Pithy Title Here

If you haven't been following the news, you might not be aware that News Corporation, owner of Fox, and Time Warner Cable have been in a rather ugly shouting match that will likely result in Fox pulling its programming and channels from TWC on New Year's Day. Let me explain: In the beginning, TV broadcasters put their programming out for free to viewers. If you had a TV and an antenna, you could tune in to NBC. Networks paid locally-owned TV stations to become network affiliates. Advertisers paid networks (and local affiliates) to support free delivery of TV. This was great, unless you lived in some remote area or in a deep mountain valley and couldn't pick up a signal. Thus, the invention of community antenna TV (aka "cable"). All was well. This was a pastoral era where man loved his fellow man, the Russians were the predictable-style bad guys. Life made sense. Then, it all went to hell. Quickly. See, cable was something you had to pay for. And that meant yo

First off, believe it or not, I have a lot to discuss. So, be on the lookout for more entries in coming days. Now, onto the matter at hand... I think this whole business about the state of airline security in the aftermath of a terrorist trying to blow up Delta/Northwest 253 on Christmas Day over Michigan... is stupid. I don't understand why there's an uproar because it's simple: airport security sucks. I don't mean the TSA people who perform the job. From what I can tell, they're doing fine. The system they have to operate under is what sucks. My surprise is that we haven't had this happen more often. The issue is not a failure of intelligence (I highly recommend you read Malcolm Gladwell's 2003 piece on this topic here ). The issue is related to the problem Gladwell points out though. Essentially, we treat every person going through security like they could be a terrorist. But... we do it in a way that is designed to cause no undue delay for we, the

As much as I talk about travel on here, I might as well look back at the year that was in that sense... First, let's look at the raw numbers of miles flown and flights: US Airways - 58,872 (55 flights)* Delta - 3,444 (6 flights) AirTran - About 700 (2 flights) Continental - 406 (2 flights) Southwest About 500 (1 flight) The star goes next to US Air because by the end of this month, I'll have been on 62 flights and well over 60,000 miles. And the crazy thing... more than 30,000 of them will have been since October 1, which means (if my math is right), due to US Air's fourth quarter promotion, I will vault from Gold status on US Air, to Chairman's. Which, frequent fliers will hear me here, is bad-ass. I should note here this wasn't all for business, though the vast bulk was. That said, a few vacation flights in there for sure. So, where was Jay? Here were some of my travel destinations: Atlanta New York Seattle Portland, OR San Francisco/Oakland Southern Califor

Well, here we are... another year of music to look at. Truth be told, it was a pretty weak year. I hate saying that, but I think it's true. The standout albums were easy to spot and the ones that came close had some serious flaws. We've been spoiled the last few years and this was the year the karma cycle paid us back. Still, the top 10 I have are excellent. And it was an excellent year for "electronic" music. As always, my top 10 has a "second opinion" so you know I'm not nuts (or at least someone is as nuts as me). First, a few notable albums that, in my mind were good, but not quite the top 10: U2 - No Line on the Horizon - This was easily U2's best entry since Pop . I know that a lot of U2 "fans" would dispute this, but these people seem to eschew creativity in favor of pedestrian arena rock. U2, for the first time in more than a decade took risks. And while it's not their best work ever, it's an album that shows tha