School Bus Advertising

Due to our countries falling educational budget many school districts have come up with plans to increase their revenue. By offering advertisement spaces on their chartered school busses school boards feel they will be able to raise upwards of $500,000 a year. This money would go directly back to the schools paying for extra curricular activities and being able to avoid layoffs of teachers.
Parents are concerned however with the content of the advertisements themselves. Many of the the ads are for pizza and junkfood which worries parents that their children might see it as a sign to indulge in such foods if it is on the side of their school bus. Also, will the advertising business effect education? We’ve seen it thousands of times where an advertisers bias or ideal is shown on its advertisees outlet. Are we going to start seeing ads in the middle of our children’s history textbook?

Patriots adding some depth

The New England Patriots were not shy to move after the end of the NFL lockout. First they traded $100 million dollar man Albert Haynesworth. Though Haynesworth has yet to prove he is worth his new project, even being benched due to lack of effort and focus, he still could be a vital part to a franchise that is use to winning. The Patriots have been the most winningest team in the past decade with 3 super bowl rings with quarterback Tom Brady.
Later on in the week they traded for another star quality player in Chad Ochocinco. The wide receiver had played all his seasons in Cincinnati with the Bengals but has been disgruntled with how the franchise has been operating. Carson Palmer recently chose to retire instead of playing for the team. Though Ochocinco isn’t such a problem with effort and energy, he loves attention and usually gets it with his on the field antics.

A Whole Lot of Money

The 2011 world series of poker main event is the biggest and most expensive poker 
tournament in the world. The field was originally over 6,000 people, and its now 
down to 9. The winner will receive over 8 million dollars, and the other top 600 
finishers received a portion of the $64 million in prize money.

What makes this year special is that the whole tournament has been broad casted 
live for the first time ever. Usually, the tournament is conducted over an 8 day 
period, then shown on television over a 2 month period. But, there is a lot of 
controversy over broadcasting the tournament live. Poker is a game where 
bluffing runs rampant, and is a major facet of the game. When the tournament is 
broad casted live, a player that has recently gotten bluffed out of a hand is 
now able to receive a text message from a friend telling them what happened on a 
previous hand. This may not seem like a big deal to the average viewer, but for 
anyone who has played poker, they know that they want their opponent's to see 
their cards as few times as possible. Now, those players are able to know their 
cards without calling raises that they normally would have had to call. This 
affects the tournament, as competitors are now les inclined to stay in pots with 
others when they raise. This brings a question of debate: If this advancement in 
technology and communication is good for the game or not?

An Unexpected Tragedy

Last Thursday, Los Angeles Lakers’ 6th man of the year Lamar Odom was back in his hometown of Queens, New York already due to the bad news of his cousins death and funeral. Odom hired a SUV service to drive him around queens when tragedy struck. A motorcyclist slammed into Odom’s car which then careened onto the sidewalk and hit a 15 year old pedestrian. The boy later passed away on Friday due to the injuries sustained from the crash.

Odom is no stranger to devastation and death. In 2006, his youngest son, Jayden, passed away from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome while sleeping in his crib. Growing up in a tough Queens neighborhood, Lamar’s mother died while he was still in Elementary school. His father was a heroin addict so Lamar pretty much had to raise himself.

A grown Lamar sees riches and stars everyday of his life. He married reality star Khloe Kardashian last year and they are now both subjects of their own reality show, Khloe and Lamar.

My thoughts to the family of the boy who passed away. RIP.

51st state

Jeff Stone, a member on the Riverside Board of Supervisors, proposed an idea that we haven’t seen since the civil war. He wants Riverside county as well as twelve others to secede from California and form a new state: South California. In Mr. Stones plan, Riverside, Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Tulare would secede from the state and create the new state which would roughly have a population of 13 million people. Though the idea is nearly impossible it isn’t without merit.

 

The idea is that these 13 counties are mostly populated by conservative republican voters while the rest of California’s majority is liberal. This would give the power to the conservatives to cut taxes and reduce government regulations as well as allow liberals in increase taxes to pay for the services they want.

The 13 counties would have to unanimously vote for the secession and then the California state legislature would have to approve which most likely won’t happen.

A Sad Day For China

China’s golden son, Yao Ming, is reportedly retiring from the National Basketball Association after 8 seasons. After being drafted number 1 overall in the 2002 draft, the first international player ever to be selected first, Ming went on to start for the Western Conference All-Star team every season he played. It seem’s as though the 7 foot 6 inch Center won’t play another minute in the league due to multiple injuries in his legs which have forced him to miss the last two seasons.

Yao’s retirement will have an immediate effect on the entire league. The man is almost god-like in his hometown of Shanghai and is a national hero in China. The NBA grew so widely in China directly because of Ming, and his retirement will surely create a decline in everything from viewership and merchandising. Ming hanging up his sneakers will sadden all basketball fans especially those in China who looked up to the icon.

Millionaires vs Billionaires

The National Basketball Association team owners officially locked out the players association a couple days ago. This could not have happened at a worse time. After a tremendous seasons with many great story lines, ranging from Chris Bosh and Lebitch I mean Lebron James joining Dwyane Wade in Miami to having the youngest most valuable player in league history in Derek Rose, the owners decided that they needed to lockout the players after the two sides could not come to an agreement. The owners declare that 22 of the 30 teams in the league are losing money every season and only the big market teams i.e. Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, New York etc. are creating a profit.

The owners would like to change the CBA (collective bargaining agreement) to something that would balance the revenue sharing more in favor of them. Also, by creating a hard salary cap, these bigger market teams can not go over the luxury threshold to obtain many stars and stack their teams which would give other smaller market teams the opportunity to sign those players.

I believe the best way to resolve this problem is by going to a model similar to the National Football league’s old CBA where revenue sharing was basically split down the middle between owners and players and almost every year a new team wins the championship due to the balance competition. All and all this is a battle between millionaires and billionaires and both sides are going to feel like they have been gypped.