Bill's TV series news and reviews

PBS: "The Bombing of Germany" (American Masters) and policies regarding civilians

2010-02-08T20:06:00.000-08:00

On Monday Feb. 8 PBS aired a one hour documentary “The Bombing of Germany” directed by Zwi Docher, about the development of the “acceptability” of bombing of civilians in the war against Nazi Germany during WWII.

At the beginning of America’s involvement, FDR had insisted that Americans would never bomb civilians, but instead developed the concept of “precision bombing.” FDR had wanted to project the idea that America was different, more moral. But Britain has already been hardened by the Battle of Britain with the Nazi bombing of London in 1940. Britain became efficient in bombings against Germany, especially nearby ports like Hamburg.

After D-Day, Americans became more interested in massive bombing around Berlin, especially of railroad marshalling yards, often near worker homes. The Battle of the Bulge resulted in German V-rockets against London, and the Allies revived “Operation Thunderclap” including a massive air assault on Berlin (also Dresden and other cities – I visited some of these in 1999). Americans still insisted that they hit specific locations in cities.

The bombing campaigns made it easier to contemplate using the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan.

The official website, with video trailer, is here.

Wikipedia attribution link for picture of Dresden bombing.

Ashton Kutcher hosts SNL on his 32nd birthday; early skit makes fun of "don't ask don't tell"!

2010-02-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

Ashton Kutcher hosts SNL (again!) tonight, Feb. 6, and he turns 32 years old at midnight. He has his own company of 41 employees, and has to act “responsible”. He also has to practice “self-control” so he can’t jump up and down like he did in 2003 on SNL at age 25. He seems to be using a lot of my DADT buzzwords. His Myspace site used to have more to look at than did his Facebook, but that’s changing. And remember, he has over one million twitter followers.

I think his company is Katalyst Films, Facebook link here.

The first skit is a “reading of the will”, as if based on John Knowles’s story (does Ashton know his American Lit?)

The next script dealt with “don’t ask don’t tell”. “Why are gay people against don’t ask don’t tell? Gay people love secrets”. The Democrats want to end it, the military brass wants to end it, the president wants to. It’s just those Republicans who don’t belong to Log Cabin.

At the Facebook page’s beckoning, I wrote something on Katalyst’s wall “I'll speak for myself, something political: it looks like "don't ask don't tell" will finally come to an end soon! “ just before the skit started. I couldn’t find it afterward. But I did not know that the show would deal with DADT.

Seth Meyers" Owners of Toyotas should stop driving their vehicles! He made fun of the accomplishments of the defunked 60 seat Democratic supermajority: "cash for clunkers". Sorry, my old Escort last July was not a clunker (according to Koons Ford). Andy Samberg offered his thoughts on Obama's budget.

There's a real difference between having Kutcher host SNL and a jock (Michael Phelps) host it. Taylor Lautner, that was interesting. They could try Shawn White, even after his skateboard slip. Shawn is good for American Express.

Revisiting Stephen King's "Storm of the Century" (1999) and maybe the Roanoke Island mystery

2010-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

In February 1999 ABC aired, in three parts, Stephen King’s epic teleplay (and sold as a screenplay only in book form) “Storm of the Century”. It would be an appropriate rerun this weekend, as the East Coast braces for its own “storm of the century”.

Little Tall Island, off the coast of Maine, gets cut off by a February blizzard. Now along the New England coast, February is the worst month. That’s because the arctic air to the north has reached its minimum temperatures, and starts to warm finally as the sun returns to far northern latitudes. Cold arctic high pressure drives the low pressure storms south and east, where they form Nor’easters, putting east coast cities on the “cold side” of the storms. Boston gets its biggest storms in February most years, and the mid-Atlantic blizzard forecast for today would be an average blizzard this time of year for Boston or Cape Cod.

But the story itself is creepy. A mysterious visitor Andre Linoge (Colm Feore) starts taunting the island town’s residents, mostly of questionable morality themselves, by scribbling graffiti like “Give me what I want and I’ll go away.” But “what” do “you” want? We’ll learn eventually that it’s a biological lineage. Linoge (pun intended) is not quite a vampire and not quite immortal without making babies.

