The SoapBoxers

Today is one of my favorite days of the entire year.  Major League Baseball’s All Star game is tonight.

There are many fans who don’t watch the All Star Game.  Many fans prefer the made-for-TV thrill of the home run derby over the actual game itself.  To me, this is quite simply blasphemy.

Growing up without cable TV, the only teams I ever saw on TV were the Cubs and whoever the Cubs were playing (on the rare occasion that there was a game on network television).  The All Star Game was the one day during they year when I would get to watch the brightest of baseball’s stars shine on the national stage.  Cal Ripken, George Brett, Kirby Puckett, Mark McGwire, Bo Jackson – what a great spectacle to see!

These days, I do have cable TV and am able to keep up on players by watching Baseball Tonight and Sports Center.  (Am I the only person who has the Baseball Tonight theme song as the ring tone on their cell phone?)  Nonetheless, the All Star Game remains a hallowed event for me.  I elevate it to a sports status that is second to baseball’s opening day – ahead of the baseball playoffs, the Super Bowl, Olympics, and the NCAA basketball tournament.

Dictator Selig suggest that we should watch the game “because it counts” – since MLB awards the All Star Game winner home field advantage in the World Series (a moronic idea, in my opinion).  When did it cease to count?  I have always cheered lustily for my beloved National League to throttle the hated American League – and I will continue to do so until you pry the baseball out of my cold, dead hands.

Toddler sexual abuse

Over the weekend,  there was a breaking news story about a 3 year old girl.  The girl had fallen, and was rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead as a result of the fall.  This would be sad enough, but authorities then took a 14 year old relative into custody on suspicion of sexual abuse.  (Due to the age of the victim and suspect, as well as the fact that the investigation is in the early stages, I am choosing to refrain from publishing the names).

It seems like sexual abuse cases involving toddlers is on the rise.  I completely fail to comprehend the mindset of the perpetrators, which I guess is a good thing.  When the victims are teenage girls, I have a loose understanding of how an adult might feel an attraction to the girl, simply because I was once a teenage boy who was attracted to teenage girls.  I definitely do not want to give the impression that I am condoning sexual abuse of teenagers – this is most definitely NOT the case.  I  am just saying that I can get a tiny bit of a glimpse into the twisted mind that would engage in these acts.

When the victim is a toddler, I really struggle to see how the attraction would develop.  I could watch a hundred toddlers all day, every day, and I am confident that no physical attraction would ever develop.  Maybe it’s the human instinct to shelter toddlers (not just our own children) from the dangers in the world (not just sexual predators, but cars, big dogs, and other things that might scare them) that precludes us from developing physical attraction toward them.

I hope that parents use these new stories as reminder to be cautious about the people who are allowed to be in close contact with their children.

On a slight tangent, an Iowa family added a second generation to its roster of pedophiles.  Brothers James and Roger Bentley were involved in crimes against 10 year old Jetseta Gage.  James was found guilty of sexually abusing Jetseta.  Roger, who had previous convictions for sex offenses, was found guilty in Jetseta’s 2005 murder.  Roger is currently serving two consecutive life sentences (one for kidnapping, one for murder) and James is serving 100 years for child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor.  Jetseta’s mother had dated both of the brothers in the past.

In June, Daryl Bentley, nephew of James and Roger, was arrested for sexually abusing a 4 year old girl.

Burr Oak Cemetery

A story that has been getting some national press coverage  are the crimes that have occurred at Burr Oak Cemetery near Chicago.  Burr Oak is a historic African-American cemetery.  I won’t pretend that I am an expert on the historical significance of the cemetery, because I am not.  However, the name was familiar to me, and there are very few cemeteries whose names I would recognize.

The story began when the owners of the cemetery called the cops regarding perceived irregularities.  It turns out that older graves sites were being unofficially excavated and the bodies dumped so that the perpetrators could then re-sell the plot.  They chose plots in the older part of the cemetary at first – grave sites that rarely had visitors.  More recent reports also indicated that they dug up graves in the “babyland” section of the cemetery (children’s graves) as well.  Initial reports indicated that at least 300 graves had been disturbed, but authorities said that this number was sure to rise.

I am saddened that someone would commit crimes against the dead and the families of the dead in order to make a quick buck.  The families have suffered enough from the death of their loved ones.  Now, many of these families will be unable to visit the grave site, because the body is no longer buried there.  It is uncertain how many of the bodies can be identified.

