Sunday, November 22, 2009

“Broadcom’s McGregor on OC: ‘Culture of Creativity’ - Orange County Business Journal” plus 4 more

“Broadcom’s McGregor on OC: ‘Culture of Creativity’ - Orange County Business Journal” plus 4 more

Broadcom’s McGregor on OC: ‘Culture of Creativity’ - Orange County Business Journal

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 06:38 PM PST

When Scott McGregor first was tapped to run Irvine chipmaker Broadcom Corp., he said he couldn't find Orange County on a map.

"To be honest, we didn't quite know where OC was," McGregor told a crowd of more than 100 businesspeople and high school students at the nonprofit Orange County Forum a few weeks ago. "I came to Orange County with my wife a little less than five years ago and we sort of thought it was LA. But we've found that it's definitely not LA."

The soft-spoken executive gave a talk that addressed different perceptions of OC, including a big one that's sometimes overlooked—that the coun-ty's a great place to do business.

"OC has had a tradition and a history of really providing a great environment for business—strong education and the entrepreneurial character of all the people in the area," he said. "We have a culture of creativity and innovation, everything from chip design, finance, car design and fashion."

Before becoming Broadcom's chief executive, McGregor ran the chip arm of Royal Philips Electronics NV in the Netherlands.

Living in Europe "was a very interesting experience as an American," he said. "To be the alien in a different culture where you don't speak the language and where you are the outsider is an interesting experience that many Americans don't get to have."

McGregor talked up Broadcom's practice of hiring engineers and workers with higher degrees as one way to "keep that entrepreneurial spirit going" at the maturing company, which makes chips that go into networking gear, cell phones, set-top boxes and consumer electronics.

"It's against this backdrop that Broadcom has grown from a very small startup to a leadership position in a number of markets today," he said.

Ingram Deal

Santa Ana's Ingram Micro Inc., the largest distributor of computers, software and consumer electronics, inked a deal that's set to help its resellers push networking gear made by Cisco Systems Inc.

Ingram signed a contract with Cisco that "standardizes terms and conditions across all regions," Ingram said.

Ingram Micro, which has yearly sales of about $30 billion, is the biggest distributor of Cisco products. The company provides Cisco networking products to technology consultants that install and service them.

The "new global contract with Cisco allows our resale partners to take full advantage of business opportunities on a worldwide scale," said Ken Bast, vice president of vendor management. "Now, our customers will be able to expand into new markets, as well as support their existing global clients with quicker product availability, which will ultimately shorten their sell cycle and positively impact their balance sheets."

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Borel to be at Portland center's fundraiser Monday - Courier-Journal

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 06:38 PM PST

Winning jockey Calvin Borel will be part of a luncheon Monday to raise money for Neighborhood House, a nonprofit center that serves residents of the Portland neighborhood.

Borel, who won the 2009 Kentucky Derby and Oaks on two different horses, Mine That Bird and Rachel Alexandra, will answer questions and sign autographs to support the center, which has programming geared toward promoting health, cultural enrichment and employment training.

The luncheon, featuring lunch from Panera, costs $100 to attend.

Borel, who also won the 2007 Kentucky Derby with Street Sense and the 2009 Preakness Stakes, will be joined by local television and radio personality Milton Metz.

Metz, also known as El Metzo, may be best known for his WHAS (AM) call–in show, "Metz Here." Some credit him for pioneering the format later used by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

While working for WHAS-TV he interviewed countless celebrities coming to the Derby and was a fixture on Churchill Downs Millionaire's Row.

For more on the event, contact Abby Branstein at Neighborhood House, 774-2322 ext. 226.

Reporter Melissa Poore can be reached at (502) 582-4117.

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Concern at Governing Magazine Over Its Sale to Scientologists - New York Times

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 06:45 PM PST

Over the last several months, The St. Petersburg Times published a series of scathing articles on the Church of Scientology under the rubric "The Truth Rundown." In 1980, the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize for an investigation of the church's inner workings.

Coverage of Scientology has long been an important story for The St. Petersburg Times, given that the church's spiritual headquarters is located in nearby Clearwater, Fla.

So it came as a bit of a shock when, on Friday, the newspaper's management announced that it would sell one of its sibling publications to a California media company whose top management are Scientologists. Governing magazine, which is based in Washington and for 23 years has covered the workings of local and state governments across the country, will be sold to e.Republic, whose founder and other top executives are Scientologists. The sale is expected to close after Thanksgiving.

