Posted 11:43 AM by Blah blah

Charlie Rose

I always tell people I have a journalist's personality. I guess it's because I enjoy listening as much as talking. Case in point: The Charlie Rose Show on PBS, which I find continually stimulating. In Charlie's minimalist black studio, at his plain round table, you are hearing some of the best conversation on television today. Every weeknight you are coming as close as you ever will to some of the most talented, successful people of our time, in all walks of life---government, theater, science, business, writing, sports, movies, music. Having no studio audience allows Charlie's guests to do what most people on TV have no time or freedom to do: think. I mean truly think. Aloud. Charlie's biography. Another bio. More detailed bio of him.

You get to see Sylvester Stallone as someone you may not imagine---an intellectual. You see both the sadness and conviction on the face of Michael Milken, former junk bond king, as he faces his mortality and new mission in life---dealing with his prostate cancer and trying to cure it for others. You see Jim Carrey talking seriously, for a change, about how lucky he feels to have had this career, of how he can take such emotional risks on camera. You see comics like Roseanne Barr not play for laughs or the camera, talking about her humdrum life before fame. You see diplomat George Mitchell talk about what he learned about how to settle arguments, from his years of negotiating peace in N. Ireland and Bosnia. You hear Tina Brown, flamboyant former editor of the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, tell how she dealt with the failure of her venture backed by Miramax, Talk magazine. You see former basketball greats praising, like a father, their head UCLA basketball coach John Wooden and what he taught them about success. You see U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan talk about how painful it is for him to send peacekeepers into harm's way in the world's neverending war zones. You have German musician Anne-Sophie Mutter talk about her work with conductor Herbert Von Karajan and entice you with some sexy moves on her violin.

Charlie Rose carries an incredible talent for opening people up---famous or prominent people who are normally used to being guarded and speaking OfficialSpeak. You see them as if they have just come home and are kicking up their feet on the sofa and gazing into your eyes with a drink. Your first impression of him is he is a truly nice guy. His show is also heavily focused on biography. Charlie is a master of the profile. He is always fascinated with the drama of people's journey to the top. "How did you fall in love with doing _____?" he always asks. "What drives you? What is it about you that keeps you on top, relevant?" Charlie, though always the polite Southern gentleman he is, continually throws the question back into the faces of his guests. "If you had to sum up your career, you are most proud of---what? You decided to switch gears at that point in your life...because...? You are a person who needs to have people around you. Why is that?" His show is always like this, reaching for the lessons of life, the profundity you can take home with you.

Hear successful people truly reflect on their lives. That's the signature of Charlie Rose. His show is based in Manhattan, and he invites a lot of prominent writers and humanities people. Some recent guests included the following. Listen to them on the web with RealPlayer! (If you get an error message for a link, please keep trying. As of now, all of the links below work.)

New York, February 15, 2002
Actress Judi Dench
Actress Judi Dench talks with Charlie Rose about her Academy Award nomination for best actress in Iris, her acting career and the death of her husband, actor Michael Williams. Iris is based on the life of award-winning novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch.

New York, February 14, 2002
Floyd Norris and Newsweek's Allan Sloan
The New York Times' Floyd Norris and Newsweek's Allan Sloan talk with Charlie Rose about the collapse of Enron Corp., their reaction to congressional testimony by Enron's Sherron Watkins and public perception of corporate accounting practices.

New York, February 8, 2002
Actor Bruce Willis
Actor Bruce Willis talks with Charlie Rose about his role in the television show Moonlighting his relationship with former wife Demi Moore and the making of the movie Bandits which is scheduled to open on Feb. 15.

New York, February 6, 2002
James Carville and Paul Begala
Political strategists James Carville and Paul Begala talk with Charlie Rose about former president Bill Clinton, Enron Corp. and the Bush administration, and their book Buck Up, Suck Up...and Come Back When You Foul Up.