It is worth noting that authorities have repeatedly stated that it is not believed that the owners were involved in the scam.  The owners initially tipped off the police.  I am not exactly sure how the crime grew to such a large scale before the owners realized that there was a problem.  There is always the possibility that the owners are not actively involved in the day-to-day operations, or may not even live in the area.  The size of the cemetery – 158 acres, or nearly a quarter of a square mile – may have also made it easier for the criminals to hide their crimes.

Over the weekend

You might have taken a break from the internet over the weekend, but the staff of The Casual Obsever never sleeps – relentlessly working in an effort to create quality content every single day.  What happened at The Casual Obsever over the weekend?

• Friday – Kosmo’s eBook was launched.  If you’re not currently a regular visitor or RSS reader, considering subscribing to the RSS feed.  There will be a “footer” in the RSS feed that allows you to access the eBook.  Everything is completely free, of course.  A few clicks, and you’ll have a 50 page PDF of Kosmo’s fiction.  Free is good!
• Saturday – We cooked up the first pot of Saturday Stew.  Topics included baseball, Michael Jackson, and the auto industry.  On Saturday night, we announced the addition of Jonna Wibelius to the staff of The Soap Boxers.
• Sunday -The debut edition of Tyson Turner’s “North of the Border” column featured Tyson’s thought about what he finds most appealing about the United States.

To celebrate July 4th, and to just get away for a day, my girlfriend and I made the popular Winnipeg-Grand Forks drive for some shopping and to experience some American culture on Independence Day.  I was a little surprised at how deserted the main streets were.  The parking lots had as many cars with Manitoba plates as North Dakota plates.  Columbia Mall was nearly vacant.  It was an enjoyable day nonetheless, just not quite what I had expected.

I have traveled to a few different parts of the United States, mostly by car.  I have spent time in major cities such as Seattle, Chicago, and Minneapolis; and I have been to smaller towns in Pennsylvania, Idaho, and New York.  I also made the 14 hour drive to Mount Rushmore to see what the fuss is about.  In the end, there are four main things I have noticed that are common to all of these areas:

• Gas Prices.  Any time I hear an American complain about gas prices I want to slap them.  This weekend was no different.  While we measure our gas here in litres, the equivalent price right now in gallons is 4.056 per gallon.  In Grand Forks, a measly two hour drive south, gas was 2.499 a gallon at the Holiday gas station I filled up at.  That works out to a difference of 35 cents a litre up here.  I do a lot of driving for my job, and I can’t even begin to imagine how much money I’d save if I had those kind of gas prices to work with.  Given the price of flying these days, it is no wonder more and more people prefer to drive when heading to America.
• The Roads.  Perhaps this is an especially touchy subject at the moment given the horrid state of the Trans-Canada highway just east of Winnipeg right now, but the roads in the States (especially the Interstates) are far superior to what we have up here.  The physical conditions of the roads are better, the speed limits higher, and there are far more 2/3/4 lane roadways.  One of the best moments of the drive to Grand Forks is crossing the border to hit the 75 MPH Interstate 29 where travels are much more efficient.
• The Variety.  Naturally with so many more people in the United States, there is much more to offer.  As potentially nerdy as this sounds, one of my favourite stops anywhere south of the border is a grocery store (Target was this weekend’s choice).  I started down the cereal aisle to find Trix, Cocoa Pebbles, Apple Jacks, and several other unfamiliar varieties to choose from.  Also making it into my cart was Red Bull Cola, Blue Mountain Dew, Rice a Roni, some Bushes Beans, and other fascinating products which my Canadian mouth have never had the opportunity to taste.  Don’t worry, I kept it legal and didn’t bring back and meat or produce!
• The customer service.  It doesn’t seem to matter what industry we are talking, Canadians could learn a lot from their neighbours to the south in this area.  I find Americans to be much more helpful, smile more often, and have much better manners than Canadians whether I be shopping for a shirt or purchasing a burger for lunch.  I am not sure quite why this is.  Canadians and other countries seem to have the impression that Americans are jerks in a lot of ways, but I definitely don’t see it when it comes to someone helping me find the right size of pants.  Having said this, I have found Americans to be shockingly much more rude when dealing with them over the phone (though that is a story for another time).  My number one customer service award goes to the folks at Wall Drug in South Dakota (if ever travelling to Mount Rushmore this is a can’t miss – look it up online)

I don’t know when I will be back next to visit down south, but there are still many more places I plan on seeing.  I am glad to know that when I do go, I can count on the above four to be there for me to make my trip that much better.

