Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by! If you like what you read, tell your friends! If you don't like what you read, tell your enemies! Either way, please post a comment, even if it's just to tell us how much we suck! (We're really needy!) You can even follow us @JasonBerner! Or don't! See if we care!







Sunday, May 3, 2009

Sunday Paper Recap

Nothing gets a Sunday off to a creakier start than opening the door and not finding that blue plastic bag on the threshold.  Now we have to put on pants and go out in the rain to the supermarket for the New York Times.  And to make matters worse, upon returning home, we realize that we're missing the Week in Review!  What's a Sunday without Frank Rich's fulminations?  (Yes, yes, we could always read it online, but that goes against the whole Sunday vibe.)

Anyway, the following struck us as commentworthy.  We (re)report, you decide:

******************************************
On Not-Swine Flu:

"The news [about confirmed cases of swine flu among pigs in Canada] changes things.  But it has a somewhat unexpected twist: a person appears to have spread the disease to the pigs. . . ."

Remember, this is The New York Times, not The Onion.

Now, after the minor chastisement we received from our FFB Emi Ha, far be it from us to speculate on the activities of our friends to the Great White North.  But still, you've got to wonder:

















**************************************************
On Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka:

"Some of the game's greats have been honored with plaques in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park.  Others have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame, and a rare few have statues in their likenesses erected in front of stadiums, or even rotundas built in their memory.  For Matsuzaka, the great honor is warm and soothing toilets. . . ."

See, before the Red Sox could sign Matsuzaka, they had to pay the Seibu Lions, Matsuzaka's Japanese team, a "posting fee" for the right to negotiate with the star pitcher.  They paid slightly over $51,000,000 (and that was just what they paid the team--they signed Matsuzaka for another $50,000,000 or so).  The Lions spent this money on various upgrades, including to the dilapidated stadium bathrooms, which now constitute an attraction in and of themselves: state of the art urinals (whatever that means), high-tech hand dryers, and, in the stalls "TotTo's Warmlet seats" (the name seems self-explanatory).  One potential area of concern: The women's stalls feature something called a "Washlet," which is a combined toilet and bidet; does this strike anyone else as risky?

******************************************
On the National Homeless Soccer League:

This sounds like something Dave Chapelle would have come up with, but it's real.  Street Soccer USA is a 16-team league, comprised of homeless teens and adults.  Teams are organized in homeless shelters, and they compete with other local soccer clubs (often corporate teams).  The goal (no pun intended), according to the Street Soccer website, is to "use sport as a tool for personal development among homeless teens and adults."  Their programs report "upwards of a 75% success rate in helping clients connect to jobs, housing, treatement [sic] or further education."  So, an apparently worthwhile program (although they should proofread their informational PDF more carefully).

One cannot help but wonder, though, why this kind of program would be more advantageous than a more traditional approach to helping the homeless.  In other words, does the funding that must go into things like purchasing equipment, hiring coaches, promoting the events (and/or supporting outreach to corporations who might donate these things), etc., achieve more than would, say, supporting a traditional job-training program?  Look, in today's economy, non-profit groups need a "hook," and this is a good one--heck, it got them into the New York Times and, more impressively, The Solipsist!  But it's disappointing that programs to help people who really need help have to resort to what could be considered stunts in order to attract attention.

No comments:

Post a Comment