Monthly Archives: November 2013

The first hundred days of two panda cubs…

I'm not particularly worried that the current flap over the Obamacare program is going to doom it. First off, I think most people understand that there's a big difference between a product being flawed and the means by which you order it being flawed. I could have set up a crappy website to sign up for any great thing you're happy you signed up for.

Secondly, as Kevin Drum points out, the poll that really tracks this kind of stuff — the Kaiser Family Foundation survey — doesn't show any real erosion of support for the Affordable Care Act. Some opponents of Obamacare are trying to prove otherwise by citing the fact that it says only 25% of Americans like the law as it is. What they don't note is that an additional 22% of it want the law expanded, presumably into something more like Single Payer. Most of those folks do not support its removal.

24% want the law repealed and not replaced with something else — in other words, go back to what we had — and 13% want it repealed and replaced with a Republican-sponsored alternative. That last number is worth considering. There really is no Republican-sponsored alternative. There are ideas like more tort reform and selling insurance across state lines but even the folks proposing them don't think those will change a lot. If the Republicans had it in them to come up with one — if they had the initiative or if they had some great ideas that differed substantially from Obamacare — don't you think they would have proposed them by now?

There's an old saying in politics: You can't beat something with nothing. The G.O.P. is attempting to beat Obamacare with nothing. I can't imagine what a real Republican plan would look like if it didn't raise rates on some folks, deny some access to the doctor of their choice or simply not solve all the problems that most people agree need solving. I suspect they know that, which is why they haven't released one, put it up on a website so analysts can have at it, and announced, "Get rid of Obamacare and go with our much better proposal." If they could really do that — if there really was a better solution — that might actually get rid of Obamacare. In fact, folks like me would champion it. Wonder why they don't do this.

Adam Gopnik writes one of the seventy million articles we'll see to denote the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination. I'll write my own remembrances and thoughts before the month is out but I'll say this here: In court parlance, I believe "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin on 11/22/63. I also don't believe it's possible to change anyone's mind on this topic.

I assume you're constantly reading the blog of my pal, Ken Levine. If you aren't, you should be…because Ken's one of the brighter, cleverer gents on the Internet, a position that probably pays way better than his other areas — being one of the brighter, cleverer gents on TV and being one of the brighter, cleverer gents on radio. And whenever we have lunch together alone, he's one of the two brighter, cleverer gents at the table.

Expanding his horizons at brightness and cleverness, he now has a new novel out. I was hoping it would suck so I could point to something he didn't do well but, damn him, it's bright and clever…and funny. Written by Ken from a story by him and his partner David Isaacs, it's called Must Kill TV. It's about a frantic network exec who in order to keep his biggest hit riding high in the Nielsens must commit a murder. Ken labored for years in the vineyards of network television and so he has a good, solid mix of outrage and good humor towards that arena and its players.

At a mere $2.99 for a Kindle download, it's a bargain. Order it here and you'll feel bright and clever. Just the scene in the actual Cheers bar is worth…well, even it alone is worth more than three bucks.

It's the first game of the 1988 World Series, Dodgers vs. A's and we have the entire thing for you — all 2 hours and 43 minutes of it. And you can watch it all if you like, marveling at the smooth play-by-play calling by Vin Scully, punctuated by the interjections of co-announcer Joe Garagiola. And Garagiola isn't bad or anything. He just isn't pitching in the same league as Scully.

Or you can move the slider up to around 02:27:30 and start watching from there. That'll take you to the conclusion of the game which some people have called one of the 10 most exciting moments ever in baseball. I'll set the scene for you…

It's the bottom of the ninth. The Dodgers are up and it's their last chance as they're behind 4-3. There are two outs and Mike Davis is batting. If he gets a base-on-balls [SPOILER ALERT: He does] then it'll all be riding on the next guy. The Dodgers would dearly love it to be their powerhouse hitter, Kirk Gibson…but Gibson isn't in the game. He's been injured and although he's there and in uniform, they didn't even announce him in the opening roster lists. So the crowd goes nuts when he comes out to pinch-hit for the next batter — and you can guess what happens next…

That chase/stand-off I wrote about lasted until 3:30 AM this morning. As you'll recall, KNBC Channel 4 decided to cover it live during their 11 PM news and I'm guessing they guessed it would not last long; that while they might have to cut a bit into The Tonight Show to broadcast the resolution, it wouldn't be by much. The anchors kept saying, "We're going to stay with this until its conclusion, then show The Tonight Show." There is some pad in their overnight schedule and they could have delayed Mr. Leno and then Mssrs. Fallon and Daly for maybe 15 minutes, aired their shows in full, then made up the time on the other end.