We’re pleased to announce the addition of Jonna Wibelius to the staff of The Soap Boxers.  Jonna will write a monthly column that shares her thoughts of a US or world event from the perspective of an internation observer.  Jonna does not profess to be an expert on world affairs, and this is one of the reasons we wanted her to fill this role.  She will give the viewpoint of how an average citizen in another country may view an event.

Jonna is originally from Sweden,  but has also lived in England, Australia, Finland, and China.  Her current long-term base of operations is in China, but she is in Finland this summer.  Jonna details her adventures in China (and, now, in Finland) in her blog SHEinChina.

The Soap Boxers published a review of SheInChina back in May.

Catch Jonna’s columns beginning in August.

With the slotting of the weekly columns on Wednesday, Wednesday Wisps are probably going to be few and far between. Until the schedule is completely shaken out, Saturday Stew will take its place. Just like Wednesday Wisps, there will be a bunch of small ideas in the stew.

Baseball

Hermsen

Twins prospect B.J. Hermsen grew up a hop, skip, and a jump from my hometown. Iowa is, I’m fairly certain, the only state that has summer baseball for high schoolers – other states have it in the spring. This makes is fairly unusual for Iowa kids to get drafted very high, because they peak later than the other players, simply because the schedule is later (in fact, the season is still ongoing when the MLB draft occurs).

Last year, Hermsen dropped to the 6th round. He likely would have been picked higher, but he was also a stud quarterback in football, and there was uncertainty that he would sign. Well, the Twins offered him $650,000 and Hermsen signed.

At long last, Hermsen made his minor league debut on June 24. How did he do? He tossed six perfect innings. The bullpen closed the deal and they finished with a combined no hitter. Not a bad debut. Hermsen probably hated to come out of the game, but as a young kid who almost certainly was on a pitch count, the Twins front office probably would have fired the manager if he had pushed him too far in his pro debut!

How did he do for an encore? Not bad – he allowed 2 runs (1 earned), 4 hits, and a walk in 5 1/3 innings – pushing his ERA up to 0.79 for the season.

Hynick

And speaking of great pitching performances, Rockies farmhand Brandon Hynick was the Pacific Coast League pitcher of the week for the week ending July 5. He pitched in one game during the week, and threw a 7 inning perfect game. The teams were completing a suspended game that day, as well as playing another game, hence the shorter games (it is relatively common for minor league teams to play 7 inning games when there is a double header). It still counted as an official game, though – the 9th perfect game in the storied history of the PCL. The kicker? He did it at home, in the sky high altitude of Colorado Springs. If you think the air in Denver is thing, go to Colorado Springs some time!

Bluffer vs. Bargain

In January, I wrote an article entitled The Bluffer and the Bargain, highlighting Jason Varitek and Andruw Jones.  The gist is that I thought Varitek had overplayed his hand and that Jones  was a great pickup for the money, since the Dodgers were picking up nearly all his salary.

Nearly six months later, how are these guys doing?

Varitek is actually having a pretty good year, with  12 homers and a .825 OPS (through July 7).  This means I’m wrong, right?  Well, no.  In January, I said that he had put himself in a bad position by declining arbitration and would likely not sign for more than $5 million – half his 2008 salary.  What did he sign for – $5 million.  And most people felt that the Red Sox could have squeezed him a bit more.

Andruw Jones signed a $500K deal with the Rangers (don’t feel too bad for him, as the Dodgers are also paying him the remainder of a 2 year, $36 million deal he signed befor the 2008 season).  Jones has been a part time player and has been a bit up and down over the course of the season.  As I write this article on July 8, Jones just launched his 3rd homer o the game – bringing his season total to 14 homers in 160 at bats.  Bear in mind that a lot of players have around 300 at bats already.  This is great production from a $500K player.  Well played, Rangers.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson died with  a reported $400 million in debt, but also with substantial assets, including the rights to his own music and the music of other artists (including a share in the music of The Beatles).