The denouement doesn’t come until the residents have some scary dreams of being marches to their watery ends, and without revisiting the history of Roanoke Island, NC, which might have become our Jamestown had it not been for an unsolved historical mystery.

Wikipedia attribution link for Zuniga map of Roanoke Island.

Oprah and Oz cover diabetes, America's #1 silent killer

2010-02-04T15:49:00.000-08:00

Orpah Winfrey offered a show on diabetes today with Dr. Mehmet Oz. The show link is here and the show title was “America's Silent Killer: Oprah and Dr. Oz Want to Save Your Life”.
Oprah gave some alarming statistics on the growing incidence of particularly Type II diabetes, which accounts for 90% of cases. About 80 million Americans have diabetes or at least pre-diabetes.

Dr. Oz presented a clever animation of how digestion and metabolism work, how the pancreas fits in and how insulin is produced and it may disappear or fail to be effective.

Type 1 diabetes, or juvenile diabetes, most often appears early in life, as a result of viral infection, autoimmune reaction and genetic susceptibility. Type 2 diabetes seems related to lifestyle habits, especially over consumption of refined sugars and abdominal obesity, which causes the release of internal chemicals that interfere with the effectiveness of natural insulin. Whereas in Type 1 diabetes the pancreas fails produce insulin or enough insulin, in Type 2 the body’s metabolic cells become resistant to insulin. In both conditions, blood sugar rises, and the extra sugar molecules inflame and damage artery walls. This can lead to heart attack, loss of eyesight, kidney failure, and loss of feet and legs. A 44 year old female patient was shown with dialysis (after a transplant wore out), amputations and extremely deteriorated skin over the legs. Premature loss of hair from legs may mean artery disease and could be a subtle warning sign of diabetes. But the main signs are thirst, urination, eyesight disturbances, and with Type 1, sometimes, sudden weight loss.

Type 1 diabetes especially is sometimes treated with a pancreas transplant. Diabetic patients often try kidney transplant, but transplanted kidneys fail if blood sugar is not carefully maintained.

Type II diabetes is increasing because of lifestyle, especially in minority populations. Humans evolved with scarcity, with metabolisms not geared for overwhelming consumption of refined sugars or starches or too many calories. Native Americans are severely affected when they eat western diets because of genetic adaptation to scarcity. Many wild animals would develop diabetes if fed human diets.

Early diabetes is detected with some rather rigorous bloodwork, such as fasting glucose and glucose tolerance.

Back in the mid 1990s, Dr. Gabe Mirkin used to talk about diabetes on his radio talk show in the DC area a lot, and recommended low fat diets as well as low sugar.

Nick Jonas has been reported widely as having Type 1 diabetes.
Picture: graffiti showing a kid’s impression of a sine function, on a local 7-11 (Arlington VA).

PBS NOVA: Ghosts of Machu Picchu

2010-02-03T06:02:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday February 2, PBS NOVA aired the new one hour documentary “Ghosts of Machu Picchu”, which was not exactly along the lines of “Ghosts of Mars”. Machu Picchu is the ancient city ontop an 8500 foot mountain peak in southern Peru, hidden away and apparently missed by the Spaniards in the 15th and 16th centuries, when they sacked a once proud Inca civilization.

The link is here.

The film shows a lot of the by-hand archeological work, which is very demanding physically, and the steep trails around the site, which seem almost vertical. Guided hikes can be taken there; a friend of mine did this for three days in 2001.

The film examines the question as to why the site was built and then abandoned, as well as showing the mummies. The film also shows the Christian ceremonies in nearby Cuzco (11000 feet) which combine with Inca rituals. How did the Incas and pre-Incas build such perfect stonework without iron and without mortar?

Wikipedia attribution link for map of Peru http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Machu_Picchu_Locn.png

PBS Frontline: "Digital Nation"

2010-02-02T20:15:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Feb. 2, PBS Frontline aired the 90 minute documentary “Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier”, (web URL) link here.

Douglas Rushkoff, who was a pioneer of the Web in the early 90s as the Internet was turned loose, examines the effect of being wired all the time on today’s generations of students.

