Foul Ups

Today we revisit recent posts with new information and assess a plot twist for Big Love.

As Good As News was dead wrong in not picking Justine Henin to win the US Open singles (original post - Scouting Report - September 3). The problem may have started in the semis, where Venus Williams was holding her own in the second set, despite spraying some forehands long. Suddenly, Venus was asking the chair umpire for help from the trainer, which is allowed, but not until the next changeover. Bang, Venus loses three points and her service game in no time. By the time the trainer can get on court to take Venus's pulse the match is out of control. Henin wins in straight sets, shows up for the final rested and confident and handles Kuznetsova with ease. The Kuznetsova pick assumed that an exhausted Williams or Henin would struggle into the final, but Henin looked like she could have handled Kuznetsova even if Henin had been worn down by Venus.

As Good As News gets partial credit for spotting mixed doubles champ Victoria Azarenka as a talent to watch. Perhaps we can still redeem ourselves completely if we get lucky with the courageous pick of Roger Federer as men's singles champ.

The Golden Gate Bridge authority should be collecting royalties from Ghirardelli Chocolates( original post - Golden Gate Could be Golden - August 26). Take a look at the ad on the back cover of the Times Magazine. Great photo of the bridge at night, how about a small contribution to keep that bridge beautiful, not to mention safe.

A Fugitive Political Fund Raiser Leaves A Shadowy Money Trail - Mystery campaign contributor Norman Hsu may not be so rich, he filed for bankruptcy in Hong Kong in 1998. He is in custody. Bits and pieces of information are emerging. Hsu was clearly using a shell company to shuffle money around, in one month in 2003 taking $600,000 from various sources, including $200,000 from two individuals, and then transferring $600,000 to other individuals who contributed money to the Clinton campaigns through Hsu. This looks like a mechanism to help the sources for these funds circumvent limits on campaign contributions. Hsu's lawyer denies "Hsu provided money for others to make contributions", but the statement was narrowly worded. Reimbursing for prior contributions is equally illegal, and defense counsel's statement includes only Hsu, not his companies.

A $100,000 political contributor who's using a shell game to avoid detection usually wants something in return, access at the very least. Someone was almost certainly paying for the full attention of Senator Clinton, although if everything was presented through Hsu and his straw man donors Hillary may well not have known about the shenanigans to avoid contribution limits. How Hsu evaded campaign finance laws will be interesting - but, because she is not an idiot, we will find Hillary did not know anything about violations of campaign finance law. Watch for a deeper issue - who were the fat cats that funded the contributions Hsu managed? What issues mattered to these fat cats? What positions did Hillary take on these issues and how active was she? In other words, what did Hsu's backers get for their money.

Boys Cast Out By Polygamists Find New Help - The arithmetic of polygamy creates a problem. If a man is supposed to have four wives, and if the birthrate is 50/50 male/female, then what do the three males who are shut out of the marriage market do? Not something we think about every day in New Jersey, but the numbers don't lie - it's a serious problem. In the fundamentalist LDS sect run by Warren S. Jeffs the unlucky extra males are selected, ejected and shunned as teens, usually on the basis of a pretext that makes the kids believe they are doomed to eternal damnation. Ejection also creates some immediate problems, like loss of family, food, clothing and shelter. The families, even many of the male teen victims, remain true believers in Mr. Jeffs' vision. To the non-believer the power of faith and 24/7/365 conditioning is amazing. With this kind of hold on his sect, it's surprising Jeff's doesn't turn the extra males into a militia of suicide bombers. No wife for you in this life, but if you take out an IRS agent or a Federal Marshall you'll find forty virgins when you get to heaven. Fortunately Mr. Jeffs is about to stand trial on charges of sexual exploitation, but watch for the bachelor militia angle in the season finale of Big Love.

Finally, even the Times does not understand it's own general approach to headline capitalization. The notion that any rule applies seems to be a massive oversimplification perpetrated by the naive here at As Good As News. In the polygamy story headline, "By" is capitalized in the hard copy, but not on line. Since a preposition should not be capitalized in the "rule" As Good As News derived by observation, this may be a simple correction. Maybe the e-crew took the opportunity to fix a mistake that slipped by the hard copy gang working on deadline. I think it's actually a sinister plot to drive me nuts.

With the Cinnamon Girl

Scouting -Yawn -Report - Posting late and bleary today as the grind of watching late night tennis is catching up with me. This would be really horrible if As Good As News was a real job. As the US Open reaches the singles semis As Good As News stands by its early predictions. Venus is still outplaying all women, but a rested Svetlana Kuznetsova will emerge from the unsung lower half of the draw to grab the title from the Henin-Williams survivor. Federer remains king, unless the succession of late, late night starts confuses him. Notice how he's starting to look grumpy in the photo from this morning's practice? Maybe he will show up for a Letterman appearance instead of the final, there is no other way this guy will lose. That's our story and we're sticking to it.

Before we move to the headlines - a first from As Good As News, a shameless plug- buy the July 2007 issue of the Comstock Review (a poetry journal) which includes work from Julie Hassett. I have been lucky enough to hear some of her poems. If you were ever married, raised a teenager, lived through the death of a loved one then you will be moved, cry, laugh out loud. $9 per copy, order from:

Peggy Sperber Flanders
Associate Managing Editor
The Comstock Review
4956 St. John Drive
Syracuse, NY 13215
http://www.comstockreview.org/

Clinton Donor Fails to Appear In Court Again - OK, Times headliners- what are your mysterious rules of capitalization. As Good As News thought the riddle was solved. Capitalize the initial letter of the first word in every headline and the initial letter of every other word except for articles, prepositions and conjunctions. This approach explained every headline I noticed for a few weeks, but the pesky "I" in "In" is now driving me nuts. What possible rule, consistently applied, would capitalize "In" but not "to" in the Clinton Donor headline?

By the way, where are Hsu, Norman? The Chinese garment industry multi-millionaire, peerless Democratic fund raiser, FOB and FOHillary too, and trustee of the New School is on the lam again. Why did he come back to the US from the safety of China after skipping out on his initial conviction? How did he remain unnoticed through years of fame following his return? Why didn't someone put cuffs on him once they realized his identity a few weeks ago? This guy's story is more confusing than the capitalization in his headline.

What Do Young Jobseekers Want (Something Other Than the Job) - For over 65% of young job seekers it's more important to be in the right location than the best possible job. The right location is safe, clean and green - and conducive to a lifestyle the respondent considers desirable. A couple of the top ten cities are places As Good As News would visit only on business, and since we are retired that will not be happening soon, but in general we get the idea. Based on informal observation of my immediate family at least 50% of college students seem to be emphasizing location over job description at this time. The story is oblivious to a critical concern - the Neil Young factor. Especially for grad students and post collegiate workers, taking a job based on the location of your significant other has to be the number one priority for many job seekers. As Good As News is coming to you from the NY area because, today and thirty years ago, I want to live with the cinnamon girl, so I can be happy for the rest of my life.

Department of Just Right - The NY Times story is a rave review of the A.P.C. clothing line with store in SoHo. Post here is about the story title. As Good As News loves the Department of Just Right, sounds like it should be a hip boutique for witches and warlocks in Diagon Alley or maybe the cabinet ministry in charge of law enforecement in Monaco .