'American Idol': Top 13 Finalists Selected; Bay Area's Megia, Durbin Survive

By Chuck Barney, Contra Costa Times

03.03.11

 

It was an "American Idol" bloodbath latherered over two hours. In its biggest elimination night ever at this stage of the game, TV's most popular talent show axed 11 of its 24 contestants Thursday night.

"Drama like you've never seen before is about to unfold on this stage," host Ryan Seacrest promised beforehand, and "Idol" delivered a night of nerve-wracking tension.

Surviving the cuts were Bay Area hopefuls, James Durbin of Santa Cruz and Thia Megia of Mountain House. They were among the top 10 finalists chosen via fan voting (Seacrest said that more than 40 million votes were cast over two days).

Other singers picked by the viewers to advance were Scott McCreery, Lauren Alaina, Pia Toscano, Karen Rodriguez, Jacob Lusk, Casey Abrams, Paul McDonald and Haley Reinhart.

Three more finalists -- so-called "wildcard" choices -- were chosen by the judges via a series of cutthroat sing-offs. Ashthon Jones, Stefano Langone, Kendra Chantelle, Jovany Barreto, Naima Adedapo, and Robbie Rosen were all asked to sing for their lives with one last go-for-broke performance. Of that group, Jones, Langone and Adedapo were picked to move on in the competition.

"This is the toughest night ever," declared judge Randy Jackson before naming the remaining finalists. "This is so hard."

There were no stunning surprises -- especially among the top 10 vote-getters. All the fan favorites were praised by the judges for their performances earlier

Megia is the youngest-ever "Idol" contestant to make it this far, having taken advantage of a new rule that dropped the minimum age requirement to 15. In a taped segment at the top of the show, the Hayward native said, "If I don't go through tonight I would be devastated."this week. And Durbin and Megia looked to be shoo-ins after receiving some of the biggest raves.Instead, she was a picture of tearful jubilation.

The Top 13 finalists will take to the stage next Wednesday (8 p.m., Fox).

Amazon Warns It Will Leave California Affiliates Over Tax Law

The retailer will cut ties with affiliates if the state passes sales tax legislation.

By Paul Demery, Internet Retailer

03.02.11 

Amazon.com Inc. 1 Amazon.com Inc. Mass Merchant Online Sales:$24,510,000,000 Growth:27.9% See More told California tax officials this week that it will cut ties with thousands of California affiliates if the state passes pending legislation requiring the online retailer to collect sales tax from California customers.

Amazon, contending that four bills pending in the California Legislature appear to be unconstitutional or would “construct Trojan horses” leading to unconstitutional regulation, said passage of any of the bills into law would compel the world’s largest online retailer to end its advertising relationships with more than 10,000

California-based participants in Amazon’s affiliate program. Amazon, No. 1 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, compensates program participants when they refer consumers who make purchases on Amazon.com.

State tax officials estimate that Amazon’s termination of its California affiliate program would slash by 50% the revenue the state expects to raise under the pending legislation, according to a statement by state senator George Runner, who is a member of the state’s Board of Equalization, the state agency that oversees sales tax collection.

Like several other states facing steep revenue shortfalls, California is looking to get sales tax revenue from out-of-state online retailers who don’t have a physical presence in the state. According to a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, retailers can’t be required to collect sales tax in states where they operate no physical facilities, such as stores or distribution centers. California’s pending legislation, however, would consider web site affiliates as constituting a physical presence requiring e-retailers to collect sales tax.

Amazon argues that, instead of increasing tax revenue for California, the proposed legislation would reduce incoming revenue. “These bills would provide no new tax revenue collected by Amazon or others who sever their relationships with California-based advertisers,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy, says in a letter to Senator Runner, adding: “California consumers would still be able to purchase online at www.amazon.com from Amazon’s retail business, so these bills would only deny California-based organizations and individuals the advertising fees they currently receive from out-of-state retailers and, ironically, California’s general fund could suffer a net loss in revenue as affiliates pay less income tax or move out of the state.”

A spokesman for Runner, who opposes the pending legislation, notes the 25,000 online affiliates based in California paid a total of $124 million in state income taxes last year.

Misener adds in his letter, a copy of which was received by Internet Retailer, that Amazon has already terminated its relationships with affiliates in three other states—North Carolina, Rhode Island and Colorado—that have enacted legislation within the past year aimed at forcing online retailers to collect sales tax. “Amazon has terminated its advertising contracts with in-state affiliates, and has collected no sales tax for any of these states, nor paid any referral fees since then to any in-state affiliates,” Misener says.