The biggest concern is how constant “multi-tasking” affects learning, paying attention in class, ability to solve deeper problems requiring concentration (like in math), and writing. Kids tend to write in disconnected paragraphs and not be able to sustain a longer train of thought. (In a high school exercise when I was subbing a few years back, kids had to construct an essay on “brains v. brawn” based on the Connell short story “The Most Dangerous Game”. They would have trouble doing this.

The film covered internet use in South Korea, with the best broadband in the world, where kids get addicted to playing games in cafes (I remember being addicted to playing chess in the 60s). The South Korean government even has two-week Internet Rescue Camps for Internet addicted teens.

The film also showed school principals monitoring middle school kids’ computer use and showed considerable multi-tasking even then.

The film also examines virtual reality, with attention to Philip Rosedale’s Second Life, which he says was devised to modify the way people interact, not just to make money, although Second Life has its own monetary system and introduces the idea of the avatar, much as in the recent movie. Progressive companies are using virtual reality for meetings, and the military is using it for training maneuvers, and to develop attack drones.

Second Life can complicate the problem of online reputation. Should one have relationships in Second Life with workplace or even military subordinates? That's like asking if it's OK to make subordinates Myspace or Facebook friends.

The Army set up an Army Experience Center with virtual reality experiences for teens in Philadelphia, and attracted protests (War is not a game!).

Technology may be changing the way people think and grow, but this is a meta-process: it happened with the printing press (memory went down) and then radio and television. Kids may be engaged in ways we don't understand, even if English teachers say they are afraid to assign novels longer than 200 pages!

Oprah previews "Undercover Boss"

2010-02-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

Today, Monday, Feb.1, Oprah Winfrey offered a preview of the CBS reality series “The Undercover Boss”, where corporate executives have to trade places with those who work for them. The "workers" get to decide if the bosses would get fired (maybe not quite in Trump style). The reality show starts on February 7.

A waste management executive took his turn doing the real job of cleaning portable toilets, where the goal is to clean fifteen stalls of poop in an hour. He didn’t quite keep up.

Then a 7-11 manager took his turn doing the graveyard shift. Actually, in convenience stores it looks pretty common for managers and assistant managers to do the work alongside their subordinates.

The most descriptive link for the show today is here.

It would be difficult for many executives to deal with the regimentation of "real jobs" even today. What if everybody had to trade places?

How many retail jobs are like these?

The show seems to take off on the notion that the “bourgeoisie” exploits the “proletariat”, an idea that we studied in history in high school even around 1960. While in the Army (1968-1970) I sketched out a novel about a world fractured by nuclear war, and was going to call it “The Proles.”

One of my father's moral maxims was "to learn to work" and "formation of proper habits."

HBO offers Rosie O'Donnell's program on "A Family"

2010-01-31T16:51:00.000-08:00

On Sunday Jan. 31, HBO Original Programming broadcast Rose O’Donnell’s event, “A Family Is a Family Is a Family”, effectively a one hour documentary.

Much of the documentary (38 minutes) consists of kids talking about their various families with a degree of enthusiasm. Of course, there was enumeration of different kinds of families that develop besides the traditional one (there is one sequence where children explain the biology of procreation in marriage, however, as long as a description of surrogacy). One girl from China says she was adopted because of the one child policy. In China, a boy is expected to take care of his parents when they get older, but a girl is not.

Rosie O’Donnell appears half-way through the film, and says “A family gives us people to take care of us and people to take care of. Family means love all the way. Your family will always be there for you.” Rosie says she and her partner head a family even though they are not in the same home now.

In the gay male world that I came of age in during the 1970s and 1980s, there was a lot of emphasis on selectivity of significant others. A person had to prove that he was “worthy” or your attention. That seems the opposite of the family, where the committed love among members is supposed to be a done deal. But because the political climate a few decades ago drove gays away from “the family”, gay men especially developed the idea of extreme selectivity.

