http://www.wbaltv.com/video/21812236/

Woods' fall from grace rekindles role-model debate

DAVID CRARY 

NEW YORK — Tiger Woods was different, or so he seemed, with his unmatchable talent and carefully burnished image. Unlike some pro athletes, he had welcomed being a role model. He was, it turns out, too good to be true, and his fall from grace calls into question the very idea of sports hero worship.

"No one has approached this level of perfection on and off the playing surface, maybe ever, without a single blot or tarnish," said Dave Czesniuk, director of operations for Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society.

"The real story here is the meeting of expectations with reality," Czesniuk said. "The guy's a human being and we forget that."

Woods' apology Wednesday for unspecified "transgressions" — coinciding with reports of repeated marital infidelity — was, on one level, only the latest in a long sequence of superstar downfalls.

Michael Phelps was photographed with a marijuana pipe. Marion Jones had her Olympic medals stripped for doping that she long denied. Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez faced dual allegations of steroid use and adultery. And so on.

Woods, however, was unique — a globally recognized brand name that evoked impeccability and historical greatness. His sponsors and handlers, his admiring chroniclers in the media, and especially Woods himself contributed to the image-making.

"The public had become jaded and indifferent — they expected Barry Bonds and Marion Jones and Sammy Sosa to fall," said psychologist Stanley Teitelbaum, author of "Sports Heroes, Fallen Idols."

"But no one really expected that of Tiger Woods," he said. "Now that it happens to him, people are not as indifferent — there's more disappointment and more disillusionment."

Steve Elling, senior writer for CBSSports.com, wrote this week that fans and sportswriters, himself included, were gullible in placing Woods on so high a pedestal.

"We have learned by now to invest admiration in public figures with a grain of salt. With Woods, we just ate the whole salt lick," Elling wrote. "Say it with me: Never, ever again."

Woods, for all his preoccupation with mastery on the course, had managed throughout his career to be viewed as more than just a golfer — loving son to his parents, civic-minded creator of a foundation serving disadvantaged children, devoted father who said he'd play less golf so he could spend more time with his two young children.

He didn't embrace social causes, and sometimes there were brief flashes of temper or crudeness. But as far back as 1997, he was on record aswelcoming the responsibilities of role model.

"I think it's an honor to be a role model," he was quoted as saying in a Business Week article. "If you are given a chance to be a role model, I think you should always take it because you can influence a person's life in a positive light, and that's what I want to do. That's what it's all about."

If that was Woods' goal, Teitelbaum said it had been achieved.

"In terms of a role model, he's A-one," the psychologist said. "The fans, and especially kids, are desperate to have role models to look up to. ... People have made him the designated sports hero.

"When you're among the high-flying and adored, your public will give you unconditional love as long as you continue to perform," Teitelbaum added. "But there's a responsibility to be that much more careful and that much more transparent and, when something does happen, to deal with it openly."

The depths of sudden disillusionment with Woods have been almost tangible. According to Zeta Buzz, which tracks millions of blogs and social media posts, online references to Woods had been 91 percent positive before his recent troubles and by Thursday had dropped to 57 percent positive.

The owner of a youth-oriented Internet site called Role Models on the Web said Thursday he'd been inundated with hateful e-mails and phone calls for leaving a flattering entry about Woods on the site.

"Should he be considered a moral role model? No," said Lamar Brantley of Sarasota, Fla. "But through his foundation, he's done a lot of good."

Above the Woods entry on the Web site, Brantley added this update:

"I will leave Tiger up as a role model as I believe it is probably a good topic for discussion in your family. If you do or do not believe him to be a role model of any kind, discuss it with your children."

Countless parents have been forced into similar conversations in recent years as drug and sex scandals entangled star athletes in numerous sports.

"There's an important parental role to play with kids," said Joe Kelly, founder of a national fatherhood group called Dads and Daughters. "You need to make clear that role models are just models — they're not without flaws, and we will be disappointed by them sometimes, the same way we're disappointed by our parents sometimes."

Kelly said he retained a degree of admiration for Woods because of the golfer's past comments about how much it meant to become a father.

"We have higher responsibilities as fathers, rather than responding to every impulse and desire we might have," Kelly said. "When it comes to being a father, we have to be the grown-up. When we act like children, the fallout is terrible."

Some of Woods' admirers believe he will redeem himself, not only through further golfing excellence but also through a show of character.

"He is distinctive in myriad ways — not only his talent, but his extraordinary level of discipline," said Dan Doyle, director of the Institute for International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. "What I think will happen is Tiger will never make this kind of mistake again."

