Yao Ming and Wife Expecting Baby. Could Little Yao Bring Global Harmony? January 6, 2010

Yao and Ye Could Be Parents Standing Tall

Wonder if Van Gundy Will be the Godfather?

Update: The Baby was Born…a Little Girl…Read More

Yao Ming is not the best player in the National Basketball Association.  But, he is probably the most popular and perhaps the best known basketball player in the world.  He is the center of the Houston Rockets and has been an all star every year that he’s been in the league.  He has never won an NBA Championship but last season, he was leading his team to  a potential upset of the World Champion Los Angeles Lakers when he was injured.  Yao’s injury will keep him out of the line-up this season and his career may be in jeopardy.  But, Yao’s absence on the basketball court doesn’t mean that he has been on the physically unable to perform list.  He’s taken his game to a new level.  The internet is abuzz with news that the 7’6″ Ming and his bride, the 6’2″ Ye Li are expecting their first child. 

No Hanky Panky Yao, You're Gonna be a Dad!

Now, Houston TV station KTRK has a headline that simply says, Yao Ming’s Wife Expecting a Baby.  Up the road, Tyler, Texas TV station KETK has the story carried by Yahoo sports but they added the measurements of Mrs. Yao by saying Yao Ming and 6’2″ wife expecting first baby.  It’s probably the first time that the height of the mother-to-be was substituted for the name of the mother.  Now, both of those reports came out on Tuesday afternoon in the United States.  Curiously, the Houston Chronicle by Tuesday evening still had no word.  Perhaps they were waiting for a confirmation.  Well, the world press didn’t need any more confirmation that the word of Ye Li’s blabbermouth close friend Miao Lijie who when asked why Ye did not attend the Shanghai World Expo, she replied that “a pregnant woman deserves less public activities.”  Whoops.  I’m not sure if Ye and Miao are like Laverne and Shirley, but they are members(or were) of the same basketball team.

The blab from Miao heard round the world has scribes buzzing.  The People’s Daily is reporting on the furor over speculation regarding the height of the yet to be born child whom no one knows will be a he or she.  The Taipei Times has a similar story, as does the Malaysian Mirror and the Straits Times.  Guess there’s only so much news to print so it just get reprinted over and over again, like the world is on the US cable news cycle. 

Yao May be the only man in China who can keep a close eye on Ye at all times

That means that everyone has the same story, almost word for word, from the same source and they pretend like they broke the story.  What sometimes happen in this sheep mentality is that if the original news outlet has the story wrong, then everyone has it wrong.  I’ve seen it in several newsrooms I’ve worked at many times.  In a journalism class you get an F if you don’t check your sources.  In a tv newsroom, you get paid if you just trust the wire or network report and don’t question why it says that John Glenn was the first man in space (he wasn’t) or that the space shuttle travels 18 times the speed of light (it doesn’t, nor does the Star Ship Enterprise…but never mind…it was reported that way).  But in this case, the news was confirmed by Yao’s spokesman, Zhang Chi.  Now…Ye is expecting in July.  At least one of the reports has a small but significant line.  It says that it has yet to be determined where the child will be born.  Hmmmm….In July, Yao might be in Houston working out for the upcoming season…and if his child were born in the US, that would make him a US citizen as well as a citizen of China.  At first thought, one might think that could really anger the Chinese government.  But…on the other hand…could it be possible that the man who helped linked East and West through basketball may have a child with a dual citizenship that could further bond the United States and China, perhaps leading to more global cooperation and world peace?  Perhaps its not as far fetched as one might think.

NAM 7am Sat Snow Depth

GFS Sat 7am Snow Depth...a little more bullish than NAM

Weather Bottom Line:  Everything appears to be on track.  The strong shortwave is still looking like it will track down almost right over us from the northwest with perhaps some snow showers picking up late Wednesday night but the bulk of the Snow will occur on Thursday.  I had speculated that school would be out of Friday, which is probably still will be for many but now Thursday looks like that many school systems will probably take the easy way out and extend the Christmas holidays a bit.  Any excuse seems good enough but, to be fair, they have to consider safety and the fact that they may have a limited attendance which in some states means limited funding.  In any event, the short wave coming over the top of Louisville means that the maximum snow will not be in our area but typically is to the north.  So, while Indianapolis may pick up 8 inches or so, we’re probably looking at 2-3 inches on Thursday.  While there is some consistency with the models in conventional ratios coming out to about 2.5 inches, I suspect it may be a more fluffy snow with a greater liquid to snow ratio so it may be more like we get widespread 3 inch amounts.  Then we get flurried to death on Friday and maybe even early Saturday as the jet is almost right over us and the air gets so cold that it squeezes out whatever it can. So, by the weekend, the overall storm reports may come in close to 4 inches, though I doubt there will be much more than that.  Now, with that snow on the ground, we will be looking at single digits on Saturday morning and I bet close to zero on Sunday morning with some folks below zero.  I’m still hanging my hat on the idea that we don’t get above freezing until after Jan 15.  Keep in mind, we brought in the New Year at 23 degrees or so and haven’t sniffed the freezing point since.