In the viewpoint of the film, Family has the right to demand loyalty, to perceive oneself as a member of a social unit (created by parents) as well as an individual, and the willingness to put the needs of other family members above one’s own chosen ends. In conservative thinking, parents have the right and duty to implement this emotional obligation on their children. Psychologists call it “socialization”. Rosie would extend socialization to families formed out of choice, not just blood relations. Unsocialized people tend to perceive the demands of other family members as requiring “sacrifice” until they have their own families. Individuals who resist this emotional socialization are sometimes characterized by clinical psychologists as having “schizoid personalities”, but I think that the whole area has a moral undertone: some people need emotional solidarity from other family members more than others; there is nothing wrong with living productively as a “loner.”

The teenage boy who sings the “family commercial” shown these days at AMC Theaters sings in the film, a song called “So Many Combinations”.

I thought I would hear the Sister Sledge “We Are Family” song, but it didn’t turn up.

Tease

The film offers a lot of animation, much of it in pastels, rather simple in technique.

Rosie O’Donnell had appeared on Oprah Winfrey on January 21, presenting the show and also telling her story in adopting children, which had been illegal for gays in Florida. But see the CNN story Nov. 25 2008 by Taylor Gendossy on Florida’s gay adoption ban being overturned, link here.

The main HBO link for the program is here.

ABC 20-20 airs story on John Edwards and Andrew Young's book

2010-01-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

Friday night, Jan. 29, ABC 20-20 presented a report on how North Carolina Senator John Edwards concealed his mistress and “love child” from voters during the 2008 Democratic primaries. The news story is by James S. Hill, Terri Whitcraft, Eric M. Strauss, and Nadine Shulbalit, with the title “Ex-Edwards Aide: $1 Million Spent to Cover Up Pregnant Mistress: Andrew Young Tells '20/20' About Private Jets, Mansions, 5-Star Hotels, a BMW Used in Elaborate Scheme; 'Money Was No Object'”, link here.

Young’s new book is called “The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal that Brought Him Down”, from Thomas Dunne publishers.

Young says “it wasn’t easy to keep Hunter the wraps” even with all the money. Edwards behaved like "A Politician" at the end, warning Young that Young didn't really have anything on him.

Edwards's behavior, and failure to keep a marital commitment, seems particularly appalling given the medical issues of his wife. But later Young told ABC GMA that Edwards did not expect his wife to live long, a prediction that would turn out not to be true.

Edwards was regarded as a moderate Democrat who did not favor gay marriage, now somewhat ironic and hypocritical.

Picture: Grandfather Mountain, NC, my picture, 1971.

"Supernatural" episode experiments with swapping bodies: a deja vous for Jared Padalecki?

2010-01-29T07:00:00.000-08:00

The episode of “Supernatural” on Jan. 28, “Swap Meat”, did the “body switching” idea that has been tried before (in Season 3 of Smallville, Clark Kent and Lionel Luther (Lex’s father) sawp while Lionel is in prison). But this time, the idea involved academia.

A teenage nerd Gary, played by 19-year-old Colton James, swaps bodies with Sam (Jared Padalecki, now at the “summer solstice” age of 27, about the best age possible in athletics). Each character sees the other in the mirror. Gary, imbued with a superman-like body (Padalecki ['Sasquatch'] has been considered for parts in Superman movies, and could easily be imagined as cast in Smallville instead of Tom Welling) has to join Dean on a case, know his stuff (the “brothers’ “ history) and hold his liquor (even though he could not legally drink before). Sam has to become a high school student again, although a gifted senior in AP Chemistry and Physics.

The episode is interesting for Jared Padalecki because, according to imdb, he was a good student in high school in San Antonio and was a candidate for the 2000 Presidential Scholars Program. Perhaps the episode was written with his school past in mind. Zac Efron was also reportedly an AP student in high school.

The CWTV link is here.

Television writers settle class action suit involving supposed age discrimination

2010-01-28T09:02:00.000-08:00

There is a legal settlement (link here) of a class action lawsuit by certain groups of television writers who claimed they were victims of age discrimination. The basic link for the settlement is here, and the PDF document gives a variety of options to speak or act separately for members of the class. I received an email notice of the settlement this morning, even though I do not write for television.

The plaintiffs are divided into two groups, a Professional Television Writers Settlement Class, and and Aspiring Television Writers Settlement Class. The former group had to work under the Writers Guild of America Minimum Basic Agreement.

The settling defendants are generally well known studio brand names in movies and television.