"The fact that he made what is clearly a big error does not dismiss him as someone who can have a tremendous effect on society and youth in the future," Doyle added. "People will give him a second chance, and he will make good on that second chance."

___

December 04, 2009 04:55 AM EST

Ga. mall evacuated after man dressed as elf tells Santa he's carrying dynamite; no bomb found

 Associated Press 9:10 a.m. EST, December 4, 2009

9:32 a.m. Dec. 2, 2009

Sterling Heights police seek bubble gum bandits

Police in Sterling Heights are warning merchants there’s a group of bubble gum bandits on the loose.

In the latest heist, two thieves chatted with the clerk of the Speedway gas station at 15 Mile and Ryan at 9:30 p.m. Nov. 21 while another man cleaned out the candy aisle of $318 in gum, according to police.

Police in Warren and Madison Heights also reported similar thefts at gas stations there.

Man arrested after hiding in Fairfield Walmart past closing time, trying to leave with cash

Toraine Norris -- The Birmingham News

December 02, 2009, 6:09PM

  A Mississippi man took holiday shopping to a whole new level last week, police in Fairfield said.

  Police said James Jefferson Jr. hid inside the Walmart on Aaron Aronov Drive on Nov. 25 shortly after the store closed at 11 p.m. and helped himself to $54,000 in cash and checks.

A store security guard subdued Jefferson after he went to the locked doors and attempted to get out. As Jefferson shook the doors, money bags from the store began falling out of his clothing, police said.

  When officers arrived they found money strapped to Jefferson's chest, in his backpack and in his pants. Officers also confiscated a duplicate key from Jefferson he used to enter the cash room.

  Jefferson, 35, also told police "I did not do this by myself. You are a cop, how do you think I got the key?," according to the police report. Police have not said whether they think he had an accomplice.

  Chief Pat Mardis said Jefferson likely could have made an escape if he had only waited for the employees who were stocking the store to unlock the doors.
  "They said if he had waited about 20 more minutes, he could have been gone for good," Mardis said. "But he got nervous."

  Jefferson was in the Jefferson County Jail this afternoon on robbery and burglary charges. His bond was set at $60,000.

  Mardis said Jefferson is facing the robbery charge because he told the security guard he had a gun and threatened to shoot him. Jefferson did not have a gun.

Wife tried to kill hubby's baby by mistress

Last Updated: 1:43 PM, December 5, 2009

NY Post

Posted: 4:33 AM, December 5, 2009 

A Brooklyn woman concocted a twisted plot to kill the unborn child of her husband’s pregnant mistress — duping her into taking medicine that could make her lose her baby, police said yesterday.

Even after the victim gave birth early because of the toxic drug, Kisha Jones, 31, continued her evil scheme by trying to feed suspicious milk to the baby in the neonatal intensive care unit, sources say.

The bizarre tale unfolded in October, when Jones became enraged after she learned her hubby, Anthony, was cheating and had sired a baby with his lover, Monique Hunter, 25, of Flatbush, cops said.

 Late that month, Jones allegedly obtained a doctor's prescription pad and tricked the seven-months-pregnant Hunter into taking a drug used to induce abortion.

Cops said Jones called Hunter using an electronic gadget that transmits bogus phone numbers to caller-ID devices, allowing her to pretend to be the assistant of the woman's doctor.

"I got a call from my doctor's office telling me to pick up a prescription at King's Pharmacy," Hunter, a nursing student at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, told The Post. "I knew something was suspicious because King's Pharmacy was not my normal pharmacy. But I didn't think anything of it."

The new mom said that she thought the call from Jones was legitimate because her doctor's number appeared on her caller-ID. She also was expecting to get a refill of a drug for her cervix.

"I didn't go and pick it up immediately," she said. "A week later I received another phone call telling me to pick up my prescription, so I went and picked it up and I took my pill."

But instead of the drug she expected, Hunter wound up getting a dose of the abortion-causing pill Cytotec, which the unsuspecting mother ingested on Oct. 27. She immediately went into labor and was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where the baby was delivered and put into the neonatal ICU.

Fortunately, the boy was born healthy and she named him Anthony Jones Jr. after his father.

But Jones' alleged plot didn't end there. Sources said she continued to target the innocent infant.

On Nov. 3, she allegedly called the hospital posing as the boy's mother, telling the staff she had pumped breast milk at home and wanted it given to the baby.

Later that day, a man showed up with two 20-ounce water bottles that purportedly contained the milk. Hospital staff immediately became suspicious because the liquid did not have the consistency of breast milk, and they called cops.

Police initially thought Hunter was targeting her own baby. But after investigating the case, cops followed a trail back to Jones, who herself has a few children with her husband, including a baby.

