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13 Jun 2011 17:24

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Culture: LeBron James isn’t (not) bothered by the haters

  • All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. So they can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy … But they got to get back to the real world at some point.
  • Miami Heat forward LeBron James • Speaking during his post-game press conference after losing the championship to the heavy underdog Dallas Mavericks in six games. This is exactly the sort of remark that feeds the public’s disdain for James, a disdain that’s been steadily growing since his decision to help form a Voltron-style superteam down in South Beach (and being not so humble doing it). What’s especially illuminating about this quote, besides the implication that the common NBA fan rooting against him is probably some tribulation-addled scrub with an unenviable life, is that it completely defeats the point he was trying to make; that he isn’t bothered by people being happy that he lost. “I don’t care what you think, cause you’re a loser with a loser life compared to mine?” Yeah, doesn’t sound like you’re quite at ease with this, man. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Jun 2011 20:31

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Culture: Bill Gates explains his philosophy on philanthropy

  • The motto of the foundation is that every life has equal value. There are more people dying of malaria than any specific cancer. When you die of malaria aged three it’s different from being in your seventies, when you might die of a heart attack or you might die of cancer. And the world is putting massive amounts into cancer, so my wealth would have had a meaningless impact on that.
  • Bill Gates • Discussing his philanthropy organization, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and why it chooses to focus on malaria over cancer. Gates, the world’s second-richest man, doesn’t give a lot of interviews, but when he does, he makes them count. In this Daily Mail piece, he avoids focusing too much on his past and more on what he’s doing now — working to ensure his money gets used in ways that can positively affect people’s lives. His 85-year-old dad even helps. And he doesn’t do it from a distance, either: “It is important to see places. When you go into a ward with kids who have cholera, it’s horrific. They are losing their vital fluids and their brains are shutting down. As a father, as a human, it’s just horrific.” Gates’ work as a philanthropist could one day overshadow his work with Microsoft. It’s that important. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jun 2011 11:26

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Culture: Katie Couric’s openly gunning to be the new Oprah

  • It’ll be sort of a little bit of what Oprah did. Obviously, no one can ever fill Oprah’s shoes, but some of the things that she did on her show, some of the things we used to do on the Today show.
  • Katie Couric • Describing to Jay Leno her plans for her new show, which will hit the airwaves around September of next year. She signed a contract with ABC on this matter yesterday, and her right-hand man for the show is Jeff Zucker, a man who can get thrown out of NBC during a huge merger, but can’t make coffee. Her transition comes at the perfect time — her main competition is pretty much gone, her rep for news reporting faltered with her time on CBS, and with the ABC deal, she gets to keep her toes in the news side if she so desires. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Jun 2011 14:32

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Culture: Book excerpt: Psychopaths are more normal than you think

  • After they arrested me, I sat in my cell and I thought, ‘I’m looking at five to seven years.’ So I asked the other prisoners what to do. They said, ‘Easy! Tell them you’re mad! They’ll put you in a county hospital. You’ll have Sky TV and a PlayStation. Nurses will bring you pizzas.’
  • A diagnosed psychopath named Tony •  Describing how he got put into the Broadmoor mental hospital in England. He pretended to be insane to get out of a jail sentence, after other prisoners told him to. He copied books and movies he’d seen and read, and was sent to the mental asylum. However, when it came time for him to get out – he couldn’t. He actually was a psychopath, according to a number of tests that had been done on him. This excerpt from author Jon Ronson’s “The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry” is a fascinating piece on a subject few know about — how psychopaths are diagnosed and treated.  source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 May 2011 13:12

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Culture: Good read of the day: NY Times’ ‘Coming Out’ interactive feature

  • Spend a few hours with this package, guys. The Times wrote three stories for the piece, but the readers submitted 32 of their own equally moving stories. It makes for a very powerful package — in a time where not every corner of society accepts homosexuality, the Times has stepped up to tell some of the stories that need to be told the most — from that of a young Christian girl, to another about a high school ROTC student. It’s a moving read that sends a positive message, too, one we’re all familiar with: It gets better. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 May 2011 22:11

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Culture: Lady Gaga MP3 deal backfires; Amazon users pissed

  • sweet! Lady Gaga’s latest album is on sale for 99 cents on Amazon MP3. What’s more, it comes with a free 20gb of cloud music storage!
  • aww no! The deal was so popular, it clogged Amazon’s servers. Users got cut off mid-download, and are now giving the album negative reviews. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 May 2011 15:36

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Culture: Latest “Pirates of the Carribean”: Big in the U.S., bigger worldwide

  • $90 million opening for Johnny Depp’s latest meal ticket
  • $46M the amount the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” made in its opening weekend
  • $135M the amount “Dead Man’s Chest” opened at — the most successful of the franchise
  • $114M the amount “At World’s’ End” opened at; it had a bigger foreign gross than the first two source
  • » Look beyond the U.S.: While it wasn’t a super-impressive opening weekend compared to other “Pirates of the Carrribean” movies, worldwide it’s a juggernaut — earning over $256 million this weekend alone, which is the largest foreign weekend ever. Also of note: It’s still the largest domestic opening weekend of the year so far, which we credit to Michael Bolton being a major cinephile.
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

22 May 2011 12:15

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Culture, World: Here’s a picture of Vladimir Putin doing manly things

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 May 2011 11:12

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Culture: The incestuous, pay-for-play world of celebrity gossip sites

  • There’s this unbelievable hunger for a constant flow of information about these people. So everybody has to feed this machine all the time.
  • Lindsay Lohan’s lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley • Offering an explanation for why her client is always in the news. Essentially, the $3 billion entertainment gossip industry — specifically, sites like TMZ, Perez Hilton and Radar Online — needs her. The New York Times’ sprawling piece on celebrity gossip sites, which includes interviews with Michael Lohan (along with an explanation of how he made a bunch of money off Jon Gosselin) and an explanation of how the Los Angeles Coroner’s Department has had to fend off gossip reporters climbing over walls in an attempt to catch a photo of a deceased celebrity. (They’ve had two major leaks — death certificates of Michael Jackson and Brittany Murphy.) All in the hunt for hits, guys. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 May 2011 21:09

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Culture: Arnold Schwarzenegger had two kids by two women in one week

  • 09/27/97 the birthdate of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s youngest son with wife Maria Shriver
  • 10/02/97 the birthdate of Arnold’s son with his former housemaid; her husband left her three weeks later source
  • » This makes things even more awkward: According to birth records released regarding Mildred Patricia Baena’s child with the former governor, he was born less than a week after Maria Shriver had a child of her own. The actor has supported the child since his birth. The superstar actor, who is taking this hard, “is doing everything he can to take full responsibility to take all of the spotlight off his children and wife,” according to a CNN source close to Schwarzenegger. Still though, it’s kinda tough to do so with this kind of scandal. This is pretty weird, right?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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