Election 2012: Odd timing for Romney VP announcement

Advisers in the Mitt Romney camp called Saturday's announcement of Paul Ryan as the vice presidential selection for the ticket a "game-changer."

One problem: the timing.

Aboard the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Va., Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney introduced Paul Ryan as his running mate at 9 a.m. Saturday.

After weeks of buildup and speculation, the big reveal came at a time where younger voters were probably sleeping off hangovers and soccer moms cheering on their kids.

Yes, I'm 23, so you may think I come with a younger person's "time" bias. While I'm not up at 5 a.m. every morning making lunches or waking kids up for school, I do wake up for work at 3 a.m.

For a weekday, when folks are settling into their desk chairs, 9 a.m. is not at all early. On a Saturday when people are catching up on sleep after a long week, going grocery shopping or getting some fresh air, it is.

No doubt the vice presidential announcement is big news. It would be whenever it is made. But for a campaign that admits it wants this to change the scope of the election, a Saturday morning reveal doesn't make sense.

When news came out late Friday night that the official unveiling would come Saturday, so did the leaks. News organizations called up their sources and thus the initial reports of Paul Ryan as VP broke after midnight Saturday.

That's not quite the time where there is a captive audience.

Saturday is also a day where newsrooms are not as highly staffed. On a local level, there simply aren't as many newscasts. Whereas most local stations have a full morning block, noon, and three evening newscasts during the week, they typically have them just at 6 p.m., 11 p.m., and some an hour or two in the morning on Saturdays.

Cable networks don't have their big players on the air on the weekends. There is no Piers Morgan, Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow to break down the news on the evening gabfests. There's no Shepard Smith or Anderson Cooper digesting the news. While the VP choice will get plenty of chatter on the Sunday political shows, it won't be as fresh or breaking anymore.

While the cable nets could bring in the big names or have special reports for the VP news, you have to wonder if the audience will be as large to watch them. Saturday is a night on which broadcast networks have virtually stopped competing. Folks go to the movies, theater, baseball game, or out to dinner. If you have tickets for an event you bought months ago, you're not staying home to learn more about Paul Ryan. But if you watch Hannity or Anderson five nights a week after work as routine, you sure would have.

Breaking news can't be avoided on Saturday when it's a death or disaster. It can when it's an announcement that has been in the works for months.

The Romney campaign went through a meticulous process of vetting candidates yet did not vet when it could reach the largest audience.

News websites peak at the noon hour on a weekday, when people are surfing the web at their lunch breaks. Saturday is a down day, where traffic is at its lowest points.

If the Romney campaign wanted to generate the greatest amount of buzz, an announcement on Monday or Tuesday at 10 or 11 a.m., following the Olympics, would have done a better job.

London Olympics: Gold elusive for Olympic gymnasts

The fall from grace in gymnastics is quick and caustic. It's a sport where fortunes change quickly and rare is it that perfection is long-lasting. 

No female gymnast was immune to the pitfalls of imperfection at these London games. The transition from tears to triumph was often as simple as a change of leotard and new night. 

It's a sport hinged on a grainy layer of subjectivity and mistakes minute to viewers' eyes but enough to crush dreams. 

Just look at Jordyn Wieber. The American was the reigning all-around world champion. Yet, a balance check on the beam and small step out of bounds on the floor cost her a spot in London's all-around final, the result of an ill-conceived rule that only allows two gymnasts from each country to advance. American teammates Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas were second and third in qualifications. Wieber was fourth. 

Raisman and Douglas fell victim to the sport's cruelness too though.

Raisman was flawless in her team and all-around qualifications performances. But the normally unflappable Raisman faltered in the all-around, straddling the beam for dear life at one point. She tied for bronze in that competition. The tiebreaker gave Russian Aliya Mustafina the medal. She earned redemption Tuesday with a bronze on the beam and gold on the floor. 

Golden girl in the all-around Douglas struggled in both of her individual finals. She finished last among a strong group in the uneven bars and fell off the beam ending up in 7th. Douglas went from on top of the podium Thursday to fallen on the mat Tuesday. It's a quick reversal. 