It’s not stated what kinds of programs were written for – such as soap operas, or dramatic or comedy primetime series (but not reality).

Television writing requires great precision, since blocks of episodes have to run exact times between commercials of exact length. The public tends to compare series television to movies, but the writing techniques are very different and perhaps more demanding.

This is all interesting to freelance writers and bloggers, who like the freedom of saying what they want in a less structured forum, for less dependable income. I wonder what it’s like to write for the soaps. Maybe not too satisfying. I suspect most soap opera writers are women, because they love to make most of the villains women (especially for “Days of our Lives”).

Obama delivers first State of the Union message tonight

2010-01-27T18:28:00.000-08:00

President Obama is delivering his first State of the Union Address tonight on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010, starting slightly after 9 PM, carried on all major networks. It’s interesting that the joint House and Senate session sounded noisy, like “the kids” as the president entered tonight.

You can follow the details on CNN at this link. Reload the page frequently to see more details.

CNN aired a pre-show starting at 8 PM Wednesday evening.

The president is expected to ask Congress to repeal the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy regarding gays in the military during the speech. (He did so at 10:13 PM tonight.)

The president opened by noting that the economic bailouts were necessary, or else unemployment might have risen above 20%. The early part of the speech zeroed on the economy, and he said “Jobs must be our #1 focus in 2010.”

The president proposed eliminating capital gains taxes on small businesses.

MSNBC live video feed:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Virginia governor Bob McDonnell provided the GOP response to the address from Richmond.
Picture: The Eisenhower farm residence at Gettysburg PA, visit Jan. 26.

ABC Nightline covers "Independent" Lou Dobbs, Toyota recall and dealership sales suspension

2010-01-26T21:19:00.000-08:00

Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs appeared on ABC Nightline tonight (Jan 26) with Terry Moran, and argued for his “Independents Day” – and hinted that he could run for the Senate or President as an independent.

The news story (with Moran and Melinda Arons) is Lou Dobbs Mulls Presidential Run, Switches Stance on Immigration
Former CNN Anchorman Says He's 'Enamored' by the Possibilities”, link here.

Dobbs used to have a “Money Line” on CNN in the early evening.

Nightline also covered the massive Toyota recall of many of its cars, and the suspension of sales of cars with the sudden acceleration problem.

Picture (from a personal trip): Exhibit in the museum in the new visitor's center at Gettysburg PA, regarding the War Between the States. I think Dobbs would find some of the exhibits here particularly related to some of his views, such as how people bought their way out of the draft.

Clean Skies Sunday covers mountaintop removal (Spruce Mine in W Va)

2010-01-24T07:23:00.000-08:00

Clean Skies Sunday discussed the resignations of Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan, and the meaning for climate change legislation. It also decried the EPA’s approval of a new mountaintop removal project in West Virginia.

The show presented a debate at West Virginia University in Charleston between a Massey Coal executive (Blankenship) and a Mr. Kennedy on mountaintop removal, on the effect on the environment and on jobs. Blankenship said that keeping mountaintop removal going was a "homeland security" priority.

A Ms. Ryan in the Clean Skies video below discusses the EPA approval, and a new project in West Virginia called the Spruce Mine. There was discussion of the fact that the EPA’s main concern is damage to waterways. At the end of the program, a comedian performed and said, “don’t worry, the mountains will grow back.”

There is an earlier story by Ken Ward on the Spruce Mine permit, here. I don’t think that this involves Spruce Knob in West Virginia, the highest point in the state. At least I hope not. The mine appears to be in Logan County. Here’s a later story.

"The Deep End": showcases young laywers out of the pool, and it's not very deep

2010-01-22T19:20:00.000-08:00

“The Deep End”, as it followed five young lawyers through bizarre cases at a law firm in LA, seemed more glitz that substance. Matt Long ("Jack & Bobby")as Dylan Hewitt has to deal with a bizarre custody case involving surrogacy and grandma; Beth (Leah Pipes) remains silent as an Alzheimer’s client thinks she’s his daughter. Ben Lawson, as Liam, looks too much like Matt Long for the characters to remain separate. The culture of law firm work is shown, however, in the Pilot written by David Hemingson; it’s a lot of thinking and talking on your feet, in your client’s interest, not in the pursuit of “truth” .