I have a thought on a way for the estate to raise cash on pay off the debt.  Incorporate the major assets – form Michael Jackson Entertainment, Inc.  Then have an IPO.  Jackson fans – as well as other investors – could own a share of Jackson’s assets.  With the outpouring we have seen since Jackson’s death, what sort of money could an IPO raise?

Cars

I was discussing the auto industry with a friend of mine as we enjoyed lunch at the outside grill at Nelson’s Deli in Cedar Rapids (great burgers and brats!).  I began the conversation with this rather unconventional thought – “If we took all the money that was spent on research and development and infrastructure for cars and planes, we could build a nationwide teleporter network.  We’d only need one pod  per city block, since they would only be in use for a few seconds at a time.”

After Dave nearly spit Coke all over the table, he countered with a rational idea.  “How much cheaper would cars be if they didn’t include a warranty?”  At first, this seems like a crazy idea.  Who would buy a car without a warranty?  Warranties are a big reason why people buy new cars.

But take a deeper look at this.  Warranties, of course, are not free.  Car companies build the cost of warranty repairs into the cost of the car.  Basically, you are paying for the expected average cost of warranty repairs.  That doesn’t sound too bad, right?  Except that since warranty work can only be performed at authorized dealers, they’re building in the cost of dealership labor and OEM parts!  If you’re like me, you know a guy who can fix things with cheaper, non-OEM parts, as well as cheaper labor.  And my guy is just as good as the dealer (in some cases, clearly better than the dealer).

I don’t see this idea actually gaining any traction at all, simply due to the huge financial risk when it comes to cars.  Perhaps, though, there’s room for a warranty that only covers major repairs – perhaps with a $500 deductible.  How much money would this shave off the sticker price?

(Some of you already have sneak preview copies of the eBook … sorry, no new content for you today.  Read a few more stories in the book, if you haven’t finished.)

Note – this is a partial story – regular visitors will be able to access the full story – instructions at the bottom.

Key Relationships

Zach hefted his suitcase to the top of the stairs and rang the bell. He had packed a lot more than he typically would for such a short trip, but Kevin and Robyn had been very secretive about the details. All he knew is that they were leaving on Friday morning and returning late in the day on Sunday. They had been told to pack for any situation, so Zach had packed a mixture of casual and dress clothes.

Zach heard the distinctive clicking sound of high-heeled shoes crossing the hardwood floor toward the door. Robyn opened the door and invited him in.

“Hey, Zach, come on in and grab a seat. Now that everyone is here, we can get started.”
Zach was pleasantly surprised to see that his friends had left the comfy brown recliner unoccupied. These guys were the absolute best. He settled into the chair and Kevin started to talk.

“OK, guys. Robyn and I promised you a fun trip this weekend. Well, that’s somewhat true. There will actually be three trips this weekend, though, instead of just one.”

Zach was a bit confused. A quick glance around the room confirmed that he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t following along. Brooke gave him a quizzical look from the couch. Zach could only shrug his shoulders in response.

…

How do you like the story so far?

This particular story will NOT be available on the blog!  It will only be available as part of an eBook that I am giving away to my most valued regular readers.  Don’t worry, it does not cost any money, not do you have to give up any personal information.

If you are a regular reader through the web site, look up at the blue bar at the top of the screen.  You should see the text “Free eBook” toward the right edge of the bar.  If you don’t see this, then you’re just a wee bit shy of being a “regular reader”.

If you are an RSS subscriber, look at the bottom of this story.  You will see a “Free eBook of short stories” link directly to the left of the copyright notice.

Clicking on either of this links will get you to the correct page to download the eBook.  The eBook contains sixteen stories.  Fifteen of the stories have been featured on The Soap Boxers.  The first story in the eBook – Key Relationships – cannot be found on the blog, and it is much longer than any of the stories that have appeared in the blog (24 pages long, in fact).

I hope you enjoy the eBook!

If you aren’t a regular visitor, you can get the eBook by simply subscribing to the RSS feed – or simply look around the site and read a few stories.  Before long, we’ll think of you as a regular visitor.

