I want to pass along recommendations for two upcoming PBS series:
America at a Crossroads: broad program about America's challenges and role in the world
Buying the War: the role of the press in the lead up to the war in Iraq
Seems to go along with a lot of what we talk about.
(Nod to Michael Wizniak, of the KC Bohemians [facebook link]).
I had three completely unrelated ideas I wanted to post on this morning, so rather than flood the blog with posts, I decided to post once with a brief comment on each. First, I want to weigh in on the Imus controversy. Primarily I wanted to show the group Meet the Press from April 15 (direct link to transcript was unavailable at time of post). Gwen Ifill and David Brooks, two people I respect immensely as journalists (even though Ifill's delivery is typically more fit for print), act like they don't even want to speak to each other at the end of the discussion.
Next, page 2 of the Kansas City Star, noted that there is a growing group of academics who wish to rebuild the internet. The basic challenge facing this project is "balancing the interests of various constituencies" namely, the public, the providers and business. The main programs:
Stanford program
Carnegie Mellon program
Rutgers program
National Science Foundation's GENI program
Finally, the Kansas City Star also speculated upon the possible demise of No Child Left Behind, the education legislation mandating increased testing of students. Apparently much of the Republican support for the bill in 2001 has melted away. Sam Brownback and Roy Blunt have stated support for a clause allowing states to opt of federally mandating testing. Unfortunately, the demise is not a certainty because Ted Kennedy is among other high ranking Democrats in stating his opposition that repealing the initiative would "turn back the clock on reform". My family's problem with the law has always been consistent: there is no accountability for the primary entities, the students. Students are neither rewarded nor penalized for their scores. The schools and districts are the only entities being held accountable.
Up for debate, a fix for the NCLB initiative I have devised (though I will not claim that it has not been produced before, only that the thought came to me this morning over waffles through no prior research on the concept). Give tax credits to families whose students perform at 'proficient' or 'exemplary'. This avoids direct bribing of students but advances the idea that students that come from high achieving and involved families should be rewarded. There can be a strict state standard, or a sliding scale based off of income. The primary point is that families are not rewarded solely for producing children (current child tax credit), but are rewarded for having children who achieve at high levels (have a greater propensity to produce towards the greater good).
Thoughts?
Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I still find shopping at a store convenient. Check that. I found shopping at stores convenient. Due to my own ignorance it took me about a week to purchase a medium called 'DVD RAM'. My trips to OfficeMax and back, and Best Buy and back were met with the increasing frustration of not being able to find this apparent grail of data storage.
What is the benefit of having a big box store like a Best Buy or OfficeMax? Initially, I thought the stores would have the lowest prices based off of their ability to squeeze wholesalers via the 'Wal-Mart effect'. No, webfronts are cheaper. Well, certainly, the customer service would be better. No and no. I had to flag down a woman in OfficeMax after she looked at me twice and passed me by. Best Buy consisted of three separate clerks passing me as I was the only person waiting in line at... Customer Service. Flexibility with inventory? Also a no. The DVD RAM that were waiting to be purchased at the Lee's Summit and Independence Mall locations were not able to be moved to any of the Kansas locations. So they remained unpurchased by me. What if I had wanted a $10,000 plasma television? Would I had encountered the same problems? Wouldn't that be considered a flaw in the business plan?
With increased internet security for credit use, shopping on the web will become even more prominent than it already is, and will relegate the retail industry into two types: apparel and customer service. People's time has become more valuable than ever and the idea of driving 25 miles to pick up data storage that should be accessible within a mile will become heretical in the very near future.
At first, the thought of visiting the Easter Bunny with my 372 day old seemed like an excellent idea. The collection of parents and children did nothing to dispel that thought (both were well behaved). But as I stood alone (my wife was walking our daughter around because she tends to be impatient) in line somewhere around the 35th minute I began to ask myself 'Why exactly am I here?' It wasn't just the commercialization of THE Christian holiday that annoyed me, it was the irony of the fact that I was attending this function to be with my family, and was standing in line alone. I was going to gain absolutely no value from these overpriced photo sets as we have more photos of my dear daughter than we could possibly use.
