Who gave you your first cigarette?

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As I drove back from lunch today, it seemed every other driver was smoking. Doing that little ash-flick thing out the open windows on a warm spring day. I found my self wondering how they all got started. Did they just decide one day to go to the convenience story and buy a pack of smokes? Or did someone give them that first cigarette? That seems more likely. A friend, maybe?

Maybe your brother or sister gave you your first cigarette? Perhaps your wife or boyfriend. I’d like to think no parent ever gave a child their first Lucky Strike, but who knows.

Here’s my point: What would it be like to watch a loved one dying of cancer and know that you introduced them to the joy of smoking? How could you live with that?

“Hey, he’s an adult. He can make his own decisions. I didn’t make him light up.”

“Come on, she wanted to try it. If she hadn’t gotten it from me, she would have gotten it somewhere else.”

So here’s my question for all my smoking friends: Did you ever give someone their first butt? Are you sure?

Learfield Blog

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Last month we set up a blog for company news (new hires, expansion, etc.). An experiment as much as anything. And our CEO said he might post from time to time. His latest deals with doing the right thing. At one level it’s shop talk but he’s basically saying that in the early days of our company we did something that wasn’t in the best interest of our customers (affiliates and advertisers). He uses the example to illustrate a core value of our company. Do the right thing, even if it costs you some money.

In previous posts, I’ve expressed some doubts about whether corporations can blog. It’s just hard to find someone with the courage to speak with the honesty and openess that characterizes blogs. Okay, it’s a little easier to say what you think if you own the company. But I believe this post says a lot about our company and the people leading it.

You could take all of our brochures and news releases and stack them to the ceiling…and they don’t say as much about who we are and what we believe as Clyde’s simple blog post. Our employees can read that. Our business partners can read it. Our customers can read it. The world can read it. And they will “hear” the honesty and sincerety in Clyde’s words. This is corporate blogging at its best.

Fans: Yea! Radio stations: Boo!

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The St. Louis Cardinals plan to offer 50,000 fans a free radio that can pick up the broadcasts via XM Radio – which carries all major league games via satellite transmission. The catch is that to get the radio, a six-month subscription for the service must be purchased – and that sells for about $13 a month. The move is being made to try to appease those who have lost access to the broadcasts because of the club’s move from KMOX (1120 AM) to KTRS (550 AM) as its flagship station. KTRS’ signal has a much smaller reach at night, when most of the games are played, than does KMOX. [STL Today via XM Ben]

Local ink for LHP

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Our little town has a new magazine (JC Metro), and they were nice enough to do a little story about The Living Healthy Podcast. The governor’s wife beat us out for the cover by agreeing to be photographed wearing a suit made of aluminum foil. I’d give the new rag a little link love but it doesn’t appear they have a website.

Speaking of LHP… two more shows in the can: Poison Ivy and Ticks goes up on April 8th and Toenail Health on the 15th (would I kid you?).

Bootheel Tornado

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Thanks (once again) to Charles Jolliff for the local 411 on the tornadoe(s) that hit the Bootheel (and western Tennessee). Some really good images on the blog of a local TV weather guy. Not sure who took the photo above (Stephens Gin off Hwy 412). It was sent to me by several people.

I’m a little fuzzy on this but I think these pix were taken by Charles, who provided the following descriptions:

One of the images is from the theatre downtown (Kennett), looking southward down Slicer street. It’s a very dark shot. Tornado was on the ground behind the neighborhood that is beside McDaniel funeral home. One of my moms neighbors (she has house in that neighborhood) told me they watched the tornado on the ground for a long time. It actually was just north of Scobeyville down old 25 highway and then headed east crossing Johnson Island road before hitting Braggadocia (1 woman dead there) then hitting Deering, then Caruthersville before crossing the river into Dyer county Tennessee.

The neighbor of my moms told me that it was two tornados that were dancing back and forth that they saw, till it combined and got bigger. Marmaduke, Arkansas got hit hard. Over half the homes destroyed or badly damaged, according to news reports. I drove through (Highway 49 was closed till noon today to clear the road of debris) late this evening but could not stop, traffic was incredible. I suppose a lot of folks were sight-seeing or looky-looing. I had the camera and just guessed on the shots in my album link. All taken from a rolling/driving truck by a guy not looking.

While all this was going on in this area, another violent storm hit Wynne Ar, and destroyed several homes including 3 that belonged to some of my racing friends. Totalled their race cars as well. All in all, everyone in Kennett is very lucky, if this thing had come up a mile and a half, it would have gone thru this little town like the proverbial hot knife thru butter.

This brings back vivid memories of crouching in a dark, dank “storm cellar,” just like the one in Wizard of Oz.

Michael Gruber’s Valley of Bones

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I just finished my second Michael Gruber novel (Valley of Bones) and liked it as much as his first (Tropic of Night). But I confess I’m having some trouble getting over the revleation (a couple of years ago) that he ghost-wrote 16 of the Butch Karp novels for Robert Tannenbaum. I’ve posted on this before (the “can’t get over it” part) but, damn! Sixteen books?! I loved the Buth Karp novels and feel …betrayed… that they person I thought wrote them, didn’t. A littlle googling revealed that Gruber and Tanenbaum are first cousins and when Gruber decided to go solo, they had a serious falling out. If you’re a Butch Karp fan, you feel my pain. If you’re not… you don’t know or care what the mellon farmer I’m talking about.

Shop Talk: International Sports Properties

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The company I work for (22 years in June) competes with –and partners with– a company called International Sports Properties (aka ISP). ISP has the rights to UCLA who plays in the second game of the Final Four semi-finals tonight. Which brings me to a story I found on the Winston-Salem Journal website. A well-done profile on ISP and the “elite-college multimedia-rights niche.” (Alternate link) I learned some things about collegiate sports marketing which is now, far and away, the largest part of our business. For example, corporate spending on college-athletics programs is expected to reach $458 million this year, up from $415 in 2005.

When I joined Learfield in 1984 we had the rights the Missouri and had just acquired the rights to Iowa State and…Kansas? Anyway, sports was a small piece of what we do. No longer.

XM adding seven regional news and talk channels

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“XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. announced a new channel lineup Monday, expanding the number of channels by a dozen, adding several new music and news channels while deleting some others. XM will also add seven regional news and talk channels, bringing its new channel total to 176 from 164. In the fall, XM is also launching a channel with talk show host Oprah Winfrey.” — MercuryNews.com

I remember hearing about the Oprah channel but somehow missed the “regional news and talk channels” item. Uh, I think our company does regional news.