Comcast -> Xfinity?

Ok, so most of your customers are unhappy with your services.  Your customer support is probably the worst in the world.  Your company's name is synonymous with a bad customer experience.

What do you do?  Why, change your name of course:

I don't know what Comcast is thinking, but this new name is not going to fix anything.

Movie of the year

The Hurt Locker would get my vote for the Academy Award for Best Picture.



And if Kathryn Bigelow does not win the award for best director, then the voters were not thinking clearly.

Present and future leaders

Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to a talk by two extraordinarily impressive government officials (I know, that sounds like an oxymoron).  Alec Ross is the senior advisor to Hilary Clinton, responsible for innovation and technology.  He is bringing technology to the government and foreign policy, and bringing them both into the 21st century.  Jared Cohen is an accomplished author and a member of Ms. Clinton's policy planning staff, a role he began in 1996 under Condeleeza Rice.  Cohen is widely known for having intervened to keep Twitter online during the Iranian election crisis.

These two spoke about the need to innovate, to find new ways of reaching people.  I can't describe the details of what they had to say, but they were truly inspiring.  If, as Eric Schmidt puts it, these are the future faces of politics, then I feel a little bit better about where things are headed in this country.

Justice Jackson

I am reading "The Nine," Jeffrey Toobin's book about the Supreme Court.  It is fairly good, if a bit biased (for example, one does not have to read far to see how much Toobin dislikes Clarence Thomas).  

In the course of a discussion about the Court's decisions in religion cases, I came across a fascinating statement from Justice Robert Jackson.  It is apparently quite well known, but I either have not read it before or simply do not remember it.

The case involved a challenge to school requirements for the mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.  In 1940, the Supreme Court had upheld such requirements against a challenge by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but Toobin notes the growing rise of fascism in Europe immediately thereafter and its effect on how people viewed coercive loyalty.  

Just three years later, the Court took an "almost identical" case from the Witnesses and reversed itself, holding that such requirements violated the Constitution.

Here is what Justice Jackson wrote in that case:

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act.  If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.”

So perfectly stated, and so eloquent.  Would that all Justices wrote that well.

Update on my niece

I wrote a bit ago about my niece's application to the Rhode Island School of design - how she imposed a fresh take on the meaning of perspective in art.

Well, RISD agreed with my assessment of how good it was.  She was admitted over the weekend.

Congratulations Emily!  Nice job.

More Giants news - Jon Miller wins Frick Award

Funny to be focused on the Giants this week, but spring training is about to start, so maybe it's appropriate.  The exciting news now is that my favorite broadcaster, Jon Miller, will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July.  He will be given the Ford Frick Award for outstanding broadcasting.

Miller is the best sports broadcaster I have ever heard, without a doubt.  There are many occasions where I would rather listen to the radio broadcast than watch the game on televison, just to hear Miller call the game.  The games are that much better when he is on the tv side. And his long-standing partnership with Joe Morgan on ESPN is one of the best broadcasting pairs ever.

If you have never heard Miller call a game, you have missed a real treat.  Here is a great example of the enthusiasm he puts into the game:

Lest you doubt my admiration for Miller, consider these two tidbits.  First, I have only attended Giants' spring training in Scottsdale one time.  It was fun - the small park is a great place to see a game.  But one of the key highlights was getting to shake his hand and get his autograph.  And second, here is the bobblehead I have sitting on my desk at work:

A great bobblehead and a very well-deserved award.  I'll be happily watching the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, mainly to hear his speech.

The Say Hey Kid

I've been a Giants fan since I got to the Bay area.  I went to Candlestick a lot when I lived in the City, and even for the few seasons that I had season tickets to the A's, I rooted for the Giants the whole time.  The 1989 Bay Bridge Series (with its ten-day break due to the earthquake) just about killed me as the A's swept the Giants in four games.

The one true Giant (out of many great ones) is Willie Mays.  I never saw him play - his career ended in 1973.  But I have had the good fortune to see him in person a number of times, at Candlestick and then AT&T Park.  In fact, a good friend of mine has a luxury box there that is just ten boxes or so from Willie's, just around the curve in left field.  Every once in a while he would be sitting there.  Amazing.

Apparently Willie has just cooperated, for the first time, with a biographer.  There is a new book coming out shortly, and there is a great story about it in the NY Times.  The story itself is very interesting, and tells me something I never knew:  when Bobby Thompson hit his home run to beat the Dodgers for the 1951 pennant, Willie Mays was on deck.

This is a book I think I am going to have to get.