It wasn't just the Americans suffering an emotional upheaval either. Team Russia seemed to be on a spiraling stream of emotions with gymnasts Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova jumping from proud to sad to angry in a few blinks. Finding consistency was no easy task at these games. 

Sustaining brilliance in gymnastics is near impossible. Very few of the world's best fly high at multiple Olympics. 

Both the gold and silver medalists in the all-around at Beijing failed to make it back to London. Shawn Johnson was forced to retire before the U.S. Trials due to a knee injury. Nastia Liukin got the to the trials but ended up face down on the mat, falling to grasp back onto the bar after a release. It's a jarring moment to watch when you remember Liukin in China, a pink princess gallivanting to gold. 

It is all too familiar though. Glory comes and goes quickly. The golden girl's face is on a cereal box then just one in the crowd in a matter of only four years. 

A new superstar emerges and four years ago becomes a distant memory. It has been more than four decades since a woman repeated as all-around champion at the Olympics, the sport's gold standard. 

For now, the memories of American triumph are resonant - McKayla Maroney's jaw-dropping vault in the team final, Gabby Douglas' historic all-around gold, and Aly Raisman capping it with an infectious floor routine for individual gold. 

Four years of training all put to the test in a two-week period. It's special. It changes lives. But fame is fleeting for these girls and women. As Frost writes, "nothing gold can stay."

Olympics: A time for bonding, not dividing, as Americans

When it comes to our daily lives, we stand divided on many issues, everything from gun control to guys and girls on 'The Bachelor' or 'The Bachelorette.'

But every two years, the Olympics mark a time we can come together. As Americans, as families, as friends, we all share a common bond. Our rooting interest is the same, which doesn’t happen too often. 

Rivalries in sports often divide friends, cities and families. That’s part of the fun. We love trash talking a friend, brother or cousin when our team beats theirs. We thrive on seeing our teams take titles. But in doing that, we become a segmented audience. 

Not so with the Olympics. 

For two weeks, we can all root for the same athletes, representing our country among the world’s best. 

The Olympics brings us all together for a good reason and that proves a rare occurrence. Many times, it's tragedy that causes us to seek unity and patriotism. 

Post-9/11, flags flew outside of homes and bars. The fabric at the heart of our country became stitched even tighter.

It’s easy to sometimes forget what makes our country so special -- the freedoms that we are afforded, the values upon which we live our lives.

We remember them when they are tarred and corrupted, like last Friday, when a gunman entered a movie theater, shooting 71 innocent people, killing 12 in Colorado. They were just trying to enjoy a midnight premiere. It’s simple, just another ritual for Americans. 

In the aftermath of that tragedy we remembered just how fragile life is, just how tenuous our freedoms can be. It's when our cores are shaken when that perspective takes focus. As Colorado victim Jessica Redford so poignantly wrote following another shooting she narrowly missed, "I was reminded that we don't know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath." 

We came together in support of those victims, people like us, whose lives were taken in tragedy. 

But now, we get the opportunity to come together for good reason as the 2012 Olympics kick off in London. We won’t find strength in each other through pain and suffering, but triumph and success. 

We’ll sit on our couches watching it all unfold, with family and friends. 

I remember it when I was a kid, sitting in my living room with my grandma, eyes glued to the television as Kerri Strug hopped off the mat in Atlanta and the Magnificent 7 hopped on to the podium, gold put around their necks. 

In 2008 at Beijing, Michael Phelps captivated the world. My friends and I screamed as we huddled around the TV watching Phelps reach for the wall, tempting fate with fingertips in the 100-meter, keeping alive his quest for most Olympic medals. 

Two years ago, I sat in my friend's dorm room watching hours of curling at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, as we came and went from class to class. 

It’s all incredible. And there's something for just about everyone. Some marvel at the sheer speed of swimming's sprints, others the artistry of gymnastics, and for some the bikinis of beach volleyball are enough reason to tune in.

We feel the thrill of the games -- Americans, free just like us, on the world’s biggest stage. 

The Star Spangled Banner plays as we watch them revel in their moment of glory. They get choked up. Sometimes we do too. And we do it together. 