The suspect was arrested Thursday and charged with reckless endangerment, forgery of a prescription, criminal impersonation and attempted abortion, police said.

Police said Jones' husband had no role in the plot, though they were looking for the man who delivered the milk.

December 4, 2009

The Sun

Tiny treasure ... silicon treeHe was made out of tin by scientists at the National Physical Laboratory, London, who also created a silicon Christmas tree, left, half the width of a hair.

HERE is the world's tiniest snowman - 0.025mm high or a fifth of the width of human hair.

Verizon Wireless doubles early-termination fee for smart-phone users

Critics say charges intended to prevent customers from defecting; company says it offsets costs of pricey handsets

David Lazarus

Tribune Newspapers

December 4, 2009

Before you go shopping for a new smart phone this holiday season, keep this in mind: Verizon Wireless, the largest provider of mobile-phone services, has doubled its early termination fee for high-end handsets if you decide to go with a different carrier.

The company used to slap you with a $175 charge for jumping ship after a 30-day trial period. Now that penalty is $350. The fee applies to BlackBerrys, the much-touted new Droid and other smart phones capable of sending and receiving text messages and e-mails and accessing the Internet.

"We increased the early-termination fee for advanced devices to reflect the higher costs associated with offering those particular devices to consumers at attractive prices and investing in our network to support these devices," said Ken Muche, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. "These costs are higher because advanced devices require more complex chipsets, microprocessors and licensed software that perform more functions than other phones."

But consumer advocates and some customers say high early termination fees are little more than a way to hold people hostage.

Denise Netzley, 46, who hadn't been aware of the $350 fee as she shopped for a smart phone at a Verizon Wireless store, said those fees should be clearly posted.

Muche said Verizon smart-phone customers can choose to not have a two-year contract and can pick a one-year plan or pay on a month-to-month basis.

But if you opt for month-to-month payments, you'll have to pay the full price for your smart phone, which typically is a lot more than the price with a contract.

A Google-powered Droid phone, for example, will run you $299.99 with a two-year contract from Verizon. The price jumps to $369.99 with a one-year contract. If you skip the contract, that Droid will cost $559.99, not including monthly service charges beginning at $39.99.

Although Verizon's $350 fee sets a high watermark for such penalties, it's in keeping with the industry practice of offering cool handsets at reduced prices in return for customers agreeing to a long-term contract.

AT&T, for example, will smack you with a $175 fee if you exit your iPhone contract before two years are up. (The fee decreases by $5 for every month you have the phone.)

"This isn't about subsidies," said Joel Kelsey, telecommunications policy analyst for Consumers Union. "It's about punishing people for leaving the provider."

He noted that Verizon will lower its early-termination fee by $10 a month for each month you're with the company. But even if you stay for the full two years, your early termination fee still would be $110. "If this was really a subsidy, that fee should be zero by the end of the contract," Kelsey said. "This shows that the early termination fees they're charging don't actually reflect the cost of the discounted phone."

Moreover, he pointed out that even if you did buy your phone separately, you still would be paying the same amount for a Verizon service plan as someone with a subsidized phone.

"Shouldn't you be paying less, considering that they didn't subsidize your phone?" Kelsey asked.

The way things work now, consumers have a tough time knowing the actual cost of products and services they get from telecom companies. Phone manufacturers and service providers enter into deals, and the pricing gets muddled amid long-term contracts, fees and special discounts.

Consumer advocates say the first way to untangle this would be to end wireless exclusivity. All phones should work on all compatible networks -- particularly with all wireless companies building state-of-the-art networks to accommodate increasingly snazzy smart phones.

They also recommend an end to the practice of service providers "subsidizing" a product they don't make.

Concord's Scraggly Christmas Tree Stirs Controversy

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/21807520/detail.html

A simple question is sparking plenty of controversy. The question "Are you good without God?" is appearing on billboards across Baltimore.
CBS

Kelly McPherson

The billboards are reaching out to people who don't or aren't sure if they believe in God. Of course, it's got the Christian community talking.

"I don't think anybody can really be good without having a part of the God component inside of them," said Christian Life Church Senior Pastor Dr. Hugh Bair.

"And we believe clearly that one does not necessarily have to have God to have good," said First Unitarian Church Minister Rev. David Carl Olson.

The billboards are not just here in Baltimore.  They're in select states across the country.  Though they're already stirring up controversy, the real point is to get the conversation started.

"They might feel they're in a minority and this billboard is a way of saying if you're good without God, then you're not alone.  There are a lot of people like you, and we're trying to reach out to them," said Emil Volcheck, Baltimore Coalition of Reason.

