Bill's TV series news and reviews

ABC 20-20: Jackson's physical transformation was part of his art ("The Life Behind the Magic")

2009-07-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

On Friday, July 3 ABC 20/20 covered the Michael Jackson story with a one hour report, “Michael Jackson: The Life Behind the Magic.” While covering the issue of drug-overdose or misuse as the almost certain cause of cardiac arrest and death, and reviewing the idea that Jackson had possession of prescription "drugs" [Diprivan – look at the "Popeater" story] normally used only in hospitals (maybe a legal issue, just as with Rush Limbaugh, perhaps this time for his attending physician(s)), the most important and striking part of the report was Jackson’s physical metamorphosis. Physical transformation was part of his art; he became something else in the process.

The main ABC News story is “Why Did Michael Jackson Go So Far to Alter His Appearance?: 'King of Pop' Biographers, Plastic Surgery Experts, Family Members Weigh In,” (authors Jon Meyersohn, Cynthia McFadden, and Tom McCarty) link here.

ABC shows some clips of the “Thriller” video, where Jackson undergoes animated change into monsters, but over time Jackson apparently started having various plastic surgeries, especially on his nose, and possibly skin bleaching, perhaps to look “white,” although to some point this was impossible. He also looked immature and child-like. The report showed a computer-aging of what Jackson would have looked like at age 50, and it is quite different from what he does look like, to the point that no facial recognition software could have considered him a match. The nose jobs were supposed to make him able to sing the high notes (his voice was very high pitched anyway). Jackson had expressed sensitivity about his body (mentioning specific parts almost in a Forest Gump fashion), particularly after police activity in 1993 and again in 2004. Regarding all of his legal troubles, it seems that, although Jackson was acquitted of charges, some of his behavior with minors was, by all common sense, inappropriate.

Jackson, however, was an entertainer in grand style (I think his high point was “We Are the World”), one whose songs and videos map to the social changes that happened over several decades. Who could not be fascinated by the opulence and “adventure” of his Neverland ranch and home, just an endless expanse of adolescent space going from one room or pasture to the next. . At Neverland, it seems, Jackson literally created another planet, a parallel world.

Other celebrities still say that Jackson was one of the nicest performers to work with.

The information for the Michael Jackson Public Memorial Service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles is here.

I have to take a moment to point out ABC and 20-20 "libertarian" (or "market fundamentalist") consumer reporter John Stossel's new blog, here. Yes, it will make some people mad, and that's OK.

Bill Moyers Journal on market economies, need, and social justice

2009-07-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

On Friday, July 3, Bill Moyers Journal featured a program on “Faith, Justice and Society” in a conversation with Gary Dorrien, Serene Jones and Cornell West.

At the end of the program, Moyers said, after reviewing the meager diet at homeless shelters and pickings from food banks, “people turn to charity when they can’t count on justice.” He also talked about a coming Papal encyclical that would claim that a market economy can only work when there is some underlying aim toward the common good.

Gary Dorrien explained a concept that he calls “economic democracy”.

Serene Jones says that as individuals were are bound to make massive mistakes because of the complexity of our lives.

Cornell talked about unconditional service to others and made the attention-getting statement “You can’t be a Christian if you’re not willing to pick up your cross and, in the end, be crucified on it. That’s the bottom line.”

The link for the episode is here. The transcript is here.

Yet, individual justice and "community" are not always congruent. Christianity maintains that man alone cannot achieve justice by himself.

PBS: American Masters: Garrison Keillor and his "A Prairie Home Companion"

2009-07-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

Wednesday July 1, PBS American Masters did a portrait of Minnesota radio host Garrison Keillor, well known for his public radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” with its ruminations about Lake Wobegon (a fictional town resembling Garrison’s boyhood hometown). The name of the 90 minute film is “Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes”, link here.

The basic web reference is here.

I used to hear the show on Saturday afternoons, particularly at the home of one particular friend in the St. Paul suburbs. The show delivers a lot of quaint homilies on Midwestern rural life, particular the small town social connections, a close connection to nature, and the changes of seasons. Minnesota is not as cold as people think, and the summers can be very hot. I lived there 1997-2003.

