Easy As ABC

Please, hold the applause, please....

On September 12th of this year when everyone was busy predicting that Charles Gibson would be moving out of Good Morning, I wrote right here in this blog:

" Let me be the first to tell you. ABC News is going to name 20/20 lead Elizabeth Vargas and correspondent Bob Woodruff co-anchors of World News Tonight as successors to Peter Jennings."

Today, after months of testing, agonizing, re-testing, more agonizing, and ratings analysis they did it.


Woodruff, who is 44, is a slightly squeakier version of Jennings, lean and handsome in a particular way, but he has a lot to learn about relaxing and humanizing himself the way Jennings was always able. He does have the “look.” That steady, pours-through-the-tube set of eyes that grab and hold you. And he is bright and well grounded as a field reporter. Woodruff used to be a lawyer before he decided to leave one of the least respected fields for one that is even less highly regarded.

Vargas, who is 43, has an empathetic way about her (watch her when she reads, or reacts to, something sad or happy on the news.) Jennings did that too. Her on-camera presence is calm, friendly, certain, and she can handle herself in ad-lib situations and during emergencies as well as anyone on television right now as she proved during the Katrina horror.

Vargas is not the first woman to get this job. Chung at CBS, and before that Walters at ABC. Both only briefly before they either fell off their chairs or were pushed by anxious, jealous alpha male co-anchors. So watch for the interplay between Vargas and Woodruff and see whether she begins to list to the left or right fairly early on. I am betting not.

Now there remains only two great unanswered questions in the vast wasteland of television news.

The first is: will they call it ABC World News Tonight with Woodruff and Vargas or ABC World News Tonight with Vargas and Woodruff? You can bet the battle over that between their agents delayed today’s announcement.

And the other is the one posed to me by my friend, The Man Who Knows (but not about this): now will CBS hire Katie Couric to replace Rather?

I don’t know either, but as I wrote back, “Only if it’s the BIGGEST mistake they can make. If there is one even bigger they will go for that.”

Stay tuned, or something.

Quick Thanksgiving Quiz

Can you find the turkey in the picture?

Dr. Phil

Every once in a while, to unsettle my mind and upset my stomach, I watch Dr. Phil. Today the show featured 3 couples, each one in serious marital trouble, and each one worse than the last.

Apparently (I missed most of the action, which I think had gone on for days) there were a series of "tasks or challenges," that the couples undertook, a competition in which a "winner" was declared for each. One of them won 4 out of 5, or 5 out of 6--- I forget. That husband and the wife admitted on camera that they had each been cheating on the other before the wedding, and since. Perhaps even during the ceremony for all I know.

And the reward the overall "winners" received for their behavior? Two all expense trips, one valued at $25-thousand dollars, and the other to a private tropical island in Fiji. Dr. Phil also, jolly helpful soul that he is, gave them a check for $20-thousand dollars, to spend any way they wish.

These are the values America's number one self-help, self-rehabilitation guru rewards. Amen.

The Future Of CBS News

While we are waiting and Fitzgerald is deciding whether to nail Rove and Libby and maybe Cheney, or one, or two , or none and while Miers is stuck in the nether land of confirmation--- here's something else to chew on.

CBS let News President Andrew Heyward, who had been (in the famous Watergate phrase) twisting in the wind for all these months, CBS let him push himself off what was left of his cliff. So Heyward is out, and CBS, which had allowed rumors to float that it would appoint the head of MTV to the post, named Sean McManus instead. McManus, surely mostly anonymous as head of the Sports Division up to this moment, will now hold both jobs and turn things around.

McManus is the son of ABC sports anchor Jim McKay, who was completely professional and smart, cool and collected. Remember his reporting about the terrorists at the Olympics? Plus, the precedent for sliding someone from sports into news is not new, and is, in fact, a pretty heartening one. Roone Arledge did it at ABC and changed, for the better, the topography of news presentation and coverage as we know it.

But here's the bad part : it's CBS News, which moves like an exhausted runner trying to inch his way through sand. The last innovative concept in news over there was 60 Minutes, about 200 years ago.

CBS could use plenty of vision if it is going to ever salvage what is left of its reputation post-Rather, but, sad to say, can any of us think of a single smart or memorable change on screen that McManus has instituted during his time leading Sports? I'm talking production and packaging here, not purchasing and sales. If McManus has nothing big and new to bring to the presentation table then there is no future for CBS News.

Judy Miller

After reading The NY Times article about the jailing and subsequent testimony of Judith Miller, and her own recounting of the events surrounding the situation:



Yesterday upon the stair

I saw a man that wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
How I wish he'd go away.

Judy Miller is an embarrassment to her profession. This is a terrible situation for both The Times and for her because (as Stein famously said) after all the furor, all the melodrama, all the pretension and posturing there was no there there.

Miller may go down as the most annoying icon, and most conveniently forgetful public figure since Ronald Reagan.

Dobson Clearing It Up

Rocky Mountain News says ultraconservative, Focus On The Family leader, James Dobson is going to “take to the airwaves,” this Wednesday and Thursday to reveal what specific assurances and information he received from ultraconservative blabbermouth Presidential advisor Karl Rove about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

First of all, I love that the Rocky Mountain News actually uses that expression: “take to the airwaves.” If only I could be doing the same. Conjures up images of Jack Armstrong or The Lone Ranger and the earlier, simpler days of radio. Perhaps Dobson will wear a cape during.

Second: apparently whatever Rove said that led Dobson to support Miers, contained so much detail that it is going to take 2 days for Dobson to lay it out. God only took 5 more to create everything. And he is known to be super-efficient.

Third: This is brilliant scheduling by Dobson. He can say anything, any mea culpa, and God (his main constituent), is unlikely to be around to hear. I mean, god is already distracted by the earthquake in Pakistan and also going to be very busy on Wednesday, diverted by the Jews and Yom Kippur. (Even the most fallen away Jew will be observing the highest of the high holy days in some way, especially now that the Yankees have been eliminated.) Then Thursday the lord will be recuperating from all that hard work, and will have to get any information about Dobson Parts I and II from secondary sources.

