Archive for the ‘World Events’ Category
On March 19, 2003, I was inside the first B-52 that would launch, carrying the first cruise missiles that would be fired on Iraq -- the opening shots. I crawled into the flight deck, which has two levels, while it was parked and taxied with it to the end of the runway. It stopped, I shook every member of the crew's hands, got quotes from each one, ran about 500 yards from the jet and it launched. After another five hours, I delivered three 700-word stories and 250 photos to our news service, which got released worldwide. It culminated a 33-hour stretch being awake the entire time. Two other reporters covering other beats worked with me. As a reporter, I've never done better journalism. As someone supervising and, really, working alongside two fantastic noncommissioned officers, I've never been prouder. In my little niche of military execution, the work has never gone smoother.
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Just announced, Barack Obama wins Georgia. That's where I voted today. Until today, I voted in Texas. However, since buying a home and getting a driver's license here, my home of residence changed.
We got to our poll, at Centerville, Ga., city hall, at about 4:10. The line was short. It had four voting machines with vertical screens. I marked a piece of paper with my name and address. Then, I handed the paper to a volunteer and showed my Georgia driver's license (a photo ID is required in Georgia), who, in turn, gave me a yellow common access card. It's the same one used to make Air Force identification cards. I walked up to the machine, slid the card in until it clicked, I made my choices and then removed the card. My wife voted at the same time. There was a volunteer standing near the machines, but he only collected the cards when finished. He also kept a husband from joining his wife at the booth while she voted after the husband had finished voting. I saw that as a good thing. By the time I'd finished, the line stretched out the door.
CNN noted that Georgia was a "high risk" state for voter fraud due to the machine voting. There was a technician on his cel phone while I waited to be handed my common access card to vote. So, not sure what that says. However, CNN called Georgia for Mr. Obama at the top of the hour.
In any case, it was a good experience
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Two thoughts stick in my head about this:
First, the union. It often baffles me that there are a "union" of writers in a place like Hollywood. But California is one of the last bastions where unions work. I just wonder how much longer the splintering of unions, as David Letterman and Jay Leno did, will continue. How much deeper can you splinter before the splinters are all that are left? It has been corporate and recent government policy to break apart unions. Besides, how much do you really miss original TV programming with the wealth of reruns and other programming that exists?
Second, entertainment. This isn't water or food. It's just time passing fun. The multitude of entertainment choices has opened up considerably, even since the last writing union negotiations. In most homes now, there'sa separate idiot box we call the PC/Mac. And there's plenty of idiocy on that, too, from Web pages to YouTube to MySpace, that can occupy about the same amount of time as television. Throw in video games (not sure if their writers are part of the strike) and their ability to connect us, and, well, legacy entertainment writers are anchored in a weird space. In short there's other stuff to do and the viewership of 'Lost' was flagging anyway.
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I posted this to a forum, but thought it might go well here. A humourous update on the summit in Annapolis:
Everyone not Israel and the US: Israel must be wiped off the map!
Rice: [Hands extended to keep them apart] Wait! Wait! What if we start slow and work our way up to 'not wiping Israel off the map'?
Syria: Like what?
Condi Rice: Well, would Palestine ... like a Frosty?
Palestine: What is this 'Frosty'?
Rice: It's like a chocolate milkshake. We get it from Wendy's.
Palestine: That sounds tasty. Yes. Palestine will have a Frosty.
Rice: OK. Will you allow Israel to get in their car, go through the drive-through and pick it up.
[Commotion amongst everyone that is not Israel or the US]
Palestine: [leans in and discusses idea with other Palestine rep]: We will allow the Israeli car to go and pick up the Frosty only ... a Jew may not drive the car or handle the Frosty.
Rice: Well, it is Israel's car. And it's just a Frosty.
Israel: We will agree to this.
Palestine: [After more discussion] The Jew handling the Frosty must use a napkin with the Palestine flag upon it. And Israel may NOT hand the Frosty directly to Palestine. And we do not want the Frosty immediately.
Israel: If not you, then who? If not now, when? [Giggling amongst the Israeli delegation]
Rice: That's enough Israel. OK. Can Israel agree to the napkin issue and delivering the Frosty, say, after nap time?
Israel: We will agree to the Palestine napkin, but we will wrap the Palestine napkin in an Israeli napkin first. But who will take the Frosty to Palestine?
Palestine: You should give the Frosty to Syria, who will then give the Frosty to Palestine.
Syria: We will accept nothing from Jews!
[Commotion fills the room again]
Jordan: [At first quietly] I will take it. [Now louder, to quell the rabble] I WILL TAKE ISRAEL'S FROSTY TO PALESTINE.
[The room quiets]
Jordan: Jordan will deliver Israel's Frosty to Palestine. But Israel must remove the Israeli napkin and leave the Frosty on the negotiation table between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia: Why is this Jew Frosty being left near us? We object!
Rice: It will only be near you. Not in your actual "table area" so to speak.
[A long pause]
Saudi Arabia: We will agree to this ... only if a member of the United Arab Emirates agrees to screen our view of the Jew Frosty while Palestine comes and picks it up. Once Palestine acquires the Frosty, Saudi Arabia will acknowledge it.
Rice: Acknowledge what?
Saudi: This ... Frosty.
Rice: But we're asking you not acknowledge the Frosty, just that the Frosty is one step toward everyone acknowledging Israel is a nation of ...
[Suddenly]
Everyone not Israel and the US: Israel must be wiped off the map!
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The case of OJ Simpson now spans two decades and two millenia. It includes fresh material (road rage and, as of today, seven felony counts). Something that was better left as parody for a VH1 "Remember When" special keeps infecting our lives like a deadbeat dad who visits whenever it's convenient for him.