Ex-SJSU Runner Lee Evans Hopes to Sell Gold Medals

By Elliott Almond, San Jose Mercury News

03.01.11

Last year, Tommie Smith tried to sell his famed gold medal from the 1968 Olympics. Now, it's Lee Evans' turn.

Evans, the San Jose State runner who won gold medals in the 400 meters and the 1,600 relay in Mexico City, said he hopes to raise $250,000 from the sale of both medals to help build a school in Liberia.

"I don't need the medals," he said by telephone from Nigeria. "I need money to build the school."

Smith couldn't find a buyer 42 years after his black-gloved salute on the victory stand became one of the most famous moments in Olympic history. Smith asked for $250,000 in a fall auction for his 200-meter medal, but Olympic memorabilia experts estimated the worth to be closer to $10,000.

Evans, however, is encouraged he can get six figures because a member of the "Miracle on Ice" 1980 U.S. hockey team, Mark Wells, sold his Olympic gold medal for $310,700 last year.

Evans, 63, is arranging the sale through Athletes United for Peace, a charitable organization based in New York with which he is affiliated. For sale information contact Evans at lee_e_evans@live.com. (To make a donation for the school project, send checks to AUP, 1070 Park Ave., New York, New York 10128).

Evans once rejected an offer of $60,000 for the relay medal.

"To go through the effort, pain and sacrifice I went through "... people don't know," he said. "What motivated me were my African ancestry and what my parents went through" in racially divided America in the 1950s."How can I give it away for $60,000?"

The medals have been held for almost three decades by Evans' former Overfelt High track coach Stan Dowell, who said he has hidden them in his Alabama home.

Now semiretired and living in Nigeria, Evans wants to build a school to honor his wife, who couldn't get a formal education while living in exile during civil wars that ravaged Liberia throughout the 1990s.

Evans met her two years ago in a refugee camp in Guinea, where he worked for the United Nations after resigning as track and cross-country coach at the University of South Alabama in 2008.

He has purchased 13 acres outside of the Liberian capital of Monrovia to build a school. In the meantime, Evans coaches youths in southern Nigeria.

Evans has a long association with Africa, having directed national track and field programs in Nigeria, as well as Saudi Arabia, from 1975-97. Evans received the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in 1994 for his work in Africa and Asia. He also was given the Nelson Mandela Award for humanitarianism in 1983.

Evans said he first felt the pull of the continent while studying African-American history in sixth grade in Fresno. The lessons resonated with the student, whose parents had moved to the Central Valley from the South to work the fields.

"I felt his spirit was in me," Evans said of Africans taken to the United States to be slaves. "I felt I had to come back to Africa for him."

His social consciousness matured in the late 1960s at San Jose State, where many of the "Speed City" sprinters were as concerned with racial discrimination as winning medals. In Mexico City, Spartans sprinters Smith and John Carlos finished first and third in the 200 meters, then entered Olympic renown with their protest during the medal ceremony. Olympic leaders dismissed them from the Games.

The day after the podium protest, Evans became the first person to run faster than 44 seconds in the 400 meters. He won with a world-record time of 43.86, a record that endured for 20 years. Evans also anchored the 400 relay team to a world-record time of 2:56.16, a mark that lasted 24 years.

At the 400 medal ceremony, he wore a black beret symbolic of the militant Black Panther Party. But he didn't wear his black glove or black socks like Smith and Carlos the day before. (The beret and glove were stolen from his bag at the Spartans' track about a half year later.)

After the Olympics, Evans returned to San Jose to finish school and for a few years ran professionally. But he always wanted to coach, borrowing what the legendary Bud Winters taught him at San Jose State.

"Every day when I'm on the track, as soon as I say, 'high knees,' it is Bud Winters," Evans said. "I say 'high knees' more than 300 times a day."

Don Perata, Lance Armstrong Team Up on Cigarette-tax Initiative

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Oakland Tribune

02.28.2011

LOS ANGELES -- Recently retired cyclist Lance Armstrong and former state Sen. Don Perata have teamed up against a common enemy -- cancer.

The pair kicked off a state ballot initiative campaign Monday during a news conference at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, promoting a measure that would levy an additional $1 tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products and potentially raise more than $800 million for cancer research annually, according to a report by the state Legislative Analyst's Office.