The evening before the announcement, Governing's staff gathered at the Willard InterContinental Washington hotel for its annual awards dinner, honoring its picks for the best government officials. On Friday, the staff learned of the magazine's sale, which had long been in the works. And at a staff gathering, the question of Scientology was raised, given the paper's aggressive coverage of the church.

"I'm aware that some of the top officials personally practice Scientology, but it never came up in the negotiations," said Andrew Corty, a vice president of the Times Publishing Company, the holding company that runs the St. Petersburg paper and Governing. "It certainly was a question asked at our staff meeting."

He added, "The reporting of the St. Petersburg Times has always been separate from our business functions."

For years, e.Republic has been a respected publisher of Government Technology magazine, its flagship publication, which covers the intersection of those two subjects. E.Republic's officials say that the personal religious affiliations of management have no bearing on the operations of the company.

The staff of Governing, nonetheless, is concerned. "There are certain tenets of the religion that affect management," said Peter Harkness, who founded Governing in 1987 and who came out of retirement in August to serve as publisher during the sale process. "To my knowledge, they have not been proselytizing."

Some of the anxiety among the staff stems from a 2001 article in the Sacramento News and Review, an independent weekly, about e.Republic. That article, which has been widely read by Governing's reporters in the last few days, reported that e.Republic's staff members are required to read a book on management called "Speaking From Experience," written by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.

"There is concern," Mr. Harkness said. "Unquestionably, there is concern."

Mr. Harkness said that a recent allegation of religious bias at The Washington Times, which is owned by the Unification Church, has exacerbated anxiety among Governing's staff. The opinion editor of The Washington Times recently filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying he was coerced to attend an event hosted by the Unification Church, according to The Associated Press. The founder of The Washington Times is the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, also the founder of the church.

A message left at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Dennis McKenna, the founder of e.Republic, was staying the weekend to meet with Governing employees, was returned by Paul Harney, the company's chief operating officer. (Mr. McKenna has been a Scientologist for more than 30 years, and in a New York Times article in 1979 was identified as a church spokesman.)

Mr. Harney, who is not a Scientologist, said that he had been with the company for 13 years, and that he had never read Mr. Hubbard's book, nor, he said, read the article in the Sacramento newspaper. "I'm sure if a management book is requested and we've got it, we would hand it out," he said.

He said, "We're a business like everyone else, trying to meet a quarterly number."

He said Scientology had been raised in meetings with Governing staff members over the weekend. "Some people have asked about it. If they've brought it up, we've addressed it on an individual basis."

Scientology "doesn't guide how the company is run," he added.

Staff members of Governing were reluctant to speak on the record because they did not want to antagonize their new employers. One person who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, "There have been some eyebrows raised based on the fact that the St. Pete Times has been doing these stories, while simultaneously they have been selling this to a company run by Scientologists."

The newspaper's series, which ran in three installments, in June, August and November, detailed what it described on its Web site as a "culture of intimidation and violence" under the church's leader, David Miscavige. (The articles were based in part on interviews with church defectors, tales which the church has called "total lies.")

The St. Petersburg Times, which is owned by the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit group focused on journalism education, has faced financial challenges lately, like most print publications. To raise cash to shore up the newspaper, the group's flagship, it has been selling subsidiaries. This year, it sold Congressional Quarterly, which tracks legislative activity, to Roll Call.

A more pressing concern for workers was whether or not they would keep their jobs. Many did not.

Of the publication's 27 employees, 12 were kept on, nine were let go immediately and six others were asked to stay on in transitional roles.

Mr. Corty, the St. Petersburg executive who led the sale, said he was in a no-win situation: if he didn't sell to e.Republic, which offered the highest bid out of six contenders, he would have been accused of discrimination.

"I felt I would have been criticized either way," he said.

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'2012' a home run with patriotic fans in China - Associated Press

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 06:31 PM PST

BEIJING (AP) -- When the apocalypse comes, China will save the world.

Or at least that's how Chinese audiences are interpreting "2012," Hollywood's latest blockbuster disaster movie.

"It's about time the world sees us as a dominant ally," said Liu Xinliang, 27, a Beijing-based computer programmer who watched the movie twice.