The United Coalition of Reason paid for the campaign.  The local chapter, consisting of atheists, agnostics and humanists, says being vocal about not needing or believing in God can ostracize people in a society surrounded by churches and religion.

"I've only recently told my family and I decided to take a more active role and to help others who may feel afraid to speak up," said Gabriel Lockett, part of the Secular Student Alliance at UMBC.

Traditional churches take offense.

"A church is basically a visible presence that says we need God and what they are saying is they're undermining what church is really all about," Bair said.

The First Unitarian Church supports the billboard and is hosting the group's national speaker this weekend to preach about "good without God" and how it can play into even a churchgoer's beliefs.

"And even in a way of being religious that doesn't necessarily have God in it that we can still live ethical, moral, good lives," Olson said.

The non-theists say they're not trying to recruit people.  The traditional church says they've survived these sort of promotions before.

The campaign coincides with a book tour titled "Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe."  The tour stops in Baltimore on Sunday afternoon.

LINK TO VIDEO

http://wjz.com/seenon/billboards.controversy.2.1346662.html

Tiger Woods had a series of crashes

Tiger Woods was driving so erratically before his mysterious car crash that he careered into bushes and hedges, up two concrete curbs and swerved across a whole street before ploughing into a fire hydrant and a tree.

Nick Allen in Los Angeles
Published: 7:16PM GMT 03 Dec 2009

Happy times: Tiger Woods with wife, Elin Nordegren, at opening the ceremony for the Presidents Cup in San Francisco Photo: AP

The pinball trajectory of his Cadillac was revealed in a police sketch of the incident which shows the golfing superstar had a total of three collisions, not two as previously thought.

As he pulled out of his drive at 2.25am he mounted a concrete curb onto a grass verge. He then tried to turn left onto a road but went all the way across, up another curb and into some hedges.

SUV then careered left across an oncoming lanes on to his neighbour's lawn where he hit the fire hydrant, before crossing the neighbour's drive and colliding with a tree.

The bizarre series of collisions will raise further questions over what caused Woods to crash.

As he recovers from the wounds to his face and reputation the superstar golfer, is also facing a hefty hit to his wallet, being forced to renegotiate his prenuptial agreement, which could lead to his wife receiving a record breaking $300 million (£180 million) in any future divorce.

Woods and his wife Elin Nordegren, 29, are desperately trying to save their marriage and have been undergoing marriage counselling sessions several times daily at their home in Orlando, Florida.

When the couple married on Oct. 5, 2004, in a wedding at the exclusive Sandy Lane resort in Barbados, Mrs Nordegren signed an agreement which staggered payments and was initially modest by A-list celebrity standards.

It is said to have given her the right to $20 million (£12 million) after 10 years of marriage.

In light of Woods' recent "transgressions" the amount has been increased to $75 million (£45 million) and the period reduced to seven years.

But experts said Mrs Nordegren could ultimately end up with one of the biggest settlements in celebrity history, dwarfing the $150 million (£90 million) paid by basketball star Michael Jordan to his former wife Juanita.

Mrs Nordegren will also sign a nondisclosure form that will prevent her from ever telling her story.

Woods faced further public opprobrium yesterday from the fellow golfer who introduced him to his wife.

Mrs Nordegern was working as an au pair for Jesper Parnevik, a fellow Swede, when she met Woods at the 2001 British Open.

Parnevik, 44, said: "I'm kind of filled with sorrow for Elin since me and my wife are at fault for hooking her up with him, and we probably thought he was a better guy than he is.

"I would probably have to apologise to her and hope she uses a driver next time instead of a three-iron."

Did you feel it? Are you noticing? The new has fully arrived to replace the old, and the old is going to have to take a long nap under a tree and watch what happens while the new delves in even deeper and does the best it can under the circumstances.

There is much talk, for example, of the man known as President Obama, of his effect and impact so far, his supposed lack of marked accomplishment lo these first dozen months of this most historic and revolutionary of presidencies -- a period, by the way, I am absolutely convinced we will all look back on in 10 or 20 years and go, oh my God, there. Remember that? That was a time, wasn't it? We will sigh and smile and point at the historic pictures and say, dear God, how incredible that was. It was a difficult time, there was much acrimony and resistance, but it was amazing. And it changed everything.

But not so fast. Back here in the dwindling twilight of the '00s, there is much puling from the liberal left that Obama has not done nearly enough, quickly enough, that his list of accomplishments is no list at all and is more of a giant, infuriating shrug. Many are saying he's not all he's cracked up to be because he has yet to completely revolutionize every aspect of human life as we know it by instantly turning everything organic, curing all diseases and setting all gay military personnel free to romp in the fields of boot camp.