In any case it is hard to know which media sources the supreme being relies on, since everyone claims his/her exclusive attention. I myself have had no comments here from god since I began posting, though I enter each day with hope and would gladly provide my private email address and make certain the correct spam filters are on if that is more convenient.

Then again, maybe Karl Rove will call me too, now that he has a few moments between being indicted and talking with Judy Miller, and that Time Magazine guy, and Dobson. Hearing from Rove would almost be as good as getting a note from god. I promise you that if I do, afterwards, I will take to the airwaves too, faster than you can say fun with family values.

Me And My iPod

This past month I have been restoring my energy and strength after the inevitable byproduct of age, neglect and stupidity thrust itself on me.

No more workouts at the gym (at least for 2 months); no more bopping around as though I was still 15 and hearing Elvis for the first time. What I can do, am supposed to do, is ease my mind and body. As much as I possibly can.

So, in heat and in rain, and at peculiar hours, over many days, I have been walking around, increasing the distances, loving what I see, enjoying the people and the streets. Needing no further reminder of the frailty of life, the fragility of time, I also began making plans for some long-distance travel, to see loved family and friends. By bus, by train, by plane whenever possible I am going as soon as I can.

-0-

Anyone who knows me, even slightly, also knows that music is a very important part of my life. My tastes are, and have always been, wide-ranging, and highly eclectic.

I can tell you the name of my favorite Benny Goodman or my favorite opera, the date that Earth Angel was released, the latest from Richard Thompson (mostly thanks to my brother), or the most pleasurable Fats Waller or Fats Domino or Lucinda Williams. There is joy in very early Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey. And I even know the best yodeler or slack guitarist. I am clear about where I was when I first heard Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters or Glenn Gould and Segovia.

When I came here a few years ago into a small condo in the Back Bay of Boston I sadly had to give away hundreds of CDs and sold (for almost no money) an equal number of vinyl 33s I had been promising myself I’d listen to again for years without ever doing it. Over those years I moved from 78s to albums to CDs and from a suitcase-like Admiral, to components, to iTunes and tiny digital speakers. Now, even my remaining CDs (still plenty) mostly are untouched in favor of the music stored on my computer.

-0-

So long trips and long walks. A lovely way to restore body and soul.

The only thing missing has been, what is for me, the best antidote of all: my music.

But it’s not missing anymore. Now I take my music with me. I have purchased an Apple iPod Shuffle. It is a refurbished model, which seems only perfect because, now, so am I.

I am one of them. I have become one of those people you see everywhere, overly long white wires drooping from my ears to below my waist, attached to a tiny (very tiny) white plastic thingy that somehow (oh, the magic!) has hundreds of songs inside. All ready, at the touch of a button to play themselves for me no matter where I am going. I am somewhere, on the street, on the bus, on the train, on the plane--- and I am going. Sometimes I even wear a baseball cap in a desperate attempt to blend in. Dumb. Doesn't work.

But I don’t care that people roll their eyes (though some smile indulgently) when they see me coming, slightly slower now, the oldest kid on the block with an iPod. I am the white haired dude amidst all the youngsters.

Come on, look for me. I am getting better, all plugged in and forgetting from time-to-time that no one else can hear what I am hearing, and (god forgive me) often singing impossibly off-key versions of Don’t Fence Me In or Splish Splash, or Desolation Row or Going To Jackson.

Come on. Listen to the music. Ain’t it great to be alive.

The Muck and Miers

Let’s say you know someone professionally. And that the relationship is of the most intimate kind. You share the deepest detailed and privileged information imaginable with this other person. You tell her in advance about your hopes, your plans, your expectations, your strategies. After she gives you her best advice she then steps forward to protect you if something goes wrong. Together you privately enjoy your successes and even admit your failures. Though she knows everything about your professional life she tells no one, bound by her ethics, and the law, and her loyalty from revealing a single thing. What is said behind closed doors remains there, what is confidential stays that way.

This relationship continues for more than 15 years. Deep bonds and absolute trust are built. During that time you are in the public sector. Politics. Your focus shifts from the state to the national. Every day you are forced to confront the issues, explain your positions, and defend your policies. No one is more visible; no one more on the record. A small group of your closest advisors is there with you each step, helping you. This person, your old friend, trusted advisor and protector, is a part of that group.

Then you can reward her for her service. You can nominate her for the US Supreme Court. And you do. When, during the ensuing rush for information, someone asks you what her beliefs are about abortion you say it was not a relevant concern. Shortly thereafter you amend that; you say you do not recall ever, during those many years, having a discussion about abortion with her, and that you do not know her views. Not that you do know but can’t tell because of privacy concerns--- but that you never, ever talked about it together. In all that time.

Congratulations. Your answer will go down as the biggest bunch of bullshit since “I am not a crook,” and “I did not have sex with that woman,” and “because they have weapons of mass destruction.”

Two Short SCOTUS takes:

Look at these thumbnails, both part of a single, larger photo taken the day Roberts was sworn in as Chief. They tell the story.



Scalia, shut out from the top job, is his usual warm, engaging and charming self...



... and Thomas, who did not really understand anything that was going on is just delighted to be out of the house and wearing his big robe again.

The Tale Of The Horse's Ass

Former FEMA and Arabian Horse Assocation Director Michael Brown, looking rested and ready, alert and assertive, appeared today before the sparsely populated House Committee investigating the federal response to hurricane Katrina.

So, what went wrong down there?

Instantly Brown demonstrated the kind of clear-visioned, supremely focused, steely vision that was the hallmark of his leadership.

He admitted there were a few slipups on his part, negligible, but a few. However, Brown said, look--- this was the heart of it all: “I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together.” Brown, leaning firmly forward in his seat told the representatives, "I just couldn't pull that off."

It quickly became clear that Brown has used these weeks of D-C dungeon downtime to gain a true perspective that will help move us forward and avoid the kind of unnecessary deaths and lingering homelessness we are still seeing. It was not him, certainly not the President, and clearly not FEMA that failed. Oh, no.

So who was to blame?

