Somebody Blinked

After an exciting stand-off that lasted all day some sort of face-saving agreement was reached all around and ABC was back on Cablevision in time for the first award. However, you would have missed two hours of pre-game excitement if you were relying on a Cablevision connection. So, there. We turned it on when we found out about it, mostly for my sister. She's a movie buff and makes sure to see each and every contender for the main Academy Awards. She fell asleep before the best supporting actor was announced. I don't blame her. I wasn't paying total attention, but it did seem like the show was a bit of a snoozer.  I did notice one thing. Was it my imagination or did the actors and actresses seem to be going for looking good instead of bizarre this year? If so, it's a nice trend, but I may not have seen enough to judge.

All in all the show we got here leading up to it all day - Will they or won't they? - was a lot more exciting than the actual program.

The War Continues

The war between Cablevision and ABC has gotten uglier. If you're accessing the web through Cablevision today this ad is EVERYWHERE.

Clicking it brings you here. If nothing else, this little contretemps is an advertising bonus for someone in the intertubes. That's got to be a good thing. Meanwhile, Cablevision is offering all on demand movies free of charge for today. Oh, wait, they just sent me another e-mail....

OK, back. They just wanted to keep us updated on where you can find the most online coverage of the Oscars in case you didn't run out and buy a digital antenna today. I say screw the Oscars. I'm never awake past a lot of "best short subject in a foreign language" stuff anyway. I want popcorn for this fight. It's more entertaining than the Oscars ever are.

The Monster In Our Living Rooms

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In the years just B.C. - Before Cable - every time we went to the movies there would be a short feature warning of the dangers of Pay TV. "The monster in your living room..." was the only line that I can remember. The movie industry was terrified that access to full length, uncut movies at home would empty the theaters. No one was yet envisioning VCRs, let alone DVD sales. Nor were they thinking about the time when a few companies would own everything - movie studios, television networks and theaters, so profits would all flow in the same direction no matter how the public was viewing Weekend at Bernie's.

So here we are, a few decades later, and everything has turned out just fine. Instead of three networks and a handful of local channels for free we get to pay a small fortune each month for a bazillion channels. We have options we never had before. Shopping channels, for instance. More of them seem to spawn every day. Now even agoraphobics can be shopaholics without killing trees for catalogs. It's a win/win/win.

Reception is much improved unless the cable goes out and that doesn't happen nearly as often as it did in the early days. If you like that sort of thing you can set up your TV and computer to mate in some Byzantine way. Even if I could figure that out, I would not do it. It's just giving them license to gang up on us. Who knows what they'd get up to while we're out working to support them? The only things is, if you have Cablevision and you have a yen to see the Oscars - or anything else on ABC channel 7 - you better start working on that hook-up now because as things stand it won't be on your TV.

Cablevision and ABC are having a big fight. ABC wants more money. Cablevision says "no". This sort of thing happens a lot now. There was a big argument about the Yankees network a few years ago. That was a bit galling to Yankee fans because before cable, sports teams didn't have networks and their games were televised on local channels. For free. More recently HGTV and the Food Network were embroiled in one of these fights and were pulled from Cablevision. It was resolved after a grueling few weeks and everyone was able to go back to redecorating their homes and cooking up gourmet meals.

Whenever one of these squabbles occur Cablevision airs its own ads explaining how it's unfair to their subscribers to have to pay these inflated rates for whichever channels are involved. As one of those subscribers, I'm willing to buy into that. In fact, I think we're paying way too much already, considering how often there's nothing worth watching on. (I should admit here that most of what we do watch is on cable channels, not broadcast TV, so it would seem that I do rather like it.) Anyway, what with Cablevision owning Newsday it's unlikely we'll have to read about any other point of view. That may sound like a conflict of interest, but, hey, if Cablevision hadn't bought Newsday, Rupert Murdoch was going to.

All I'm saying is that it appears that media has turned into a regular old clusterf*ck in so many ways. It kind of provides its own kind of entertainment - at a price.

