact that the administration Robert Kennedy he served, and even more its successor led by Lyndon B Johnson, brought to an abrupt end the non-ideological period in American party history. The moment of that shift can be pinpointed: Johnson’s signature of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. As he signed it, he turned to an aide and murmured: “There goes the south”. And indeed, the once solidly Democratic south was lost over the next generation.

No doubt the process was inevitable. Indeed in presidential elections it had already started. But from the late 1960s on, southern conservatives flocked into the Republican Party. Moderate, let alone liberal Republicans became ever rarer. African-Americans in the south began to vote in significant numbers. The internal balance of the Democratic Party shifted as it became more of a “rainbow coalition”, with the numbers of women, blacks and Hispanics growing and those of white males proportionally declining.

A grand illusion

This transformation of the parties was the deeper context of Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in 1980, and by almost as large a majority as Johnson had won over the conservative Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964. Reagan’s electoral victory was - like Barack Obama’s - the product both of short-term contingencies and the maturation of deeper shifts in society (among the former were the humiliations of Jimmy Carter’s response to the Tehran hostage- crisis and of the gasoline-lines that exposed America’s new dependence on imported oil).

The strong showing in 1968 among northern working-class voters of George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, had already served warning that the “Roosevelt coalition” was cracked (see Dan T Carter, Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (Louisiana State University Press, 2000). Reagan’s victory seemed to confirm that the new conservative movement that had been gathering strength since the mid-1960s - in great part as a reaction to the great Vietnam-war and black uprisings and all they could be made to signify - had won a decisive victory (see Donald Critchlow, The Conservative Ascendancy:How the GOP Right Made Political History [Harvard University Press, 2007]).

Amid the euphoria, however, many vocal conservative politicians, commentators and activists made a serious (if understandable) error: they persuaded themselves that something called a “Reagan revolution” had taken place. It seemed plausible: after all, from the later 1970s the liberal orthodoxies were everywhere - in the law, in economics, in corporate business and in politics - under attack. It was all too easy to see Reagan’s victory as a “tipping-point”, the moment of an electoral realignment like those of 1912 or 1932. Liberals had been routed; their theories discredited; their morale shattered; their era, over (see America In Our Time: From World War II to Nixon - What Happened and Why [1976; Princeton University Press, 2005]).

But Reagan’s victory in 1980, notwithstanding the handsome majority, was in fact neither absolute nor decisive. The proportion of Americans who called themselves liberals may have been declining steadily, but the proportion who cherished some at least of the ideals of the new deal and the Kennedy/Johnson years remained more solid than many conservatives were willing to admit. The proof came in 1992 when, amid recession, a majority voted to instal Bill Clinton in the White House rather than Reagan’s former vice-president George HW Bush. Here too there were contingencies at work: Bush was himself a reversion in many respects to an older, less ideological Republicanism and therefore suspect to conservatives, and the strong intervention of the millionaire candidate H Ross Perot also damaged him. But the notion of a definitive “Reagan revolution” had been dealt a painful blow to its proponents.

A state of paralysis

Something happened from the beginning of Bill Clinton’s administration that seems in retrospect also an augury: the wild and vicious targeting of the new president with smears that he was corrupt, a drug-dealer, even a murderer. These acquired such persistence and vehemence throughout his presidency that they led Hillary Clinton to talk of a “vast rightwing conspiracy” against her husband.

There was no conspiracy, in the sense a criminal court would recognise. But what is significant in political terms is that the depth and the character of the accusations revealed that many conservatives did not accept the verdict of the polls. They thought that Bill Clinton’s occupancy of the White House defied the mandate of heaven.

Then, after the knife-edge election of 2000 and the drama of the Florida “chads”, the presidential election was in effect decided by a single vote: that of a Republican-appointed member of the Supreme Court who decided Bush vs Gorein favour of the Republicans. It was moment potent with political as well as legal symbolism: for ever since Democrats in the Senate, led by Ted Kennedy, had in 1987 blocked a conservative nominee Robert Bork (in a process subsequently known as “borking”), appointments to the court had been acridly politicised. In 1991, the Senate hearings on the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court set a new low level for scurrility. For years the two parties could hardly agree to replenish the federal bench when vacancies occurred.

The dispute over the presidential election of 2000 gave liberals a taste of the frustrations - and intoxicating pleasures - of denying the very legitimacy of George W Bush’s presidency. The forensic scrutiny of the details of what had happened in Florida fuelled books and films and consumed energies for years after he had entered the White House.

The numbing effect of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 briefly suggested that another “turning-point” might be at hand, as the nation drew closer together and the president’s declaration of a “great war on terror” was comparatively little challenged. But mid the war’s failures and disasters, and the administration’s unpleasant authoritarian streak, were soon to restore and consolidate the divisions between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. American political hearts turned ever more bitter.

The election of Barack Obama felt to many like a healing moment. Those who from the start (in an echo of the Clinton pattern) spread rumours that he had been born outside the United States, or is a “secret” Muslim, or a communist had no intention of participating in any such dream. Their adamantine refusal of the president’s legitimacy is much more widely shared across the “tea-party” faction and in much of the media. This is on vivid display in the toxic hatreds even at the very heart of the Capitol and in the instant of Obama’s greatest legislative achievement thus far.

In a parliamentary system, the government can act decisively so long as it controls a majority in the legislature; thus, even rancorous division need not lead to stasis and paralysis. In the American presidential system with its separation of powers, a party that refuses at heart to accept the legitimacy of the other side can effectively block the functioning of government (see “The American political system: ruin and reform”, 11 February 2010). 

True, legislative successes both increase the authority of those responsible and can make the creation of a new consensus possible. But if much of America refuses to accept the basic legitimacy of their president as a matter of course, the American political system will remain what it has become - paralysed, and incapable of reacting adequately to national needs. 

 

Sideboxes

'Read On' Sidebox: 

Ronald Brownstein, The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America [(Penguin, 2008)

Godfrey Hodgson, The Myth of American Exceptionalism (Yale University Press, 2009)

Real Clear Politics

Robert G Kaiser, So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government (Random House, 2010)

Sidebox: 

Godfrey Hodgson was director of the Reuters' Foundation Programme at Oxford University, and before that the Observer's correspondent in the United States and foreign editor of the Independent. His most recent book is The Myth of American Exceptionalism (Yale University Press, 2009)

His earlier books include The World Turned Right Side Up: a history of the conservative ascendancy in America (Houghton Mifflin, 1996); The Gentleman from New York: Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Houghton Mifflin, 2000); More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century (Princeton University Press, 2006), A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving (PublicAffairs, 2007)

Related stories: 

It’s the presidency, not the president

Barack Obama and America

The American political system: ruin and reform

Barack Obama: imperial president, post-American world

Barack Obama, the fallen messiah

The United States: democracy, with interests

The Kennedys, the Democrats, and Obama

Barack Obama’s world

Barack Obama: a six-month assessment

The mysteries of the American empire

Barack Obama’s great test

Walter Lippmann and American journalism today

oD-wide classification

Country: 

United States