Weekend Digest: The Farewell Spock Edition

For our weekend business and political readers:

TV PREVIEW: CRIME & PUNISHMENT
On this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7, tune in for the following:

Criminal justice reform continues to stir debate at the state capitol. How systemic are prison problems? Beyond the Governor’s plan, what’s being done to get a grasp on the situation? Is a solution in sight? Sens. David Sanders and Jeremy Hutchinson plus Rep. John Vines join our roundtable conversation.

Gaming or gambling? What’s the difference? TB&P contributor Rex Nelson joins me to talk about his new in-depth feature story on how Oaklawn re-invented itself into one of the nation’s premiere horse racing tracks. It took more than just a roll of the dice.

What bills have been top of the radar? Our roundtable of guests including KATV’s Elicia Dover, Lobby Up’s Bradley Phillips, and TB&P’s Jessica DeLoach Sabin discuss.

Plus, a preview of next week’s legislative charity basketball game. It’s the House versus the Senate. Who’s got game? We’ll find out.

Tune in Sunday for Talk Businesss & Politics at 9 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7.

MR. SPOCK LIVED LONG AND PROSPERED
You’ve no doubt heard about the passing of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who made famous the character of Mr. Spock in Star Trek. The New York Times has the definitive obituary on one of science fiction’s most iconic figures.

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.

Nimoy never shied away from the role that defined his career.

“To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior,” Mr. Nimoy wrote years after the original series ended.

But that wasn’t such a bad thing, he discovered. “Given the choice,” he wrote, “if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock.”

Read the full homage at this link. And from Buzzfeed, here are 21 reasons to be “Forever Thankful for Leonard Nimoy.”

GREAT COACHES ARE NOT ONLY ON THE FIELD
Harvard Business Review says “great coaching is just as important to success in the office as on the field.”

Over the years, HBR has interviewed some of the world’s top athletic coaches. We mined our archives for a few of their best insights that apply to employees and players alike.

One great coach says, it’s the same whether you are managing rookies or stars.

In either case, he says, “you have to lead by example.”

HBR shares tips from five great coaches. Who are they and what did they have to share? Go to this link for winning advice.

HUGE DECISION BY THE FCC
The New York Times reports, “The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes.”

The new regulations are commonly called “net neutrality rules.”

Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, said the FCC was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers” and preserve the Internet’s role as a “core of free expression and democratic principles.”

Put simply it means big companies like cable and telecommunication providers can’t hog the fast lanes on the Internet highway.

Those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept.

For more on this landmark ruling, what devices it covers and reaction from companies like Facebook and Google, connect here.

THE LOGO
It’s one of the most important decisions your company will make. In a glance it sells your business. It’s the logo.

Great logos are recognizable in a blink. They also should make a lasting impression.

Entrepreneur says a “potent” logo must “identify a brand, make it stand out and, ideally, drive customer interest and sales.”

We all know great logos, but we don’t all know that great logos aren’t easy to create. From concept to color to rollout, there’s much to consider when boiling your brand down to a single emblem.

Need some help?

Click on this link for “10 Questions to Ask When Designing Your Company’s Logo.”

SLEEPING: THE NEXT FRONTIER OF PERSONAL TRAINING?
Fast Company asks, “So, if we have personal trainers for fitness, how far off can the sleep trainer be?”

Not too far.

That’s the premise, in part, of a new clinical trial being conducted at the University of California on the effect that sleep coaching can have on heart-rate variability, one prominent measure of health and fitness. The backer of the study is an unlikely institution with a keen interest in those things: Equinox Fitness, the luxury health-club chain.

Like a personal trainer with a focus on the unconscious, a sleep coach can help subjects achieve habits and hygiene that can lead to quality sleep, its advocates say.

Equinox sees regeneration and recovery techniques, which help the body to repair itself after exercise, as essential elements of its fitness philosophy.

Go to this link to learn more about the dangers of sleep deprivation and what HRV is and how coaching could increase it for better sleep hygiene.

HAWKS FLY HIGH AT CPAC
Politico reports, “It was the hawk that dominated the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday.”