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Thank you Bob Cesca, thank you John Cole

First I saw this by Bob Cesca which linked to this by John Cole. All I want to say is, yeah, what they said. And to thank them for saying it.

And That's The Way It Is

It's not so much that Walter Conkrite will be missed. It's more that he's been so much missed since he's been gone from our living rooms on a daily basis. RIP, Mr. Cronkite

At Long Last, Franken!

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What a nice surprise. I was off in the other office today. That means using a computer that struggles to handle the software I need to do my job. To try browsing the web at the same time is to invite it to freeze up and refuse to do a thing. So I didn’t know that the Al Franken decade had begun until I got home.

Of course, I was watching MSNBC which meant there was no sparing a minute to be happy about it. We had to start worrying about the added pressure of nominally having 60 senators in the caucus. Why enjoy the moment when you can wring your hands instead? If I wasn’t a bit of a political junkie I’d stop watching it and try having a normal life. But I am and it’s the only game in town. I plan to bitch about it quite a bit, though. Some of the shows there are getting on my last nerve.

In other intriguing news, Governor Mark Sanford has seen his Argentinean soul mate more than he’d initially admitted. He also seems to have grabbed some non-soul mate ass – or something – from time to time. Color me surprised – not. How can Jenny Sanford let this horndog prize go? I don’t know, but somehow I think she will. Even though he’s trying hard to fall back in love with her. Without much success, apparently.

 

Passings

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Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. That's a lot for one day. I walked in from work just a few minutes before TMZ announced that Michael Jackson had died. That was several hours ago. They're still covering the story on all the cable news channels. I know this is big, but once the LA coroner confirmed that he'd died there wasn't really anything more to cover, other than his brother's brief statement.

There have been numerous phone interviews with people in Jacko's life from which you could get the definite impression that Michael's world was full of people pretty much as whacked as he was. Al Sharpton managed to make the death of Jackson into an opportunity to get some camera time even though he's in New York and doesn't seem to have anything particularly to do with the current situation.

Good Lord, now they're showing the helicopter carring his body landing on a heliport on the way to the coroner's office. Isn't this just a little creepy? Now they're following the van that's taking the body to the coroner, ala OJ's SUV. Papparazzi to the bitter end.

It's getting harder to think of things to talk about and even Keith Olbermann is beginning to lapse into babble occasionally. One thing no one's talking about is Farrah Fawcett. That was so earlier today. We've forgotten about poor Farrah now. There is talk about whether or not Michael Jackson found the life he wanted. The consensus was, "No". Probably a fair bet.

Now they're talking about how we're all going to die and that gives us something in common with Michael Jackson. Presumably we have that in common with such folks as Aristotle and Attila the Hun as well.

Now there's that lunatic lawyer who Keith spoke to over the phone. He's out there talking on camera now. He looks just like he sounded on the phone. Oh, I looked away for a moment and now Reverend Al has thrown on a suit and tie and gotten his ass to the MSNBC New York studios. The man is alert. You have to give him that.

I'm sorry. All due respect to the berieved and the news guys who are just doing their best to do their jobs, but it's time to let this rest in peace at least until the autopsy or toxicology reports come out because it's turning into a parody of a celebrity death. Michael Jackson is still dead.

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Hardball WTF Moment of the Day

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There were a lot of them today. It would have been hard to choose which was the most bewildering bit of conversation but then there was THE moment. It was about the presidential press conference, health care reform and the public option. They played a quick clip of Jake Tapper asking Obama what would become of his promise that the insured portion of the American people wouldn’t have to change their plan to a public option if they didn’t want to in the event that the public plan was a good deal and employers decided to switch to it. Yeah, what then? Then they played a small portion of the president’s reply.

"When I say if you have your plan and you like it, ... or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don't have to change plans, what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform," the president said.