For a couple weeks, we see the commonalities we share with each other and the rest of the world. Despite different governments, ideologies, or ways of life, we are all people. 

We’re not divided like lawmakers on Capitol Hill. We’re not broken apart on hot-button issues. We're not liberals or conservatives, activists or pacifists, when it comes to the games. 

We are people. We are Americans.

That's the power of the Olympics. 

No, the games aren't without scandal or imperfections, but their power to unify is undeniable. So grab a friend, settle in with family, and together, watch the flag unfurl and history unfold.

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/sports/olympics/2012-london-olympics-a-time-for-bonding-not-dividing-as-americans#ixzz221o15cse

Aaron Sorkin's 'newsroom upon a hill' in new HBO series 'The Newsroom'

If you didn't know the news was a shell of its former self, well, Aaron Sorkin isn't just telling you in his new HBO series The Newsroom. He's hitting your over the head with a stack of papers, running it on a crawl and flashing it all over your television screen in the same way today's news coverage he looks down upon would probably handle a celebrity death.

The Newsroom is very well-cast. Jeff Daniels is compelling as news anchor Will McAvoy, who strives to be objective but ultimately breaks routine with an outburst that triggers attention. Executive producer Mackenzie Machale, played by Emily Mortimer, is wonderful, plucky and full of life. Mortimer and McAvoy have excellent chemistry. Senior producer Jim Harper (John Gallagher Jr.) and newly named associate producer Maggie Jordan (Alison Pill) are likeable, the initial newsroom underdogs you want to root for.

But for all the good the actors can do, The Newsroom is bogged down in its own self-worth, smothered in idealistic dialogue and predictable setups. Let's spell it out in episode one.

- New EP hired, anchor doesn't want to work with her team, breaking news happens, they conveniently prove themselves
- New EP and anchor had a past relationship (surprise!) that carries baggage they must work through
- Anchor 'imagined' new EP in audience when having diatribe but shocker it actually was her! And in case you didn't catch on it's made astoundingly clear.

Sorkin's 'newsroom' is one where the news cycle is dictated by the color of AP alerts. It operates in a fictional reality where an entire hour-long newscast goes over seamlessly with no rundown. A phoner is cued up 30 seconds before air and runs without technical glitch.

Yes, this is television. It's not always realistic. No one believes counterterrorism agencies really run in the same manner as CTU did in 24 - at least I hope not.

That was fine - the willing suspension of disbelief worked because of the show's tone. 24 was always pure entertainment, a thrill ride which made no bones about its existence outside of actual reality. Whereas 24 was centered around fictional terror plots, The Newsroom focuses on fictional coverage of a pulled from the headlines story, the BP spill in the Gulf. That makes the liberties taken with being realistic harder to swallow.

Sorkin's newsroom is his version of a 'city upon the hill,' a newsroom more virtuous and grounded in the truth than all others. The excellent actors are given dialogue that's so coated in Sorkin's predisposed agenda that they can't help but sound like a class president reading a speech of promises to the high school auditorium.

The Newsroom is not a bad show. The 73 minutes start off with a bang, fall into boredom, then crescendo again into a fast-paced product. But even its funny moments are spoiled by a lack of overtness, the need to spell out just what is meant.

As the "perfect" live newscast is going off, the older news director Charlie Skinner emerges and tells a young lady to get on her Twitter and describe how wonderful it all is from his long-winded speech.

That's a funny bit. You could see that happening in a newsroom - I got a laugh out of it. Until the woman responds woodenly "I can only use 140 characters." Way not to spell that one out.

And that is perhaps the greatest flaw of The Newsroom. It is just too full of itself. The show treats its viewers like they are the idiots who don't know that the news is "so bad."

While entertaining at times, it comes across as the professor who does not describe history but instead stands upon a pulpit and preaches the way it should have been.

Even worse, The Newsroom becomes just what Skinner does not want his newscast within the show to be - an agenda.

Special Father's Day for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Rick Hendrick

A father who lost his son on his way to the track and son who lost his father on it both tasted victory Sunday on Father's Day.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was on the phone with his boss Rick Hendrick before he stepped out of his car in Victory Lane. It was Earnhardt Jr.'s first time there in 143 races and four years.