Ah, the fault to properly call in the cavalry, to race to the rescue of the displaced, the distressed, and the dead lay with the blubbery Louisiana Governor and the needy New Orleans Mayor.

Brown testified, "My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional."

Oh man, if only those, those, politicians had not been there none of this would have happened.

But wait, ladies and gentleman--- there’s more.

Brown continues to do a hell of a lot better than the folks along the Gulf Coast. Turns out that the new, reorganized FEMA itself, eager to make sure they don’t lose a second of these precious insights from Brown, has made sure to fire him, but at the same time to keep him on the payroll. CBS news reporter Gloria Borger says Brown is a fully paid “contractor,” while he is “transitioning out of his job.” FEMA, says Borger, told her “ the agency wants to get what it calls the "proper download of his (Brown’s) experience."

Not that they could have simply insisted he tell them whatever he knew for free. Oh no, for sure not. And jesus god, they actually think he knew anything.

Then, what’s this term, “proper download,” applied to a human being mean--- in English?

Stands to reason that since we have FEMA spokespeople who can’t speak in any language on this planet how can we expect they will ever truly understand a simple call for help?

Balance

In the midst of the terrible continuing war in Iraq; as the mighty winds and rain rolled through the Gulf Coast, while the homeless seeking shelter slowly moved on their nomadic march; as the price for gasoline continued its upward spiral and we prepared for paying whatever it will take to drive and work and stay warm this winter--- during these days of fear, uncertainty, and great discomfort, one small wonderful cosmic sign of normalcy reappeared.

At the direct center of my life when I was eight, nine, ten and growing up in The Bronx was The Yankees. It wasn’t that I didn’t do anything else, or care about anything else. I did. TV, girls, punchball, Bungalow Bar, Batman. But it was The Yankees that mattered.


I lived an easy, straight-shot 20-minute subway ride down the Grand Concourse from the giant, gleaming, white stadium where --- if you got there early enough and knew where to stand--- you could catch a quick glimpse of Phil Rizzuto, Snuffy Stirnweiss, Fireman Joe Page, and on the best, most amazing days a moment of Joe DiMaggio’s gleaming black hair as he hustled from limo to locker room. It didn’t hurt me that it was known around town that my uncle had written a best selling song about Joltin’ Joe only a few years before.

There could be terrible weather, wars, awful movies, snow on the television screens. But The Yankees were what you could count on. The rest you’d learn to cope with. You didn’t have to question god or politicians so long as The Yankees took the field. And, in my way-back memory, the most constant aspect of the end of every season took place when The Bronx Bombers would play The Boston Red Sox to see who went into the championship, and then to most certainly win the World Series. I would lie on the floor of my cousin Herbie’s apartment and thrill to the game on radio. But the truth is, no matter how close the score, no matter whether The Yanks were behind with 2 out in the 9th, the outcome never was in doubt for me. Yankees. Always The Yankees.

So much has changed since then. But this last week, as the hurricane of life swirled along its reckless, unsettling, disruptive path, the fact that The Red Sox and The Yankees were suddenly tied for first place, that the season was singing its final song, and that those 2 teams would once again play it out right at the end ---well that was the way it should be, the exact way we need it to be if there is going to be any balance left in the world.


And, leaving aside any recent history, and despite the obvious loss of intelligent reasoning on the part of at least 2 of my beloved grandchildren, I still know how it is going to turn out. For sure.


Bet you a nickel.

Wild JetBlue Yonder (with Update)

I watched, of course I did. Just as you did if you had your TV on--- but I am deeply concerned about the implications.

Last night as I was looking around for updated information on Rita ripping toward Texas I came upon live pictures of a large jet circling around somewhere. Typically when I am going from station to station I leave the sound down and the closed captioning up. These days when I see shots of a plane my first thought is about terrorists so I pumped the audio immediately.

Not terrorists, as we all know by now; a JetBlue passenger plane with broken down landing gear making circles above LAX, using up its weighty fuel, getting lighter, moving toward the dangerous descent onto the runways below. 146 people aboard, sealed inside that metal envelope, and every cable channel had marshaled its ever ready cadre of resident experts for commentary.

(An aside: where do they keep these experts? Does an unlimited cache of these people live in some special wing at each of the news channels on perpetual standby just in case something, anything, happens?)

Anyway, I watched. The slow, soundless circling filling my screen, the tension building. Then the swift and seemingly sudden descent onto the tarmac. I was on CNN at that moment, and Larry King kept asking one of their experts whether the landing gear really looked "broken." He seemed reassured in some bizarre backward way when they could tell him, without reservation, that this was a real problem, with real potential for drama and disaster, and not just a false alarm.

The plane, as we all know, bumped down, front end up for as long as the pilot was able. Then there was the terrible few seconds as the flames erupted. Five minutes later it was all over. Everyone walked safely from the front exit; not an ambulance was needed.

Good news, yes?

But then I thought about it. I had just witnessed a plane with all those passengers and crew aboard headed toward possible death. And I saw it live. If the plane exploded, if bodies shot out windows, heads and arms and legs everywhere there would have been no turning back, no turning away. And for what greater good? Why did I need to see this live? Why could the networks not have shown the plane at the beginning, kept up running updates, and then played the videotape seconds after resolution?

This was not a sudden situation. Appropriate news judgments were possible all along the way, but they were never made. There was plenty of time for decisions by news managers. But it's such a competitive world out there, and the only desire was to have the best pictures, the most immediate information, the most penetrating close-ups as the wheels hit ground. This was the standard applied, the only one these days. Concern for the people inside the JetBlue never outweighed the need to show every second as it happened, when it happened. If they could have had a camera in the cabin and shown the agony of the passengers and crew you can believe that would have been done as well. I used to be the one who made those decisions, way back when, and I know if I opted not to show the action last night I'd be out looking for a job today.

It was all about giving those thrill seeking, but safe, viewers like me what we craved--- and to do it immediately. All about how to drive up those ratings pal.