New York, February 5, 2002
New York Times' Floyd Norris
Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent at the New York Times, talks with Charlie Rose about his views on the impact of Enron Corp.'s collapse on corporate America, what questions were not asked about accounting practices, and the role of Arthur Andersen LLP in the company's bankruptcy.

New York, February 5, 2002
Sen. Dorgan About Enron and Lay
Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, talks with Charlie Rose via satellite about the subpoena served on former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay to force him to testify next week before the Senate Commerce Committee and the goals of congressional hearings on the Enron collapse.

New York, February 4, 2002
Interviews Israel's Shimon Peres
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres talks with Charlie Rose about his informal talks with the Palestinians, his view of the structure needed to facilitate the peace process and Yasser Arafat's inability to stop Palestinian terrorists.

New York. Jan 24, 2002
Actress Kate Winslet
Actress Kate Winslet talks with Charlie Rose about her role in the new film Iris and her acting career. Winslet plays the young award-winning novelist Iris Murdoch before her decline into Alzheimer's disease.

New York. Jan 23, 2002
Former Disney President Ovitz
Michael Ovitz, founder of Artists Management Group, a Hollywood talent agency, talks with Charlie Rose about his professional career, his experience as president of the Walt Disney Co., and public perceptions of his personal character.

New York. Jan 22, 2002
Vivendi CEO Jean-Marie Messier
Jean-Marie Messier, chief executive of Vivendi Universal SA, talks with Charlie Rose about Messier's strategy for Vivendi's growth and expansion, Vivendi's media content and distribution, and the outlook for media industry consolidation.

New York. Jan 21, 2002
Nets' Byron Scott, Jason Kidd
New Jersey Nets head coach Byron Scott and guard Jason Kidd talk with Charlie Rose about the team's success, Kidd's play and his approach to basketball. Kidd is averaging 13.8 points and 10.1 assists this season, and New Jersey is in first place in the Atlantic Division.

New York. Jan 17, 2002
Author Elie Wiesel on Terrorism
Nobel Peace Prize winner and author Elie Wiesel talks with Charlie Rose about his new book Conversations With Elie Wiesel, his views on terrorism and the death penalty, and surviving the Holocaust.

New York. Jan 17, 2002
Gossip Columnist Liz Smith
Liz Smith, syndicated New York Post gossip columnist, talks with Charlie Rose about her career as a writer, the impact of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the world of gossip and her writing style, and her appreciation of journalism in America today.

New York. Jan 16, 2002
Newsweek's Lorch on Afghanistan
Donatella Lorch, Washington correspondent for Newsweek magazine, talks with Charlie Rose via satellite about her recent trip with U.S. special forces troops to Afghanistan, her attraction to covering wars around the world and the outlook for the Taliban.

New York. Jan 15, 2002
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill talks with Charlie Rose about the Treasury Department's handling of the demise of Enron Corp., Congress's handling of the federal economic stimulus bill and the criticism that has followed his public service tenure.

New York. Jan 14, 2002
Filmmaker Ridley Scott
Filmmaker Ridley Scott talks with Charlie Rose about his new film Black Hawk Down, the significance of U.S. military action in Somalia and the challenges of producing such a film. Scott is the director of Gladiator, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner and Hannibal.

New York. Jan 9, 2002
NBC's Katie Couric, Matt Lauer
Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, co-anchors of the NBC television network's Today show, talk with Charlie Rose about working on Today, how morning television shows handle news, and the chemistry between them.

New York. Jan 8, 2002
U.S. Foreign Policy Expert Mead
Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, talks with Charlie Rose about his new book Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, U.S. foreign policy, and U.S. relations with Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

New York. Dec. 26, 2001
Actress Michelle Pfeiffer
Actress Michelle Pfeiffer talks with Charlie Rose about her personality traits, career development and role as an attorney in the new film I Am Sam. The movie co-stars Sean Penn as a mentally challenged father.

New York. Dec 26, 2001
AIG's Chairman Hank Greenberg
Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, chairman and chief executive of American International Group Inc. (AIG), talks with Charlie Rose about the impact of the Sept. 11 attacks on the insurance industry and the need for regulatory changes allowing the U.S. government to share future losses from terrorist attacks.