At the end, Matt’s character gets dunked in The Deep End, literally.

ABC offers the video on demand, 45 minutes, with limited commercials, although it will add a plug in to your video player, at least in Vista, and seems a bit confusing to get going. The video will display in widescreen, at least 1.85:1. The link is here.

The series reminds me of “Just Legal” on TheWB a few years back (with Jay Baruchel as the 18 year old lawyer, good in the humanities), which did not succeed.

“The Deep End” was also the name of an unrelated thriller form Fox Searchlight, in August 2001, with Tilda Swinton.

Tom Amandes ("Everwood") makes a brief apperance near the end of the episode.

YouTube preview from SirienNetwork plays the beginning of the episode, where the young lawyers introduce themselves with video resumes. How are you supposed to behave on Facebook when you have this kind of a job.

Wikipedia attribution link for p.d. picture of downtown LA, near where the show is supposed to take place. Actually, a lot of it was filmed in Los Colinas, near Dallas, Texas.

Nightline interviews Obama on health care, economy, and politics after the MA Senate election tonight

2010-01-20T20:53:00.000-08:00

Tune in to ABC Nightline Wednesday Jan. 20 (one year to the date of the Inauguration) and watch George Stephanopoulos interview President Obama. Apparently the interview was taped a couple hours ago this evening.

The news link is here and it has an embedded video of the interview. The long title of the news story is “President Obama: We Lost Touch with American People Last Year: Obama Says Focus on Policymaking Distracted White House From Speaking Directly to American People”.

Obama said that the same tide that swept Scott Brown into the Senate Tuesday had swept him into office in the 2008 election.

The president said “one of the things I have learned in Washington is that you have to repeat yourself a lot.”

Obama said that the Senate should not try to “jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated.” He said that the House and Senate health care reform bills overlap about 90%. There is no choice but to make health care less costly for the nation and make the premiums affordable for everyone.

The president was asked about the impressions that some people in Haiti wanted the US to take over -- "please occupy us!" -- in direct contract to the politics of Iraq and the Middle East.

The president says that we were so busy dealing with crises and policy that we did not pay enough attention to core values. He had expected "the people to get it".

I met Stephanopoulos in 1996 in a Starbuck’s on Dupont Circle in Washington in the early morning, and very briefly mentioned “don’t ask don’t tell”.

Adam Lambert, Susan Boyle appeared today on Oprah

2010-01-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

Well, Adam Lambert made a dashing performance on Oprah today (Tuesday, Jan 19) in Chicago, and actually talked about “professionalism.” He admitted, or advised himself, that he should have told ABC or his producers what he intended to do before he did it, but he doesn’t think there was anything inappropriate about the gestures on the ABC broadcast some time back.

Here is a story about his appearance today. He was reportedly "nervous and excited." After all, getting onto Oprah is supposed to be a big deal, as media consultants earn big $$$ advising clients how to do it.

The rest of his interview as pretty upbeat, even if he looks a bit like a mannequin on stage with the makeup and boyish face. Clint Eastwood probably thinks he looks like a movie prop.

Here’s a clip of Lambert’s VEVO hotel party. He survives it. It’s a good video for a “stand up and model” fern bar (like JR’s).

Lambert's new single is called "For Your Entertainment", reminding me of the 1974 movie "That's Entertainment." The website for purchase is here.

I wonder if Oprah could take it upon herself to save MGM. She could just buy the studio, and restore it to its previous glory.

The early part of the show presented the American Idol success story of Susan Boyle.

Oprah hits distracted driving

2010-01-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

Oprah Winfrey today (MLK Day, Jan. 18) aired a program about distracted driving, and encourages everyone to sign her “no phone zone” for their cars (link).

The program gave numerous testimonials of victims struck by distracted drivers. Driving while texting is equivalent to driving after four drinks.

Texting while driving is the worst offense, but even talking on a cell phone with a hand’s free device is dangerous; the brain is not wired for multi-tasking while driving.

Here is the link for her show.

What next? What about drinking coffee while driving? Listening to the car radio?

But the Text can wait.

