Tag: Radio and TV

Again With The Whither The CBC On This Tough Day

So who do you blame? Who do you blame for the evaporation of much of the CBC today? Do you blame me who stopped watching and listening years ago and regularly disses it? For that you can pretty much blame Brent Bambury leaving the local CBC Ottawa drive home show as that was the last thing I would tune in for. Do you blame Stephen Harper? You could I suppose – but when people are losing their jobs all over the place, when private news and entertainment sources in Canada are closing – is every job at the CBC sacred and worthy of tax dollars? Harper himself would blame consumers – you – ultimately but that is part of his whole passive / aggressive love / hate thing that has worked out so well.

You know who I blame? Paul Martin and Stephane Dion – Tweedle dumb and Tweedle dumber. “WHAT???” you say with a high screechy voice? Yes, Martin and Dion. They had the nation handed to them as only a Liberal party leader can, they had the ability to continue in the steady (if sometimes slightly sticky) hand of Jean Chretien. But no. Martin has to wrestle the leadership away from Jean only to find he has no skill at being leader. And Dion has to run against Iggy only to discover that, zoot!, he is actually a goofball egghead. Had these two men not botched the natural governing party, we would not have the social and economic experimentations of our rural overlords. We would not be driven into deficit by the single decision to reduce the GST from 7% to 5%. Remember that? Would it have made a tick of difference to anything other than the emptying of Federal bank accounts had the GST stayed at 7%.

This is what happens in a leadership void whether a void created intentionally by the CPC which wants to prove that the Federal level is irrelevant or by the Grits who, until recently, apparently wanted to prove that they were. Don’t get me wrong. I think the CBC in large part created the wall that it is now slamming headlong into. It has a singular lack of vision and stilted stance on its own importance that stands out among public broadcasters and public institutions. I should be a fan of the mothership, a booster. But it failed me long ago. I feel very badly for those who will be out of work, perhaps including creative clever friends from that undergrad with the journalism school I attended all those years ago. Still, the CBC deserved and deserves better. Blame those who should have defended her and who should have been there in these dark days. Blame Martin and Dion and the Grits who supported them.

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Either Really Healthy Or Really Weird

One thing that I think the internet may have done is tempered local weirdnesses about bad things. When I was a kid in the Annapolis Valley, the local AM radio stations would broadcast the fire alarm announcements as paid advertising. So, thirty four years ago, right in the middle of hearing the theme to The Greatest American Hero or “Island Girl” there would be the sound of a wind up fire alarm, the statement “the fire alarm in the Middleton Area is brought to you buy Smith’s Chev-Olds” a little ad and then the news that Mrs. Muldoon’s chicken shed burned down due to little Johnny playing with matches. If the fire news was good enough, people would get in their cars and go have a look see. When the Greenwood mall burned, the gawkers packed the highways and byways, likely impeding trucks providing mutual aid from outlying communities.

I thought of that when I heard about the new French-language obituary channel that is starting up in Quebec.

A Quebec businessman believes he has the perfect business to suit ageing, Baby Boomer viewers – an obituary channel. The country’s first television channel dedicated to funerals and mourning could start broadcasting as early as this summer, after the CRTC granted a licence for a regional Quebec cable channel called Je me souviens. The French-language station would broadcast obituaries, notices of hospitalization and messages of thanks and prayers.

It may come to English Canada, too. What a boon for the disaster mongers currently stuck cursing the sunny days on the weather channel. Guaranteed negative news to cluck over. Apparently the developer of the concept “the idea of putting obituaries on television came after he attended several funerals over the years that left him longing for more.”

There is something odd about this. And not just the obvious oddness. Does anyone think this is actually a bad plot of a sci-fi show and that somehow somewhere this will trigger the undead to be walking the streets?

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Not “Seven Things” – Instead the CBC and Nortel

I just lost the seven things about me post that I was tagged with doing after a power flicker at 6:45 am which was 95% done so I am not going to recreate it as I am too bummed out about the whole thing. It was tender and evocative. Challenging yet funny. I can never recreate that this morning. I will have to think up a whole new list and get back to you.