At the podium and in the halls, much of the talk at the raucous gathering focused on the need for a more muscular U.S. foreign policy — one that takes a harder line against Islamic State militants, doesn’t compromise with Iran, stands up to Russia and does even more for Israel. The sentiments were especially notable for an event that tends to draw a strong libertarian contingent wary of foreign intervention.

And there was a lot of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton “bashing.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely presidential candidate who is rising in the polls, blasted President Barack Obama’s approach to the world and slammed former Secretary of State (and likely 2016 Democratic front-runner) Hillary Clinton for trying to reset relations with Russia.

For the complete story, including how Walker thinks his experience battling labor unions in Wisconsin would be an “asset” against the Islamic State, go to this link.

FOR HILLARY CLINTON, GENDER MORE IMPORTANT THIS TIME AROUND
The New York Times says, “The last time Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for president, she seemed torn over whether to emphasize her chance to make history, or to play down her gender and reassure voters that she was tough enough for the job.”

This time there is no question: Mrs. Clinton’s potential to break what she has called “the highest and hardest glass ceiling” is already central to her fledgling 2016 presidential campaign.

But rather than the assertive feminism associated with her years as first lady, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign message will be subtler.

How so and yet is there concern voters will still believe she is “tough”?

Go inside the story to learn how “some of her longest-serving advisors are open about their intention not to repeat what they see as one of their most crucial mistakes from the 2008 primaries.”

IS SCIENTIFIC TRUST DECLINING AMONG LIBERALS?
The Washington Post points out that although conservatives have been more likely to discount science, is it only unique to that political side?

“Our new research suggests not. It turns out that liberals do it, too.”

Whether liberals or conservatives are more likely to distrust in science will depend on the specific issue under debate.

What are those issues, and what causes the tricky flow of opinion to be influenced one way or the other? Find out by connecting here.

IS GEORGIA ABANDONING ITS RURAL HOSPITALS?
The Atlanta Journal Constitution asks, “How do you rescue Georgia’s rural hospitals — often the heart and soul of the communities that they serve — from the financial challenges that are forcing them to close their doors forever?”

Apparently you don’t.

If you’re the state of Georgia, you express insincere concern for their health, slap a Band-Aid on their gaping wounds and push them out the door to face the ugly future that awaits them.

Back in March — and back when he still had an election to win — Gov. Nathan Deal claimed to be so concerned that he appointed a special committee to study the problem and recommend potential answers.

In its report released Monday, the panel acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, noting that “four rural hospitals have closed in recent months with a total of eight having closed or attempted to reconfigure in the last two to three years. Additionally, 15 rural hospitals are considered financially fragile, with six operating on a day-to-day basis.”

So what’s at work? Go to this link for the diagnosis.

INSIDE AN EARLY SUBMARINE
AllDay.com takes you inside life in an early submarine.

Submarines were first imagined as early as the 1500’s, and saw combat in the U.S. Civil War, but it was World War I that made the submersible ships a fearsome part of modern warfare. The early subs and U-Boats of the war made use of a number of new technologies, however, they were often cramped, dangerous vessels to crew.

If you are not claustrophobic, go to this link for a look “at what it was like to be inside the submarines of World War I.”

HOW LONG WILL YOU LIVE?
That might be the most intriguing and important question you’ve ever been asked?

What if we told you a Brazilian doctor has come up with a simple test “that’s been proven to predict how long you’ll live.”

No kidding.

Want to know how to do it? Read more here.

WHEN DID FARMING ACTUALLY BEGIN IN EUROPE?
A new study using DNA suggests that wheat made its way to the far edge of Western Europe 2000 years before farming was thought to have taken hold in Britain.

Hunter-gatherers may have brought agricultural products to the British Isles by trading wheat and other grains with early farmers from the European mainland. That’s the intriguing conclusion of a new study of ancient DNA from a now submerged hunter-gatherer camp off the British coast.

The new findings promise to further upset the scenario that farming steadily marched from east to west.

How did the team make its DNA findings and how did a lobster help get this fascinating study to its conclusion? Find out from Science at this link.