Keillor says that “the only thing I can do as write.” He also says that writing is a process of discovery, and requires going out and meeting real people. He says he doesn’t work as hard as his mother worked, raising six kids. He said that in search of “a brilliant career” he found a lot of “B.S.” – in compared to carpentry, there was a lot of nonsense. One could use writing to escape from “real work”.

He also says "You don't want to do your story in Lake Wobegon because then you are telling your story to people who are in the stories themselves." People don't like to be the subjects of literary stories behind their backs??

There are shots of the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul, which I went to every year and worked in the Libertarian Party booth. The grounds are across the railroad bridge from Hamline University, where I gave my 1998 speech on my book (broadcast on cable later on a show called “Liberty”). I recognized everything, including the stadium, where people sing the “Star Spangled Banner” in the key of G. Keillor says that Minnesota is one of those places where if you ask people to sing together they will. He says that some kind of commons is necessary, to get some balance from the view of the news and our world that we get from radio talk show hosts when we’re alone in a car, or from “reading somebody’s blog” (like mine).

Keillor also says that he barely missed getting a writing job in New York at the start of his career, which could have been very different. He says "a person doesn't just live in his own time. We also live in our past, and we get in touch with our past by listening to old songs and singing them."

In 2006, Picturehouse released a Robert Altman film of “A Prairie Home Companion”, about Garrison’s last radio broadcast from St. Paul, with singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty. The film featured Garrison himself, homely enough, as well as Woody Harrelson, Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and Virginia Madsen.

Picture: South of Minneapolis, Feb. 2002, as I drive back from a lecture I gave to a Unitarian group in Rosemount.

AC360 tells the story of "Bubbles": Michael Jackson's chimpanzee (and he was smart); also, Jackson's will is published on the web

2009-07-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

AC360 on CNN tonight went into the humorous story of Michael Jackson’s chimpanzee “Bubbles”. The chimp eventually was sent away but recognized Jackson years later. Reportedly, the chimp once bit Jackson. Anderson Cooper thought that the chimp's "long memory" was remarkable, but it isn’t. Chimps have almost human intelligence, but they don’t have the ability to build on the knowledge of past generations (as shown on a PBS Nova segment).

When I worked as a caller for the Minnesota Orchestra in 2002, the boss called me “Bubbles.” I didn’t know who that was for a while.

Of course, today there was “The Reading of the Will”, as from the well known short story by John Knowles (“A Separate Peace”). Johnson had set up a private trust (common now), and named Diana Ross as a successor guardian of his kids if his mother is unable to care for them. People do name guardians of their kids in wills and trusts, and sometimes they have been siblings without their own kids. Jackson did cut out some people, as the media has reported. There is also a trust, which is more private (there is plenty of stuff on the web from law firms explaining why people make trusts). The will and the trust don’t necessarily have to say the same things; usually the trust overrides, although that can get complicated.

The CNN/Turner link for the will (raw PDF document) is here. You may have trouble loading it; very heavy traffic is running and Firefox crashed on it once for me.

They also described some of the drugs (Diprivan) that Michael Jackson took as capable of producing a medically induced coma.

Attribution link for public domain Wikimedia picture of a “bald bodybuilder chimp”. A bald chimpanzee -- that's interesting. (But he's still an animal; he's not human!)

PBS Nova "Science Now" premiers, with report on anthrax attack investigations (from 2001)

2009-07-01T10:41:00.001-07:00

PBS Nova aired its season premier of “Science Now” on Tuesday, June 30, 2009, with Neil DeGrasse Tyson as host.

The first part of the show demonstrated “growing diamonds”. The idea is to place a diamond wafer under extremely high pressure and heat in a “reducing atmosphere” filled with hydrocarbons (maybe like the conditions on some extrasolar planets, some of which are thought to covered with diamond in a carbon monoxide atmosphere). The carbon “precipitates” as more diamond, which has more atoms per unit volume than any other crystal.

If it’s possible to make diamonds with consistent cut, it could be possible to replace silicon in semiconductors with diamonds, leading to a new generation of chips for computers in a few years. The idea of diamond chips may be tried on French high speed trains soon.

