| Buy books by Simon Hoggart at the Guardian bookshop
Two things, possibly connected, struck me this week. The BBC wants another above-inflation rise in the licence fee, and England's footballers performed miserably, twice. Even if the Beeb gets its rise, it will still cost round about a quarter of what we pay for cable TV, including Sky Sports, and for the licence fee you get what is still the finest broadcasting in the world. Sky's money, on the other hand, goes in large part to footballers. At that level, the difference between earnings of, say, £40,000 a week and £100,000 is pretty marginal. You're never going to worry about the gas bill or the children's shoes, and once you've got the high-rise apartment in Dubai, the Ferrari, and the cellar full of Roederer Cristal, there isn't a whole lot else to spend it on. It's no wonder they aren't hungry any more, no wonder they go through the motions on the pitch, like the heir to a multi-million pound fortune enduring another dull meeting with his accountant.
January 2006 Archives
Make a good movie so that you can support the little woman. Top movie of the weekend? Big Momma's House 2. And to think that I didn't even see Big Momma's House 1... Your boyfriend/husband/significant other/male cubemate/guy BFF thinks that Jessica Alba is hot. So are Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen really dating? Well, she's been wearing his sweater. Whatever that means exactly, I'm not completely sure. .
George W. Bush's presidency since 2007
His Grey Wolves henchmen worked as couriers for the Turkish mob boss Abuzer Ugurlu. At Ugurlu's behest, Catli's thugs crisscrossed the infamous smugglers' route passing through Bulgaria. Those routes were the ones favored by smugglers who reportedly carried NATO military equipment to the Middle East and returned with loads of heroin.
Judge Carlo Palermo, an Italian magistrate based in Trento, discovered these smuggling operations while investigating arms-and-drug trafficking from Eastern Europe to Sicily. Judge Palermo disclosed that large quantities of sophisticated NATO weaponry -- including machine guns, Leopard tanks and U.S.-built Cobra assault helicopters -- were smuggled from Western Europe to countries in the Middle East during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Reporter: Susan Ramsett
The death of Chicago news anchor Randy Salerno is receiving national attention after a snowmobile accident in Vilas County. The 45-year old Salerno died January 24 after a crash near Sayner. The driver he was riding with, Scott Hirschey is now facing charges of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle. A criminal complaint says Hirschey's blood alcohol level was .22% four hours after the crash. The legal limit to drive in Wisconsin is .08. So far this season 15 people have died in snowmobile accidents in Wisconsin - and alcohol is believed to have been a factor in 10 of those 15 deaths. Whenever the topic of drinking and snowmobiling comes up - fingers point in lots of different directions. Should there be stricter laws and stiffer penalties? Should there be more authorities patrolling the trails? Can we blame the bartenders who serve the drinks? Or is it a matter of personal responsiblity - resting entirely on the shoulders of those who drink and drive? Maybe think drinking and snowmobiling isn't a problem at all.
Interface's Renewable Energy Purchases Fund Wind Farms And Solar ...
(CSRwire) ATLANTA--For 10 years, Interface, Inc. and its subsidiaries have been engaged in initiatives designed to lighten their company's environmental footprint, including investments in renewable energy certificates (RECs) that support high quality projects such as the development of renewable energy resources in the Northwest and Plains states. Interface Fabrics today announced its contributions to a green power initiative that will fund new solar projects in the State of Maine, while Interface Flooring Systems announces they have achieved 100 percent renewable electricity for the production of all products in Troup County, Ga. "Interface has raised the bar within the commercial interiors industry with renewable energy purchases, and it is important to note that we have done so with the bigger picture in mind," said Mike Bertolucci, Ph.D., senior vice president, Interface, Inc.
What Is the ‘Change We Can Believe In’?
Obama, too, learned life-changing political lesson on the same mean streets of Chicago where Alinksy plied his trade decades earlier. He spoke of himself as a community organizer in his magnetic and impassioned ML King-style speech/sermon on Super Tuesday. Many moons ago, the New Republic wrote of his days as a community organizer when he was in his 20's: "With his old classmates from Columbia, he had talked frequently about political change. Now, he was moving to Chicago to put that talk into action. His 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, recounts his idealistic effusions: "Change won't come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots. That's what I'll do. I'll organize black folks. At the grass roots. For change." I could relate to that sentiment because in the mid-sixties I went from civil rights organizing in Harlem (in the days when "The Movement" was proudly interracial) to enlist in a community organizing school directed by Fred Ross with Saul Alinksy himself as our visiting guru.
J-Lo gets ring and a proposal
The football thrill ride for former Kentucky quarterback Jared Lorenzen culminated earlier this month with a Super Bowl ring in the New York Giants' historic upset win over the New England Patriots. Lorenzen, the backup behind Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning, is now back in Kentucky until the end of March and is basking in the glow of his team's accomplishments. "It was insane," Lorenzen said. "The game itself, I don't think it really hit us how big it was at the time. You're just caught up in trying to score more points than them. But you look back on it, and we beat a team that was 18-0, a team that many thought might be the greatest of all time. For us to stop that offense and find a way to win was pretty incredible." Lorenzen has certainly had a star-crossed football career.
LOVE MY CAR: 1966 Corvette
I grew up in Detroit loving all cars. I loved Corvettes the most, especially the Sting Ray of 1963-1967 vintage, so-called a C2 in Corvette lingo. My dreams became a reality when I was able to get a slightly used 1965 Nassau blue convertible Corvette in 1966. Unfortunately, money got tight and I was forced to sell it in 1970 and get something less expensive to maintain with better gas mileage. Marriage, two daughters, their college expenses and two weddings kept me from reliving my dream until 1999. By then my job had taken me to Dallas. While the new ones are great, I could never forget the C2 I had. So after a several-month search I bought a 1966 white Corvette convertible but it needed a lot of work. New paint and lots of other restoration work I enjoy doing myself have turned this into an exceptional car that I enjoy driving with my friends to weekend car shows all around Dallas from March through November.
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