At that point, Tweety, Chuck Todd and another head on the screen whose name I don’t recall right now generally agreed that Obama got caught a little on that answer. Actually, the only way Obama got caught short is in that he probably still can’t believe people who get paid huge sums of money to report are asking such stupid, stupid questions. Sure, he should know by now, but it’s still hard to wrap your head around it.

I’d just like to know who these people have been working for for the last couple of decades. When both Mr. Yenta and I had jobs with private, for profit companies we had our health insurance changed almost every year – and rarely for the better from where we sat. The same thing has happened to almost everyone we know, too. When I started working at my present place of employment it was a little different. There were about five plans to choose from. Now there are two. In these instances the insurance companies dropped us. Not enough people on some of the plans to make it worthwhile to insure our aging workforce. Of the two that remain, one of them has been taken over by another company and it’s hard to find specialists that take it. That’s the one I have and I’m not complaining. I’m not even complaining that they declined to cover a medication that was prescribed to me this week. Hasn’t been out long enough to be on their list. The co-pays are low, though, and at least we have insurance. With Mr. Yenta’s medical expenses that’s the most important thing to us. We’ll cope with the rest.

If Jake Tapper, Chris Matthews, Chuck Todd or the other head on the screen think for a moment that most Americans really have choice when it comes to health insurers they need to get in touch with reality. When they’re at a presidential press conference they’re asking questions for all of us. They should ask smarter ones.

 

The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

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I don’t know what’s going to happen in Iran, of course. I hope something good comes out of all this for the Iranian people, but one huge winner has already emerged. Twitter has grown up so fast. Biz Stone and all the Twitter folks have to be walking on air even as they take their new responsibility to the world seriously. The were even asked to stay online and delay planned maintenance – asked by the State Department, no less.

Seldom, if ever, has a web service become so consequential so quickly. YouTube is a vital part of it all, too, of course, but it’s been around long enough to have established that it’s not just about stupid pet tricks. Not that there’s anything wrong with stupid pet tricks. Can’t get enough of them really. But nowadays you can’t run a political campaign without it, and the stupid candidate tricks can change the fate of nations. When all this is said and done citizen journalism will have come of age and proved its worth to any remaining doubters.

Frank Rich on Hate and the People Who Enable It

Frank Rich has a must read, must spread column on the kind of rhetoric that is ramping up the hate in those who feel most threatened by Obama's presidency. It includes a call to conservative leaders to show some responsibility in light of recent events.

The question, Shepard Smith said on Fox last week, is “if there is really a way to put a hold on” those who might run amok. We’re not about to repeal the First or Second Amendments. Hard-core haters resolutely dismiss any “mainstream media” debunking of their conspiracy theories. The only voices that might penetrate their alternative reality — I emphasize might — belong to conservative leaders with the guts and clout to step up as McCain did last fall. Where are they? The genteel public debate in right-leaning intellectual circles about the conservative movement’s future will be buried by history if these insistent alarms are met with silence.

It’s typical of this dereliction of responsibility that when the Department of Homeland Security released a plausible (and, tragically, prescient) report about far-right domestic terrorism two months ago, the conservative response was to trash it as “the height of insult,” in the words of the G.O.P. chairman Michael Steele. But as Smith also said last week, Homeland Security was “warning us for a reason.”

Ironically, some conservative leaders did demonstrate some guts and common sense that bit of bravery might also serve to begin digging them out of the deep, dark hole they're in -especially if said conservative leaders are also closely identified with the GOP. At the moment, serious people can't take most Republicans or conservatives seriously. Their fortunes might start to change if they began acting like adults.

Old Bigot Prefers Old Bigotry

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In yet another blatantly racist attack on Sonia Sotomayer, Pat Buchanan attributes every her every accomplishment to affirmative action and opines,

One prefers the old bigotry. At least it was honest, and not, as Abraham Lincoln observed, adulterated "with the base alloy of hypocrisy."