The show also covered the investigation of the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001, shortly after 9/11. Genetic matching work in excruciating detail was necessary to identify the Ames strain, and eventually leading to Bruce Ivins (after one notorious false lead causing lawsuits against the FBI and some media).

Look at the site “Right Wing Nuthouse” with an article, 8/1/2008, for some troubling questions, here.

The PBS Nova link is here.

ABC Primetime shows Texas family dealing with Alzheimer's; Nightline shows shocking Alzheimer's experiment with ordinary people

2009-06-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

ABC Primetime (“Family Secrets”), on Tuesday June 30, aired a particularly painful segment about a middle aged couple in west Texas, recently remarried into second marriages, nearly driven to divorce by the husband’s mother with Alzheimer’s disease, whom she starts caring for five weeks after the marriage. The couple tries several arrangements, including building a separate small apartment house for the mother, but her need for attention causes resentment on the wife. She smokes, raising fire risks (as well as questions of causation). Eventually the husband is not able to care for her as much. Sometimes she is left alone, and sometimes her sister (herself recovering from breast cancer) cares for her. She wanders and drives when she is not allowed to. Adult protective services visits at least once. ABC filmed for over four years.

The story, by Cynthia McFadden, Robbie Gordon and Rashida Johnson is “Ultimate Love Triangle: Mother-in-Law's Alzheimer's Disease Strains Marriage: Stress of Caring for Aging Relative Pits Husband Against Wife, Sending Family Into Turmoil”, link here.

The ABC webpage has several supplements, including “The voices of Alzheimer’s caregivers”, “Puzzling out 10 Alzheimer’s myths” and “Send in your questions”.

Dr. Peter Whitehouse, at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, regards Alzheimer’s as a natural course of aging rather than a specific disease, but there is overwhelming information about plaques and vascular changes in the brain in many other media sources. The myths include the idea that the disease occurs only with age, or must accompany age. Alzheimer’s is almost certainly not caused by aluminum, vaccinations, or artificial sweeteners.

On ABC Nightline, Cynthia McFadden and the husband (“Blaine”) try an experiment simulating Alzheimer’s. The don dark glasses simulating cataracts and macular degeneration, hand numbing gloves, uncomfortable footware, and most of all “Bluetooth” earphones with schizophrenia-like noises. Neither subject can complete the tasks assigned in twelve minutes. The distraction and sensory distraction causes quick memory loss. This was a shocking experiment.

History Channel: "Secrets of the Founding Fathers" and the Freemasons

2009-06-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

On Monday June 29, the History Channel aired “Secrets of the Founding Fathers,” a two hour film, with link here.

The premise of the film is that many of the founding fathers, including some “anti-founders” like Benedict Arnold (or John Hancock, “the first terrorist”), were Freemasons.

An early episode in the film simulates George Washington going to an initiation ritual, and being placed in a state between dress and undress, before taking the rites. (Imagination can rule here.) There is discussion of the “square and compass” figure and the metaphor of “God and geometry.” (God cannot overturn the rules of mathematics, but he can determine the geometry of space-time.) Later the film covers much of the history of Benjamin Franklin, and how his activities and beliefs helped support the American Revolution and probably the French Revolution.

The Freemason movement, according to the film, grew out of the trade unions and guilds, and sifted religious belief down to some fundamentals in such a way as to make separation of church and state a desirable political goal.

The film also traced possible connections of the Freemasons and even the Founding Fathers back to the Knights Templar or their families.

The film connects the layout of Washington DC and many of the buildings to the Freemasons. There is discussion of the pyramid, and the “seeing eye” on it; once one is a Freemason, one is a member for life.

There is a blog “Freemasons for Dummies” by Christopher Hodapp, link here that gives a perspective.

CBS 60 Minutes: Mind reading, telepathy, and Internet gambling hacks

2009-06-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

Tonight, June 28, Lesley Stahl reported on “mind reading” on CBS 60 Minutes.

Watch CBS Videos Online

The report presented experiments that mapped every concept (like “hammer” “house”) with a point-set with in the brain, so reliably among subjects that a computer could deduce from an MRI which objects a subject had seen.