The movie, currently No. 1 in the U.S., is also No. 1 in China, grossing $17.2 million here since it opened Nov. 13.

In the nearly 3-hour movie, the Earth's core overheats, threatening humanity. Leaders of the world embark on a mission to build an ark in the mountains of central China to house people and animals that can repopulate the planet - a story line many Chinese have praised.

Like others in a Beijing theater this week, Liu grinned with pride as he watched Chinese troops escort wealthy and important citizens onto the ark.

Chinese netizens on popular blogs have also been quick to note other scenes perceived as having pro-China messages - Chinese military officers saluting American refugees entering China, China being one of the first nations to agree to open the ark's gates to admit more refugees, and a U.S. military officer saying that only the Chinese could build an ark of such a scale so quickly.

"I felt really proud to be Chinese as I was watching our (military) officers rescue civilians in need," said Zhang Ying, 26, an advertising executive in Beijing. "The movie along with (President Barack) Obama's visit this week made me realize that China has become a respected country on the world stage."

At a theater in central Beijing, hoards of people lined up to buy tickets.

"It's been sold out every night. They all want to watch China save the world," a ticket attendant said with a laugh.

It has also pulled in the crowds in Indonesia but has garnered a less positive response in some quarters in what is the world's most populous Muslim nation - because it predicts doomsday.

Conservative Muslim clerics on the islands of Java, Kalimantan and Sumatra have urged or banned their followers from watching the movie, saying it contradicts Islamic teachings. They say only God, not man, knows when the world will end.

"We are worried that the film will make Muslims believe that the end of the world will really happen by 2012. That is not true. The end will surely come but no one can tell when," said Mahmud Zubaida, an imam in the eastern Javanese city of Malang.

Still, Indonesia's most influential Muslim body, the Ulema Council, say there is no need for believers to worry as "2012" is only a work of fiction.

In China, the movie is seen as a refreshing change for audiences after decades of unflattering portrayals of the communist nation in Hollywood movies such as "Red Corner" starring Richard Gere, in which an innocent foreigner faces a corrupt Chinese legal system, and Martin Scorsese's "Kundun," which highlights China's rule of Tibet.

Scenes with Chinese bad guys were cut from "Mission Impossible III" and Warner Bros. decided not to release its hit blockbuster last year, "The Dark Knight," in China due to "cultural sensitivities." The latest Batman movie sees the masked hero nab a Chinese criminal in Hong Kong.

As China's economy continues to burgeon, Hollywood has set it sights on the nation of 1.3 billion where they can share profits on only up to 20 of their releases every year - making it crucial for studios to reap as much as they can with each movie.

"China has a legitimate movie market that's growing, but Hollywood is learning that movies portraying us as poor or the enemy will not make money in China," said Shen Dingli, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

"Chinese love action and disaster movies with special effects, so "2012" would have been released regardless if China played a role in the story line," Li Chow, Sony Pictures Releasing International's general manager for China, said in a phone interview.

It is unclear whether director Roland Emmerich, who also directed "The Day After Tomorrow," "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," intentionally inserted the China element to gain wider viewership on the mainland.

Steve Elzer, a spokesman for Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, declined to comment on the China element or whether any scenes were cut from the movie.

China's box office is growing but is still small compared to the U.S. market. Government statistics show that revenues surged from 920 million yuan in 2003 to 4.3 billion yuan ($630 million) in 2008 - compared to $9.8 billion in the U.S. last year.

The "Transformers" sequel earlier this year brought in $63 million in China, which broke the 11-year record of $53 million set by "Titanic" in 1998.

----

Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

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Will the Real ACLU Please Stand Up? - Salon

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 07:06 PM PST

Now comes The ACLU of Maryland, taking action on the parts of Dr. Matthias Goldstein, Brennan Gross, and Avrohom Green, three Orthodox Jews (meaning up front they "must" wear beards), who are also medical professionals and would like to ride as medics with the Pikesville (MD) Volunteer Fire Department. Pikesville officials told the three they'd likely be accepted and would be encouraged to join, but they'd have to comply with uniform safety and health regulations and shave first.

Back to Point One: The religious affiliation of the three complainants requires them to wear beards. Apparently the beard makes one a better Jew -- or Sikh -- or even sometimes a better Muslim, just to name a few belief systems which include grooming standards as well as sartorial ones (and I personally dig turbans big time, but not on the ambulance please. Just trust me on this one).