In other news salmon swim upstream to spawn and the sun rises in the east. So, let’s review. Pat thinks Sonia Sotomayor is not smart enough for a SCOTUS appointment but Sarah Palin is fit to be president.

He, of course, also prone to hanging around with a very bad crowd, as his speaking invitation to a white nationalist demonstrates.

It’s time to retire him from MSNBC and mainstream media.  His xenophobic, racist ideology is showing bigtime and should not be legitimized as part of the national discourse . Please let’s leave the unabashed racists to themselves.

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Sorry Wingnuts - He's All Yours

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Of course the people who make their livings off of the worst instincts of the right wing base are anxious to deflect any blame for the most recent murder by a far right extremist. And given their propensity for opposite logic it’s not a big surprise that they’ve decided that Von Brunn is a leftist.

Ironically, the voices of vitriol – Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, right wing bloggers and the rest might be less responsible for this individual’s actions than the other murders that have taken place in recent months. It’s complicated. Von Brunn’s world view intersects with the birthers and tea baggers who are encouraged by the right wing punditizers. He would meet kindred spirits at any Palin rally. But still and all,he’s 88 years old. He’s been who he is for a long, long time. He’s done reckless things before, even serving time in jail. It’s just possible that something as simple as having a black president could have sent him out to do this murder. That doesn’t mean they don’t have real responsibility for the violent climate that’s been emerging since the election. Their rhetoric is dangerous. And they should be very afraid that  a critical mass of people will finally call them on it. Much more of this and that could happen.

By people, I mean the Republicans that line up to genuflect to them. I mean mainstream media which treats them as voices on one side of the political spectrum instead of the irresponsible shock jocks that they are. That includes the media that we mostly like. Why does Frank Gaffney get a platform on Hardball, for instance? The things he’s said recently should completely marginalize him, and yewe pretend he has something to say? When it comes to Limbaugh and Beck, maybe we’re all guilty. They’re such trainwrecks that it’s hard to look away, but perhaps we should all try.

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The Goode Family

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The Goode Family premier tonight was pretty funny. Because liberals can laugh at themselves - or at least at their friends. We enjoyed it.

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Evening Pundits on Wanda

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The evening returns are in.

Chris Matthews thinks Wanda Sykes thinks wishing kidney failure on Rush Limbaugh was over the top. This is not a surprise. Tweety had to have been a weeny in Catholic school.

Keith Olbermann also thinks she went over the top, not caring for the suggestion that Rushbo was supposed to be the 20th hijacker. You can't bring 911 into a joke. Well, most people shouldn't try it, but Sykes has special comedic abilities. I'm not sure that Olbermann really meant that bit of censure or just feels like it was the fair and balanced thing to say.

Ed Schultz thought she was wonderful. I'm with Ed.

John Stewart is doing a pretty good piece on it right now.

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The Not Necessarily Final Frontier

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We went to see the new Star Trek movie tonight. If you have the least little bit of trekkie in you, you should see it. Whether it stands up entirely on its own, I couldn’t really say. I do know that the audience applauded at the end, and no one was in costume. Not even a set of Vulcan ears that I noticed.

There was a plot. It involved  timeline confusion and a lot of disaster of apocalyptic proportions and lots and lots of heroism. The usual stuff. I was pretty impressed with the visuals, but I would guess that fantastic effects are par for the course with today’s technology. The acting was just fine all around. Zachary Quinto did a bang-up job of evolving from not quite Spock to a damned good Spock as as the film went on. Chris Pine – hotter than William Shatner ever was. I’m just saying. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Shatner as Kirk and I like him as the Priceline guy today, but I never really got what the big intergalactic attraction was. It was Spock who was the real sex god in the original series. In this movie, when you find a green girl wrapped around Kirk it’s much easier to see why. This guy would appeal to any species, I’m sure. 