New York. Dec 21, 2001
Author Michael Steinhardt
Michael Steinhardt, a former hedge-fund manager and author of No Bull: My Life In and Out of Markets, talks with Charlie Rose about his career, decision to retire and goal of preserving Jewish-based values and culture.

New York. Dec 20, 2001
World Economic Forum's Schwab
Klaus Schwab, president and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), talks with Charlie Rose about the decision to move the WEF from Davos, Switzerland, to New York City next year. The annual conference of international political and business leaders will be held Jan. 31 to Feb. 4, 2002.

New York, Dec. 11, 2001
NY Times Publisher Sulzberger
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of New York Times Co. and publisher of the New York Times, talks with Charlie Rose about the "mission" of the newspaper and its response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The New York Times celebrated its 150th anniversary this year.

New York, Dec. 5, 2001
Writer Auletta on AOL's Levin
Author and journalist Ken Auletta talks with Charlie Rose about Gerald Levin's decision to retire in May as chief executive of AOL Time Warner Inc. and the company's choice of co-chief operating officer Richard parsons to replace him.

New York, Dec. 4, 2001
Israel's Ehud Barak
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak talks with Charlie Rose about Israel's air strikes against Palestinian targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip following a number of suicide bombings in Israel and his view of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's response to the attacks.

New York, Dec. 4, 2001
Former President Jimmy Carter
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter talks with Charlie Rose about his latest book, Christmas in Plains, the Iran hostage crisis of 1980 and the main issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

New York, Dec. 3, 2001
Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe
Actor Tom Cruise and film director Cameron Crowe talk with Charlie Rose about their new film Vanilla Sky, which is An American adaptation of Alejandro Amenabar's 1997 Spanish film Abre Los Ojos. Crowe and Cruise also worked together on Jerry Maguire.

New York, November 19, 2001
Senator George Mitchell
Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell talks with Charlie Rose about U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech on U.S.-Middle East relations, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and conditions necessary for a cease-fire to last in the region.

New York, Nov. 15, 2001
Intel's Andrew Grove
Andrew Grove, chairman and co-founder of Intel Corp., talks with Charlie Rose about his book Swimming Across: A Memoir, the trauma of his past and his success. Grove was born in Budapest, Hungary and narrowly escaped the Holocaust.
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Here is part of a transcript of Charlie's interview with David Letterman (2/16/1996). As usual, the guest shows a side of himself we are not used to seeing, and the show is riveting and revealing:

Rose: Do you enjoy the interviews?

Letterman: Some of them I do. Some of them I actually do. If there is some kind of legitimate interchange, some kind of legitimate exchange, yeah, sometimes I really do, I get a kick out of them. If somebody says or does something that genuinely makes me laugh, I just think, this is great, you know, I get paid a lot of money and somebody is actually entertaining me, so that's fun.

Rose: Somebody said to me today -- we were talking about what you do and what I do is a very different spectrum -- they said, "When somebody comes on David's show, they are expected to perform."

Letterman: That's right.

Rose: "And when someone comes on your show, what you want to do is for them not to perform so you can find out who they are."

Letterman: Yeah, probably so, and maybe that actually works against us a bit, because we have found that people in show business are hugely successful people. Some of them don't get that this is an opportunity for them to demonstrate why people should spend money on their movies, why people should buy their records, why people should watch them on television. Some of these people seem to be oblivious to that. Some nights I want to get out the sphygmomanometer and see, "Let's see if there's a pulse. Let's see if there's blood in the veins," because I can't begin to tell you the number of times somebody has just taken the opportunity to come out and have about a 12-minute nap on the air, and I just think, well, now, wait a minute here. Are we both in show business here?

Rose: Go to commercial.

