A few interesting stories before the NBA Finals

The NBA Finals kick off tonight and the Los Angeles Lakers are facing the Orlando Magic. The anticipated puppet vs puppet match up between Lebron James and Kobe Bryant (if you don't know what I'm talking about, see this) didn't come to fruition.

And we won't be seeing any Bryant vs. Dwight Howard commercials because Howard is sponsored by Adidas (the puppet commercials were made by Nike).

So what will we be seeing?

Well, a key player for the Lakers is Lamar Odom. Odom who, apparently, can blame his erratic play on his sweet tooth. Or something like that.

We will also see former streetball star Rafer Alston (nickname: Skip to my Lou) as the starting point guard in the NBA Finals. The Washington Post profiled Alston.

And if you have 35 minutes to kill, Bill Simmons had NBA legend Jerry West on his podcast (mp3 here). West is a very smart man, he was a great player, an equally great general manager and, if I can judge by this podcast, a humble man. His prediction: the Lakers will win.

West played for the Lakers and was the general manager for the Lakers for years.

Future of news gathering: Non-profits

I work for a non-profit that reports the news (the New Mexico Independent).

So I'm pretty interested in the question of the future of news reporting. Not the future of newspapers, necessarily, but what will be next in the evolution of news reporting?

And this blog post at Open Left is interesting.

Chris Bowers writes:

It isn't just that people are willing to produce quality content either for free or for prices that don't approach profitability. It is also that the Internet has led to a growing perception that just about all information should be free. Consumers are demanding free information, and lots of people are willing to give it to them.

Good luck finding a for-profit business model to compete against that. Eventually, if you want to make a living producing news, you will have to do it with an organization that is not interested in, and does not rely upon, making a profit.

Headline of the day from ESPN.com

From ESPN.com:



That would be Chien-Ming Wang, the Chinese pitcher who is coming back from an injury and a stint in the bullpen for the New York Yankees.

Wang pitched into the fifth inning and allowed five runs. As of this point, the Yankees are losing to the Texas Rangers 5-1. Edit: Now it's 5-5. I think I jinxed the Rangers. Final update: The Yankees won 8-6. Damn them.

Hat tip to @arjunjaikumar, who is a Boston Red Sox fan.

A new angle on Tianamen Square's "Tank Man"

Yesterday, I wrote about four iconic photos of "Tank Man" in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.

We've all seen them, they are among the most famous photographs in history.

But now they New York Times' "Lens" blog (the New York Times blogs all have one-word semi-zen names -- the baseball blog is "Bats" for example) shows us a never before seen photo from a different angle.

Mr. Jones’ angle on the historic encounter is vastly different from four other versions shot that day, taken at eye level moments before the tanks stopped at the feet of the lone protester. Wildly chaotic, a man ducks in the foreground, reacting from gunfire coming from the tanks. Another flashes a near-smile. Another pedals his bike, seemingly passive as the tanks rumble towards confrontation.

The photograph encourages the viewer to reevaluate the famous encounter. Unlike the other four versions, we are given a sense of what it was like on the ground as the tanks heaved forward, the man’s act of defiance escalated by the flight of others.

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of Tank Man's heroic stand. Still, to this day, no one knows who he is or what happened to him.