What really impressed me most were the costume designers and the make-up artists. They should win something for blending the Sixties vibe and a futuristic look so successfully. The men were relatively simple. They mostly wore original series Star Fleet threads, although in his pre-Star Fleet days they did a James Dean thing with Kirk that definitely worked.  What was kind of amazing is how they managed to modernize the women’s looks while keeping them in the absurd miniskirts and make-up – including Cleopatra eyeliner and false eyelashes – that they wore in the original series.  They toned it all down and sleeked it all up and it worked, assuming that you’re suspending disbelief anyway. Even the hair was just right. Kind of sixties, but nothing bouffant. A triumph of art and science.

The film cries out for a sequel. Or…what would you call a sequel to the prequel? I don’t know. But I’d go to see it.

ADDENDUM: How could I forget to mention the Romulans. They looked fabulous. These Romulans didn’t just look like Vulcans only less so. They had their own outlaw villain thing going on. Tattooed heads, black duster looking garments and their own special ears. Very effective.

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Can YouTube Save Your Bacon?

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On the same day that Newsday reported that Long Island’s unemployment rate is at its highest level since 1992 it also carried a story two local teenagers who are  raking in the cash via YouTube. Apparently YouTube can work as a cottage industry if you can give the people what they want. And what they want is not necessarily porn. Go know.

Eric Stiffler, 18, and Mac Guttenberg, 14, each have their own YouTube Channel and are in the user/partner program, where ads are shown under the videos and they get better than 50% of the revenue. This is bringing in a couple of grand a month. Beats the hell out of mowing lawns. Or unemployment.

Eric’s Channel
Mac’s Channel

WTF, Chuck?

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Enigma4Ever at Watergate Summer comments on Chuck Todd’s clueless sounding question at the president’s prime time presser Tuesday night. She was so impressed she gave him the coveted Dumbass of the Week award. Way to go, Chuck.  It was a very bad question. If you’ve wiped it from your memory it went like this:

Todd: Some have compared this financial crisis to a war and in times of war past Presidents have called for some form of sacrifice. Some of your programs whether main street or Wall Street have actually cushioned the blow for those that were irresponsible during this economic period of prosperity, supposed prosperity that you were talking about. Why, given this new era of responsibility that you're asking for why haven't you asked for something specific that the public should be sacrificing to participate in this economic recovery?

The president answered sensibly that there was plenty of sacrifice out there in that the American people are pretty screwed right now. I’m paraphrasing there, of course. But Chuck didn’t cover himself with glory at Prime Time Presser I either. Juan Cole summed that exchange with, “What the hell?”

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. In your opening remarks, you talked about that, if your plan works the way you want it to work, it's going to increase consumer spending. But isn't consumer spending, or overspending, how we got into this mess? And if people get money back into their pockets, do you not want them saving it or paying down debt first before they start spending money into the economy?
Obama: Well, first of all, I don't think it's accurate to say that consumer spending got us into this mess. What got us into this mess initially were banks taking exorbitant, wild risks with other people's monies based on shaky assets and because of the enormous leverage, where they had $1 worth of assets and they were betting $30 on that $1, what we had was a crisis in the financial system.'

So, that’s two out of two for Mr. Todd. This is disappointing for those people who spend most of their weekday evenings watching MSNBC. Whoever (cough, cough) they might be. We they kind of thought of Chuck Todd as the home team. Plus, while he might not always have been right about everything he did always seem to be a beacon of sanity among the ensemble of personalities there. Kind of like Barney Miller was at the 12th precinct. Personally I think that both of the questions sound kind of Brokawesque. These are memes Brokaw had flogged when he was more in the spotlight. Chuck, please step away from the Brokaw, come out of the bubble and find out what regular people are dealing with. Otherwise you’re on a course for an Epic Fail and no one wants that, right?