Where is the complete ideological overhaul of the entire federal government? Where is the Gandhi-like pacifism? Why are we sending 30K more troops to Afghanistan? What about my new job, my single-payer health care and my tiny car that runs on sunflowers and hemp popsicles? Indeed, rabid impatience has combined with impossible expectation to give many liberals a free ticket to the land of nonstop bitching. Alas.

Conversely, there is all manner of incoherent noise spewing like radioactive urine from the far right, a nonstop wail of childlike panic claiming that, because Obama behaves with unnerving calm, shakes hands with foreign dignitaries and doesn't seem interested in bombing everyone in a turban, he must be a socialist Muslim Nazi hell-bent on banning machine guns and killing all old Republicans in their sleep and replacing them with French-speaking hip-hop jazz musicians.

The good news is, both sides are wildly, fantastically, delightfully wrong. As Slate's Jacob Weisberg rightly points out, Obama has had a very first good year indeed, spectacular even, far better than most in major media acknowledge (but they will, they will). In fact, assuming health care passes, Obama will have accomplished more in his first year than any president in the history of the world, ever.

That might be an exaggeration. But I'm OK with that, because the basic idea is something that needs to be declared a bit more loudly. Nearly everything Bush tore down and decimated and humiliated to its very core, Obama has either restored, is in the process of restoring, or is set to restore. Even Afghanistan appears to have a coherent framework now (we shall see). And that's just the beginning.

Make no mistake, it is not all wine and roses and classy poetry slams in the East Room. Personally, I'm far from the nice swoon for Obama that I experienced when he swept to miraculous, world-altering victory, a swoon born in large part from the nearly unbearable sense of relief that Bush was finally gone. My appreciation is now tempered with harsh reality, as well it should be.

Then again, during the campaign, Obama admitted this exact fact himself, saying he was sure to make mistakes, that you would not agree with every decision, that there would be more bad news before we got back to the good. What a jerk. Oh wait.

Regardless, I had an ambitious idea, way back at the beginning of Obama's term, to keep a loose, running catalog of all his accomplishments, every announcement and policy shift, legislative act and executive order I could find that either reversed a toxic Bush agenda item or put into motion a progressive idea he'd mentioned during the campaign, everything from science to emissions, stem-cell research to women's rights. As the stories came across the wires, I'd grab the link and keep a master list. Just to see.

Ha. It didn't take long before I realized the utter futility of this plan. I simply could not keep up. There were too many, coming too quickly. What's more, many of the changes were not widely reported, were not shouted by the White House by a president seeking applause or a boost in poll numbers from a mal-educated, reactionary "base" who wouldn't be happy until every Planned Parenthood clinic was burned down and Jesus' face was on the dollar bill and the Indy 500 was declared a national holiday. For example.

The good news is, others took up this noble task, have tracked most of Obama's rather stunning, unsung achievements and policy nudges to date. And those changes are voluminous. Here's just one handy list, a quick rundown of about 90 of Obama's more noteworthy accomplishments, right off the top. Can you read it and not be impressed? Or do you get stuck on those handful that you disagree with, personal hot buttons that negate and blinder everything else? Shame.

The amazing thing is, this list is far from complete. Obama has actually accomplished even more, and shows no signs of slowing down. The Washington Post just reported, for example, that the Obama administration is now beginning to ban all lobbyists -- hundreds if not thousands of longtime influence peddlers -- from serving on federal advisory panels. Did you know? Probably not. It didn't get much coverage.

Huh. That's funny. I'm out of room. When I started this piece, I intended to mention Obama only briefly, just one example in a larger list of evolutionary energies that was to include music and food, technology and cars, love and sex, all sorts of myriad evolutions taking place in my world and probably yours as we dance down this wayward road.

But somehow, as I delved in a bit more deeply, as I scanned those lists and noted all the changes in a single year, I found myself reenergized, invigorated, slapped awake at the new tone and direction, the sheer scale of all the changes, and how we are no longer the rogue macho cowboy laughingstock jackass of the world.

Sure, there's still a long way to go. Yes, we're still invading Afghanistan. Wall Street is still packed with jackals and demons. DOMA still exists. All is far from perfect. But times have changed indeed. Things are most definitely not what they once were. I can think of no better news to report.

Would-Be Thief Hits KCRA 3 Vehicle

 

Holiday Shoppers Warned To Hide Goods In Cars

POSTED: 5:24 pm PST December 1, 2009
UPDATED: 11:30 am PST December 2, 2009

http://www.wbaltv.com/video/21792375/