A Plea To Public Television

I love public television – commonly known as PBS. I’ve been a viewer (and inconsistent member, I’m ashamed to say) since the 70s and The Great American Dream Machine. I worked on staff at 13/WNET New York for a year and when I later went into business full time as a freelance writer, WNET was my client for ten years. My cable system offers three PBS stations and they are the channels I watch most. All that said, they are driving me insane with their Pledge (fund raising) periods, which have become longer and more tedious with every passing year. And because I care so much about the importance of public TV, I fear their fund raising tactic may be their undoing rather than their salvation. I find that a disturbing prospect indeed.

Perhaps for your edification (not everybody knows this), PBS is not a television network in the way that CBS, NBC and ABC are networks. They are still The Big Three networks on broadcast TV (vs. cable or anything else) and their “local” stations – the ones that begin with “W” in the east and “K” in the west – are affiliates directly responsible to and controlled by the primary network powers that be.

In direct and critical contrast, public TV stations are independent, self-supporting, local channels. PBS – the Public Broadcasting Service – produces and/or acquires many of the programs seen on public TV nationwide. But there are several other significant program services, and, a number of the larger stations – such as those in New York City, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco – also produce major programs with and without an assortment of production partners, that are also seen nationally.

There are around 300 independent public TV stations and the organization that to some extent unites them is APTS (the Association of Public Television Stations), which functions as a kind of union capable of standing up to PBS, which has been known to be a little grandiose and overbearing, however well-intentioned they mean to be. At least this is how things worked in the 90s, which is when I was last privy to the inner workings of public television; some important things may have changed that I’m unaware of.

But there are two changes of which I’m very cognizant. The first is that public stations now refer to themselves as PBS stations. I can’t tell you how vigorously this used to be fought against. Stations were passionate about trying to make the public understand that they were independent and their independence was critical to how they were funded, as well as their very reason for being: stations that produced/acquired numerous programs that specifically served local and regional communities in ways the Big Three affiliates never did and still don’t. But the “We’re not PBS message” was too difficult to explain and never got through, so it looks like the effort was finally abandoned.

The second change is how much they Pledge. There used to be three (and only three) key Pledge months: March, August and December. And pledge periods lasted for only one week in each of these months. Now, these three months are virtually consumed with Pledge, and in addition, other Pledge periods of varying lengths pop up throughout the year. This is no doubt happening because government funding, philanthropic funding and corporate funding have been in perilous decline since the 90s. So has individual viewer membership, which for most stations is where the bulk of their funding comes. As a result, some stations have folded. Some have joined forces. But all of them are hurting. Fiscal crisis is a constant in public TV.

The problem with Pledge as it’s currently conducted is that special “Pledge Programming” is broadcast, much of it provided by PBS. New programs are presented here and there, but most of it is very old, and it’s re-run countless times. How much of the same New Age self-help, music from the 60s, financial advice, and classical tenors is a person supposed to sit through – Pledge month after Pledge month, year after year? I watch little or no public TV during Pledge because my favorite programs have been replaced with the same Pledge shows that have been on for a decade or more! (They’re still showing Motown 25 and Motown is now over 60!). 

I’m not angry with public television for the volume of its Pledging; I know they need the money. I’m irritated with their lack of creativity – and very possibly financial effectiveness – in how they’re doing it. I urge public TV to abandon Pledge months and tired Pledge programming altogether. Instead, fund raising should be constant. Some short, some longer breaks between every program for a start. And, since the non-commercials are looking more like commercials anyway, have real commercials, just don’t interrupt programs and don’t have them between every show and don’t run more than one or two in a row. I could also live with a short crawl at the bottom of the screen once during a program, but not necessarily every program. Thinking outside the box might help you dig yourself out of your financial hole and stop torturing those of us who love you.

The SONY Situation

“Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood

lies the real tinsel.”  Oscar Levant, (1906 - 1972) 

As someone who strongly believes in the importance of free speech and uncensored creative expression, I have of course been extremely interested in and concerned about the “SONY Situation.” This is extremely important because it’s about a whole lot more than a controversial movie. It is a seminal 21^st Century dilemma: the first major confluence of new technology, violent and cyber terrorism, the traditional American definition of Democracy, culture clash, Capitalism, electronic news media, and human behavior in the still-developing “new normal.” This is a big subject but I’ll tackle what I can in this post.

I started writing this post at least a week ago, and there have been new developments in the past couple of days. So to summarize the incident that provoked an international mess: SONY, a giant American entertainment company, was grievously cyber attacked by North Korean extremists (and possibly the NK government itself) because it produced a satirical comedy film about the assassination of the real-life, sitting, North Korean president, Kim Jong-un. The news media ill-advisedly but not surprisingly focused on the celebrity gossip revealed by the hack-attack instead of the depth and implications of the attack itself.

Then, SONY and America were threatened with 9/11-scale attacks against movie theaters if the film was released. All of the country’s theater chains united in their refusal to show the film; Sony announced it would not release the film (like they had a choice, once the theaters decided not to show it); and much of the film industry and some politicians, including President Obama, criticized SONY for giving in to threats, because nobody can tell us what kind of movies we can and cannot make, and, America shouldn’t surrender its core freedoms out of fear.

The irony is we already have surrendered some of our core freedoms out of fear. America was rattled to its previously complacent bones by the 9/11 attacks, though we were determined not to let it show. President John Wayne Bush stood on the World Trade Center rubble and literally told the terrorists to “bring it on,” to prove that our national balls, pride, and courage were undefeatably enormous.