Meanwhile, why do I have the same reaction to the news that Nortel now wants a bail out and that no one much is signing up for the CBC’s “new fun game show” about being Canada’s next Prime Minister. As far as I am aware, Nortel has been moving towards its own demise for the best part of a decade. And, I think at least as far as my listenership and watchership goes, the same applies to the CBC. As evidence, I provide you with one one hand the story “Nortel Restatement To Slash 2003 Earnings” and on the other Sounds Like Canada. Both were untouchable monoliths for most of my life whose actual machinations of operations were beyond the ken of most Canadians. As a result, I think any bail out for Nortel needs to be tied to a reorganization of the CBC’s broadcast line up. My demands include:

  • creation of a compelling continuing dramatic series about an urban WASP male,
  • broadcast of a English language continuing sitcom based on and making fun of yet making a compelling and accurate case for the views of a family Quebecois separatist family,
  • making a public apology for the failure of CBC to broadcast Montreal Expos games and an admission that this failure directly led to the Expos leaving town and the country, and
  • making another admission that the extended run of the Air Farce was due to nepotism, blackmail or something that could possibly explain what the heck that was about.

Without meeting my demands, no money for Nortel.

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Christmas Countdown: An Evening With Dr. Who

I think I am a softie. I have taken to handing out twoonies for the slightest sign of good behaviour and calm in these hours before the binge. I am even talking to them by name rather than the usual “now!” But I don’t know whether it is a good think that I picked up a few episodes of Dr. Who from 1975. The Genesis of the Daleks. Far more piles of bodies than I recall from my innocent years, even if machine guns did not apparently create bullet holes or any show of blood. The plan was to have a pre-Christmas showing over a few days to play the role of the panic button when things were getting out of hand. Instead we watched the whole thing – or at least the males did. Toggle switches were very cool in 1975 and evil, too, when they are about three inches long and made of translucent red plastic. Many eerie moments with hands hovering over toggle switches or, worse, flicking them. Too much in the end for anyone but me in the house.

Did you know that mad scientists when they create machines of mass murderous mayhem also include a feature of a red button that has the words “Total Destruction” neatly wrapped around it just in case people do not get the point? I imagine the 157 identical Saddams knew of such things even if it didn’t make it to the act.

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Why Does Technology Do These Things To Me?

Why, when I am up way too early, is one TV getting the regular cable transmission of CBS affiliate WWNY of nearby Watertown NY on channel seven while the one with the digital box is showing ABC 22, a station serving Vermont, Plattsburg NY and Montreal? Don’t tell me I need to get used to upper Champlain Valley local news now, too. This is an extension of another phenomena. If the digital box TV and the non-digital box TVs are set to the same channel, there is a three second lag between the digital one and the non-digital one. What are the electrons doing during that lag?

The upside? I learned from ABC 22’s broadcast at 5:51 am that – according to the apparently not uncontroversial Pastor Arnold Murray Shepherd’s Chapel, speaking from his nondenominational church in Gravette, Arkansas – the answer to all of life’s questions appears to be “you got to read your Bible, son” if his question and answer session, apparently to Vermonters and others of the upper Champlain valley, were anything to go by. Maybe that’s more aimed at Montreal. Give me the late Perry F. Rockwood any day.

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Because Not Only Fruitnut Cakes Have Opinions…

Lots of weirdness in the air. The forces of fear. The forces for security. But there is also an undeniable hope afoot – if you are still able to recognize hope – with those who are about to vote for Barak Obama tomorrow as this column by Andrew Sullivan illustrates, especially in this concluding passage:

…there is something about his rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength.

Now, to watch McCain introduce the SNL Political Bash 2008. He needs more TV time. He has to be the best straight man politician going. Him and Steve Martin. That would be a good team. Good like the supporting the constitution good. If, you know, you live in a western democracy.

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Friday Bullets For You And You And You And You…

…and especially for you, little Jimmy.

We stayed up again for a speech. I like speeches so I am something of a sucker but I thought there was just the right measure of menace and warning to the Republican party that my expectation that he would govern as an unfettered independent remains in place. I seem to have liked it more that Tiger but maybe because McCain spoke more to a person like me (internationally transposed, of course) than the party faithful. I liked this: “Let me just offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second crowd: change is coming.” Me first? Sounds like an attack on neo-cons and libertarians to me.