Whereas the Internet has obviously provided challenges to privacy unimagined twenty years ago, mind reading could take this to a new level. New lie detector tests (“No Lie MRI”) could come on line, but various invisible scanning tools (such as laser scans of people’s brains at airport security) could come into use.

There will certainly occur constitutional issues as to whether “mind reading” technology breaches 5th Amendment protections against self-incrimination. We already know that DNA samples do not.

I have a science fiction script where people use telepathy, stimulated by certain bodily rituals, as instant communication instead of email, on another planet. Also, the telepathy, since it is “information”, is allowed to violate the speed of light law.

It might be possible for people to control the actions of a computer with thought, but this would be a most dangerous opportunity. Imagine if a programmer could update production files with telepathy and get around security access.

Ideas about telepathy comport with “New Age” (“witchcraft”) ideas that people create realities for themselves with their thoughts.

60 Minutes tonight also carried a big story about creating at Internet poker. Since this is largely illegal in the US by federal law (see Wall Street Journal story by Corey Boles and Jeff Bater, Nov. 13, 2008, here), most online betting is run by offshore servers, especially on one particular Indian reservation in Quebec. The story traced how an “employee” hacked into the server so that he could see the poker hands.

I used to have a site called “hppub.com” (for “High Productivity Publishing”). I gave up that name in 2005 when I folded it into doaskdotell.com, but then hppub.com got picked up by an offshore gaming site. Then that folded and now it is a Danish site about Internet speech and culture with ideas similar to what I had on my hppub.com site. Very interesting, at least for me.

"Clean Skies" televises mountaintop removal (strip mine) hearings

2009-06-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

The half-hour program “Clean Skies”, on Sunday June 28, on ABC affiliates (WJLA in Washington DC) aired a 15 minute report on mountaintop removal strip mining, mainly in southern West Virginia.

There is a six-minute video of the Senate hearing on mountaintop removal at the Clean Skies site here. Senator Ben Carlin said that the technique is unnecessary.

The report showed the underground coal mine exhibit in Beckley, W Va (which I visited in May 1991). It also covered the problem if coal dust accumulation in many communities.

An activist in Raleigh County W Va wants to place windmills on top of West Virginia ridges rather than tearing them down and making much of West Virginia an extension of the American Midwest.

Open pit mining for other minerals can remove even more overburden than for coal. I visited the Anaconda Copper mine in Montana in May 1981 (in snow); I’ve seen an asbestos mine in southern Quebec.

Picture: Reclaimed strip mine between Mt. Storm and Davis, W Va, along highway 93, taken by me Aug. 31, 2004. I was almost arrested for trespassing here when taking pictures when active mining went on, July 31, 1971.

NBC Today: Michael Jackson had done "We Are the World" in 1985; a personal memory from Big D

2009-06-27T06:47:00.000-07:00

The NBC Today show coverage of Michael Jackson this morning mentioned a number of his its, most notably “We Are the World” from 1985, cowritten by Lionel Richie, with USA for Africa.

I was living in Dallas then and remember a downtown celebration that year, with a boyfriend who would later succumb to AIDS after what, by the standards of the time, seemed like a heroic recovery or almost a resurrection. Another song of that era was “Beat It”.

The MSNBC story by Marc Hirsch is here.

Lester Holt on NBC reviews Jackson’s music here:

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Attribution link for Wikimedia Commons picture of Dallas from Trinity River; note terms of license here,

Obama discusses public health care option on Nightline; Lewin appears with analysis of public option

2009-06-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

Charles Gibson continued the Primetime interview with President Obama Wednesday night (June 23) on ABC Nightline and went into the controversial question of the publicly owned plan as a competitive option.

As to naysayers, the president said bluntly, “They’re wrong.” I was told not to say things like that as a boy. “We want to set up a health care exchange. … One option should be a public option … that would provide competition for the private insurers.” Obama went on to explain that the government would have unfair advantage over private insurers if it could just print money, but it will not have such because it will have to make up the costs in other areas. (Do we believe that will really happen?)

The head of the Lewin Group, John Sheils, appeared and suggested that, according to Lewin, about 70% of Americans would benefit from the public plan. I worked for Lewin myself as a computer programmer in 1988-1989 in the area of Medicare operating margins. Mr. Sheils has a position paper from June 12 “The Costs and Coverage Impacts of a Public Plan” here from a Health Law Conference. Lewin, part of the time under Quorum, has done very well indeed since I left in early 1990.