It is not enough that Mr. Simpson is haunted by the legacy of his acquittal. Haunted because there are few who truly believe him innocent, despite that fact that almost everyone got their facts from the media tales. Haunted because of the $34 million civil finding in favor of the Goldman family. Haunted because a former college football star, a former NFL star and a former movie star is now breaking into hotel rooms to claim bits of his past to sell them for income -- alledgedly.
You're probably thinking this is easy pickings for bloggers, columnists and the media -- and you'd be right. It is because he pops up like the gopher in the yard that won't go away, chewing out the foundation of your home. It is that memory of a courtroom full of people under closer scrutiny than oil fields in Iraq. And soon after, almost everyone in that courtroom became famous, in one way or another. So, the easy pickings come because when Mr. Simpson pops up in the news, someone is looking to ride his coattails to an hour-long gig on Court TV.
As I sat and thought of tonight's blog topic, I couldn't get past the one mind-boggling fact: Mr. Simpson is 60. Sixty! He's already an AARP member. He collects a pension from the NFL and two others from other sources (which cannot be taken by the Goldmans; it's income already earned). If his arthritis bothered him during the trial, it must have been awful while he chased killers on golf courses from Boca Raton to Pebble Beach. It must be agonizing now secretly stealing away time to sign USC jerseys and footballs in events set-up in more clandestine fashion that an Air Force U-2 flight over Iran. In any case, my grandparents at 60 had little to do with sports memorabilia and friends with guns and more to do figuring out Medicare.
The funny thing is this: he must covertly make this time. If the Goldmans discover that he's doing these signings, all the income goes to them. Mr. Simpson gets none. At this moment, the Goldmans are seeking a ruling to get the merchandise Mr. Simpson alledgedly went after in that hotel room, which includes a pair of Joe Montana-signed cleets.
Bill Maher noted aptly on CNN tonight that someone who "killed his wife and has the reputation he has should stay away from guns. Maybe it was because he couldn't find his knife. I don't know." There is something to the phrase "Don't eat where you've shit." Perhaps in contrast, the phrase is flipped for Mr. Simpson: "Don't shit where you've eaten."
However, the reason why Mr. Simpson's legacy spans these two millenia is this: it has to, for his sake. If he fades away; goes and lives the quiet life, his memorabilia loses value. It's another sort of oddity; a throwaway; the OJ Simpson jersey signed that the guy at the table at the convention will let go for twenty bucks. But if Mr. Simpson is out there still poking a stick in the eye of society; still flipping the Goldmans a bloody-glove covered bird; and still keeping himself in the public eye -- but not too much -- then Mr. Simpson is like an occasional rate cut by the fed (with apologies for using the word 'cut'). And he knows it.
Has Mr. Simpson has gone too far this time? Alledgedly raiding a room with four friends? Guns? There's a kidnapping charge as part of the indictment, too. Perhaps the years are catching up to Mr. Simpson's judgment. Perhaps at 60, the times are becoming more desperate. Perhaps his weakness is one that, stolen away in a cheap hotel in Las Vegas, manifests itself into something a generation of viewers knew was true long before even the first verdict was read aloud.
Finally, I doubt this will be his demise. So many people's heart leapt. With today's seven felony charges on thr table, there is a grand swath of people who saw the white Bronco and thought, "Here is the redemption I seek." But it won't happen. This whole business is shady. Why would someone record that? Why was it on TMZ within hours? This whole business is shady.
What it means, however, is Mr. Simpson will be with us for a long time to come. He's back in clear focus. I would have just prefer he been part of a VH1 special with some Nirvana music playing over his grainy image.
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Two items of note from the Emmys, both of which are no surprise.
In the first, Kathy Griffin's acceptance speech cut whacked from the broadcast because she said some things that Christians would find offensive. The CNN story is here. In the same show, Sally Field started to say something about the war, then supposedly got cut off for saying something about the war.
There's no real discord about Ms. Griffin's comments. When you have the potential to offend 180 million consumers in the US, you censor the speech. Besides, she got more publicity from the censorship anyway. She's right where she wants to be as far as controversey goes. She wins. The network wins.
There's nothing concrete on Ms. Field's speech (i.e., no good news report to send you to on this one), but, you can catch the Digg story here. However, apparently, she was talking about mothers (the maternal kind; not the 12-letter word kind). Her sentence started with, "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no --" and Fox, apparently, cut the speech off from there. The Digg report says the sentence ended like this: "... goddamned wars in the first place." I have no issue with Fox using the 7-second delay. If she said "goddamned," it's an FCC no-no and that's that. You make whatever you want of the politics.
The problem, as my friend Ray Wong raised earlier today, is that these awards shows stink. As Ray points out, there's nothing to these shows. Just a lot of pablum. My take is this: there are a lot of pretty people who mind there P's and Q's more than ever. They do this because networks buy SO MUCH advertising that erratic behavior would upset the advertisers. So, the hook comes faster people like Ms. Griffin and Ms. Field. Gone are the days of George C. Scott refusing his Oscar. Gone are the days of t-shirts with slogans at the Grammys (because you can get zoomed in upon). Unless it's a real surprise, it gets quashed well before it could get aired.
Someone might argue that the ratings are what matter here. They do, always. However, companies buy spots based on the show's producers being able to suppress the loose cannons. They buy ads so that those ads can be sandwiched between segments of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie handing out awards, smiling and doing, well, nothing at all save radiating beauty. I mean, did you really care that Sopranos won best drama? Like that wasn't going to happen?
And there's always the issue of Ryan Seacrest belonging in a wood chipper. But that's another post for another time.
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