Jeremy Lin, Tim Tebow included on Time 100 list - USA TODAY (blog)

Often you are judged by the company you keep. That should make the athletes on the Time 100 list pretty heady.

Not only are they in good company with presidents, actors and Supreme Court justices, but their tributes are written by some impressive people.

Jeremy Lin gets U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Tim Tebow gets Jeremy Lin.

Novak Djokovic gets Time sports editor Bill Saparito.

Yani Tseng getsAnnika Sorenstam.

Lionel Messi gets Mia Hamm.

Oscar Pistorius getsTime sports columnist Sean Gregory.

juicy couture outlet juicy couture juicy couture charms

William & Mary student to Jeremy Lin: Will you be my date to senior formal? - Washington Post (blog)

As Lina Yeh debated who to invite to her senior formal at the College of William and Mary, she found herself reciting that line often uttered by single girls in small college towns: “Gosh, there are no guys at this school.” So Yeh set her sights outside of Williamsburg.

“And then it dawned on me,” she said. “Jeremy Lin.”

But how does a Virginia college student attract the attention of the New York Knicks point guard, who has quickly vaulted to fame and spurred Linsanity?

Her plan: Film a You Tube video. Watch it spread through Twitter and Facebook. Wait for Lin’s phone call.

With the help of her friends, professors, the campus mascot and even the university president, Yeh filmed a four-and-a-half-minute video that gives Lin a tongue-in-cheek tour of Williamsburg (including Wawa and crickets chirping at the local bars at midnight on a Friday) and humorously lists reasons why he should be her date (like how she got an A in economics).

“A’s are tough to get at William and Mary,” an economics professor says in the video. “Way tougher than at Harvard.”

Jeremy Lin fans cheer during the game between the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers in March. (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images) (Drew Hallowell - Getty Images) After more than two weeks of work, the video was completed. Yeh posted it on You Tube on Sunday, and by Thursday morning it had been viewed more than 55,000 times.

Nowadays, university communications offices spend a lot of time brainstorming ways to create light-hearted videos showcasing campus that can go viral and attract easy, inexpensive attention. But sometimes that happens without much thinking or planning — like last year, when someone took a video of George Washington University President Steven Knapp dancing, added the song “Shots,” and watched the masterpiece go viral.

Jeremy Lin (17) of the New York Knicks drives against Alonzo Gee (33) of the Cleveland Cavaliers in February. (Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images) (Chris Trotman - Getty Images) Usually public relations offices embrace these videos (as long as they don’t promote underage drinking or any nefarious activities) because they show an unfiltered look at the university.

The Lin proposal video, which I heard about from William and Mary’s press office, provides an off-beat tour of campus and popular student hangouts. It also features professors who seem friendly and approachable, a star women’s basketball player and even the university president, Taylor Reveley, who giggles as he invites Lin to visit campus.

As for the senior dance, which is scheduled for May 11, the university says that Yeh has yet to hear from Lin.

For even more higher education news, you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter. And on this same topic, here are a few related blog posts:

University of Richmond acceptance letter prompts jumping, shouts of ‘booyah’

GW President Knapp becomes YouTube dancing sensation

BYU ‘mathletes’ film rap video ahead of March Madness

juicy couture outlet juicy couture juicy couture charms

Lin picked as outfield fill-in - Boston.com

var archivedState=0;

Che-Hsuan Lin was preparing for his first at-bat with Triple A Pawtucket on Friday night when manager Arnie Beyeler pulled him out of the lineup.

The Red Sox needed an outfielder to replace the injured Jacoby Ellsbury and the 23-year-old Lin was their choice. After a restless night filled with phone calls and text messages, Lin flew into Boston on Saturday morning and was in uniform against the Tampa Bay Rays.

“It’s hard to describe how I feel right now,’’ Lin said via interpreter Mickey Jiang before the game. “Getting a chance to play in the big leagues has been my dream since I was young and it’s finally come true. But I don’t want to think too far ahead.’’

Good idea. Lin got into the game as a defensive replacement in the ninth inning then was optioned back to Pawtucket.

“It was fun to play,’’ he said. “I hope I come back.’’

Lin has made steady progress since being signed in 2007. He finished last season with Pawtucket, hitting .235 in 85 games.

Lin was with the Red Sox in spring training, going 1 for 11 in 10 games.

He said being around the team in spring training the last few years was beneficial, particularly in terms of feeling comfortable with the veteran players.

“Very good defensive player, strong accurate arm. Looks like he can play all three [outfield] spots. Good base runner,’’ manager Bobby Valentine said.