All television networks were diverted from the health care debate Thursday evening by the deaths of Michael Jackson (cardiac arrest) and Farah Fawcett. I recall that Michael Jackson performed at the half time show in the 1993 Super Bowl, after President Clinton took office, and put on a choreographed act that seemed to make fun of the ban against gays from the military (with a Marine Corps parody).

Picture: where I worked at CCG, which would become part of Lewin, back in 1988 (Washington DC).

ABC Primetime "Family Secrets" reports on teen pregnancy

2009-06-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

Last night, Tuesday, June 23, 2009, ABC Primetime instantiated its new series “Family Secrets” with an episode about teenage pregnancy. The associated news story is “nside the Lives of Children Having Children: 'Primetime' Explores Realities of Teen Pregnancy Through Day-to-Day Lives of Four Families”. The host is Jay Schadler, and the main news story is here.

The show focused on the ocean New England town of Gloucester, MA, normally thought of as the belonging to the heart of the liberal northeast (a home of famed journalist Sebastian Junger), not a place we would associate with a “scandal” involving teen pregnancy. Yet, last year, there were sensational news reports of “pacts” among kids to have children.

The program focused on a few families, with emphasis on the effect on teen fathers as well as mothers. One boy watches his girl friend graduate from high school while a mother while his is on hold to support another human being. The program compared sex education in Massachusetts, with graphical instruction on condoms, to Texas, with emphasis on abstinence. The program also showed the one abortion clinic in Kentucky, with teenage girls running a gauntlet to visit the place in Louisville. There as also a program for teen mothers called a “twelve step program.”

When I substitute taught, school systems usually put teen mothers into alternative high schools, and expectant mothers or new mothers had even other special facilities (“Family”) where they could lactate at school and were taught a curriculum in a sometimes less formal setting.

It’s important to remember that in some families teens have responsibilities that they did not create. Sometimes they have dropped out of school or gone to work when parents have been laid off or become unable to work, as in the film “October Sky.” Eldercare can cause burdens that were not created by “choices.” This needs to be kept in perspective.

Washington DC TV stations glued to tragic Metro collision today on Red Line

2009-06-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

All Washington DC television stations are covering a horrific Metro accident this evening on the Red Line between Fort Totten and Takoma stations, within the District of Columbia. The train that jackknifed was an inbound train, heading in the direction of Union Station from Silver Spring.

A typical report is on MSNBC here.

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There appears to have been a real end collision. More details will continue to be available from media outlets. At the present time, it appears to be the result of “human error,” but the FBI is on the scene, according to video reports.

There had been a horrific commuter rail crash in California last year because operators were using cell phones at the time.

Station WJLA preempted the ABC World News Tonight with local reporting by WJLA. The station reports that the Brunswick commuter line, which runs parallel in the area but that is serviced by diesel locomotives, has suspended service.

I used this line just last week about this time of day to attend AFI Silverdocs in Silver Spring, MD.

I lived in New York City 1974-1978 and do not recall an accident of this magnitude on the subway when I was there.

SNL airs the Jonas Brothers

2009-06-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

SNL last night, on a rerun, was hosted by a heavy and tired-looking Alec Baldwin (he used to be real hairy) and featured its fountain of youth, the Jonas Brothers. Baldwin is only 51, but his brother Stephen looks much younger at 42.

The show had the usual skits, including a Cougar Den, followed by a skit where Andy Samberg, with his usual professional glitz, tries to put a VHS (not a Beta HiFi, please – so 80s) into a CD player, and seven hours later shows a previous incarnation of the Jonas Brothers from the 70s. Yes, they did get into the business about the purity rings. Can the Jonas Brothers “act”? Remember, Michael Phelps couldn’t. You can’t just put anyone on SNL in a skit. (For some non show-biz celebrities, going on TV is traumatic; remember how reserved Mark Zuckerberg looked going onto Oprah.) The Brothers pulled of a Disney film about them (starting at 4:30 AM in a hotel) and they seemed to be OK here.