 

Glen Beck, Fox News, No Bottom

  I think that this week I was more stunned by Glen Beck than anything else. Stunned by his notion that the man in Alabama who killed his mother, his grandmother, a three month old baby and some seven other innocent people before committing suicide was in some way "pushed to the wall", possibly by political correctness.  That seemed like a very sick thing to think, let alone say on TV. For a nanosecond I even thought he'd gone too far for Fox.  OK,  that was just stupid and I realize that I'm way too old to believe a thing like that. But Beck did seem to be kind of excusing mass murder of innocents, and on the basis of motives not in evidence no less.  If that weren't enough, he seemed to think that it was a natural conclusion, based on the fact that the country elected a Democratic administration, that other such crimes would follow.

BECK: But as I’m listening to him. I’m thinking about the American people that feel disenfranchised right now. That feel like nobody’s hearing their voice. The government isn’t hearing their voice. Even if you call, they don’t listen to you on both sides. If you’re a conservative, you’re called a racist. You want to starve children.

O’REILLY: Sure.

BECK: Yada yada yada. And every time they do speak out, they’re shut down by political correctness. How do you not have those people turn into that guy?

So, I'm reading this and thinking that it's way over the top, even for Fox. But no, it turns out it's just a little publicity for a ratings bonanza.  Beck is doing great with a Glenn Beck Friday, which caters to the ever desirable white militia niche.  And with Rush so busy running the Republican party and all - well, opportunity is knocking for those willing to play on the paranoia and fears of the Angry White Dumbass. And Glenn Beck will do just fine at Fox.

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Fineman Wins Battle with the Bottle

We were all relieved to see our favorite Howard overcome. Ever since - oh, right around the election - he's been letting his gray hair grow out. It's not such an easy thing to do all at once like that if you're just a private citizen who has to show up at work each day. Imagine how it must be if your head is on television night after night. Not even all of you. Just your big old head.

Change we can believe in

At first, as he grayed literally before our eyes we thought that covering the campaign season had just been exceptionally hard on ol' Howard. Or maybe he had been worried that McCain might really win. But no, it gradually became clear that he was going natural. That's change we can believe in. A new transparency, as it were. But change isn't easy. There are bumps along the way. While things started out well enough, as in the photo above, it wasn't all smooth sailing. Things got a little ugly for a while. Fineman's nadir came this past week when he made his usual media appearances with his pate in what I can only call disarray. His hair was mostly a nice silver color but there was still a hugish patch of oxidized brown, kind of in the middle of his forehead. You just wanted to take a scissors to it. Didn't look good, but it just goes to show that it really is darkest right before dawn.

A Brand New Day

Today, Mr. Fineman appeared on Chris Matthews with his head held high. He was freshly coiffed and the brown patch gone. He looked dignified and all elder statesmanish. He looked together again. He had prevailed against whatever temptation there might have been to just say. "Screw it" and go back to the bottle. What he just said was, "no". We congratulate him on his victory. It can't have been easy, but the results are worth it. And gray hair hasn't hurt Keith Olbermann any, not to mention David Gregory. I doubt he'd have gotten MTP at his tender age without that hair to give him a look of authority.

Now, can anyone think of any females with silver locks in who are in the media a lot? Donna Brazile comes to mind. Any others? I'm thinking of keeping track. It's a personal decision and people should do what they like about their grayness, baldness or any other "ness" that comes up, but I do think it would be nice if persons of both genders could continue to be considered relevant throughout without being required to masquerade as someone much younger. Also, after a while that just doesn't work so well.

Technorati Tags: media, aging, grayness, Howard Fineman

Slow Down, Tweety

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Did I just hear Chris Matthews award his shiny new Hardball award to Judd Gregg for staying true to himself? Why yes, I believe I did. Chris Matthews' whole persona continues to conjure up a vision of an over eager, kind of goofy Catholic school kid who's grown too large for his uniform. He's soooo emotional and so in love with politics it's kind of creepy at times.

In this case, we don't really know exactly why Gregg pulled out. There's some interesting stuff about Gregg having an Abramoff problem posted at Daily Kos. Personally I'm going to wait until the fact are in before assuming that principles of any sort were involved in Gregg's decision.

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