If you run into any problems, just send me an email at kosmo@observingcasually.com

In the wake of the Madoff and Stanford scams, “Ponzi Scheme” is a term that gets thrown around a lot.  A Ponzi Scheme is a fraud in which one set of investors is paid off with money collected from the next set of investors.  In other words, I take $10 from Amos on Monday.  I take $10 from Bob and Barb on Tuesday and use this money to pay interest to Amos.  I take $10 from Chris, Casey, and Clara and Wednesday and use this money to pay interest to Bob and Barb.  Everything works very nicely as long as each successive group of investors is larger than the next (or until the authorities figure out what is going on).  Ponzi schemes can expand more rapidly when investors reinvest their profits rather than collecting them in cash.

The Ponzi Scheme  is named after its most famous perpetrator, Charles Ponzi.  Today, I’ll tell you a bit about Charles Ponzi.  However, the accuracy of the information is questionable, mostly because Charles Ponzi deviated from the truth quite often, and it could be difficult to separate his lies from the truth.

Ponzi was born in Italy in 1882 and immigrated to the United States in 1903.  When the ship arrived in Boston, he had just $2.50 in his pocket.  You shouldn’t feel sorry for young Mr. Ponzi, though – the reason why he had so little money is because he had gambled away the rest of his savings during the journey across the ocean.

Ponzi worked odd jobs, eventually landing a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant.  Ponzi worked his way up to being a waiter, and things were beginning to look up for him.  Unfortunately, Ponzi was supplementing his income by short-changing the customers and stealing from the restaurant.  His employer was not pleased with this behavior, and Ponzi was jobless.

Ponzi moved to Canada and became an assistant bank teller at a bank in Montreal.  The smooth talking Ponzi worked himself up to bank manager.  Unfortunately, this job ended when the bank went belly up and the bank’s owner fled to Mexico with the remainder of the bank’s assets.

Ponzi was nothing if not resourceful, though.  He wrote himself a check from the checkbook of a former customer of the bank and quickly found himself behind bars.

After getting out of prison in 1911, Ponzi moved back to the United States, where he was soon arrested for his involvement in a plan to smuggle illegal Italian immigrants into the country.  (Hey, is anyone else noticing that Ponzi is building a rather lengthy rap sheet?)

Interestingly, Ponzi’s trademark criminal endeavor had its roots in one of the few legal ideas Ponzi ever had.

Ponzi became aware of an International Reply Coupon.  These don’t exist any more, but I’ll try to explain them.  Basically, if you were in the United States and wanted to send a letter to Italy, you might purchase an International Reply Coupon (IRC) to include with your letter.  Your Italian recipient would use the IRC as postage.  Essentially, this was courtesy similar to sending a self addressed stamped envelope today.

The aspect that interested Ponzi is that IRCs were purchased at the postage rate in the purchaser’s country, but could be used for postage in any country, even if the postage rate in that country was higher.  For example, let’s say that postage in Italy was 25 cents and postage in the US was 50 cents.  Someone in Italy could buy an IRC for 25 cents and include it in a letter to the US.  The US recipient could then use the IRC for postage, even though US postage was 50 cents.

Ponzi’s plan was to purchase IRC in countries where they were priced low and sell them in countries where they were priced high.  For example, purchase 1000 IRCs in Italy at 25 cents each ($250) and sell them in the US for 50 cents each ($500) – a tidy profit on your investment.  This is a concept called arbitrage and it is perfectly legal.  (For the Seinfeld fans among you, this may conjur memories of Kramer and Newman making a run to Michigan with a mail truck full of aluminum cans).

Ponzi had his relatives in Italy purchase IRCs.  Ponzi ran into difficulties attempting to redeem the coupons, and eventually stopped handling the coupons at all.  However, he told everyone that his company was indeed buying and selling the international reply coupons and making a sizeable profit – but the redemption method was a secret.  Ponzi would make you 50% profit in 45 days or 100% in 90 days.  The early investors reaped big profits and told their friends, those friends told others, and the scheme was off and running.  At its peak, the scheme was taking in $250,000 per day – in 1920 dollars!

Were some folks skeptical of Ponzi’s promises?  Yes, of course.  When a writer claimed that such returns could not possibly be achieved from legal activities, Ponzi sued him for libel – and won a $500,000 judgment! 

