Month: June 2005

New: Upgraded the blogging software to 1.5. There are some new things behind the scenes, and some neato templates, which I’ve changed to here. I’ll be working on changing the picture to something more mine, and get the location thing working again. Please point out anything seriously wrong.

Old: Interesting new book I saw at the Union Square Barnes and Noble called Hong Kong Apothecary: A Visual History of Chinese Medicine Packaging. It’s the first comprehensive look at Chinese medicine production that I’ve seen in English, and it is incredibly facinating. The meanings of the fancy mysterious boxes are revealed.

Today, I went into the city to help plan the annual Asian picnic. I spent most of the time in the East Village going up Broadway to Union Square. Meantime, the Gay Pride parade is going on Fifth Avenue, as well as a Billy Graham christian crusade in Flushing. Barely a sign any of it is going on with probably upwards of 100,000 people involved between the two events. New York is the only place this kind of thing could happen.

On the CD player: “Classic Yo-Yo” 0 compilation of Yo-Yo Ma’s best.

Glad to see that the NY Times still has the link up – its special Brooklyn section from last week. Tons of great stuff, plus an article about my neighborhood (I was reading it, thinking: “Good grief, that’s my subway station they’re talking about!”). Check this stuff out before the free links expire.

Plus, for this week’s City section, NY Times has an article about this one man’s quest to collect cofee cups (the stuff we get from the local delis, you know “It’s our pleasure to serve you” with the Greek blue design).

Hmm. I don’t always like the tone of NY Times’ columnist Frank Rich, but his take on the mess with PBS is interesting:

HERE’S the difference between this year’s battle over public broadcasting and the one that blew up in Newt Gingrich’s face a decade ago: this one isn’t really about the survival of public broadcasting. So don’t be distracted by any premature obituaries for Big Bird. Far from being an endangered species, he’s the ornithological equivalent of a red herring.

Let’s not forget that Laura Bush has made a fetish of glomming onto popular “Sesame Street” characters in photo-ops. Polls consistently attest to the popular support for public broadcasting, while Congress is in a race to the bottom with Michael Jackson. Big Bird will once again smite the politicians – as long as he isn’t caught consorting with lesbians.

That doesn’t mean the right’s new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers’ expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations – or thrilled to the “journalism” of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies – you’ll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.

There’s only one obstacle standing in the way of the coup. Like Richard Nixon, another president who tried to subvert public broadcasting in his war to silence critical news media, our current president may be letting hubris get the best of him. His minions are giving any investigative reporters left in Washington a fresh incentive to follow the money.

[….]

As the public broadcasting debate plays out, there will be the usual talk about how to wean it from federal subsidy and the usual complaints (which I share) about the redundancy, commerciality and declining quality of some PBS programming in a cable universe. But once Big Bird, like that White House Thanksgiving turkey, is again ritualistically saved from the chopping block and the Senate restores more of the House’s budget cuts, the most crucial test of the damage will be what survives of public broadcasting’s irreplaceable journalistic offerings.

Will monitors start harassing Jim Lehrer’s “NewsHour,” which Mr. Tomlinson trashed at a March 2004 State Department conference as a “tired and slowed down” also-ran to Shepard Smith’s rat-a-tat-tat newscast at Fox News? Will “Frontline” still be taking on the tough investigations that network news no longer touches? Will the reportage on NPR be fearless or the victim of a subtle or not-so-subtle chilling effect instilled by Mr. Tomlinson and his powerful allies in high places?

Forget the pledge drive. What’s most likely to save the independent voice of public broadcasting from these thugs is a rising chorus of Deep Throats.

Hmm. So maybe I am wrong – maybe PBS could become a tool of propoganda. Uh. That doesn’t sound right at all.

Enjoy the rest of the hot sultry weekend.

PBS funding restored, but other concerns remain. The NY Times’ article by Lorne Manly on “Public Broadcasters’ Tightrope Over Funds” demonstrates the problem. The PBS managers are trying to do more outreach to get help and money, but that only gets more ire:

But the lobbying effort has been criticized. “What bothers me is they’re using my tax dollars to lobby the Congress to get more of my tax dollars,” said David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization, and a guest on Mr. [Brian] Lehrer’s [WNYC/PBS radio] program on Monday.

Mr. Boaz, a regular listener to public radio, said he believed in the separation of news and state. “The government shouldn’t be putting its thumb on the scales in the marketplace of ideas,” he continued, adding that public broadcasters could withstand the loss of money that represents about 15 percent of their revenues.

Public broadcasting executives defended their outreach efforts, arguing that they are allowed, within certain restrictions, to broadcast spots that support federal financing. And with a vote looming in the House, they did not have the luxury of waiting until the cut becomes reality.

“If we did not tell our members and the funding quietly slipped by, they’d never forgive us,” said John Lawson, president and chief executive of the public television lobbying group.

In addition, they said they are merely laying out the facts for their viewers and listeners to digest. “We are asking them to express their opinions, whatever that may be, but not telling them what to think,” Ms. Walker said.

Placing these spots near news segments about the controversy can raise journalistic questions about blurring the line between news and promotion. Tim Eby, radio manager of WOSU and chairman of NPR’s board, said the station’s on-air people have made sure the spots don’t run during any locally produced segments about the controversy.

So, there’s the concern about the appearance of conflict of interest in PBS journalism (which is usually very solid, but when you’re trying to defend the very concept of PBS, PBS journalism looks like it’s on the defensive, when, just before Lehrer (Brian on radio or Jim on tv) interviews someone, there’s that Save PBS promotion on the air. I didn’t really agree with that libertarian guy referred above – I mean, really, the Constitution talks about separation between religion and state; a division between news and state is something else. It’s not like government funding for PBS makes PBS the government’s propaganda tool or that the government is endorsing a particular network (especially when the current administration is all but accusing PBS of having “liberal” bias). If anything, government funding of PBS (pretty minor stuff as it is, compared to, say, paying for military or Social Security) encourages and maintains free speech in the marketplace of ideas: so long as there is PBS, we don’t have to be the captive audience of the greedy (-ier?) network broadcasters and the cable networks.

But, the lobbying efforts do bother me as a viewer in one sense – I tend to turn to PBS as the commercial free tv. But, increasingly, it obviously isn’t, when you have to sit through “Thanks for our supporters and grant providers from Chipotle, Coca-Cola, and Sprint.” Not easy times for PBS.

And, continuing my topic here on tv stuff, I thought this Alessandra Stanley evaluation of the now-notorious Tom Cruise appearance on yesterday’s Today show is interesting. Yeah, so Cruise is looking a little unhinged, but is terribly honest. Stanley says it’s refreshing. She also makes a point – Cruise is making it obvious that the talk show host/interviewers aren’t exactly the smartest bunch – I mean, really, it’s just Matt Lauer asking silly questions. But, to me, is it that worth it to make Matt Lauer look really dim-witted and to kick dirt at the science of psychiatry (which helps people, even if someone like Cruise doesn’t think so)? I wasn’t planning on watching the Cruise/Speilberg “War of the Worlds” in the first place (not my kind of movie – looks too scary, and I never liked the concept of it in the first place – begging pardon to H.G. Wells). But, this publicity for Cruise – well, I just don’t know how much it helps him. He’s going to have to hope that the audience is able to separate Cruise the Actor from Cruise the Man and that the Man doesn’t end up driving away the Actor’s audience.

Oh, and my silly joke – since Katie Holmes (ex-Joey of “Dawson’s Creek”) can’t let go of Cruise, I do so very much wonder, when will old Dawson and Pacey rescue Joey from the strange older man? … 😉

Hot weekend.