The campaign hits home for both men. Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France winner, battled testicular cancer and has since become an activist and fundraiser for cancer research. Perata went through a prostate cancer scare in 2009, just as he launched his bid in the Oakland mayoral race.

The initiative, known as the California Cancer Research Act, received more than 433,000 signatures last year to qualify for the next statewide ballot, which is scheduled for February 2012.

If Gov. Jerry Brown wins approval from the legislature for a special election on his budget measures to be held in June, the cigarette tax initiative would go on that ballot.

The measure is supported by the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, but it likely will face opposition from tobacco companies.

Editorial: Only a Matter of Time Before Marriage Equality is the Law of the Land

By Editorial Board , San Jose Mercury News
02.27.11

Progress. That's what President Barack Obama's decision last week not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court represents in the fight for equality for gays and lesbians. It's not going to change things overnight -- that's not Obama's style. But following his fight to repeal the military's discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell policy," this was the logical next step in a long battle. It should be lauded.

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder made their decision after concluding that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. It's hard for anyone but the most ardent opponent of equality to argue with their logic.

Section 3 requires the federal government to treat same-sex marriages differently than opposite-sex marriages, even in states where both are legal. It allows the government, for instance, to deny Social Security benefits to gay widows and widowers.

Obama's decision comes in response to lawsuits challenging the law. One, filed in New York by 81-year-old widow Edith Windsor, seeks the return of $360,000 in estate taxes she had to pay following the death of her wife, whom she married in Toronto.

Obama, predictably, is being criticized by some on the right who say it's his duty to defend whatever laws are on the books. 

"We can't have presidents deciding what laws are constitutional and what laws are not," Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said in a news release. "That is a function of the

We'll have to remember that quote a few years from now, just in case President Sarah Palin declines to defend the individual mandate in the health care law.

Remarkably, though, little criticism of this decision has been about its substance, a sign that the issue is losing its potency as a wedge for Republicans -- or perhaps that it might be turning into a wedge for Democrats. House Speaker John Boehner lamented its timing. Few potential presidential candidates waded in. GOP politicians no longer see denying gay rights as a surefire election winner.

That will make it fascinating to see whether Boehner decides to step in and mount his own defense of the law, which he is allowed to do. As anyone who followed California's Proposition 8 trial can attest, defending "traditional marriage" is an impossible task. Proposition 8 supporters presented just two "expert witnesses" to try to make the case that gay marriage somehow damages the state's interests. Both witnesses were demolished on cross-examination and by the judge in his ruling overturning the law. There is simply no logical, legal or constitutional basis on which to deny gay couples the right to marry or, by extension, the government benefits that come from marriage.

The step Obama took this week -- refusing to defend the indefensible -- was essential in the long march toward equality. There are many more steps yet to come, including the president's own embrace of marriage equality.

But there are signs of progress everywhere. It's only a matter of time.judicial branch, not the executive."

Week 6: Palo Alto

The Dish

Everyone one of those days
When the sky's California blue
With a beautiful bombshell
I throw myself into my work
I'm too lazy, I've been kidding myself for so long

I'm okay, how are you?
Thanks for asking, thanks for asking
But I'm okay, how are you?
I hope you're okay too

—Radiohead, "Palo Alto" 

Week 6: Palo Alto
Mo 2.28 / Tu 3.1
Read: MANZ—p. 60 - 94
In-Class: Writer’s workshop
Due: Persuasive essay (Draft 1, bring 3 copies)

We 3.2 / Th 3.3
Read: MANZ—p. 95 - 132
In-Class: Reading discussion; Presentations (Sec. 3: Madison K and Christopher R); Lecture—“Citing Sources 101” 

Upcoming: 

Week 7: San Diego

Mo 3.7 / Tu 3.8
Read: MANZ—p. 133 - 185
In-Class: Lecture—“California on Film”; Preview—Expository essay
Due: Persuasive essay (Final draft, attach draft 1 and, on a separate sheet, one paragraph rationale for your revisions)

We 3.14 / Th 3.15
Read: eR—“Proposition 13 Had Long Lasting Impact on Schools” by Debbie Pfeiffer (San Bernardino County Sun), “Perspectives: Gov. Brown's Budget Plan Stirs Fears in Education Officials” (Pasadena Star-News), Fast Facts 2011 (Community College League of California)
In-Class: Reading discussion; Presentations, Lecture—“ABCs of Citing Sources”

Due: Reflection 4