The brothers performed some of their usual numbers, and Nick did the percussion. "You know it's bad when your mama doesn't like it..."

Seth Meyers did his usual, with a bit about Ohio (site of “Days of our Lives”, especially Highway 13) and kids going to jail for ordering candy from school. Maybe Allison Sweeney (Sami) will host SNL some night.

Toward the end, the tiring Alec Baldwin introduced the concept of "First Cough" -- how to play a dying character and give a hint that his demise is near. Pretty unbelievable, even for SNL.

I can think of some other stars who owe SNL a stint. How about Tom Welling? How about Jared Padalecki? How about Gregory Smith? And, of course, Anderson Cooper.

ABC 20-20 "The New Normal"

2009-06-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

ABC 20/20 last night aired a one hour program on “The New Normal” of altered or possibly lowered expectations after the financial crisis. Elizabeth Vargas reported.

With Wall Street shedding people, it no longer draws the “brightest.” Maybe that’s a good thing, where we need innovations like an energy Internet rather than more financial products. The show present 28 year old Timothy Sykes, who made enormous profits on his boyhood money in college, started on Wall Street, only to lose out on the crash. Now he is a financial writer and blogger, with a typical post describing his appearance here.

The show described a “typical” family that had given up most luxuries, including cable, and now says it is closer with the simpler life. Of course, such a story assumes one has married and had children to start with – not everyone has. But kids often are healthier with a simpler life with more time outdoors and more emphasis on social connections.

The show also presented another family that admits it was reckless with the mortgage it took out and with its use of credit cards. But does blame do any good?

The show also presented a spot on the financial crisis in Iceland. The news story is “How Iceland's Financial Vikings Ran Aground, For Briefly Booming Island Nation, 'New Normal' Means Return to Fishing Boats”, by Andrew Morse, Bill Weir, and Dan Przygoda, link here. A similar fate happened to the town of Narvik, Norway, which had invested too heavily in the US Mortgage market.

ABC 20/20 offers separate videos for each short report last night at its site.

For Father's Day, Oprah presents single and gay couple dads

2009-06-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Today, Friday June 19, 2009, Oprah Winfrey had a Father’s Day segment called “unforgettable, unconventional dads,” link here. Oprah presented two widower fathers who had lost wives early, and one slender man around 50, an attorney, had adopted nine children from overseas. The program showed what life was like in his household as a single dad, his day starting at 3 AM (like Army Basic KP).

But the heart of the show was a gay couple of two men in Massachusetts (legally married) who had adopted three children. One of the men was Gregory Maquire, author, of “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” (link), adopted into a musical, and it is a perturbation on the story of the Wizard of Oz. He says that the work was inspired by a painting of his lover, Andy Newman, which he says taught him the value of compassion. The Oprah site has a video of her interview in their home (not embeddable, otherwise I would copy it; it’s important.)

Oprah loves to present family shows, but some people wonder how much of this "hands on" experience she has herself.

The president today said that you become a father by really raising a child. Calvin Woodward has an AP story "Obama tells men what kind of dads they should be" link here.

LKL interviews Jonas Brothers

2009-06-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Thursday June 18, Larry King Live interviewed the Jonas Brothers.

Some interesting points: Nick says he was home-schooled and graduated from high school this year at 16. A fan actually has a Jonas Brothers tattoo. The brothers discussed their upbringing at home and their values.

The interview was conducted at (Dallas Cowboys Stadium) where the Brothers appear June 20. The stadium still appears to be under construction. The recently performed at the new Yankee Stadium.

The CNN link for the Jonas Brothers’ tour is this.

One female caller asked for one fact that “we don’t know about you.” Joe told about a boyhood crush. The brothers did discuss dating earlier in the show.

There is a fourth brother who is 8 and who may join later.

Picture: Dallas Cotton Bowl, on Wikipedia, Creative Commons License, attribution link here.