Earnhardt Jr. was born into a racing family, now in its fourth generation. It began in Kannapolis, North Carolina with Ralph Earnhardt and now stretches all the way to Jeffrey Earnhardt, who has made two NASCAR Nationwide starts in 2012.

Dale Jr.'s whole life has been racing, growing up watching his dad win races and championships. Jr. grew up with his father on the track and also lost him there. It was as he pushed his Dale Earnhardt Incorporated teammate Michael Waltrip to the 1998 Daytona 500 win that his father's car crashed into the Turn 4 wall.

Earnhardt Sr. was pronounced dead that day, at a hospital outside the mecca of motorsports.

Rick Hendrick created his racing family. Hendrick built his first car as a tween, became a team owner in 1984 and has since won numerous championships. His son Ricky followed in his father's racing footsteps, first as a driver then as an owner.

But like Dale Jr.'s dad, Hendrick's son was lost in the pursuit of his passion. Ricky Hendrick died in a plane crash on his way to Martinsville Speedway in 2004.

Nine people associated with Hendrick Motorsports died in that crash, including Rick Hendrick's twin nieces.

"Everybody on that plane was special. And there'll always be a hole in your heart for all of them," Hendrick told USA Today in 2005.

Dale Jr. and Rick Hendrick are two men whose lives are each entrenched in the rubber of the racetrack and the family bonds created through them. Each suffered great loss associated with what they love.

Sunday a black Chevy was back in victory lane. It was driven by Junior on a day reserved for fathers. You can't help but remember Dale Sr.'s black No. 3.

Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick aren't bonded by blood but Junior delivered Hendrick a  Father's Day gift - and you can only imagine, somewhere up above, the father and son they lost were casting down smiles. 

Craig Sager interviews Kendrick Perkins Jr. who likes pie

Craig Sager is well-known for his ghastly fashion statements on TNT's NBA broadcasts. He has interviewed some of basketball's best but it was an interview he did with a young tyke Saturday night that was television gold.

Following the Thunder's game four victory over the Spurs, Sager caught up with Kendrick Perkins Jr., the son of Thunder center Kendrick Perkins.

He asked him thought-provoking questions such as "why are you dressed like Russell Westbrook?" but struggled to get much of a response - until it came to a question about, you surely didn't guess it, marshmallows. 

Get that boy some pie! (not Sir Charles though - he's on Weight Watchers, remember?)

Johan Santana's no-hitter erases glaring zero in Mets' history

Baseball is a game of numbers, made up of many minute statistics. Its greats and milestones are defined more than any other by mythical numbers (some of which have since been tarred).

755, 62, 2632, 56 - if you’re a big baseball fan, there’s no need to match those numbers to name or feat.

For the Mets, a lengthy streak lingered in their 51-year history.

8,019 – that’s the number of games, now well known, the Metropolitans had gone without a no-hitter.

30 franchises had pitched a no-hitter in their history in that time, the Mets and Padres the lone two left out of that club.

Four Cy Young awards were given to two Mets pitchers, Tom Seaver three times and Doc Gooden once.

Four Mets pitchers finished the season with the lowest ERA in baseball seven times (Seaver again did it three times).

Seaver, Gooden and David Cone combined for nine strikeout titles.

Five different managers earned the Mets six playoff berths. Four won pennants. Two won World Series championships. 

Mets pitchers threw a total of 35 one-hitters.

None threw a no-hitter.

Friday night, a zero in the hit column erased that zero in the record book, accompanied by a new set of numbers.

134 pitches by two-time Cy Young winner Johan Santana, 19 more than manager Terry Collins said was his limit.

Two defining plays - a Carlos Beltran liner that was called foul though it left a mark on the chalk down the third base line and an incredible catch by a Queens native, Mike Baxter.

27,069 fans who witnessed history.

One no-hitter.

It’s not a World Series. It doesn’t rectify the chokes or disappointment Mets fans have suffered over the past decade.

But for one night it brought life never before seen to Citi Field, celebration on the mound, and euphoria in the stands.

You can’t measure that in a number - only in feeling.