CNN: Anderson Cooper: "Saving Haiti"

2010-01-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

On Saturday Jan. 16 Anderson Cooper is reporting live on CNN his “Saving Haiti” special. Anderson looks buff enough interviewing everyone, but Dr. Sanjay Gupta walks around the remnants of a hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince describing (and improvising as he talks into a moving videocam) “jungle medicine.” On an earlier segment, Gupta had been shown actually giving first aid to patients.

Because of “security concerns” some medical teams had been ordered to evacuate. Cooper was questioning why the United Nations could not supply security for medical teams.

Cooper also interviews Gen. Russell Honore, “Is aid arriving fast enough?”

Gupta has mentioned a high caloric biscuit that can provide nutrition for a day, but hecklers scared people away from a drop-off of biscuits in the street.

The Red Cross estimates that up to three million people may be directly affected now by the earthquake.

Wikipedia attribution link for picture of collapsed National Palace in downtown Port-au-Price.

Larry King Live will have a two hour report on how to help on Monday Jan. 18 on Martin Luther King's birthday.

Oprah brings Nate Berkus again to give dating advice, help a family with grief, and recount his own loss in the 2004 tsunami

2010-01-14T15:54:00.000-08:00

The Oprah Winfrey Show today (Jan. 14) brought back designer Nate Berkus, with a riveting account in the middle of the show of how he lost his male partner (Fernando Bengoechea) in the 2004 tsunami, and of his putting his life back together afterward. The show included a clip of a 2005 interview on the tragedy. It seems to be a coincidence that this episode aired two days after the earthquake in Haiti.

That was followed with Nate’s helping a family in which a 12 year old, wanting to start a cookie business, had to deal with the loss of his brother to cancer.

But earlier in the show, Nate paired with the “Millionaire Marchmaker” to give older heterosexuals (often divorced) dating advice. One woman had a list of properties of the perfect mate, whose items included “not having a Facebook page”. Oprah said that her list could be satisfied only by Jesus Christ.

The question would come to me, could I, who did not create his own family or lineage, reach out and make a personal space from myself for others this way, as Nate does? I would have to be in the “right place”, and have the freedom and means to pursue some of my own “destinal” goals. I could not do this just on someone else’s terms (no matter what Rick Warren says), and in the past few years, a few people have tried to test me.

The link for the show, with videos, is here.

Wikipedia attribution link for picture of Magnificent Mile in Chicago. An era of my life ended Aug. 31, 1997 in Chicago. I’ll explain some other time.

ABC Nightline: Michigan couple loses out on surrogate parenthood

2010-01-13T14:06:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday night, Jan. 12, ABC Nightline covered a story of a Michigan married couple, having difficulty conceiving without miscarriages, turned to gestational surrogacy (no genetic link to the surrogate mother). But then the birth mother demanded the twins born to her back when she learned that the wife of the original couple had a problem with drug use and mental health. The Michigan court allowed the surrogate mother to keep the babies.

Some of ABC’s Nightline stories don’t have news stories and the only way to get the URL is to have the email sent to yourself by the SHARE facility. The link this facility gave me is here, and the segment is called "Taking them Back".

Louisiana, Washington, New York, and Washington DC, besides Michigan, don’t recognize surrogacy in any way.

The Michigan couple had moved to a house in a good school district and bought a complete nursery, and now has no baby.

This problem could also affect gay male couples having children by surrogacy.

Martha Stewart gives special time for cats

2010-01-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

Today, Monday January 11, The Martha Stewart Show on ABC presented “The Cat Show”, link here.

One of the cat experts pointed out that the domestic cat is the only animal that naturally chooses to be both wild when it wants to and domesticated when it chooses to. The cat perceives the owner’s home as his or her territory, but understands that humans live in it to serve their needs. The cat may be the only animal that will invite itself in to a strange home.

Even large cats, despite the concerns about safety and man, learn to accept man, even with free choice. A recent Animal Planet program showed a zoologist getting himself accepted as a member of a lions pride by mastering the body language of the animals and getting on the good side of the alpha male. Cats, even big cats, seem to realize that we are a lot like them.

The show covered cat medical veterinary care, and talked about social play in adult cats, not as permissible in the wild as with domestic animals.

