Television confusion
Digital dawning
Come next Feb. 17, we predict, thousands of Americans will wake up to discover their televisions don’t work. And they will demand answers.
But the answers have been coming for months with a blitz of public service announcements that analog television signals will be gone and digital signals will take their place.
The government and broadcasters can’t be faulted if some Americans don’t get the message. Some folks just don’t get messages, which is why a state trust fund spends millions of dollars to help people quit smoking even though we’ve all been told that tobacco is addictive and deadly. Or why some people will stay on the coast when a hurricane is approaching.
Digital TV offers more choices for viewers who don’t have cable or satellite services. Most stations are already offering multiple choices - some have at least six. This means a single station can offer more programming options than the entire spectrum of local stations could offer 50 years ago.
For those who haven’t gotten the message, analog TVs will work only if a converter box is attached. The boxes will cost at least $40, but coupons are being offered that would make the box effectively free.
Those who are hooked up to cable or a satellite dish won’t have to do anything except figure out why they must pay so much for so many choices and find so little of interest to watch. But that’s another message for another time.
Don Haskins’ death
Don Haskins, who died Sept. 7 at age 78, earned the nickname “The Bear” with his gruff demeanor. But he could be quite accommodating, too. In 1992, Haskins took a phone call in his hotel room just a few hours before his Texas-El Paso basketball team was to play an NCAA Sweet 16 game in Kansas City. The caller was a reporter who had been ordered to follow up on Bob Knight’s suggestion earlier in the day, at a different NCAA regional site, that Haskins was in line to become coach at UNLV. Knight and Haskins were longtime friends, and Knight has never bashful about trying to pull one over on the media. The reporter, who happened to be based in Oklahoma City, explained that he was just following orders in calling Haskins, and figured that Knight either had the scoop of the year or just another joke of the day. “Which do you think?” Haskins asked. “Joke of the day,” the reporter said. “Well, hell YES!” Haskins replied. Then he laughed and proceeded to ask about things in his native Oklahoma and chat for another five or 10 minutes.
Don Haskins’ death
Don Haskins, who died Sept. 7 at age 78, earned the nickname “The Bear” with his gruff demeanor. But he could be quite accommodating, too. In 1992, Haskins took a phone call in his hotel room just a few hours before his Texas-El Paso basketball team was to play an NCAA Sweet 16 game in Kansas City. The caller was a reporter who had been ordered to follow up on Bob Knight’s suggestion earlier in the day, at a different NCAA regional site, that Haskins was in line to become coach at UNLV. Knight and Haskins were longtime friends, and Knight has never bashful about trying to pull one over on the media. The reporter, who happened to be based in Oklahoma City, explained that he was just following orders in calling Haskins, and figured that Knight either had the scoop of the year or just another joke of the day. “Which do you think?” Haskins asked. “Joke of the day,” the reporter said. “Well, hell YES!” Haskins replied. Then he laughed and proceeded to ask about things in his native Oklahoma and chat for another five or 10 minutes.
Hanging it up
Hanging it up
Remember that game you played in study hall to pass the time, the one called Hangman? Your opponent thinks of a word or words and you guess the letters. Guess wrong and your foe starts building a scaffold; guess enough letters wrong and he hangs a man from the scaffold. In Connecticut and New York — and no doubt coming soon to other states — displaying a noose is a crime if you’re deemed guilty of doing so to intimidate or harass “targeted people,” according to State Legislatures magazine. In New York, playing Hangman is now actionable — it’s a crime to even draw a noose, much less hang a rope fashioned into a noose. Hate crime laws are expanding to include pictures, in response to racial sensitivities regarding lynching. We’re not sure if playing Hangman on line in New York will be a crime.
Walk this way
Walk this way
When Barack Obama talks about tax increases for the rich and tax cuts for the middle class, he’s referring to the income tax. When the Affordable Footwear Initiative (AFI) talks about tax cuts for the lower and middle income consumers, it’s referring to the shoe tax. The what? Yes, the shoe tax is hurting virtually every American household, the advocacy group claims. It wants Congress to do some sole-searching and repeal a tariff on shoes enacted in the 1930s to protect domestic manufacturers. Nearly every pair of shoes sold in the U.S. was made outside our borders, but the tariff on imported shoes can be as high as 67.5 percent, driving the cost of shoes up by up to $4.50 a pair. A bill pending in Congress would stomp out the tax once for all. AFI is in quite a leather about this tax, which has bipartisan opposition. Uncle Sam can do without the revenue and should walk away from the tariff.
Get the shovel!
When MSNBC host/commentator Joe Scarborough was discussing positive developments in the John McCain campaign, fellow commentator Keith Olbermann was heard to say, “Jesus, Joe, why don’t you get a shovel?” When Olbermann opens his mouth, more than a shovel is needed. A backhoe, perhaps, or a front-end loader. Executives at NBC News/MSNBC finally came to their senses and yanked Olbermann and Chris Matthews as co-anchors of political coverage. The commentators were posing as newsmen on election nights and during the national political conventions. Fox News Network, which Olbermann frequently blasts, never used Bill O’Reilly in that capacity. In our view, Olbermann, Matthews and O’Reilly are all Cat 3 blowhards. They have their own shows and they shouldn’t be anchoring the news alongside Tom Brokaw or Brit Hume. With Olbermann on stage, NBC had become the “Nasty Broadcasting Network.” What took the execs so long to figure out it wasn’t appropriate for him to be an anchor?
