Misery

Tiger Woods ' miserable year ended with more disappointment as he gave up a four-stroke lead Sunday and suffered a playoff loss to Graeme McDowell in the Chevron World Challenge at Thousand Oaks, Calif. It marked the first time that Woods, without a win since the 2009 Australian Open, lost a tournament in which he led by at least three strokes going into the final round. Woods let his grip on the lead slip with a double bogey on the 13th that McDowell birdied for a two-stroke lead that he eventually gave away, leading to the extra hole at Sherwood Country Club.

You will find no tears here for the cancellation of Brian Williams' "Rock Center," which was first reported Friday by the New York Times. It was one of the sorriest excuses for a newsmagazine that I have seen in 30 years of reporting on network television. I wrote that as many times in as many ways as I could since its debut. From the hiring of the Chelsea Clinton as special correspondent, to the quotes from Williams comparing his team to the baseball Hall of Famers in Cooperstown, never has such journalistic bankruptcy been promoted with such self-important bluster.

SOMETIMES I infuriate myself. Just the other day, for instance. On television selling a book I was, but too much the gentleman, too much the eleventh-rate salesman, alas, to look the camera dead in the eye and say:"My book will not only make you smell better, relieve your headache, transform dingy yellow teeth to gleaming white and add five miles per gallon to your gas mileage; it will also make you live twice as long while enjoying twice as much happiness and...

Remember when Chelsea Clinton and NBC News launched this misadventure featuring her as a "special correspondent" on "Rock Center" with a fanfare of hype and outright lies about what she and the journalistically-challenged NBC News were up to? Steve Capus, the recently deposed president of NBC News, said "it was as if she had been preparing her whole life" for the job. Clinton herself told "Rock Center" host Brian Williams as part of her first appearance that she took the TV job to lead a more "purposefully public life" highlighting people who are "making a difference.

— The pall that has hung over the Orioles clubhouse the past few days may or may not be because of the uncertainty surrounding the moment's-notice job insecurity of manager Dave Trembley. I mean, how are you supposed to tell? It's not like everything else is so ducky that the players would be playing ping pong in grass skirts if Dave's head wasn't on the block. The O's have been getting their brains beat out everywhere they go and many of the players have their own jobs to worry about, so the status of the manager is just part of the unhappy equation.

"Misery" is about the eternal battle of the human race -- not the fight between men and women or fathers and sons or armies of the night, but something far more fundamental: between those who write and those who think they can fix it. It's a horror movie about editing.The film, expertly adapted from a Stephen King novel by William Goldman and astutely directed for maximum psychological intensity by Rob Reiner, is certainly the best King adaption since "Cujo," quite an amusing, nasty little piece of work.

While chatting with a young audience on MTV, President Clinton was asked about the deep sense of "emptiness" that so many youths feel in their lives.The president responded with an upbeat pep talk, urging young people to shun cynicism and look to a brighter future.It will take more than pep talks and inspirational slogans to cure the widespread emotional blahs that allegedly afflict millions of young Americans.Because of the seriousness of this problem, I recently discussed with Dr. I.M. Kookie, the world-renowned expert on lots of stuff.

Various polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans are glum. They dislike the national decline in everybody else's morality, meddling government, doublespeak politicians, arrogant media, highly paid athletes, sports strikes, and many other annoyances.The question is why are people so unhappy when times are relatively good, the economy seems perky, and it seems unlikely that Judge Ito will totally ban TV coverage.To get answers, I arranged for an exclusive interview with Dr. I.M. Kookie, the internationally renowned expert on lots of stuff.

William Goldman is a survivor. By his own admission, screenwriters ''come and go,'' and he has been doing scripts for 24 years.''Let's see, 'Harper' was 24 years ago, and I've been writing scripts ever since,'' he said.Of course, he's also been writing books, among them ''Soldier in the Rain,'' ''Marathon Man,'' ''Magic,'' ''The Princess Bride'' and ''Tinsel,'' which the studio biography does not bother to mention.With a work history as impressive as this, why did he decide to do the script for ''Misery?

Listen closely and you can hear the gnawing of thousands of hungry stomachs, from Brooklyn Park to Bristol, from Pasadena to Maryland City. Not a pretty sound, which is why many of us choose not to hear it except, perhaps, during the holidays when we are in the mood to do good things for the less fortunate.It's time to start listening. Hunger isn't seasonal here, nor are the chronically poor the only ones who don't have enough to eat. Layoffs by employers such as Westinghouse Electric Corp.