Letterman: Well, we do, and sometimes I get a little ragged with them, and then people say, (gay accent) "Oh, he's mean. He's being mean again," but then you have people like Bill Murray, like Steve Martin, like Tom Hanks, like Bruce Willis, Demi Moore. There's about a dozen of these people, top stars who really get it.

Rose: They understand what is expected of them.

Letterman: Sure, and Tom Hanks comes on like a first-time comedian, and he works on it and works on it and works on it. We have a piece on the prime time show that we did with Steve Martin. He had a play in production and a play opening the week he was with us. He came in three days in a row to pretape this for us and came in the morning of his appearance to work on this piece, and he's always been like that, and Bill Murray has always been like that and Bruce Willis has always been like that, and I just wish, you know, everybody -- and even when I used to be on The Tonight Show, I would spend six, eight weeks making sure, because what you wanted to do was make Johnny laugh. You didn't want to come out there and just sort of, you know, all of a sudden Johnny's talking to Ed. You don't want that happening....

Rose: Celebrity doesn't mean a damn to you, and in fact it's a distraction.

Letterman: The first thing that kind of got my attention years and years ago when I was first on the Tonight Show, I recognized almost immediately that people, strangers in all walks of life that I would come in contact with were friendlier to me, friendly, nice, considerate and behaved kind of the way you think people behave to people, but it was a dramatic change, and it was literally overnight, and it has been that way ever since. That part of it I just think is wonderful, because instead of being part of just a faceless group of people struggling with and against one another, it invokes again some humanity. People are nice to me, I'm nice to them, and sadly, I don't think real life is like that, and this is to me the great benefit and luxury of being well-known.

So I enjoy it, I try not to abuse it, and I do my best to be nice to people who are always nice to me, and I count myself really being lucky for that, because I can remember, and I think everybody who is not fortunate enough to be well-known understands what this struggle is, you know, people for no good reason sometimes just go out of their way to make your life unpleasant, but that all changed about 20 years ago, and I just think, man, if this was really the world, that would just be keen, wouldn't it?

Rose: We could all be celebrities.

Letterman: Everybody happy, everybody nice. "Nice to see you." "Well, nice to see you." And it's contagious. When they're nice to you, you're just nice back to them.

Rose: One of the great things, in addition to that about being a broadcaster, is you get to see your work product every night.

Letterman: Right.

Rose: Think of the people who work every day who don't get a chance to see -- I mean, you build every day to 5:30. I build every day to 6:00 o'clock.

Letterman: That's right, that's right.

Rose: I tape 30 minutes later than you do, and you get to see that night what you have crafted that day.

Letterman: But there are many other pursuits in the world that are like that. I have always kind of likened our operation to a small restaurant. You come in; you go to the market; you see what's available; you see what's fresh, you put it together; you get a menu, and then you can see if people like it, and then the next day you look through the cash receipts and you know how you did. So it's not unique, but it is satisfying, very satisfying.

Rose: They also say about you that you are enormously self-critical, that when things don't go right, you don't blame anybody but Dave.

Letterman: Well, that's being generous. Sometimes I --

Rose: That you're impossible to live with but --

Letterman: Ultimately I accept the responsibility for everything that goes wrong, and it's like a guy driving a race car, you know, they build the car, they put the engine in it, they tune it, they fine tune it, they adjust the aerodynamics, they adjust the fuel flow or whatever, and then I go out there and put it in the wall. I mean, every day I'm given the elements of a great car, and some days, because I'm human, I just stack it up, and there's nothing more discouraging than --

Rose: Stack it up against a wall.

Letterman: Exactly, and knowing that this staff of 50 or 60 people have done their best every day, and then they put me in the damn car, and, oh my gosh, he's tapped the wall in turn four. So I feel like I'm responsible, and I should be responsible. My name's on the credits. I get the big paychecks. It's me, I can take it, and I screw it up more than anybody else in the production.