"What a shame to turn away dedicated medics who are simply trying to serve their community in a way consistent with their religious beliefs," said ACLU of Maryland Legal Director Deborah Jeon.

Indeed.

The ACLU has always been a mixed blessing at best. And at its best it is a huge blessing, even to those we might otherwise dismiss or take out to be shot, because the Constitution must be strictly interpreted, at least when it benefits certain, shall we say, chosen people.  But doesn't something  just ring a tad hollow in this case? Religion has no place in public life except when "some animals are more equal than others."

Sweet Jesus! No, I did not just call Orthodox Jews "animals."

Did I mention I've been thrown out of several cultural sensitivity training ? 

I was taught early in life to treat people with kindness and respect out of the love I feel in my heart, and in no way was that a governmental dictum. It was my sainted mom who taught me that, and to this day I resent the cop-out of political correctness as an alternative to feeling like a decent human.

So. 

Religion has had too much of a place in American public life where it hasn't belonged, and never more so than today, when I get daily those idiot emails about how our President has misrepresented our great Republic to other nations as somehow not a Christian one. Of course this is not only bullshit -- there can be no other way to view a total falsehood -- and I'm in a running debate with the mindless about this issue, having already pointed out that while Under God may have been added to the Pledge of Allegience in 1954 (and so confounding me and many of my fellow nine-year-olds for a good while), it is probable not a single one of our founders was alive when that happened, and if any of them were they'd have been well beyond senile by then. And "In God we trust" is only about God, that vague, near-universal concept of something or other, as the founders were mostly deists, but few were actual Christians, and one of the main points of starting this grand exeriment here was to get out from under the church-state conflation.

But if one claims a heritage anything other than Christian the ACLU's got your back? And just for the sake of argument, does a beard really make an orthodox Jew a better Jew or a better person? It doesn't matter, my feelings about the lunatic aspect of organized religion are not up for argument here (I guess, dammit).

The case for the three OJs has been made by the local ACLU (of which I am  supporter, both moral and financial, so don't get too excited) that the requirement itself is "unfair" because it applies mainly on account of equipment not yet in use and, in the view of the organization "not necessary." Guys, kindly stick to what you know -- Constitutional law. If I grow a beard my fire department won't let me ride either, and that's in ultra-liberal Montgomery County. And the whole beard issue is not just about future (and "unnecessary") equipment as the ACLU chapter is claiming. It has a lot of good reasoning behind it. I've been involved in the fire-rescue/EMS service since 1962 and trust me, beards have never been anything but a cause of discord, wielded (or brandished) by professional malcontents, something the fire-rescue service attracts like white on rice. Hell, we can't even wear our sideburns below a certain point on the side of our faces and our mustaches must be trimmed within certain micro-limits. We can't have a body mass index over a certain number, either (this latter is patently ridiculous, but can be settled by reason and science outside a courtroom I believe). 

We may not have real Christmas trees inside fire stations (thanks, Fire Marshall Bill), but if we have even a fake one we can't call it a Christmas tree (even though that's exactly what the hell it is) and of course now there are noises being made about calling the National Christmas Tree the National Holiday Tree. There's already a national menorah on the same site as the tree, so I have to assume there is some other conflicting religious or perhaps non-religious event which causes calling the tree what it manifestly is to be somehow offensive, perhaps to the neoatheists who feel left out of the reindeer games by the self-professing Christians (and in many cases just plain pagan heathens) who just enjoy the god damned lights and stuff.

But I digress...

It's pretty clear church and state must be kept separate. No church I know of worships a tree unless it's perhaps a Druid "church" somewhere, and that's their business (and in fact they own the franchise on the damn tree thing anyway). The tree is not religious, but it certainly is cultural, and maybe we need to purge our culture of any remotely religious taint. Well then, let's run that up the flagpole and see what happens.

Orthodox Jews wearing beards is far more cultural affectation than religious requirement, if religion is to be construed as something which makes the world better. I'm not arguing that. I am arguing that if one wants to make the world better by getting up in the middle of the night to be puked upon, assaulted, or wading into human blood while being cursed, kicked or shot at, the beard certainly takes a back seat to practical considerations, and if everyone has to shave to enjoy this passtime, then by God, everybody shaves, not just us goys.

Have I pissed off everybody yet? Anyone feeling left out?

Tell it to the ACLU.

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