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Alex Kantrowitz is a New York City based journalist whose work has appeared in Fortune, Forbes, PBS MediaShift and the Ithaca Journal. Here, he Tumbles about Media, Politics, Tech and Life. Follow Alex on Twitter: @Kantrowitz

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Carmelo Anthony and a Hasidic Jew walk into an elevator. The Knicks franchise player stands against the back wall, while the Hasid, peyes tucked neatly behind his ears, waits until the doors close before turning to face the athlete. “Bring us home a ring,” the Hasid says. “We need one.” Anthony replies, “We all need one.” As the elevator continues to climb, the Hasid looks away but mutters, “A long time we’ve been waiting.” Anthony forces a smile. This is not a joke.

I love this little annecdote from the New York Observer's profile of New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony. It's New York to the core and I can just see it happening. 

“A long time we’ve been waiting.” 

If you haven’t read the article yet, you can check it out here. 

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A Look Into Gezi Park

I was in Turkey last month as the protests in Gezi Park hit their peak. Here's what a day in the park looked like. For more, you can read my piece in Forbes: Gezi Park's Last 24 Hours: A View From The Ground

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Scenes From The Nets' Press Conference

Here's a quick, behind the scenes look at the Brooklyn Nets' introduction of KG, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry. Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov stopped by, as did Nets GM Billy King and head coach Jason Kidd. 

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A Leadership Lesson From The Brooklyn Nets

At the Barclays Center last Thursday, the Brooklyn Nets introduced three of their latest additions, former Boston Celtics Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry. It was a basketball event, but taught an important leadership lesson in the process.

The three stars, all past their prime, were acquired by Brooklyn in a trade that sent three first round draft picks back to the Celtics. That’s a lot of future talent to give up in exchange for a group of players at the end of their careers, especially considering the 37-year-old Garnett missed chunk of last season due to injuries.

But for the Nets, it was a risk worth taking. Their previous season ended with a playoff loss to the Chicago Bulls, a middling team without their injured superstar, Derrick Rose. The Bulls won the series because they cared more. They played with heart while the Nets, the more talented team, simply showed up.

This explains the addition of Garnett, one of the meanest players in the NBA. He may be old, but brings an attitude that changes the people around him. The Nets acquired him for his passion as much his skill. They could not afford to be a listless group of talented folks any longer.

“I think KG is a guy who comes with a lot of emotion, he plays the game at a high level and so he definitely changes the culture here,” said Jason Kidd, the Nets incoming coach. When asked if the Nets were lacking heart last season, Kidd simply said, “I really can't remember last year, adding: “Whatever they were missing last year, hopefully we have it this year.”

Jason Terry was more direct. “They just didn’t have that veteran leadership from a guy like a Kevin,” he said of last year’s Nets. “What he brings every night to the game, his intensity level, guys are going to want to step up and want to play for him.”

It’s a simple but a valuable lesson for anyone in the workplace: Talent can get you to a certain point, but without passion, you’ll get stuck. A team of talented people can do good work, but the best teams bring something more.

Follow me on Twitter: Follow @Kantrowitz

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This is about how Internet technology used to feel like it was really going to change so many things about our lives. Now it has and we're all too stunned to figure out what's next.

One Year Later, Still Stuck

The above quote comes from an April 2012 article by The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal. Has the Internet returned to that exciting state he described?  No, I don't think so. 

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Another view from Istanbul

This one of Taksim Square at dusk. 

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Crossing Over

Took this photo on the ferry from Istanbul's European side to its Asian side. For me, it was a return to the scene of the Istanbul Bird Video nearly five years later. 

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I put the glasses back on, and took off my pants. We stood, naked, before each other with no secrets, no rules, and no shame. And I knew I never wanted to leave Google Island. Even if I could.

Read this --> Welcome to Google Island

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The men she meets are often awkward engineers. “There has always been that part that is really wealthy, like crazily wealthy They have engineering backgrounds without great social skills,” she says. “They are not the C.E.O.’s, who can date up a storm, and they are not great at presenting themselves, but they are brilliant.”

From Mating in Silicon Valley: “Cougar Nights” in Menlo Park and the “Love Concierge” Who Arranges Them 

Weird, fun story about a bizarre hook up scene in Silicon Valley. 

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If you say something which everybody already knows, that doesn’t automatically make you boring.

Via Felix Salmon in Good Old News

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by Jay Rosen

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News Folk, What Say You?

If the scoop it's something that would have come out anyway, I sort of agree with the above. But, not all scoops are of that nature. It's possible that if some news organization didn't bring a certain scoop to light, it might have lingered in the shadows indefinitely.

Bottom line: IMHO scoops do matter, just as long as they're not 'Twitter Scoops' where said reporter might break the news before anyone else, get 1,000 RTs and then a press release with the exact same information comes out five minutes later. Still, those 1,000 RTs are probably pretty exciting for that reporter, and good for the news org that employs them (in some way).

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More College Basketball Coaches at Risk?

This tweet from ESPN senior writer Seth Wickersham is ominous. It's hard to imagine that there are coaches worse than fired Rutgers coach Mike Rice, who was caught on tape swearing at, pushing and launching basketballs at his players. I wonder if this is just the beginning.

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How To Dress For The Sunday Shows

I want to see Lindsey Graham in one of these. 

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The true end users of Facebook are the marketers who want to reach and influence us. They are Facebook's paying customers; we are the product. And we are its workers. The countless hours that we -- and the young, particularly -- spend on our profiles are the unpaid labor on which Facebook justifies its stock valuation.

It begins

[brycedotvc]

via @phineasb

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JazzHate = Winning

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This May or May Not Have Something to Do With a Meteorite

State Department Pocket Tweets FTW