UPDATE: Turns out JetBlue left its in-cabin seat TV monitors on, and passengers wating out their uncertain fate watched the coverage live along with all of us... and some passengers had camcorders that they used so that today we actually DO have the added bonus of being able to witness them preparing for their possible deaths. We live in an age of great technical marvels, and thank god we clearly can count on equally great sensitivity on the part of the television decision makers.

Here We Go Again

They are in cars, and busses, and on foot heading out of Galveston and Houston. Thousands and thousands of them. Once again disproportionately poor. The rest of the Gulf Coast waits nervously, uncertainly. It's like being told you are going to die twice down there, and the season still has more time to go.

"Galveston, oh Galveston, I still hear your sea waves crashing"

M. STEWART SHOW… HURRICANE RELIEF CONCERTS…AND THE EMMY AWARDS

Ok, question of the day: what do the new Martha Stewart daily show, the three network hurricane relief concerts and the Emmy Award show have in common?

Hint: if you used the words pretentious, boring and irrelevant you are on the right track.

STEWART: If you’ve ever been at a party and got inadvertently locked in a conversation with someone you didn’t really know, who told meaningless self-involved stories with unfocused and unfunny payoffs, then you have met Martha Stewart. Fifteen minutes in and you want to fall forward into the dip. I admit it, I didn’t like her that much even before she was a felon. Telling me how to decoupage my mailbox didn’t seem like a major life priority. My subscription to the Martha magazine lapsed before it even started. But millions obviously disagreed then, and millions more may disagree now. Friend O Mine, more informed about this empty world than I ever was, tells me the first week ratings for her post-jail show are not terrible. All I know is that I watched three of them, each one worse and more deadly than the last. I gave up about three quarters of the way through the hour-long birthday salute to her 91-year-old mother who she calls Big Martha. Little Martha, it should be noted, seems scared and unsure in her mommy’s presence. Even her live studio audience, filled with Martha groupies I presume (Little Martha, not so much Big), wasn’t responding, and it seemed to me they had to artificially “sweeten” the applause track. The show is humorous the way your grandmother’s funeral might have its light moments, and warm and genuine like a Katrina speech by George Bush.


RELIEF CONCERTS: New Orleans music, Cajun music, as I understand it, has a natural spirit and optimistic view of life even in the most serious of circumstances. Why then were the two separate hour-long fund raisers for that region on the broadcast TV and cable networks turned into the most dreary and unimaginative experiences? Sure, the intent was good (so is Jerry Lewis’) but the results had virtually no feeling, no impact. Flat. The artists showed up, they performed or read poorly from cue cards, and they went home. Everything was slick and packaged and carefully produced and disconnected from any genuine emotion. And then there was the PBS concert over the weekend, a never ending poorly executed four hour tribute not so much to the dislocated people down south but to the egos of certain folks from Lincoln Center, to executives at the public broadcasting network, and to hosts who seemed to have a great need to deliver lengthy clichéd lectures about our moral obligations under these unfortunate circumstances. Aside from Mark O’Connor doing a beautiful violin riff on Amazing Grace, Robin Williams with a spirited, disciplined and funny few minutes (for once), and a cornet player whose name I missed, the performances were uninspired. I assume the audience in the theater stayed either because they were too embarrassed to get up and leave, or because their bodies were numb and they became immobilized, or because they trained for the ordeal by attending the new Martha Stewart Show.


EMMY AWARDS: Here’s what was good: Donald Trump in overalls singing Green Acres, and William Shatner and Frederica von Stade “singing” the unsingable theme from Star Trek. Here’s what seemed genuine: the response to Jennings, Brokaw and Rather. Here’s what was oddly stilted and slightly embarrassing: Letterman’s reading of the tribute to Johnny Carson, and the hosting of Degeneris throughout. Here’s what was terrible: everything else. I found myself almost longing for Martha Stewart.




And now the new television season begins. Oh boy.

Bush The Compassionate... uhm... Liberal

Just watched Bush. So which party does he belong to? He's proposing the biggest federal giveaway in history; FDR and LBJ would be proud. When all else fails throw money. But who is gonna' pay?

I noticed the President’s accent becomes more southern when he appears down there, and tonight he seemed to have developed this peculiar and disconcerting tongue poking out his mouth thing, like a nervous mouse.

Karl Rove orchestrated the entire presentation and all that was missing was the President marching onto the grounds playing the cornet.

ABC News

Let me be the first to tell you. ABC News is going to name 20/20 lead Elizabeth Vargas and correspondent Bob Woodruff co-anchors of World News Tonight as successors to Peter Jennings.

I had that sudden intuitive certainty watching the two of them work the Katrina story together recently.

Woodruff has the long lean look, and a presence similar to Jennings’. He is a former attorney who came to the business somewhat later, and his experience in the field matches the kind Jennings brought to the anchor desk when he returned there after a brief horrendous time when he was too young, too unformed. Woodruff is calm and has a compelling manner. Check out his eyes as well. When I was in television we’d talk about the few people who pour through the camera, and pray we might find and hire them. Woodruff does that. When he’s there he’s really there.

Vargas is well known for her work on 20/20 and as a sub for Jennings, especially when he got so sick, and then after his death. She has a strong background working stories for the newscasts, and in the longer magazine and special report format as well. When she reported from Louisiana during the immediate aftermath of the hurricane I was struck by her strength and ability to carry the coverage. She is a hard-hitting deliverer of copy, and has a sympathetic demeanor when necessary. She also appears extremely confident and at ease with herself.

So there you have it. Breaking news...film at 11.

Everybody Up

What’s with standing ovations?

Genuine, deeply felt and given applause is no longer enough. Now there are Standing O’s before anything happens, no performance necessary. Just walking out justifies one. A standing ovation has become the starting point, the most routine, and frequently if it is not also accompanied by stamping and squealing then you can just feel the disappointment on stage. A gloomy sense of failure descends. You must stand up again at the conclusion, and sometimes during breaks or intermissions, and if you don’t you run the risk of being badly mauled by the rest of the folks there, an outcast drowning in a sea of standing, stomping, screaming sycophants.