Posted 8:27 PM by Blah blah

Moment of silence. I feel sad. Sorry for Mr. Pearl's wife and friends. He sounds like such a fantastic and talented guy. And I grieve with his Wall St. Journal colleagues. This must have been especially gut-wrenching to write. Here's a series of stories on Mr. Pearl, chronicling the tragedy, from the South Asian Journalists Association. Here's a selection of Mr. Pearl's articles for the front page of the newspaper.

Reporter Daniel Pearl Is Dead, Killed by His Captors in Pakistan (Wall St. Journal):
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The abduction and death mean the Journal has lost one of its premier foreign correspondents, who was noted for his lively eye for detail and his gift for explaining the human side of complex international problems. Paradoxically, though he appears to have suffered at the hands of Islamic militants angry at the West, he was particularly sensitive to sentiments in the Islamic world and committed to explaining them to his readers in the West....

"A musician, a writer, a storyteller and a bridge-builder, he was a walking sunshine of truth, humor, friendship and compassion. We grieve with the many who have known him in his life and we weep for a world that must reckon with his death."...

Mr. Pearl was a 12-year veteran of the Journal, working in Atlanta, Washington, London and Paris before moving to Bombay to cover South Asia two years ago. For much of the last six years of his journalistic life, he dedicated himself to explaining the Arab and Islamic worlds to Wall Street Journal readers.

Born in Princeton, N.J., Mr. Pearl graduated in 1985 from Stanford University. Before joining the Journal in 1990, Mr. Pearl worked for several newspapers in Massachusetts, once winning an American Planning Association Award for a five-part series on land use.

A skeptic of all institutions, from big government to big business, Mr. Pearl often seemed as much at home with his violin, playing bluegrass music, as he was filing stories as a top reporter at a newspaper.

He was always a music man, from classical to blues to country to bluegrass to rock 'n' roll. As lead violinist in an Atlanta band called The Ottoman Empire, Mr. Pearl received the thrill of his musical life in 1993 when his band opened for The Kinks at an Atlanta club. His music collection stretched from rhythm and blues musicians like Curtis Mayfield and Bobby Womack to salsa musicians like La India.

Mr. Pearl tended to pick up strays. At dinner parties in London, where he lived for three years, Mr. Pearl was known for last-minute phone calls to hosts, asking if he could bring additional guests. One year, he invited some people he met on the subway to the staff Thanksgiving dinner. "One thing about Danny: You invite him for dinner, you buy for 10 people," says Tom Jennings, a longtime friend. Mr. Jennings, a freelance journalist in New York, also recalls: "This was the man who wrote a song for my son days before his birth, encouraging him into the world. The song was called, 'The World Is Not a Bad Place.'"

He liked to cook. While working in the Atlanta bureau, Mr. Pearl received a bread maker from his mother for his birthday. For two years after that, he experimented with sometimes outlandish recipes. Another favored dish was stuffed grape leaves, which he trotted out when friends came to cry on his shoulder or to look for counsel or comfort.

He liked to shop, sometimes spending hours trolling offbeat shops in London's Covent Garden for the perfect orange shirt -- though he often walked around the Journal offices without shoes. Mr. Pearl, who attracted women by the droves, met Mariane at a party in Paris in 1998, and immediately announced that he had fallen in love.

The two were married in August 1999. They originally planned to get married in September but pushed up the date because Mariane's mother was dying of cancer. She held herself upright to walk her daughter down the aisle but was too sick to sit through the wedding reception. So it was from an upstairs window that she listened as her new son-in-law played Bach for her from below.

In Mr. Pearl, the Journal found the perfect reporter: highly individual, a skeptic, but one with an engaged eye and an open mind for stories big and small. In the Atlanta office, where he started his Journal career, he quickly showed he was a natural at spotting the quirky story. In February 1993, he got a story on the front page about a nine-year-old beauty queen who got stripped of her crown for singing Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy-Breaky Heart" at two dueling pageants. "She cannot perform as Little Miss Bookcase on Saturday, then Little Miss Georgia on Sunday," Mr. Pearl quoted one pageant executive as saying....