The problem for Lin comes at the plate. Although he has good strike-zone discipline, Lin is a career .256 hitter in the minors with 20 home runs over parts of six seasons.

Lin is the eighth player from Taiwan to be added to a major league roster, the first with the Red Sox.

Valentine didn’t get into specifics, but indicated that the team would make a move to add a different outfielder before Sunday afternoon’s game.

That could be Jason Repko, a 31-year-old with 355 games of major league experience with the Dodgers and Twins.

Repko might have been called up for Saturday, but he had missed six days with a minor injury. Repko started in center field for Pawtucket on Saturday afternoon in Rochester and was 3 for 5 with a double.

There could be a second addition. The Red Sox are carrying 13 pitchers, the extra bullpen arm serving as insurance in case Josh Beckett had problems with his right thumb.

But with Beckett two starts into his season and having no trouble, the Sox are ready to add another player to the bench.

Carl Crawford was on the field early, working out with strength and conditioning consultant Mike Boyle. He will return to Fort Myers, Fla., on Monday and play in extended spring games.

Crawford took batting practice on the field Friday and Saturday and had no issues with his surgically repaired left wrist.

The loss of Ellsbury has added even more motivation to Crawford to return.

“I was doing the best I could anyway, but I know that the quicker I can come back, the better it’ll be,’’ Crawford said. “I’m trying.’’

Because he has yet to play in any games, Crawford will need a few weeks to regain his timing at the plate.

“I’m going to follow the program they have set up and see how I feel,’’ he said. “I really don’t know how many [at-bats] I’ll need. Hopefully I’ll get my swing down pretty quickly.’’

A mischievous teammate printed three photographs of Kelly Shoppach’s “slide’’ into second base Friday and taped them to a pillar near his locker. Shoppach stole a base for the first time in his career in the sixth inning, trying a pop-up slide too far from second base then diving on the base before the stunned Rays could make a throw. Shoppach hit his face on the bag but was safe. His innovative technique earned chuckles from both teams, Shoppach having played for the Rays from 2010-11.

The Red Sox honored 92-year-old Johnny Pesky before the game. With owner John Henry, president Larry Lucchino, and David Ortiz on hand, Pesky was presented with some mementos of Fenway Park on the anniversary of his major league debut in 1942. Batting second ahead of Ted Williams, Pesky went 2 for 4 with a triple that day against the Philadelphia Athletics . . . Bill Hogan Jr., who was born six days before Fenway Park opened in 1912, threw out the first pitch. Wearing a Sox jersey and accompanied by his 18 great-grandchildren, Hogan threw a pitch to Mark Melancon from in front of the plate. He trained for a month with the staff of the Brookhaven Retirement Home in his hometown of Lexington.

Several players received their 2011 awards before the game. Ellsbury picked up his Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, and Comeback Player of the Year trophies. Dustin Pedroia and Adrian Gonzalez got their Gold Glove and Silver Slugger hardware, and Ortiz took home his Silver Slugger and Outstanding DH awards . . . Pitching coach Bob McClure was not feeling well, so bullpen coach Gary Tuck filled in during the game.

Peter Abraham can be reached at pabraham@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @PeteAbe.

? Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.
juicy couture outlet juicy couture juicy couture charms

Is LIN TV Good Enough for You? - DailyFinance

By Seth Jayson, The Motley Fool Posted 10:05AM 04/19/12 Posted under: Investing

Margins matter. The more LIN TV (NYS: TVL) keeps of each buck it earns in revenue, the more money it has to invest in growth, fund new strategic plans, or (gasp!) distribute to shareholders. Healthy margins often separate pretenders from the best stocks in the market. That's why we check up on margins at least once a quarter in this series. I'm looking for the absolute numbers, so I can compare them to current and potential competitors, and any trend that may tell me how strong LIN TV's competitive position could be.

Here's the current margin snapshot for LIN TV over the trailing 12 months: Gross margin is 67.3%, while operating margin is 22.6% and net margin is 12.1%.

Unfortunately, a look at the most recent numbers doesn't tell us much about where LIN TV has been, or where it's going. A company with rising gross and operating margins often fuels its growth by increasing demand for its products. If it sells more units while keeping costs in check, its profitability increases. Conversely, a company with gross margins that inch downward over time is often losing out to competition, and possibly engaging in a race to the bottom on prices. If it can't make up for this problem by cutting costs -- and most companies can't -- then both the business and its shares face a decidedly bleak outlook.