Eventually, all good things must come to an end.  The Boston Post hired Charles Barron (the man whose name adorns a financial magazine to this day) to investigate Ponzi.  Barron’s findings?  That 160 million IRC must be in circulation in order for Ponzi’s claims to be mathematically possible.  Unfortunately, only 27,000 actually were in circulation – and the US government indicated that there was no unusual activity with IRCs.  Clearly, Ponzi was not telling the truth.  The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing Ponzi’s scheme.

When Ponzi’s scheme eventually imploded, he took down six banks.

Ponzi was sentenced to five years on federal charges of mail fraud (for sending information to investors through the mail) and served three and a half years.  He then faced state charges in Massachusetts for larceny.  The slick talking (and broke) Ponzi acted as his own attorney.  In his first trial, he won an acquittal on ten charges.  A subsequent trial resulted in a conviction on five other charges, and Ponzi was sentenced to serve between seven and nine years.

While on bail, Ponzi attempted to sell Florida swamp land to investors.  He jumped bail on that charge and attempted to flee to US by ship.  He was captured in New Orleans and was sent back to Massachusetts to serve out his prison term of seven years – interestingly, with no additional prison time for jumping bail.

After Ponzi was released in 1934, the US government had him deported to Italy as an undesirable alien – it turns out that Ponzi had never actually become a citizen.  Benito Mussolini gave Ponzi a job in the finance section of the government.  (Seriously, Mussolini – are you reading the papers?)  Ponzi eventually (gasp!) fled the country with money from the Italian treasury.

Ponzi died in poverty and poor health in Rio de Janeiro in 1949.

Wikipedia was a source for this article.

 As this is my first article for this wonderful site I will keep the writing general in order to introduce my point of view to all of our readers and open discussion.  Future articles will focus on specific events in the news.  First off, my views are not a commentary on any of the religions that are involved in the conflict in the Middle East as even though I believe the conflict does stem from religious differences it also stems from man’s ultimate love and struggle for power.

In my opinion the crisis in the Middle East has been miss managed for years by virtually any government that has gotten involved as some basic fundamental understanding of the situation is missing.  Perhaps understanding may even be a strong word as these players do understand what is going on but politically and in public they cannot admit to it.  Here in my mind are the basics which drive the conflict.

One, a majority of the conflict is driven by a minority of extremists who have been very effective in using the media to portray their views as a majority view.  Two, it has to be recognized that the minority from the Muslim side that is driving this extremist view has a very simple agenda which is to eliminate Israel from the face of the planet.  This is in their doctrines, it is their mission statement (loosely using that term) and it is the political agenda that gives them power in the region.  Three, the conflict has nothing to do with a few miles of land.

These three points demonstrate why a majority of the efforts to solve the Middle East feuds have failed.  In short, organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas are extremists groups that have legitimized themselves by creating a political agenda whose only mission it to eliminate Israel.  While this mission is masked by cries of freedom for the Palestinians and cries of Israeli oppression the truth is that these organizations need the conflict to continue in order to maintain political importance till they can achieve their mission.  That leads to the root cause of the failures of the past.  All the relevant players have concentrated on appeasement of these extremist organizations in order to sacrifice a little for the greater good of ending the conflict.  But if the conflict were to end in any peaceful scenario then the big losers would be these organizations.  Why?  Well for one they would fail in their mission to destroy Israel and two they would lose political relevance in their countries as the governments would be forced to get back to dealing with financial, educational and health issues within their countries which they do not want to do.

In closing, I believe the issues in the Middle East are not very well understood by most Americans and much of Europe is very anti conflict and therefore has taken on this idea of appeasement is the way to end all conflicts.  In fact, I believe this conflict is best ended with military action and just as the US discovered a while back that you don’t negotiate with terrorists the world has to recognize that this is the same policy you need to have with extremists groups such as Hamas.  Lastly, I think the media has done a huge disservice by miss reporting on the issues and the nature of the conflict and with this actually fueling the conflict.  I realize my views may be a bit extreme for the majority of our readers but I will try and demonstrate their merits in future more specific articles.

Enjoy,

Peter Rabbit

In addition to the changes announced last weekend, we’ve added a couple more writers to the staff.

• James Bathgate will be writing a monthly column on technology.
• Gabe Tyndal will be writing a monthly column on science and nature.

