Random bit of history

This is the first anniversary of a memorable on-camera zone-out incident involving Charles Gasparino, an editor at the business-oriented cable channel CNBC.

On their regular late-afternoon program, "Closing Bell," anchor Dylan Ratigan introduced CG, obviously under the impression that CG was in possession of some new important information about Merrill Lynch.

The camera then framed Charles with the words "Management turmoil continues at Merrill Lynch" bannered beneath his face, because the producers (and anchor Dylan Ratigan) were obviously under the impression that Gasparino was in possession of some important information abotu that subject.

If he was, he never did get around to telling the world about it. Apparently, he took offense at the way he was introduced, the open-ended phrase "what do ya got?" -- what followed was an extremely odd colloquy over the Zen-like nature of that expression.

The reason this is worth noting is that Gasparino has a new book out, specifically about those frantic days of last autumn in the US capitalist system. Maybe he'll explain to us whatever it was that his zone-out kept him from saying that day on camera.