News of the Week

With kudos to the late legendary Paul Harvey here is some news and comment about some headlines from this week.

FUTURE OF BLOGGING??

If you take a look at the left margin of the blogs we link to, you will notice that some of my fellow bloggers have not updated their blogs lately. Not that I am taking attendance but the Joshie and Dangerspouse blogs have not been updated since late 2008! However others are regularly updating such as Liran, DAS, and Neil Best who blogs on Newsday’s wesbite. Incidentally on Yom Kippur an elderly man who had a tough time moving around walked into Temple for Kol Nidre services and the woman sitting in front of me promptly got up and offered him her seat. I didn’t know it at the time but that woman is actually Liran’s sister!

Anyway, as much as people are saying that Facebook (which just restored live feeds with friends new friends’ updates,… yay!) and Twitter’s microblogging is killing regular blogs there are some blogs that are updated frequently… and one of them is The Fine Neil Best blog…(Not to be confused with the Best Neil Fein blog) . Best updates his blog several times a day with short updates about stuff in the sports media.. or in the case of today Soupy Sales death. He even does an occasional live chat where people can kvetch about Chip Carey and other stuff. It is a daily must read.

Yesterday I logged into Neil’s blog to find an announcement that starting next week all content on Newsday’s website will only be available if you pay a fee. However, you don’t have to subscribe if you already subscribe to Newsday or Cablevision io… which just so happens to be my cable provider.

But would people be willing to pay to see websites? The biggest moneymakers for pay per view pages seem to be the pornsites, although when you look at what they have available for free, you wonder how much more you get for spending money on it. There have been rumors that Newsday would start charging and now the rumors have come true and many of the commenters on the Best blog are saying adios… and they wont pay for content… I also wonder if it will block rss feeds for non Newsday subscribers who are RSS subscribers.

And now this week we also hear that Hulu is planning to charge for some content. But this is not a new concept. A few years back when I started doing my Mortgage Podcast…(which also is one of those that has not been updated in awhile), another podcaster did an interview with me. He worked for the Clickcaster website which hosts my podcast and asked me if I ever planned to charge listeners to listen to them. I don’t recall my answer to that question, but I really doubt people would pay money just to hear my podcast.

Personally, I won’t have to pay because I am an io subscriber, but if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t spend my money on his blog. However, by that same token, I feel bad that newspapers are losing so much money because they are giving it away for free online, so maybe this subscription idea will cut down on webclicks and eventually add up to more newspaper subscriptions.

But then again, if Neil Best’s blog is not in the paper… why don’t they just charge for newspaper content and make the rest of it for free.

NJ NETS FOLLOW UP

I see that the lame duck NJ Nets who may or may not move to Brooklyn…(see last week’s column) are leaning towards playing their games at the Prudential Center. And this battle between the Prudential and the Meadowlands Arena may be resolved with an arrangement that sports goes to Newark and concerts and shows go to Izod. That works well for Newark if the Brooklyn deal falls through and the Nets stay in NJ.. and in the deal the Izod doesn’t have to worry about competing with Prudential for entertainment.

Today’s Post has an article about a lunch hosted by the Nets new owner. I think this guy has some shekels. He took a party of 6 to Nello on the Upper East Side. The tab came out to 15,000 with a $3700 tip! Sayeth the Post:


“Their check included $825 for three orders of truffle tagliolini; $600 for four orders of truffle carpaccio; $210 for three orders of veal chops with mushrooms; and $72 for six large waters.
Not to mention $15 for a bowl of chicken soup.
The lunch was topped off with a $5,000 bottle of vintage 1998 Chateau Petrus and two bottles of 2002 Montrachet Latour for $3,600."


$72 for water??


THOSE CRAZY JEW HATERS

A few weeks ago we told you about the loonie kazoonies from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas. They are Jew haters and proud of it.. and the protest outside Jewish synagogues. They also hate gay people too… which means their upcoming trip to NJ will not include seeing Harvey Fierstein’s latest show.

Most people with common sense realize that these Westboro Weirdos are just a fringe group and don’t represent other Baptists. Nonetheless I hear that they now plan to protest outside a Rutgers Jewish Student building next week.


However, before thinking of attending a counter protest, I think the group from Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in Manhattan (a predominantly gay synagogue) got it right. They heard that the Westboro Weirdos were headed to their temple and they turned the tables on them by turning it into a fundraiser. Just like a walkathon where you make a pledge based on how many miles a participant walks… people pledged based on how many minutes the Westboro Weirdos protested.

A big clock was essentially planted near the protestors and the fun began. After 50 minutes Beth Simchat Torah raised $10,000!

And the Rabbi was so happy to raise 10k…. she sent Westboro a Thank You note!

And there you have… the rest of the story!

PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK

Last week Pumpy lost again since Jacksonville needed OT to win but not cover against the Rams and his record is now 2-4. This week we go to Philly home of the NL Champion Phillies where the Eagles are 7 point road faves against Washington in the Monday Night Game.

Sayeth the Pump: “My friend who is a Phillies fan goes to an egalitiarian synagogue so in honor of Eagle-itarians… I take the Eagles”

UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICK OF THE WEEK

Thanks to my picks last week of the Raiders and Chiefs we went 2-1 for a year to date record of 8-10.

Arizona 7 point doggies to THE GIANTS – After last week a TD may be a bit much to cover.. but I predict the Giants will win the game by less than 7.

Atlanta 4 doggies to DALLAS - I love when the Cowboys lose at their new home stadium.

REDSKINS 7 doggies over Eagles – What do they say about home dogs on Monday Night?? By the way, this is the 5th week out of 7 that we are going ALL doggies!