NBC Dateline: The Passenger in Seat 19A

2010-01-10T19:52:00.000-08:00

Tonight NBC Dateline, with Chris Hansen (with Aram Roston and Richard Greenberg), aired the one hour analysis of our “intelligence failure” with “The Passenger in Seat 19A”. The show traced the movements of privileged Nigerian young man Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, documenting the Yemen connection in detail, and particularly emphasizing the apparent influence of jihadist websites on him while he lived in his parents’ expensive condo in London while he went to college nearby.

The detailed accounts of other passengers, including a couple returning from adopting Ethiopian children, were interesting. Jasper Schuringa, accolade for his role in tackling the suspect, had been sitting completely on the other side of the fuselage (he did not appear in the Dateline documentary tonight).
The major Dateline link is here.

Look also at this video with female Muslim author Irshad Manji (The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith, St. Martins, 2003), about the role of Yemen.

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Sarah Kershaw has a relevant article on the “This Week in Review” page of the Sunday Jan 10 New York Times, “The Terrorist Mind: An Update: Research is expanding rapidly; and so is the thinking on the path that leads to killing and martyrdom. It’s not just about religion,” link here.

Wikipedia link for Yemen map

Update: Jan. 11

I was told anecdotally that Abdulmutallab did not have a valid passport when boarding in Nigeria but was waived through their security anyway. I don't know if this has been verified. News media should check out exactly how he was screened in Africa.

NBC Dateline: "Bringing Sean Home: The Untold Story"

2010-01-08T19:06:00.000-08:00

NBC Dateline on Friday January 7 broadcast the two-hour documentary, “Bringing Sean Home: The Untold Story”, about the five year international fight by male fashion model David Goldman to regain custody of his biological son.

Meredith Vieira is the host, and the transcript is here.

The story began when he met Bruna Bianchi from Brazil. They wed in 1999 and had their son Sean. David drove Bruna to the airport in June 2004 for a vacation and got a phone call saying that she would never come back and never let him have the son. She would eventually die in 2008, leaving Sean with neither original biological parent, but the Brazilian husband Joao Paulo Lins e Silva maintained a protracted an agonizing legal case, which Dateline covers as a legal suspense story.

Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey assisted, as they case took on international repercussions as a case of international abduction, involving treaties. At one point, a New Jersey Senator threatened to cut off aid to Brazil.

David Goldman flew his son home on Christmas Eve 2009 on a private jet chartered by NBC. (NBC’s paying for the private jet has been criticized.) The end of the broadcast showed David and his son in his New Jersey home, even united with the pet cat Tuey. In the last scene, David hears Sean call him “Dad”.

Here is Sean Goldman’s “Help Find My Child” site.

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Wikipedia attribution link for map of Brazil.

PBS opens "The Human Spark" with Alan Alda

2010-01-06T18:22:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday Jan 6, Alan Alda hosted the first hour program on PBS in the series “The Human Spark”. The best writeup from PBS and video is probably here.

Alda examines cave paintings in Southwestern France, as having been created by true humans, not Neanderthals. But true human abilities seem to have developed in East Africa more than 50 thousand years ago.

Human beings are the only mammal most of whose brain mass growth occurs after birth. Humanshave about 18-25 years to learn from the parents, families and ancestors, a tremendous advantage over other animals. Humans also understand the idea of taking an idea from someone else and making more of it.

Neanderthals however did not specialize as much in applying technology. They had generalized tools that maintained a stable culture but could not adapt to sudden change. They did not learn to cooperate socially outside their own immediate family units, all of which could lead to a curious debate about “family values.” In human society, however, when someone made an innovation, in time, “everyone knew about it.” The psychology of the Internet existed with the earliest humans.

Humans may have evolved their skills when learning to fish or grow agriculture as well as hunt large animals.

Part Two: "So Human, So Chimp"

Part Three: "Brain Matters": Human beings have special brain regions that allow them to cogitate on what others think or no, and therefore humans can build a culture of teaching. No other animal can do this. Even Neanderthals were limited in the ability to do this. Modern humnas developed the ability to do this about 70000 years ago.

Wikipedia attribution link for map showing migration of early humans