Beloved by his colleagues at the Journal, Mr. Pearl's sense of humor reared at odd times. During a friendly turf battle over a Pakistan trade story that a colleague in the Washington bureau was writing, Mr. Pearl kept quiet until after the story appeared in the paper. The day it appeared, his colleague wrote to apologize for not consulting him on the story first. Mr. Pearl replied with the following e-mail: "grumble. grumble, grumble. grumble grumble." He added that he actually owed the reporter an apology for not alerting her to a previous story.

The e-mail continued, "Okay, clean slate, but let me say this: I'm going to Pakistan Saturday, and from that point on, anybody who types the word Pakistan, Pakistani, Paki, Pak, Coldpak or Backpak without consulting me stands NO CHANCE AT ALL of getting illicit Cipro."

It was signed, "Danny."
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The main suspect in Mr. Pearl's kidnapping was arrested on Tuesday in Lahore, Pakistan. He is Sheik Omar Saeed. The FBI is exploring leads that Saeed could have been involved in the transfer of $100,000 to Mohammad Atta, one of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks. In 1994, Saeed was in prison and wrote a 35 page diary. Here are excerpts: 1) Diary of a Terrorist, from Harper's magazine. 2) The Indian Express.

By Trevor Matthews, a journalist for The Guardian: Daniel Pearl's kidnapper nearly got me too.

Posted 2:28 AM by Blah blah

Chemist pursues new chapter: Father of birth control pill devotes himself to writing (San Jose Mercury News):

To end his 42-year career at Stanford University, Carl Djerassi -- the noted chemist who helped develop the birth-control pill -- stood before 200 students Tuesday and pretended to be someone else.

Specifically, he inhabited the role of Felix Frankenthaler, a reproductive pioneer engaged in a testy interview about the ethics of allowing previously infertile people to procreate.

The play/lecture was an unconventional swan song but a tidy segue to the next chapter in Djerassi's life. The man with a Viennese accent and pronounced limp once thought he would be the ``Strom Thurmond of academia,'' but at age 78, Djerassi has decided to devote more time to his other profession, writing memoirs, novels and plays....

Djerassi -- who has written two memoirs and five novels in addition to the plays -- has been trying to marry literature and science. At Stanford, he has taught ethical discourse through science and fiction, and a writing course where students bring science-based manuscripts.

Djerassi said there's not much he'll miss at Stanford. Scientists focus on their next experiment, he explained, and his is writing.

With his books and novels spread before him, he admits it can be frustrating for a successful person to start a new career. His scientific colleagues think he's dabbling in fluff; writers, already frustrated about how science is dominating the culture, see him as an interloper.

``It's not a supportive thing on either side,'' he said.

But he plans to keep going. His plays have been well-received, especially in Europe. Besides, he believes there's a place for didactic art (``didactic'' and ``pedagogy'' pepper Djerassi's speeches), showing his continued commitment to teaching. He wants to ``teach and amuse at the same time,'' he said.

``If you can,'' he said, ``I think it's a hell of a lot better than to just amuse.''

Hypothermia Helps Avert Brain Damage if Heart Stops (Reuters):

Lowering the body temperature of a heart attack victim once the heart has been restarted can dramatically reduce the risk of subsequent death and brain damage, researchers from Europe and Australia reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

In separate studies, the scientists found that reducing the temperature to 91 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 12 hours increased the chances of survival in patients whose hearts had stopped for at least 5 minutes, and often far longer. Brain cells usually start to die after four or five minutes without oxygen. Normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The findings suggest the technique could save thousands of heart attack patients around the world from death or brain damage each year, researchers said.

Although further research is needed, "we recommend the use of mild hypothermia in survivors of cardiac arrests -- as early as possible and for at least 12 hours," said Drs. Peter Safar and Patrick Kochanek of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, in an editorial in the Journal....

In the larger test, led by Dr. Michael Holzer of the University Clinic for Emergency Medicine in Vienna, Austria, 275 patients at nine medical centers in five countries were either cooled for 24 hours or kept at normal temperature. In each case, at least five minutes -- but no more than 15 minutes -- had passed before resuscitation efforts were begun, and a normal heartbeat was restored within 60 minutes.

