Will E-Paper Do Serendipity?

New York Times Exectutive Editor Bill Keller went on NPR last month to discuss the state of the newspaper.

He is biased and confident that printed newspapers will survive the internet.

In Keller's opinion, "It's a nice sensation to turn the pages... and you get a quality of serendipity."

He goes on to say that, "the internet hasn't quite figured out how to do serendipity in the same way that an old-fashioned newspaper does".

Keller either needs to spend a week with me or assumes there are only two players in this debate.

Enter e-paper.

I was talking with a guy who works for the Chicago Tribune in the lobby of my building and he started describing this wacky concept.

A digital device that approximated the look and feel of a real newspaper.

This manifestation of a page of newspaper would require you to turn the page to get to the next. You could download the daily news each morning before the train, or leave it plugged into your computer for a live stream of breaking news.

You'll turn the pages, but it certainly won't be old-fashioned.

That said, I've no idea whether market research has reported successful serendipity.

Nor how you cut out an article and paste it on the fridge.

Daley to Chicagoans: You Ain't Worth Your Salt

On my way to work this morning, I watched as a snow-plow driver dropped five feet of salt for every twenty feet he drove.

Like a Cardiologist, Mayor Daley has given the word that Chicago must go easy on the salt. It is part of his official plan to cut corners with snow removal.

Last winter, we blew through $20 Million (on a $18.5 Million 2008 snow removal budget) by February 26th.

This at a time when the City just sold its parking meters to fill budget gaps.

Daley's new approach was in action (or is that inaction) on Tuesday December 17th when due to five inches of rush hour snow, Chicagoans got a sneak preview of what Armageddon might look like.

As frustrating as it was to piss in that water bottle during my four hour commute to O'hare, I know that skyrocketing rock salt prices deserve at least some of the blame of this perfect storm.

In 2008, rock salt prices are as much as three and four times what they were in 2007 when they hovered around $42 per ton.

So the Mayor is in a tight spot, and not entirely of his own doing. But there will be consequences.

In Roman times, part of soldiers' pay was an allotment of salt, hence the term, "worth your salt" and the word "salary".

Salt has helped shape history. Add Chicago's quest for the 2016 Olympic games to the list. Add lawsuits of people who got into accidents while we penny-pinch.

And if this winter is bad enough, I'm forecasting that like Michael Bilandic before him, the Mayor's job could be history too.

Shoes Thrown At Bush

Bush is sober and thus catlike and unhurt. The insult was successful. Two last reminders that the world hates Bush. I wonder if the Smithsonian will request the perpetrators or settle for replicas.

Winter Rules: Fist-Bumping For Public Safety

This time of year I can't help but get squeamish about shaking hands. That sinus infection or flu that maybe just got pressed into my palm for the sake of formalities. Not good.

Shaking with the right hand is a Global custom-- perhaps the most famous. In Middle Eastern culture this is especially important.

That is because traditionally in Middle Eastern culture, you pass food, eat, wave, and shake with the right hand-- and wipe your ass with the left.

It's a hygiene thing. And everyone knows everyone else wipes their ass with the left, so doing anything else with it is an insult.

It's "the devil you know" philosophy put to widespread use. And It occurred to me that while the right-hand-shake tradition remains in Western Culture, hygienically speaking, we are all most likely shaking each other's ass-wipe hand.

70-90% of the world is right handed. And since the advent of Tee Pee and hand soap, our culture has shifted to dominant hand ass-wiping. At least that is my hypothesis.

What percentage of Western Society wipes their ass with a dollar bill, picks their nose, presses the elevator button, punches in their zip code at the fuel pump, and then shakes yours-- with their right hand? Probably 70-90%.

During the campaign, Barack Obama liked to tout how many dollars we could save at the pump if we simply filled our tires up with air.

Hand-washing aside, I wonder how many colds and diseases wouldn't get passed along in Western culture if we switched to shaking with the clean, left hand.

Since that dream faded with Bob Dole in '96, maybe we can all just agree to do the fist-bump this Winter.

And maybe the ass-slap come Spring.