We’re still looking to round out the staff. We’re looking for these roles:

• A weekly entertainment writer – to write about new movies, books, video games, leisure activities.
• A weekly writer who writes about issues from a woman’s perspective. The role is fairly flexible at this point. Currently, every writer we have is male, and we are looking for something that will bring a fresh viewpoint.
• A monthly writer who will give an opinion of US and world events from an international point of view. We are looking for someone who is a native of a country in Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia. We are NOT looking for a US citizen living abroad. If English is not your primary language, do not allow this to become an obstacle – we can work with you to edit your article.

We are pursuing specific people for each of these roles, but do not currently have firm commitments.

If you’re interested, send an email to kosmo@observingcasually.com. Note that you would not be paid for your work, but there would be future profit sharing, if and when profits occurs. More details via email.

OK, so what the heck are we doing with all the changes?

The goal of The Soap Boxers is to be a source for a variety of different topics. news, sports, science, technology, politics, entertainment, international viewpoints, fiction and more. We style ourselves after a magazine such as The New Yorker or Reader’s Digest or a newspaper such as USA Today. Flip through our pages and you’ll see a wide variety of interesting articles – not just articles one particular topic.  We eventually reached a point where one or two writers couldn’t cover the variety of topics we wanted to cover.

For those of you who have been loyal readers – we thank you for your support. These changes are designed to bring new content that is more rich and diverse that it has been in the past. We hope you enjoy the new topics and the new writers!

The schedule may change a bit, but this is the current schedule:

• Monday: News
• Tuesday: Sports
• Wednesday: Monthly columns (politics, technology, science/nature, world view)
• Thursday: People, places, history
• Friday: Fiction Friday
• Saturday: Flex topic
• Sunday: Canada

As covered last week by yours truly, the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Championship lived up to all the hype.  Joey Chestnut became a three time champ downing a new world record 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes.  Amazing.

Tiger Woods outdueled the field and won for the third time this year.  Hunter Mahan threw an impressive final round 62 at Eldrick at Congressional, but it was not enough. Woods had his game face on all day and won for the third time this year.  He heads to the Open Championship in two weeks and if he can play like this should be considered the favorite..then again…when isn’t he?

Tragedy hits the NFL.  Seems like we have been talking too much lately about untimely deaths of popular figures of American culture.  The more details that are coming out the less the local community feels like they really knew Steve McNair.

Roger Federer wins an unprecedented 15 grand slam title.  While last years match was considered “the greatest game ever played” we do not seem to be hearing the same talk this year about this 2009 version of the Mens’ Wimbledon Final.  Roddick and Federer went more games this year than Nadal v. Federer last year.  Nike wasted no time in having a smooth looking velveteen jacket that was gold and white with a nice “F”  on the front and a smooth number 15 on the back…..wonder how long it will be before that is outdated?

Lance Armstong is making a comeback to vie for the Tour de France this year after retiring some years ago.  The seven time winner finds himself in 3rd place behind current leader Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland just 40 seconds behind.  Can  Livestrong continue this feat and win an 8th Tour?  Either way it will be an amazing story and it will be especially with the French Media, who has looked for every possible angle to try an diminish the great cyclists record in this prestigious event.

For you fantasy geeks out there remember that most Fantasy Football drafts are just around the corner.  Many of my co-workers are already buying magazines and laying out the big plans for the boys bachelor party weekend…errrrr…Draft Collaboration.  It is truly amazing how much wasted efficiencies are realized each year by millions of workers surfing the net and trying to figure out who is a better pick, Adrian Peterson or Michael Turner.  Count me among those that love the fantasy leagues and the draft parties.  I am just not a rabid fan as many I know.  Look for some upcoming fantasy football articles from the Goodman file later this year.

In college sports news “of sorts”  The University of Nebraska allowed comedian, Larry the Cable Guy, to perform a 4th of July concert at Memorial Stadium.  This is big news to those of us here in Nebraska as the last time a “non-football” event was held at Memorial Stadium was the Farm Aid concert some time in the 1980’s.  The only reason that year the University allowed the Farm Aid concert was because they were going to tear up and replace all of the Astroturf in the stadium.  Larry who is a native Nebraskan, charged a whopping $4-$6 dollars for tickets depending on seating and where you purchased them.  You can catch the action on Comedy Central likely in a month or two as the event was taped to be shown on TV at a later time.  Nice Job packing the house with over 50,000 who watched the concert this past Saturday.

Until Next week….GIT – R- DONE!