Big surprise! The ratings for this year's Golden Globes were terrible.

Researchers have found that consumers will believe a wine is better if it costs more. The pleasure centers of the brain actually undermine us in the discerning process...then again, all that wine tasting hardly makes one a vigilant watchdog against marketing manipulation.

Here's a fun article on writers throughout history who have chosen to remain anonymous at times in their career. It was once a very common practice, for what turns out to be strategic marketing on the writer's part: "If you follow in any detail the use of anonymity by literary writers - satirists, poets, dramatists and novelists - you will find that only rarely was final concealment the aim. Provoking curiosity and conjecture - highlighting the very question of authorship - was more often the calculated effect."

Violinist Pinchas Zukerman says Americans spend too much money on sports and not enough on the arts: "We're not cultivated people, as a culture," he said. "We have a vast culture here, yet we're more divided than ever before." He goes on to warn: "Most of it has to do with government not wanting to cultivate its own product. We'd better start looking at that soon, or this is going to become a jungle."

And this could seal the deal for my vote in the presidential primaries. Barack Obama's favorite TV show is The Wire (this has been well reported) and his favorite character is.... drumroll please.... OMAR! In short, Omar don't play, y'all.