Of course, over the short term, the kind of economic shocks we recently experienced can drastically affect a company's profitability. That's why I like to look at five fiscal years' worth of margins, along with the results for the trailing 12 months, the last fiscal year, and last fiscal quarter (LFQ). You can't always reach a hard conclusion about your company's health, but you can better understand what to expect, and what to watch.

Here's the margin picture for LIN TV over the past few years.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Dollar amounts in millions. FY = fiscal year. TTM = trailing 12 months.

Because of seasonality in some businesses, the numbers for the last period on the right -- the TTM figures -- aren't always comparable to the FY results preceding them. Here's how the stats break down:

Over the past five years, gross margin peaked at 70.8% and averaged 69.4%. Operating margin peaked at 27.4% and averaged 22.3%. Net margin peaked at 13.6% and averaged -34.3%.TTM gross margin is 67.3%, 210 basis points worse than the five-year average. TTM operating margin is 22.6%, 30 basis points better than the five-year average. TTM net margin is 12.1%, 4,640 basis points better than the five-year average.

With recent TTM operating margins exceeding historical averages, LIN TV looks like it is doing fine.

Over the decades, small-cap stocks like LIN TV have provided market-beating returns, provided they're value priced and have solid businesses. Read about a pair of companies with a lock on their markets in "Too Small to Fail: Two Small Caps the Government Won't Let Go Broke." Click here for instant access to this free report.

At the time this article was published Seth Jayson had no position in any company mentioned here at the time of publication. You can view his stock holdings here. He is co-advisor of Motley Fool Hidden Gems, which provides new small-cap ideas every month, backed by a real-money portfolio. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright ? 1995 - 2012 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

juicy couture outlet juicy couture juicy couture charms

Jeremy Lin, Tim Tebow Among's Time's Most Influential People - Opposing Views

Time magazine had several sports figures on this year’s list of the Most Influential people. Most notably, this year's countdown featured: Tim Tebow of the New York Jets and Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks.

Tebow became one of the biggest stars in sports, leading the Denver Broncos to the playoffs with his magic, including a big overtime win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. He also helped spread his Christian beliefs and didn’t mind being an outspoken person of it, winning the hearts of many.

Lin became a true underdog story, being a star at Harvard. However, he went undrafted and got cut twice before heading to New York. After almost getting cut, he put on big performances and is now the starting point guard of the team. He is also one of the few Asian players to ever play in the league.

Lin wrote about the Tebow part for the magazine, saying the following:

“Watching Tim Tebow play football, you can observe many things about his character. You see his fierce competitiveness, his strong work ethic and how he is a leader that his teammates trust and respect.

“But it is the qualities that Tim, 24, embodies in his life off the field that truly set him apart. He is unashamed of his convictions and faith, and he lives a life that consistently reflects his values, day in and day out. . . . As athletes, we pour our hearts into winning games. Tim is a reminder that life is about much more than that.”

Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education, wrote the piece for Lin:

“Jeremy Lin’s story is a great lesson for kids everywhere because it debunks and defangs so many of the prejudices and stereotypes that unfairly hold children back. He’s dispelled the idea that Asian-American guards somehow couldn’t hack it in the NBA — and that being a world-class athlete on the court is somehow at odds with being an excellent student off the court.

“Jeremy cares only about one thing — winning. And I don’t care whether you are an Asian-American kid, white, black or Hispanic, Jeremy’s story tells you that if you show grit, discipline and integrity, you too can get an opportunity to overcome the odds.”

Four other athletes also made the list, including tennis player Novak Djokovic; golfer Yani Tseng; soccer player Lionel Messi; and South African runner Oscar Pistorius.

Related Content

LeBron James: Winning Third MVP Would Mean A Lot

NFL Draft 2012: Colts Already Decided On Who to Have at No. 1

Jamie Moyer Becomes Oldest Pitcher Ever to Win MLB Game

Jeremy Lin, Tim Tebow In Time’s Most Influential List

Miles Austin: I Was Out of Shape Last Season

Bayern Munich Beats Real Madrid 2-1 in Champions League Semi! Is Real Madrid Going to Come Back?

Get more great sports analysis over at FootBasket.

juicy couture outlet juicy couture juicy couture charms

Maya Lin Issues Warning to a Dirty, Dying Planet - BusinessWeek

More than 30 years after creating her Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Maya Lin is focusing on the world.

“What Is Missing?” is her ongoing and she says last memorial, a multi-sided art work designed to raise awareness about species and habitat loss.

For example, there’s the Listening Cone sculpture with sights and sounds of the earth. But the project’s heart is the website -- http://whatismissing.net.

Lin sipped tea as we spoke in her book-lined studio in New York’s SoHo area, a tranquil space filled with architectural models and silent people peering intensely at computer screens.