I am talking about people like Martha Stewart and Oprah and Dr. Phil. It’s built into their shows. I am thinking about two unknown guitarists (for good reason) I heard the other night in concert. So many others. You’ve been there when it’s occurred. I know you have. The Big O before, during, and after. And in the case of the TV people they will be receiving them every single day, and in reruns forever. After they are dead.

Whatever happened to earning something before you get it? It used to be a performance that caused the audience to rise to their feet in appreciation was rare and unusual indeed. You had to feel the artist had done something great before you stood up, and even then not everyone would. If you were there when a standing ovation was justified you considered yourself to have been extremely fortunate, a witness to a rare and extraordinary event. And you told everyone about it for days, probably years.

But now expectations are virtually nonexistent; standards of quality have never been lower; nearly everything has been cheapened. What was low is considered high, and what was medium is off the charts. The implications are widespread.

Once I asked someone next to me, a person who had jumped up four times to applaud, and who remained on her feet long after the stage was clear, whether she loved the show. ”It was OK. Pretty good,” she said.

So, people come on. Let’s hear it. Hey over there--- you, yes you--- on your feet for the ordinary.

Beating The Bush

Friend O’ Mine sent me a fast email with the CNN story saying Bush had apologized for his response to the hurricane. “WOW!” he said. “This is a first.”

I responded this way: “Smart.... America loves a contrite, apologetic confessional and the person who makes one.”

Then I wrote Friend O’ Mine, “Bet in fuller context he means that he was the person with final responsibility (buck stops here deal) and should have known better despite the layers of otherwise information and advice...etc. etc. Sniff: do you smell the lurking smell of Karl Rove in the ‘bushes?’”

It was supposed to be slightly more clever than it was certain, so I checked out the story. Damn if I wasn’t correct.

Our stand-up President actually said, “…to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."

That’s the kind of apology I used to give to my mother when I was a kid and she caught me doing something bad. I also always immediately promised that I’d never do it again. Until the next time I get caught, I was really thinking.

And Thursday night Bush goes on TV to tell us how much he cares. At least now. Ah, but it’s only the hot breath of Karl Rove breathing down his neck, like my mother used to with me.

The Gray Lady: 2 Stories

The NY Times, which has long been known as the Gray Lady, the journalistic standard, well she ain't what she used to be. Woman I Know (WIK) who cares, deeply, about such things discovered that the Times was running a list, supplied to it by the infamous FEMA of fast and furious Katrina response fame, of places you and I can send our hurricane relief money to. Included in the list is one for Operation Blessing, a project underwritten by the equally infamous Pat Robertson, so recently blogged right here. Now this Woman I Know finds anything associated with Robertson slightly suspect, feels that it comes with conservative Christian strings attached. Nothing in the Times list was revealed. So WIK went right at it with the Public Editor (aka Ombudsman, aka aka Byron Calame) asking why the paper of record wasn't on the record about any of this. From what I understand there were phone calls and emails between WIK and the public editor (his assistant actually) until she finally received this:

Thank you for your message and your concern for those in need.

Unfortunately, The Times can't be more helpful in this situation. The
paper is already trying to make it as clear as possible that the list of
charities is suggested by FEMA and not The Times.

I hope you can understand that The Times simply doesn't have the resources
required to check out each charity and repeat those checks frequently
enough to vouch for a long list of charities.

Byron Calame
Public Editor
The New York Times

It was as though she had received a "dear occupant" letter for all its real concern.

This is the New York Times! They don't have the resources?

The paper certainly does have absolute responsibility to check out any list submitted to them they use for editorial purposes (though none for advertising) whether by private or governmental sources. If the logic that Calame applied was true then all we'd see would be unsubstantiated reports provided by the Defense Department on the fighting in Iraq (no resources or time to check--- too many details) and State Department information on the status of war prisoners, (no resources or time to check---too complicated).

So go ahead, just send out your money. Of course God only knows where it will end up. We know you read it in the Times. But of course we can't and won't vouch that it was correct. And we don't, you know, like really care.

Here's the second story. I know about the details of this one first hand. A staffer at the New York Times recently reported that she had seen coverage of the storm by Geraldo Rivera (loathsome in general, and an easy target I agree) and he had pushed away a solider trying to help a storm victim so he, Geraldo, could get in the shot. You want to believe it was true, right? Well, the videotape of the event does not show that at all, and the Times not only refused to print a retraction but no one there would take any calls seeking a comment about the matter. Not enough resources to answer the phones I assume.

The Gray Lady is hiding behind her own skirt these days.

Bye-bye Brownie

And the horse you rode in on.


One down... but so many more to go.

9/11...Four Years Later

Four years later: a Tuesday then; I was making my long daily drive and listening to Imus when the first one hit. I don’t know why, but I knew instantly. Trouble. Big trouble. By the time of the second plane everyone knew. I called my old friends in California, yanking them out of bed and into the day of flames and fear and uncertainty and horror.


Four years later: these few zealots, with a couple of dollars and some charge cards have caused us to expend billions, to put our young men and women once more at risk in a wild card war in a far away country, for reasons that shift more frequently than current fashions. We have held investigations, created new governmental departments, and a crazy color warning system that seems more connected to our traffic light system than to any real threats. Those who claim to know tell us it is not a question of whether but when the terrorists will strike again. These are the same people who are telling us we will rebuild New Orleans though the World Trade Center site in New York remains untouched, a silent monument to our unending capacity for bickering and politics.

Four years later: there have been no further attacks here. We’ve had our full compliment of Super Bowls, mass New Year’s gatherings on Times Square, another presidential election and more. All the preplanned, all the public, as usual. Plenty of targets; plenty of opportunity. Nothing has been cancelled yet nothing has been attacked. Even during this past week or so of massive confusion, stumble-bum responses and diverted resources, not even one attempt, and it isn’t because they have compassion for our poor uprooted homeless down south.

Four years later: where have they been? Surely, and especially since our feeble response to the hurricane, they really can’t believe our Homeland Security, or our inept local governments, or our insensitive President can keep them out if they want, really want, to come. Osama still runs free, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and terrorists can roam pretty much undetected and unstoppable as before. Just ask Londoners. But since the fire and destruction of 9/11/2001 they have been limited to pulling off small time jobs, like minor league hit men.