Yao Ming Career in Jeopardy; Tightrope Across Niagara and Articles of War June 30, 2009

Look at this guy tightrope across Niagara Falls.

Yao's towering career in Jeopardy?

CLICK HERE for Yao Ming baby announcement!

Yao Ming is perhaps the NBA’s greatest marketing tool in the world.  Every time he plays, hundreds of millions of Chinese tune in to watch the Houston Rockets.  The Rockets figured out that marketing power initially when, after dawning a new logo and uniform just a few years prior to his addition to the franchise, they quickly revamped their look again by enhancing their uniform to feature prominently the color red that is close to that used in the Chinese flag.  The lettering also took on a look similar to what one might find at the Asian section of an amusement park.   Yao has done pretty well in the NBA but has had troubles with injuries.  In the second round of the playoffs, he reinjured a foot that had been surgically repaird for fractures.  Now it seems that the foot is not healing and, like Bill Walton, Yao’s  foot problems may limit the remainder of his career.  Houston has a problem.

The year was 1859 and, on this date in history, Emile Blondin took to the rope up to 270 feet above Niagara and for 1100 feet walked across from one side to the other. His real name was Jean-Francois Gravelet and he was born in France. He saw his first tightrope act in France at the age of 5. He supposedly came right home and set up a rope with some chairs and began practicing. His father was a gymnast and helped him. After just 6 months, he was performing. Somehow he became an orphan and so he ran and joined the circus at age 9. One source I have found says that 5,000 people watched him do this first stunt on a two inch wide rope and another claims 100,000 on a 3 inch rope. So, who knows? A lot of locals didn’t want him to do the stunt because they thought it would turn the lovely falls into the backdrop for a circus type atmosphere. Much to their chagrin, the first walk was to successful, Blondin did it many more times with variations.

Blondin's Fame was Enough for its use in parody of James Buchanan's failed efforts prior to the Civl War

He did it blindfolded, with a man on his back, in a gorilla suit while pushing a wheelbarrow and he even wowed the crowds by taking photos of them while on the rope, which I am trying to fathom giving the size of photographic equipment in the 19th century…I’m not sure if I’m buyin’ that. It is also said that he cooked an omelet over the falls. Other sources confirm this and one even says that he crossed Niagara on stilts! I’m tryin to figure those two out too. In all, he crossed Niagara 16 times and performed other walks all around the world. His final performance was at age 68. He died at 73 a very wealthy man. Source suggest that he made $500 a performance but he had to have made more than that at the end of his career as his earnings for his final two years was about $400,000. In 2007, dollars, that would be $9.12 million.

So, why in the world would anyone want to do such a silly thing? I mean…what does it prove? What does it say about you? Well, apparently someone thought it was worth while because the practice goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks. If you have some time, check out this website…The Blondin Memorial Trust.

Blondin Memorial Trust History of Tightrope

 

Brits communicated with America through papers such as PA Evening Post on May 13, 1775

Beginnings of Independence:

We celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. Everyone knows it was in 1776. But, on this date in 1775 the seeds for separation were sown when the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of War. Its rather interesting because the Congress directed Thomas Jefferson to omit any criticism of King George. Instead, Jefferson referred to the colonists as “his Majesty’s most faithful subjects in these Colonies” and laid blame for their actions at the feet of parliament. My guess is that this goes back to the tradition of protest.

See, for centuries, the peasants in Europe were not able to communicate directly with the King. The King’s men did his bidding and often did things that upset the citizenry. So, they would protest with the idea that “if only the king knew…he’d stop this!” so they protested in an effort to gain the King’s attention to their plight expecting that the King would deal with the evil doers and right the wrongs. So, I suspect this was Congress putting the King on notice that their grievances were not against him directly, hoping that by declaring they had not personal beef with him, that the King would address their grievances and all would be well in Colonial America.

But, alas, that did no good because as was often the case, the King’s men were doing exactly what the King wanted. It was never very likely that the King’s men or the Parliament would do any free-lancing and act beyond the King’s wishes. After a year, that became apparent to the colonists and a year later, Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence and laid the blame squarely at the King’s feet. From that point forth, there was no turning back and for the leaders of the Revolution, mainly the colonies’ elites, literally were living the motto “give me liberty or give me death” as the signers of the Declaration had signed their own death warrants had the efforts failed. After all, it’s one thing to dog Parliament….it’s quite another to trash the King.

Weather Bottom Line:  This is how averages comes about.  Last week, we had highs in the 90′s.  We started the week with a high in the mid to upper 80′s on Monday but it was relatively dry.  A second push of drier air came through late Monday, as expected, and now some folks may struggle to the 80′s today.  We move back to the upper 80′s toward the end of the week but until then we’ll have cool nights as humidity levels remain in check.  We may start to see a few pop up afternoon storms by late in the week.  A front will probably hold off though until after the Fourth of July.