Lundborg: Is “What Is Missing” a memorial?

Lin: It’s my last memorial, but I’ll be contributing to it for the rest of my life.

We’re installing sound works and films at sites throughout the world.

Lundborg: What is the Map of Memory?

Lin: We’re asking everyone to take a look around -- if you’re young, interview your grandparents or your parents -- and tell us what you personally have witnessed disappear or diminish in your own backyard.

Go to our website and give us some memory.

Lundborg: What’s happening with your site on Earth Day?

Lin: We’re launching the second part of the website, Conservation in Action, which takes you to 20 different environmental groups and shows you what they’re doing all over the world.

It also gives a very concise history of the best successes and the worst failures: Why did we work so quickly as a world to ban CFCs and yet we can’t get any agreement as far as global warming issues?

Lundborg: How can we change things?

Lin: What we spend on ice cream in Europe is $11 billion, on cigarettes it’s $50 billion. Experts say to restore fisheries would cost $13 billion.

We are absolutely capable of change -- we can say hey, don’t do it that way, that was a disaster.

Lundborg: How does the American scorecard look?

Lin: We’re in a cycle of gluttony which doesn’t make us happy. But the marketers have us exactly where they want us because if you never feel happy then you want more.

It’s a very bad cycle, leading to the feeling that nothing’s ever good enough.

Lundborg: I guess we are not exactly setting a good example.

Lin: If the whole world consumed like an American, we’d need five planets. If like a European, we’d need three planets. If you do a flat average around the world, we’d need 1.3 planets worth of resources to support us. It’s not sustainable.

We have to be very careful not to equate freedom with a freedom to be excessive.

Lundborg: When did you have your polar bear moment?

Lin: Probably as a kid when I was growing up in the 1960s -- I was very moved by images like rivers around Lake Erie catching fire, plus Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” had just come out.

All my art work revolves around looking at the natural world, getting you to look at it in a different light.

Lundborg: Your design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial made you an international star. How has your thinking about memorials evolved over 30 years?

Lin: I like to reinvent what something is. In its time the Vietnam memorial was questioning whether a memorial had to be so grandiose and talk to you almost like a billboard.

I’ve always seen my world as a tripod between the art, the architecture and the memorials, and memorials are this hybrid. They have a functionality, but it’s symbolic, it’s conceptual, it’s a need.

When I was a kid growing up, I wanted to become a field zoologist. I always made art, and then I got to Yale and architecture.

All my art and all my architecture is sustainable and green and I’ve been really committed that way for two decades now.

Bloomberg LP is a sponsor of Maya Lin’s What Is Missing? Foundation.

(Zinta Lundborg is an editor for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own. This interview was adapted from a longer conversation.)

Today’s Muse highlights include commentary on the King of Spain’s elephant hunt and a review of a new tech product.

To contact the reporter on this story: Zinta Lundborg at zlundborg@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

juicy couture outlet juicy couture juicy couture charms

Morning Jolt: Most Influential People in the World - Enterprise News

Watercooler talk: Time magazine on Wednesday released its list of 100 Most Influential People in the World. The list is diverse, with people such as President Barack Obama, comedian Louis CK, basketball player Jeremy Lin making the list. Who do you think belongs on the list?

What’s happening today: Space Shuttle Discovery, which was moved to Washington, D.C., in impressive style Tuesday - on the back of an airplane - will officially be received by the Smithsonian today and placed on display. The public can see the shuttle beginning Friday.

Opening bell: The Dow opened at 13,032.75 today. It fell 82.79 points on Wednesday.

Motivational quote: “If you want to stay young-looking, pick your parents very carefully.”- Dick Clark

Hot video: Red Bud, Ill., is celebrating its Mega Millions winners. See a video report here:

GateHouse News Service

Watercooler talk: Time magazine on Wednesday released its list of 100 Most Influential People in the World. The list is diverse, with people such as President Barack Obama, comedian Louis CK, basketball player Jeremy Lin making the list. Who do you think belongs on the list?

What’s happening today: Space Shuttle Discovery, which was moved to Washington, D.C., in impressive style Tuesday - on the back of an airplane - will officially be received by the Smithsonian today and placed on display. The public can see the shuttle beginning Friday.

Opening bell: The Dow opened at 13,032.75 today. It fell 82.79 points on Wednesday.

Motivational quote: “If you want to stay young-looking, pick your parents very carefully.”- Dick Clark

Hot video: Red Bud, Ill., is celebrating its Mega Millions winners. See a video report here:

GateHouse News Service

juicy couture outlet juicy couture juicy couture charms