Four years later: perhaps the terrorism threat isn’t all we have been encouraged to believe. Maybe, just maybe, that small band of terrible men who seized the planes four years ago were emblematic of a particular passion and evil intent and a moment in time, but not a plan with long-range implications or possibilities.

Today: where I am we have had a beautiful, quiet day so far. We are on the cusp between summer and fall. People wear heavier jeans and a sweater but with sandals, pushing out the summer for as long as they can, not quite wanting yet to acknowledge the inevitably of the seasons. Elsewhere in America it is not so pleasant or so simple. The worst disaster this country has had to face also fell from the sky just two weeks ago. We were no more prepared to handle that then we were when the planes hit and the Twin Towers crumbled four years ago.

We Are Saved 2

Scapegoating Are Us: Brownie is nearly gone. Relieved of "command" in the hurricane emergency, the NY Times writes, without a snicker over the word command or the decision itself. Actually only his ass is gone, his head is still technically on top of FEMA. But shortly expect him to be entirely ridden off into the sunset, though not on one of those fine Arabian stallions he couldn't control before. Clearly the Bush administration hopes this will settle all us nervous nellies down. That we will now turn back to more pleasant matters, like how well the President is handling the war in Iraq.

We Are Saved

It’s over.

Forget Bush’s failures, FEMA’s pitiful responses, the Louisiana governor’s petty politics. There’s good news: as of late yesterday we’ve done all we can do. Entertainment Tonight sent Richard Simmons into New Orleans to deal with the damn flood. I saw it. Dressed in his short-shorts, his spangley t-top, his frizzed out nest of thinning hair shifting in the breeze, Richard came, saw, whimpered, murmured “my home,” and crossed himself at the church he used to attend when he was growing up not far from the French Quarter oh so many many years ago. Never mind he caused an older woman looking for her family to cry silently after he demanded she say “It’s going to be all right,” to him. Never mind that he put his face on her heaving bosom while she looked away, the tears rolling down her cheeks. Never mind that he pulled uncomprehending children, who had no idea who he was, to him, and kissed their little heads while they tried to get away. Never mind any of it. Because he brought himself to that decimated city, and that was enough.

The stars have arrived in New Orleans; can the sun be far behind?

Beware The Bicycles

This may seem like nothing to you (if there are any of you), but it’s my blog and I’ll blog if I want to…blog if I want to.

Today, for the third time in the last month I was almost run down by a human on a bicycle rampaging through the downtown streets of Boston paying no attention to me, the signs, or the law. One of them gave me the finger when I jumped back. Not messengers working, just folks out cruising for the exercise and pleasure of it all. I wasn’t crossing illegally, or in the middle of the street, honestly. I have also been witness to at least two near misses of others.

Wait before you assume anything: I’m a big supporter of fresh air, the healthier lifestyle and especially no gas guzzling or pollution. In fact, when I moved into the city several years ago, after a lengthy stay in a quieter place on the ocean up north, I donated my car to a charity and for the first time since I was 16 have been walking or taking rapid transit (the “T” here) or (god help me) busses when necessary. So someone who talks to me about riding a bike instead of driving has had my regards, my support, and until recently my good will.

But now: they, these killers on two wheels, ride swiftly alongside the autos in traffic, an ipod growing from their heads. These are the ones who don’t wear helmets or any kind of protective gear. They ignore stop signs or red lights. They should have smiley face t-shirts that say, No Stopping! If there is a sufficient crowd at the corner, they will sometimes slow down coming to the intersection, which at first I thought was a small nod to rudimentary courtesy; now I am sure it is so they can try to aim at me more accurately.

They often swerve suddenly to make unannounced left or right turns, and more than once I have witnessed them moving along unconcerned, going the wrong way on a one-way street.

They most often stay hidden in the far left or far right lane, obscure until the last second from view. If you happen to be crossing from the opposite side you might only feel the wisp of a breeze as they zoom on by, missing making contact by a millimeter.

They are silent like a stealth weapon there on the streets of the city. Neither they nor their Schwin’s (or whatever the hell these days) make a sound. The better to drive over your head with a minimum of fuss or noise, and then be on their way without missing one second of a song on their ‘pod. At night they wear no marked clothing, have no lights. These tree hugging mean bastards.

“Hey old dude,” I swear they say, as they pedal triumphantly and swiftly out of sight toward their next unsuspecting target, “ I got the fresh air to breathe, the legs to pump up, the lungs to purify, the places to go. Drive a car if you want to get around, or get a guide dog if gotta’ walk and you can’t handle the pressure on your own. Or best of all, just stay home and watch Oprah. ”

And the one he chose...

... is the one he had chosen.

Surely this was, as The Washington Post is already writing, the safest choice. After the week he had, could we expect any more from a president who is diverted, and devoting all his time and energy to implementing Karl Rove's PR plan to counteract the damage done to him by Katrina. He may have been slow to react to what happened to the people down there-- but the aftermath, and all the negative coverage directed his way? Hey, that was personal.

So Roberts it will be. It's not only a safe choice it's a smart one for the president. Bush knows who he is getting; he was sure about Roberts when he named him a month ago, he is surer now.

The media, which suprised itself by getting it up for Katrina, expending almost all its energy down on the bayou, is not about to launch a serious investigative examination of Roberts credentials to head The Supreme Court, any more than it did before.

The only real anger will most likely be privately held by Scalia, who expected to become Chief and who has been that in his own mind since before he was even appointed to the bench. On the other hand, Thomas, apparently considered by some as a possibility for the job, is not disappointed and probably unaware anything even has happened.

Senator Kennedy and the usual others will ask for more information, more records about Roberts' prior service. But the momentum will be too much. In the end Roberts will be confirmed, Scalia will sulk, Thomas will not notice, and we will watch as The Supreme Court rapidly moves in an ever more conservative direction.

And there is still one more to come.

One Picture

From the streets of New Orleans


... says it all

Round 2

The strategy is working.