So why was I there? Are the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus necessary benchmarks in measuring normalcy? Do fables like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus still have value in the raising of children? Should I be asking any of the readers of this blog?
These are the questions...
Those of you watch Heroes on NBC may know about the free comic books to enhance your "Heroes Experience" (TM).
Some of the books work. Eden's backstory, for instance, told an effective story, and made her character more complex and compelling.
But most of the books fail. On average, the collection is one of the worst examples of graphical storytelling I've ever seen. (Disappointing for a show produced by Jeph God-of-Comics Loeb).
Maybe the low quality supplements are excusable, they're still figuring tihs thing out, and hey, you get what you pay for. Besides, they could do worse.
In fact, they already have. The worst tie-in they've made to date: this little gem, from Hana Gitelman's blog is completely embarassing for everyone involved. (Can someone fire the intern that wrote that, and then the other intern who read it? And anyone else who heard it and didn't stop it?)
Even if the absent quality was somehow forgivable, the way the comics rewrite the motivations of central characters is insulting. In Claire's backstory, we see that she didn't mean to kill her rapist when she sped his car into a wall, she just wanted to scare him a tiny bit. (The fear on her face when she found out he actually lived was just, what, PTSD?). In Nathan Petrelli's comic, we find out that he hasn't actually been in denial about his power at all. Go figure.
Used to be we'd have to wait for a remastered edition to be horrified like this.
All this would still be forgiveable if they hadn't committed the cardinal sin of tie-ins: making them necessary to fully understand the show. I can gripe about The Lost Experience all I want, but in the end, my participation was completely optional (assuming this gets worked into the show sooner or later).
But Heroes has gone farther, they require you to sift through their inane and contrary supplements to fully understand basic plot. At the end of Fallout (episode 11) Sylar has basically escaped from Mr. Bennett. In the following episode, he's back in custody, his recapture saved for the comic, to the complete bewilderment of those not sufferring along at home.
Mandatory external content is bad. Hastily written ad-filled comics are bad. Please, Heroes: save the tie-ins, save the show.
A recent settlement aims to eliminate payola in music broadcasting. This means large recording studios can no longer bribe radios for airplay, getting the same songs pounded into our ears ad nauseum. You might be surprised at how payola has evolved since the 1950s:
Other forms of inducement include lavish prizes meant for listeners that wind up going to station employees; promises by record companies of concerts by well-known artists in exchange for airplay; and payments for promotional expenses and station equipment.So fewer call-in prizes. But part of the settlement inculdes the agreement to play "8,400 half-hour segments of free airtime for independent record labels and local artists." I think that's a fair trade.
For those who do not know, I have a strong distaste for the local news. Particularly in Kansas City, the motto for news directors seems to be "If it bleeds, it leads". So my thinly disguised disgust was fully disclosed on February 28, 2007 when, at 9:00PM CST all four major networks (our house does not have cable/satellite) cut to the "dangerous" weather. I checked the KC Star this morning, and on a cursory glance, there were no deaths reported. In the cost of human lives, it apparently was not that dangerous after all. Why is there such an obsession with weather in the Kansas City area?
My guess is that there are two primary factors: our agricultural heritage and the rapid nature by which our severe weather strikes. As I flipped over to KCPT to watch a D-Day documentary, I realized that it was not mandatory to over-report the weather. KCPT had no metro weather map with counties colored for Tornado Watch, Tornado Warning, Flash Flood Warning, Groundhog Day Watch, etc. KCPT (public television) simply had text in the top left corner of the screen that said 'Tornado Warning' and every 10 minutes or so it would send a scroll across the bottom with more information. Honestly if you are still watching television with a tornado warning in your area you either
A) are not affected/are far or safe from the reported storm
or
B) are ignorant and deserve to die (this only includes those who know a tornado is in the area).
This is all a bit harsh, I know, but someone needs to get across to our local televsion stations, that some things are not to be tampered with... like Lost, which I was unable to see.
Do satellite dishes still "fail" to offer local programming? That would be a failure I could live with.