But the story didn't end…and it also didn't get that interesting. The suspect crashed his car…where a tree blocked the helicopter shot so they couldn't even show us that. Then as police had him surrounded, he just sat in the car, surrounded by police. It wasn't an interesting thing to watch and the reporters didn't have much info on the suspect…so it became a pretty boring story and there was nothing to say about it. Whoever was making the decisions at KNBC finally decided to bail on their coverage. I don't know why they didn't air Leno and Fallon in full then bump Carson Daly's show but instead they joined Leno in progress, aired the last 20 minutes of his show, then ran Fallon and Daly as normal. I wonder if they would have made that decision if Jay wasn't going off in a few months.

So around 12:15 AM or so, they announced they were ending their broadcast coverage and shifting it over to their website. I'm guessing that part of that decision was due to their helicopter running low on gas but part was probably the realization that the story might not end for a long time and might never get interesting to watch. It seemed to take about 15 minutes before their coverage began streaming on their web page but it was okay to miss that chunk because nothing had happened. The suspect was still in the car, we still didn't really know anything about him and the police had him surrounded.

Nothing continued to occur so after a short time, they shut down their web coverage and announced they'd cover it in the morning on The Today Show. So much for bringing us the story until its conclusion. Their reporter on the scene, a gent named Gadi Schwartz, reported via occasional Tweets thereafter…and for the next several hours, they pretty much consisted of telling us that nothing was happening. Finally, around 3:30 in the morning, the suspect started to get out of his car with a gun, police shot him and he was transported to a hospital. Because KNBC's helicopter was long off the scene and their on-site reporter and camera crew had to be held some distance from the suspect's car, they didn't even get good footage of the shoot-out. By 4:30 AM when they could finally report the outcome on their early-morn newscast, they still didn't know who the guy was or exactly what was going on with him.

In short, what happened was that the folks at KNBC heard there was a police chase during their 11 PM news and thought, "Hey, this will be interesting" and they decided to cover it live…and shortly after they began covering it, it became uninteresting for about the next four hours. I'm not faulting them for their decision to cover it; just kinda fascinated by the various choices they had to make about when to give up on it and what to do about the programming they were preempting. Betcha from now on, they'll be a bit less likely to promise to stay with one of these stories until it's resolved.

As I've been mentioning here, I'm very, very, very, very happy to have participated in the forthcoming Criterion release of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Criterion has long been the class act of the home video business and it's easy to see why. I've dealt with some other companies and witnessed a "how little can we do it for?" attitude when it comes to restoring a movie, producing supplementary material, recording a commentary track, etc. At many firms now, there's a decided move away from spending cash on that kind of thing. They either figure it isn't cost-effective or they decide they'll do a cheap, no-extras release now so they can get you to buy that movie again when in a few years, they bring out an edition with a better transfer and more special features.

Criterion doesn't do that. Someone may someday bring out a better version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World but it's highly unlikely. As a longtime Criterion customer, I kinda knew the care and expense they put into their releases but it's been a joy to watch it in action…especially applied to one of my favorite movies. This is a great 5-disc DVD/Blu-ray set…and all of the content is available on it in both formats for about the same price as you'd pay for a set that was only DVD or only Blu-ray. It'll be out in January but you can pre-order it now via this Amazon link. I suggest you do.

And now at 12:27, with nothing having happened since KNBC moved their live coverage to their website and allowed The Tonight Show to start, they've signed off. "We'll have full details on The Today Show," said the anchors who earlier said the station would stay with this story until it was over.

Channel 4 News started at 11:00 PM as usual.  In mid-show, they began covering a high-speed chase — the third one today to interrupt programming on Los Angeles TV. Actually, this one was a high-speed chase — about two dozen police chasing an SUV containing an armed man who'd allegedly assaulted or attempted to assault a peace officer. The driver then stopped in the street and now he's just sitting there in his car as police attempt to talk him out.

When they started covering it around 11:15, it looked like an exciting event so the station's news producers decided to interrupt their own broadcast and perhaps delay the start of Mr. Leno's show a bit. I suspect they now regret that decision. Around 11:40, the chase stopped being a chase and became pretty boring…and as I write this, the station's anchors are stuck ad-libbing play-by-play when nothing is happening. So we just have this shot of a bunch of police cars sitting there with cops staring at the SUV…and Channel 4 has to cover it until there's a resolution.

Oh, wait. A few minutes ago, they were saying they were going to stay with this story as long as it took, then run The Tonight Show. Now, they just announced they're going to join The Tonight Show and continue to cover this story on their website.

And now at 12:10, they're joining The Tonight Show in progress, meaning that L.A. has missed the monologue and most of the show. They'd never have done this to Johnny.