AC360 shows bootlegged video from Iran; then interviews "Milk" screenwriter on Obama's record on gay rights

2009-06-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

Today June 17 Anderson Cooper 360 covered the protests in Iran, especially a 19-second video of a “silent” protest. I found a related protest on YouTube

The show explained the complicated politics around the Supreme Leader
Ali Hoseyni Khāmene’i and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The show moved on to gay rights, interviewing attorney Richard Socarides and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (“Milk”), about Obama’s punting on his order today giving gay domestic partners of federal employees limited benefits. Obama mentioned the need to overturn DOMA, and proposed a Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities Act (patterned after such a bill in New Mexico). Dustin Lance Black (who looks about 20 on television) said that there is never a convenient time to grant all peoples equal rights, and Clinton, with all his good intentions, gave us “don’t ask don’t tell” and DOMA. There is also a problem with lifting the HIV travel ban as well as lethargy in lifting “don’t ask don’t tell.” Black discussed the reasons that gay teens feel like second class citizens and have increased suicide rates. The official CNN story from Suzanne Malveaux is here. Apparently straight cohabiting couples are left out.

Then the show interviewed Paul Stanford in Oregon, who fights for a business to offer legal medical marijuana. The show presented a cost-benefit analysis of legalizing and then taxing and regulating marijuana. Dr. Sanjay Gupta then discussed medical marijuana. Tomorrow Cooper will present a report on how the collapse of the housing market in Florida and California has encouraged illegal marijuana business (much as was the case in ranching states when farm prices fell in the 1980s).

AC360 usually repeats its hour at 11 PM immediately after the first hour and offer sophisticated live blogs with continuous comments.

PBS Frontline: "Breaking the Bank": about TARP and the nationalization of banks after the 2008 collapse

2009-06-16T19:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight, PBS Frontline World presented the one hour documentary “Breaking the Bank”, which started out (like “Inside the Meltdown”) with the emergency meetings at the New York Fed on Sept 12 2008, attempting to keep Lehman Brothers from failing. But we know what happened, and by Sept. 18 the Treasury was pushing Congress into a TARP bailout, lest we have no economy at all.

The film goes on to talk a lot about the merger between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, with the clash of cultures, with Merrill employees making three times as much on average as the associates at the more “conservative” BofA. The film traces the history of the Bank of America through NationsBank in Charlotte.

The main link is here.

The film also discusses the Monday afternoon meeting at Treasury where nine bank CEO’s were told that their companies would be partially nationalized.

The film puts the heat on Bank of America’s Ken Lewis (who thought he was “patriotic”) and Merrill’s John Thain, who is compared to Clark Kent on red kryptonite!

PBS allows embedding of the entire one hour video, here.

Suze Orman sets up pink lemonade stand with free financial advice in NYC (ABC Nightline)

2009-06-16T06:23:00.001-07:00

On Monday June 15 (that always sounded like final exam day when I was in high school) Suze Orman did another of her public smackdowns, setting herself up as “The Money Lady in Bryant Park” in Manhattan, with her “interviews” (or shall we say “final exams”) of people’s finances shown on ABC Nightline. She served pink lemonade, and it didn’t cost $6 a cup like it usually does at gay pride.

The most important point this time is that money in a tax-deferred IRA is protected from creditors in a bankruptcy. The end result is that, no, “girlfriend”, you should never take money out of IRA’s to buy a home, even with the $8000 tax credit for some people in certain income ranges (generally limited to $75000 to $90000 for singles, about double for couples).

Suze says, “you hope for the best but don’t plan for it.”

The ABC News story (by Vicki Mabrey and Ted Gerstein) is “Suze Orman Sets Up Free Advice Stand: The 'Money Lady' Hits the Park to Give Tips on Home Buying, College, Credit Cards and More”, link here.

ABC "The View" makes goofy metaphors about Chastity Bono and gender change

2009-06-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

Well, that female gabfest “The View” on ABC this morning had a really good time by talking about Chastity Bono’s announced gender change from female to male. One of the gals said that “going from woman to man” is an “addition.” The audience gasped and laughed. How sexist, one says. Going from male to female was apparently a “subtraction,” or “take away” like in grade school arithmetic.

Ms. Behar took a real hard line on David Letterman’s comments that drew the ire of Sarah Palin. She said, a mother will do anything to defend her child – just like a mother black bear that I encountered on the Applachian Trail in Virginia one time – she was with her cub, but nothing happened. I just didn’t get between them and they passed peacefully. But Letterman (a member of the zipper club, according to an Esquire illustration) doesn’t get that. Letterman, remember, provides an object lesson. Never go to the doctor. You might find yourself wheeled into emergency coronary bypass surgery that afternoon.