First time out, name someone whose opinions and whose votes you are certain of, but not someone likely to stirs things up too much. Someone charming but not too much on the record. Then wait. Be patient. You can afford to because you know it won’t take too long before you can move into the second phase.

It didn’t.

Now that Rehnquist is dead the President gets to do it a second time. And the person he names is going to be the Big Payoff, the Reason We Voted For The Guy In The Second Place. Our Conservative brethren are already falling to their knees in gratitude.

AMERICA...

When is enough, enough?

I don’t recall exactly when this happened, how long after, but I remember feeling that if I saw those planes smash into the World Trade Center one more time--- saw the second jet move into slow motion, witnessed the flames, the bodies hurtling to earth, the grey ash covering the terrified people racing from the scene --- that if I was shown that one more time, I would jump from a nearby window myself.

And then came the numbness. What moved me before only made me glance up now, like watching an old movie. I didn’t need to see it anymore to know it always came out the same. What was once shock and disbelief became curiosity and recollection. I'm not certain how long that took, but it was relatively soon.

It is that way for me now with Katrina.

First the pounding of the relentless storm, and then the pounding of the relentless images, repeated over and over so that the actual day and time they occurred became a blur. I am having trouble even a after only a week recalling the exact details of when things happened, and I am watching less and less,

Of course, in the beginning when it was new and riveting, when the images were fresh and most horrifying, none of us could control our needing to know, our appetite for the latest information, It was then that our President could not be bothered. And when he finally responded so very late and under pressure, all he could do was deepen his southern accent and make feeble jokes at the airport about how much fun he had growing up in Houston. But could never bring himself to experience the stink of the Super Dome or the Convention Center or to admit he hadn’t done what he should for his people. I will remember that.

I will remember our FEMA director, a man fired from his biggest previous job because he could not work with horses, saying on Thursday that he was not aware of what was going on in the Convention Center and calling eyewitness news reports “rumors.” Michael Brown, who proudly declared a day later, "We have had no shootings at anyone in the last 48 hours.”

I will remember Michael Chertoff our head of the oxymoronic Homeland Security saying today, Sunday, "I think when we go back and look at it a lot of things worked well and some things didn't work well.” That’s as close to recognition or an apology as he could get. I will remember that.

And now the next wait begins as the waters go down and the dead rise to the surface. Thousands of our neighbors lost to us right here, in America.

Questions Of The Day

Take out your pencils. Here are the essay questions of the day:

You make take as long as you like to fill in your answers in your blue books. Please fold your hands and sit quietly when you are finished.

1. Based on the Bush Homeland Security response after a week, what do you believe would have happened if there had been terrorist attacks on this country in multiple lcoations rather than a single, predictable hurricane?
2. What do you think might occur if another hurricane rips through the Gulf Coast this season. Or in the near future?
   

Fats Is Back

Found and safe! Excellent.





Now if only we can get him some decent clothes.

Fats

I just heard that in the midst of the ruin of New Orleans that Fats Domino is missing and feared dead. If he is indeed lost to us that will add a dimension to the tragedy of the last week impossible for me to calculate.

I can remember the first time I heard Fats, sitting alone in my room in the Bronx, struggling to navigate through my adolescence. Ever since, whenever I was feeling low and trying to get back in touch with myself I would listen to him bang one out.

"Do you remember me baby like I remember you?"

I am doing that right now.

"Got my ticket in my hand...I'm goin' to New Orleans..."

...And More

Katrina on television:

Aside from the thousands of frightened, helpless people still stranded in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, does anyone look more lost, more out of control than Wolf Blizter on CNN? Someone close down the Situation Room. It will be an act of mercy.

So far has anyone done a more humane, elegant, professional job of telling this terrible story than Arron Brown on CNN and Elizabeth Vargas on ABC? (Hint: the answer is "no.")

Kristina: Bits & Pieces

Katrina: Bits & Pieces

# 1: Katrina came and went having done no more and no less than she was created to do, emptying out her ectoplasm in one hell of a wild ride along the coast. And having done her work now a faded killer queen, a whisper of herself disappearing on the horizon. Behind is the slime of her presence. The crumpled homes, destroyed landscape, mangled cars and boats floating across our screens. The hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead beneath the fetid, debris clogged waters waiting to emerge.

It should be more than enough.

# 2: But now… now the real story is emerging.

The one where thousands cling to rooftops and wave white flags, or hold up handmade signs saying “Save Me.”

The one where families are separated and can not find each other, or contact each other.

The one where guns are grabbed and stealing begins.

The one where those waiting to be rescued fire at those who have come to rescue them.

The one where the bodies of people who have died since Katrina danced on through begin to pile up. These are the innocents, the left behind, the ones who were supposed to have been saved who lie lifeless on the ground, or propped up in chairs, or on makeshift gurneys. Some covered in sheets; some not. And the grownups watch and the children watch and surround them, and grow hungrier and hotter and more frightened and more desperate and angry. These helpless victims of neglect, and failed response.

# 3: The one where Bush, our cowboy president peers out the tiny window from inside the upholstered cocoon on Air Force One. Above the waters, away from the dead, the smell. Safe in the clouds, nearer his God to him.

“Jesus,” he must have thought, “You gave me 9/11 and I rode that pretty hard on pure instinct. What am I going to do with this?” Then making his vacuous, cliché ridden statement. We will be fine, stronger, as a result of this he tells us. But it will take “years.” Right. Tell that to the terrified, dying and hungry spilling out of the New Orleans Dome. They want to know what he will do for them now. Thursday.

# 4: The one where we want to know why authorities, who had enough advance warning to ask people to leave New Orleans before Katrina did not provide free busses and boats and whatever it took to get the poor, the sick, the old out at the same time. The ones packing the Dome, crouched on their rooftops, or bloated and dead under and above the water.

We wonder, does it have to do with the fact that they are mostly Black.

And even if that nasty suspicion could not possibly be true (after all New Orleans mayor is African American) still…but still….