  • I Once Knew Someone Now Famous Update: I dimly recall taking civil procedure at 8:30 am on Monday or some other ungodly hour from Thomas Cromwell in 1989. I paid more attention to the fall of the Berlin Wall that year, however, than when to bring a third party action (know what I mean…nudge, nudge) or when to garnish (right before dinner is served, as I recollect). Wonder what grade I received. He must have done better as he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada today.
  • Up here, Dion seems to be getting all snippy. Will this help given this?
  • Earth to Fox News: you are the mainstream media, too.
  • Nice touch delivering right to Poti. What else is on board?
  • I tried the new browser Chrome from Lord Goog and the Googleplexians – but I can’t run it on my four year old computer at home! Drag. It is good. Like the recent tabs closed as well as the favorites selection when you open a new tab. Egghead debate points here.
  • One good reason to be thankful for blogs.
  • So far no “rats flee sinking ship” comments that I know of. Maybe Emerson wants to try as an NDP now but why, Monty, why? What’s that…because you never got what you deserved? Errr…because you want to start a western party that actually cares about about reforming Canadian politics? Makes sense.
  • Just in case you were wondering, Morton sucks so far.

Surely that is enough. Surely your incessant demands for more bullet points has an end, a satiation point.

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Friday Bullets For The Week Your Life Changed Forever!

OK, it didn’t change. It’s pretty much the same as last week – but it is really like that week twenty-seven weeks back if you think about it. It’s kinda eerie when you think about it like that. Or mid-May 2005. It’s like that, too. Weird:

  • Georgian military update: Castle Aaarrgh knows all.
  • Best Job Title Update: “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia to Belarus Alexander Surikov said…” Wow. What a handle. I don’t care what he had to say but what a handle.
  • The Olympics are apparently on. I would like to maybe see the shot put. Not much else. Why not just have two weeks of shot putting on TV, you know, when the Red Sox aren’t playing. That would be better.
  • Olympic Update: is this pair of images to the right, including one created today, one of those separated-at-birth things? Click for more detail.
  • Even this link it so a .pdf, it is to a .pdf of a new map explaining international claims to the Arctic…and guess what: we are losing Santa.
  • Baywatch: it’s working out just fine.
  • Oh dear. This is the first real bit of bad economic news for Canada in yoinks. Pray for the return of the eighty cent dollar.
  • You know I like NCPR and you know I like “The Beat Authority” on Friday afternoons. Well, there is a Beat Authority Blog now, too. It’s the future and it’s all about that 1998 convergence thing. And throbbing dancing beats.
  • Australian monachists hate puns. Buns? No, puns.
  • Would a McCain Presidency with the Democrats running both houses be so bad?

So that is it for now. A late beginning to the day and an internet connection that fails makes for short bullets even when I write most of this through the week. I’d get a new internet service but I fear change.

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We Live in George Carlin’s Joke

About 35 years ago when George Carlin used to appear on TV’s Sonny and Cher Show and things like that, he used to pretend he was doing a TV news anchor man reporting on quirky items – the sort of thing SNL ripped off a few years later. Once he told this joke: “Scientists have discovered that saliva causes cancer – but fortunately only when taken in small amounts over a long period of time.”

Your Neanderthal Update

Was they we?

Modern humans may well have evolved from hardy Neanderthals who suffered through a dramatic cold spell that descended on Europe about 40,000 years ago, according to a new study that throws another coal into the already heated scientific debate about our origins. The report, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, disagrees with the widely held belief that humans’ early ancestors came in waves out of Africa to overwhelm the separate and distinct Neanderthal populations of Europe.

We heatedly discussed the prospect of the working out of Neanderthal DNA back in Nov. 2006. This new study relates to the number of narrow-skulled voles found near Neanderthal sites. I am all a giggle over this news but the question remains – what will this do to the putative humour of the GEICO ads? Is it not now much the same as saying “So easy a Hittite could do it”?