The link for ABC's "free episode player" is here.

CBS "60 Minutes": Alice's Restaurant: should everybody learn to cook organic?

2009-06-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

Tonight, on CBS 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl presented Alice Waters and her passionate promotion of organic, locally grown food – along with the idea that every person should learn to garden and cook – an idea she promotes in some San Francisco Bay Area middle schools. The broadcast sounded like something from Oprah. The organic sunny-side-up egg looked yummy. Stahl said that this was the best breakfast in her whole life.

The story had originally aired March 15 and was updated around June 10. The main CBS link is this.

Watch CBS Videos Online

The broadcast showed an organic garden on the grounds of San Francisco City Hall.

I recall a restaurant in Waxahachie Texas that attracted a lot of attention in the 1990s, "The Dove's Nest."

Bill Moyers reviews life, work of Thomas Paine

2009-06-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

Bill Moyers, on Friday June 12, presented an appreciation of Thomas Paine, who may have been America’s greatest and first journalist. Paine wrote “The Rights of Man”, “The Age of Reason” and “Common Sense” (which advocated independence).

Moyers interviewed Harvey J. Kaye (“Thomas Paine and the Promise of America”) and National Review senior Richard Brookhiser, author of “What Would the Fathers Do?”

The link is here.

Paine’s journalism would become infused with his own philosophy and ideas and take on a little bit of a gonzo quality. In his day, his style of publishing (with pamphleteering) was revolutionary, in a manner parallel to the Internet today.

Paine drew attention to himself abroad, and eventually was arrested and imprisoned in France in 1793, as detailed in Wikipedia.

Moyers also spoke to former Clinton secretary of Labor Robert Reich, about why the rich get richer (like Trump), and how to control health care costs.

ABC 20-20: Adam Lambert's interview

2009-06-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight (Friday June 12) ABC 20/20 presented a report on American Idol runnerup Adam Lambert, “We asked, He Told.”

“Adam, are you gay?” “Yes, I am”. “Not everybody is as comfortable with it as I am”. He says he has lived this way in LA for eight years. He grew up in San Diego.

Then “I get to be a rock star. It’s fun.” And he talks about “playing dressup.” And he talks about “an odd fascination with glitter.”

He went on to talk about how he came out to his parents.

There was a little bit of his soaring singing, with a bit of a high pitched voice.

And he said that he is “bi-curious”. That was his “surprise.”

The 20/20 website has three videos on Lambert, including one interview with his brother Neil.

The news story is by Chris Connelley, Harry Phillips and Lauren Sher, link here.

Visitors will enjoy Rolling Stone issue 1081, “The Liberation of Adam Lambert”, link here. There is a video on the making of the cover shot, which, when looked at closely, offers surprises. There is also a video of an interview with Justin Long; the videos let you skip the preliminaries.

John Stossel interviewed “Mormon” and “Republican lap dog” Glen Beck.

AC360 on phony "veterans", and on Museum attack today

2009-06-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight (Wednesday June 10) Anderson Cooper, on his AC360 program, interviewed veteran imposter Rick Strandlof and asked Strandlof at one point “are you a pathological liar?” Doug Sterner, who operates “Home of Heroes” (link) (with a “the” you get parked domains) said that veteran imposters damage the credibility of real veterans who have earned their publicity and “privilege of being listened to” by paying their dues in combat deployments.

Cooper has a blog entry “Many faces of ‘fake vet’ Rick Strandlof exposed” here.

Cooper also covered the (James Von Brunn) shooting at the Holocaust Museum today (which I discussed with respect to free speech issues on my main blog). The program went into his conspiracy theory about the Federal Reserve, where he was arrested in 1981 for an attack then (six years in prison). The Southern Poverty Law Center (Mark Potok) did discuss his “propaganda.” Investigator David Gletty was also interviewed and he discussed the "lone wolf" problem, and talked about going to parties undercover to infiltrate them.

AC360 showed a geographical map of hate groups in the United States, and they tend to be concentrated in the southeast.