After six months, 41 percent in the hypothermia group had died compared to 55 percent of the patients whose bodies were kept at normal levels.

In addition, the likelihood of having a good recovery or only moderate disability was 55 percent among the people whose bodies were cooled, versus 39 percent for those who did not receive the hypothermia treatment....

Preliminary results from the group's follow-up study suggest infusing a patient with large volumes of ice cold saline solution may be even more effective at preventing brain damage than using ice packs.

Posted 7:26 PM by Blah blah

One more thing. Last night my phone rang, and it was a guy asking me to switch to Sprint long distance phone service. As usual, I started gushing about how happy I am with my current long distance/international phone service. "When you call them you always get a human being on the line! Do you know HOW cheap the rate is to...? Blah blah..." Instead of saying thank you and bye, the man started asking questions. "Hey, maybe I should look into your service," he said. "What's their #?" "Yeah man," I said. "You know this must be good, because they aren't even paying me to say this."

I was blown away. It was the first time I have been rung by a telemarketer and ended up selling HIM something!!! (To keep their small atmosphere and excellent customer service, I'm not gonna say what carrier it is here. If interested, just email me.)

I am very determined this week. It has been pure hell. One of the most exhausting weeks I have ever had. I stayed up till 3 am this morning, slept two hours, and have been up since 5 am. Had my first (and only?) meal of the day at 5 pm. It feels like two weeks has gone by, but it's only Wednesday! Arrgh. Typing this amidst bone-crushing fatigue.... Now I'm gonna collapse. See ya next week maybe.

Posted 1:14 AM by Blah blah

Web wife jilted on the auction block (The Register). This is just too weird. Background info. Her online auction entry: Kay Hammond, Internet Entrepreneur, Looking for a Husband.

The odds are against stock pickers (CBS MarketWatch):

Millions of investors think they, or somebody they hire, can successfully pick individual stocks.

But this is a challenge that eludes even the best and brightest of investors -- for reasons that aren't hard to find.

Q. I keep reading about how great index funds are, but I know people who've beaten the market year after year by picking good stocks. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to find great companies, invest in them and then hang on for the long term. Why don't you and other advisers admit that index funds are only average?

It's inevitable that every year some stock pickers will beat the market. That's a matter of random events, otherwise known as luck. But it's rare to find anybody, including professionals, who can beat the market year after year.

Only one mutual fund manager has beaten the Standard & Poor's 500 Index every year since 1990: Bill Miller at Legg Mason Value Trust. Even Miller, one of the best stock pickers of our time, lost money in his fund in 2000 and 2001. And he lagged 95 percent of other value funds in 2000 and was beaten by 74 percent of them in 2001.

Most mutual fund managers are highly compensated, highly motivated and backed by highly trained research staffs. These people are clearly some of the best brains in the country. You'd think they could succeed by picking the best companies and holding them.

But if it were that easy, everybody would do it. Why isn't it that easy?

Changes that can't be predicted are now common in American business. In 1957, there were 500 stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. Forty years later, in 1997, only 74 of those companies were still in the index. The rest are gone. Some were merged into other companies, but many just couldn't keep up with the rapid pace of change and were shoved aside by newer competitors.

Now imagine that in 1957 you had somehow been smart enough to pick the 74 surviving companies and invested in them. Your results would have been disappointing: You would have underperformed the index by more than 20 percent, according to Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan in their book, Creative Destruction.

Why? Perhaps it's the luck of the draw. Of those 74 companies only a dozen outperformed the index from 1957 through 1998, according to these authors. That's 12 companies out of 500, or 2.4 percent of the total, that were above average for 42 years.

That, of course, is the past. Before these two business experts published their book last year, they looked into the future with a huge amount of knowledge and insight that wasn't available in 1957. Their book focuses on "companies that are built to last." So their ideas might be useful to anybody trying to pick stocks today that will stand the test of time.