# 5. The one where the finger pointing and the questions and the blame finding has only begun.

It will be as ugly and vicious and enduring as anything Katrina left behind.

Watching

We waited and then we watched. Watched as the giant amoeba-like storm slowly undulated its devastating way across the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Captive as always to its whim, we could be thankful that at the last moment Katrina decided to slip and slide a little to the right and the left to spare New Orleans, that beautiful bathtub city, almost certain complete ruin. Still, it was terrible enough, worse yet in the Biloxi area and around Mobile, Alabama. Mississippi’s Governor said the hurricane had delivered his state a "grievous blow." Indeed it did, and the up-close information, the real human losses are not yet available.

One side note: years ago when I was very young, probably twenty-five, and a completely inexperienced, hard-charging, career-building, self-involved and oblivious television newsman there was a sudden pier fire on the waterfront in Seattle where I was living and working. In those days the cameras were huge, and we were captives to the heavy cumbersome cables that chained us to them. I would have hand carried all the equipment myself and run the entire way to have the chance to cover the story. For two hours I reported from the scene, live the entire time. It was almost unheard of, virtually unprecedented to do that back then. Pushing past firemen, crouching down on the smoky pilings, gesturing to the flames as they danced at my feet, I ad-libbed, I interviewed, I assessed the possibilities. Not for one moment did I have a slightest idea what I was talking about and never once did I consider that I was in real danger, that the old, encrusted wood holding up the planks beneath my feet might be ready to go. I was too excited, too filled up by the opportunity the fire offered. When I returned to the station the head guy, the toughest bird I ever worked for, was waiting. “Hey,” he said. “You could be a pretty good professional one day.” For maybe the next ten years I lived on the perfume of those words.

Forty years later I was reminded of that as the frenzied Katrina reporters ricocheted around parking lots, clung to makeshift anchors on wind whipped waterfronts, excitedly pointed to windows popping and debris flying as they huddled in small rain choked pockets outside hotels. Long after the cleanup, after the people have returned and rebuilt, those reporters will believe they did something important and lasting today. That in those perilous moments, as they disregarded their own personal safety, as their names were called out and heard in safe and dry homes across the county, they will believe that what they did was lasting and important. It will be difficult for them when they come to realize it was not.

Waiting

We have all the technology. That we do not lack. The tracking devices, the computer generated coordinates, the oddly and cruelly compelling color photographs swirling in evil hypnotic pinwheels on our screens, the live video cameras, the TV reporters windblown, strained, somber. We have seen the residents sad, largely resigned, the automobiles packing the roads out, the lines and lines and lines of those left behind, unable to leave, patiently waiting for admission and for some degree of communal solace inside the Superdome. If we do not live there we can be grateful for where we are, be prayerful for those in the path. And we can acknowledge we are in awe at the evil majesty of this oncoming crushing natural onslaught.

We get the second-by-second updates, hear the most expert information. We can marvel over the sophistication of the vast arsenal of machinery that is able to measure shifts in wind speeds within a tenth of a mile, explain the meaning of the most minute changes, report the arrival time, project the inevitability of the outcome. But despite all the machinery and the ever-growing avalanche of information the truth is clear. We can know everything, but can do nothing. Except offer up our frail human hope that Katrina might make an unexpected, charitable, blessed turn. It is not in our hands. We are crippled before her. We are waiting.

I Think That I Shall Never See...

.. an ego smaller than a tree.

Katie Couric is quoted as saying she "will decide," soon whether to leave NBC and the Today Show to take over at CBS Evening News. Yeah. Murrow, Cronkite, Rather and now Couric completing the connection. The big 4 in relevant, qualified, believable newscasters.

And if Couric doesn't come maybe the bosses at CBS can get Clay Aiken and Paula Abdul to co-anchor and they can sing the headlines for us.

The Other Cheek

Pat Robertson. Is he talking to God here or taking a crap?

Pat has been around a long time. Runs the 700 Club on cable TV, site of many miracles it is claimed, not the least of which is that, whenever he is on, a slot simultaneously appears in the side of the TV sets of all the true believers so they can slide their cash or checks for direct deposit to Robertson's account.

In the earlier days, as I recall, he mostly used to sit on a couch with some white woman and a Negro side kick and they would ask God to save the sinners, heal the sick, and send old Pat money. Harmless enough I thought, and in the great tradition. At least he put on a little show for the dough. In their desperate moments if people who needed an abscess removed or their blindness cured wanted to reach into their pockets and send what little they had to the short guy on TV, instead of suffering through the terrible (often worse) chore of submitting for heath insurance, that was OK by me. Pay for the pray.

If the believer's health problems were not benign, most of Pat's public prayers were. Lots of Jesus stuff, and holding hands on the set, eyes closed in the style. Laughable but only dangerous to the bank accounts of a relative few. Plus, for a moment it gave them a little hope. I am not sure what God's split was, and of course all the folks at home died, but Pat seemed to surely be doing fine. And that was what was IMPORTANT.

However, along the way, Pat seems to have forgotten the difference between being a middleman for God and actually being God Himself. A couple of years ago he took a momentary break from closing his eyes to asking that someone drop a nuclear bomb on the State Department. I am not certain why that would have been his target of choice, except that contributions from the boys and girls there had probably fallen off. Then a little while back Pat declared that feminists encourage women to kill their children, practice withcraft, destroy the capitalist system and become lesbians. If only they would also be willing to drop bombs on the State Department perhaps Pat would have been more forgiving.

Now, just a day or so ago, Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The healer in Pat sees this activity as a way to stop Venezuela from being "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

It's too bad Robertson has veered away, been diverted from his true mission---the one God handed off to him when He gave him the TV license. So many cancer victims, and amputees, and people with brain tumors will have to bide their time now, waiting, checks or cash in hand, for Robertson's return from saving the world at large. And what they don't have is time.

Maybe there is a way to get him back sooner. Safer. So let’s find a white woman and a Negro man, let's all join hands then, and pray. "Oh God, oh Jesus holy father, bring Pat back to us. I got a pile of ten spots here if you do."

Touch your warm TV screen, and can I have an 'amen.'