SARASOTA, Fla. - Trayvon Robinson suited up for the first time as an Oriole on Saturday and took part in the first official full-squad workout, but the outfielder had hoped to be in camp a lot earlier after being acquired in the November deal that sent infielder Robert Andino to the Seattle Mariners. Instead, he had to clear waivers after the Orioles outrighted him last week to make room for pitcher Todd Redmond , a move that had to leave him wondering just where he might fit with a team that has a dozen outfielders in major league camp.

Bathed in colorful lights and swathed in banners, including one featuring Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco, the Superdome seems to have been polished to a fine sheen for Sunday's Super Bowl. But underneath the festive atmosphere linger the ghosts of Katrina. "It happens to me all the time, sometimes late at night or when I'm here alone," said Doug Thornton, who manages the Superdome. "I'll walk by one place and I'll remember an image of a person. And it will haunt me. " Super Bowl XLVII will bring happy hordes of fans, celebrities and VIPs to the domed stadium that for one misery-filled week in 2005 was the refuge of last resort for some 30,000 residents seeking shelter from Hurricane Katrina.

I did not think Sunday-afternoon football, one of the great pleasures of my life, could get any worse than watching the CBS team of Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf calling the game back in October with the Houston Texans whipping the Ravens. But it got worse Sunday with Gumbel and Dierdorf at the microphone while Denver dismantled the Ravens 34-17. It was worse, because the offense and Joe Flacco now look totally lost. But I'll leave it to The Sun writers who cover the team to dissect the problems on the field and in the locker room.

Between now and next year's presidential election, you may hear a lot about the misery index. No, I'm not talking about the death metal band by that name formed in Baltimore, although you may hear more about it, them, too. (Some of its stuff could be the soundtrack for Occupy Wall Street rallies.) This is about the macroeconomic indicator conceived by economist Arthur Okun. The misery index became part of 1970s pop culture when Jimmy Carter wielded it to defeat incumbent Gerald R. Ford for the White House.

Getting caught up in March Madness yet? Or is the whole NCAA men's basketball tournament just a big snooze for you now? I ask because maybe you've noticed that there aren't a whole lot of local teams in the Big Dance this year. In fact, when I say there aren't a whole lot of local teams in it, what I really mean is that there are, um, no local teams in it. None. Zip. Zilch. Maryland's not in it. Morgan State's not in it. Coppin State's not in it. UMBC's not in it. Loyola's not in it. Ditto Mount St. Mary's up in tiny Emmitsburg, which is not exactly local.

Tiger Woods ' miserable year ended with more disappointment as he gave up a four-stroke lead Sunday and suffered a playoff loss to Graeme McDowell in the Chevron World Challenge at Thousand Oaks, Calif. It marked the first time that Woods, without a win since the 2009 Australian Open, lost a tournament in which he led by at least three strokes going into the final round. Woods let his grip on the lead slip with a double bogey on the 13th that McDowell birdied for a two-stroke lead that he eventually gave away, leading to the extra hole at Sherwood Country Club.

If hostage drama is not your favorite theme, better avoid seeing ''Misery.'' If, however, you enjoy films in which one person is held captive by another, this should do it.Stephen King did the book on which the film is based. Rob Reiner directed, and William Goldman (''Butch Cassidy'') did the script. That gives the new horror film credentials, but when all is said and done, it's the same old horror business. Reiner does avoid most of the cliches of the genre, but some of them are in there, and the movie has more than its share of inconsistencies.

Director Rob Reiner, reported to have said that ''Misery'' wasn't his kind of film, admits he was accurately quoted.''But I wasn't attracted to the story because of its violence,'' he said. ''I'm not interested in making violent films.''The movie is 106 minutes long, and there is very little horror. We intentionally tried to de-gore it. That's not my thrust. I was more interested in the fact that this is also a story about an author who has had great success with a certain genre, hopes to leave it and wonders if he will lose his audience if he does.

The Detroit Tigers didn't need any late-inning heroics to complete their three-game sweep of the Orioles. On Wednesday, all that was necessary were a few runs and right-hander Max Scherzer, who threw seven dominant innings in Detroit's 4-2 win before an announced 22,837 at Comerica Park. The loss dropped the Orioles (25-59) to a season-low 34 games under .500 and put them 1-5 on this final, 10-game road trip of the season's first half. It was the ninth time this year the Orioles have been swept in a series and the sixth on the road.