Early in the book, Foster and Kaplan state that "no more than a third of today's major corporations will survive in an economically important way over the next 25 years." Those survivors, they say, will have to be masters at re-creating themselves and their businesses.

"Never again will American business be as it once was. The rules have changed forever," they wrote. "Some companies have made the crossing." The authors then cite four U.S. companies as examples of the new leaders: General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Corning and Enron.

Enron? Yes, Enron.

The company that's now the center of one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history "has made strong progress by transforming itself from a natural gas pipeline company to a trading company," the authors wrote. Of the four companies, they said, "These are the exceptions. Few have attempted the journey. Fewer still have made it to the other side successfully."

This is not meant to pick on these authors. In fact, quite the contrary: They were working from the best information and insights they had. And in less than a year, one of their prime examples makes them look silly. The point is that picking tomorrow's business winners is tougher than it seems, even with all the time and resources of experts writing a book.

Investors who try to pick the best long-term investments run the risk of falling into the exact same trap.

Investors can try to overcome this problem in many possible ways. The most common way is to try to pick the smartest stock pickers. But just as today's most promising stock can become an embarrassment, today's smartest stock-picking guru is likely to become tomorrow's average manager.

But the best way to overcome this problem is to accept the constantly changing nature of the business world. It's easy and inexpensive to let the market itself do the work. The vehicle is a Standard & Poor's 500 Index fund, the biggest of which is Vanguard 500 Index Fund.

In the case of Enron, the index automatically protected investors through a very basic technique: diversification. Even when it was the third-largest company in the index, Enron made up less than 2 percent of the portfolio.

Some people think the S&P 500 Index is only "average." But of the thousands of mutual funds in business, only one has beaten that index in each of the past 12 calendar years. That certainly makes the index good enough for me.

Posted 6:37 PM by Blah blah

Check out Neemanet.com---another Renaissance man's homepage. Fascinating. Neema posted pix of his travels around the world for eight months between Oct. 2000 and May 2001.

Was talking to Rose about favorite foods. My mom is an excellent cook. A while back, I'd asked her to tell me the secrets behind some of her outstanding creations, which I wrote in a notepad. Here's my all-time favorite food she makes! I swear...I kill for this.

Sweet Rice with Chicken (Giam Bung, copyright by Mom)

- 5-6 cups glutinous (sweet) rice
- 1 chicken, cut into large chunks
or boneless thigh, 4 pieces, cubed
- dried mushrooms (get the big, ear shaped black kind...not button mushrooms)
- dried shrimp
- soy sauce
- salt
- sesame oil
- garlic, ginger (2 slices, shredded)
- black-eyed beans


Soak beans in water at least 3 hours, until skin is enlarged. Soak mushrooms and shrimp in water 1 hour. Slice mushrooms in long strips (Julian). Save mushroom and shrimp soaking water.

Heat vegetable oil in saucepan. Saute w/ garlic and ginger. Add chicken. After a little cooking, add shrimp and mushrooms. After some cooking, add beans. Later add soaking water (shrimp & mushroom), soy sauce, and salt.

Put raw sweet rice in rice cooker (preferably one that allows water around the inside container). First, barely cover rice w/ water. Add all the cooked chicken, etc. onto rice. Put about 2 cups water around, inside container. (Allows greater heat and steam.) Cook everything.

When done, mix all with sesame oil.

You may also cook in a wok at high temperature. I'm not sure if you just cook the rice separately and add it to the chicken in the wok. But I love it when the rice at the bottom is slightly burnt and crispy!

Serves only one. ME!

Do any of you have suggestions or your own sweet/sticky rice recipes? It's like the rice you usually see for dim sum, wrapped in a banana leaf. I can't get enough of it!

Posted 9:24 PM by Blah blah

Life is just rushing by. Sorry, guys, I don't have time to write anything. Please come back in about a week. Of course, you may always call or email me!

Ok, it's back to the treadmill. Have a more relaxing week than I...