But a few weeks later, Congress and the Senate passed the Patriot Act with whiplash speed. It is still in place, giving the government’s numerous intelligence and security agencies unprecedented permission to spy, bug, physically gather, and in other ways obtain private information about individuals, to basically do whatever they deem necessary to whomever they regard as  suspicious in the name of national security.

Some Americans and some organizations objected. In the minority quarters that value privacy and civil rights for individuals, Ben Franklin’s sage quotation: They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety was dusted off and given new exposure. But it didn’t change anything because it turns out that most Americans are willing to exchange “essential liberty” (privacy, free speech, creative expression, etc.) for whatever sense of safety they can secure.

In the last few days, the country and the companies (SONY and the theaters) seem to have decided to macho-man-up again. President Obama asked China to do what they can to keep North Korea in check. It was suggested that North Korea be added to our official “watch” list of nations/organizations most likely to attempt a terrorist attack, though at this moment I don’t know if that’s been done. Some theaters decided to change their corporate minds about showing the film, and SONY, it appears, has changed its mind about releasing it, even if it will be a more limited release than originally planned. For a Christmas Day debut. Merry Christmas. 

Now we come to our national love affair with technology – which is really just our most recent infatuation with a big, shiny, major new toy, a love that knows no bounds and sees no downside until the initial glow wears off, and that process can take quite a while. We embraced the Information Age with the same passion we lavished on the Industrial Revolution.

I’m not saying America or the world would all be better off living like the Amish. I’m just pointing out that we have a history of plunging into the seductive technically new in the present, without regard for its impact on what we value from the past, or anticipating the potential disadvantages of the presently new in the future. This is especially concerning now as we further explore artificial intelligence and robotics in a spirit of childlike wonder.

Through technology, what used to be a great big world has, from the 19^th Century on, become a much smaller one. Throw differing religions, cultures, economics and politics into the mix and it becomes quite a muddle. Add poor education, increased poverty, huge gaps in human rights and civil rights, terrorism, war and other forms of armed conflict, environmental change, and population growth, and you have the complex quagmire we call Now.

So, in regard to the “Sony Situation,” I believe that our 18^th Century ideas of what Freedom and Democracy allow for were and are rightly challenged, not just by outside anger and danger, but also by a certain measure of contemporary common sense as well. In every discussion of free speech, it is pointed out that while people should have an unfettered right to express their ideas and opinions, they don’t have the right to be irresponsible – such as shouting Fire! Fire! in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire.

I am of the opinion that in this day and age, producing a major motion picture about the assassination of any named, real-life, sitting president of any country – even a bizarre little despot like Kim Jong-un – is the creative equivalent of Fire! Fire!, especially when you consider that totalitarian dictators and the populations they rule have no working concept of humor, let alone satire. And just because one has the right and freedom to do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do it.

What would the American response be if a foreign country – say France, England or Australia, all of which have thriving film industries, unlike our chief national enemies – made a satirical comedy about the assassination of the named, specific, actual Barack Obama? The President himself, who has a great sense of humor and understands the concept of satire, would probably just roll with the punches as he has with everything that’s been thrown at him. But I doubt Mrs. Obama would appreciate it, nor would the Democratic Party, nor would many Americans who support, even love, the President. We wouldn’t be hearing about free speech and creative freedom in that scenario.

The “SONY Situation” puts the company, the film industry, and the government in the satirically comic position of having to defend a film that shouldn’t have been made in the first place, in the name of free speech, creative freedom, and not allowing other countries to push us around. Why? In no small part because of Capitalism. America’s leading export is entertainment: film, television, music, video games and increasingly stand-up comedy. And for many years now, Hollywood product in all categories has been built on a foundation of graphic violence, drugs and sex.

So when our government tells us that terrorists hate us for our freedom, that is only part of the truth. They also hate us for the nature and content of our popular culture, our military intervention in their countries, and our constant efforts at regime change (what we like to call nation building). We are determined to spread Democracy and Capitalism, two different things that many Americans think are the same.

I know there are critical human rights issues at stake, but it’s not a simple matter to resolve and we tend to make our efforts to fix and change things in a manner that other countries find decidedly objectionable. They think we’re crazy, just as we think they’re crazy. I do think they’re much crazier than we are. However, we have little with which to defend ourselves. Because our other top export is Consumerism – in concept and action. Ours is a youth-&-beauty-obsessed, celebrity-worshiping, materialistic culture. We value money, power, prestige and things more than people. We are the least developed nation among all developed nations when it comes to economic equality, education, health care, and our regard for the poor and elderly.

I think the current defense of The Interview, filled with Constitutional dismay about SONY’s initial response, is misplaced: the right defense for the wrong thing. Where was a similar torrent of outrage when NewSouth Books put a fig leaf on Huckleberry Finn by changing the use of “nigger” to “slave,” even though this is a classic work of fiction that reflects the accurate, actual use of language in its historical place in time? 

Hasn’t the rigidity of political correctness also mindlessly and uncreatively undermined free speech and creative expression? Comedian Lenny Bruce, poet Allen Ginsberg, and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe were never given the succor of the First Amendment in their time, even though they richly deserved it. The "SONY Situation" requires a lot of thought and deserves much intelligent discussion – but The Interview is a regrettable launch pad for it.

Mind Games (no class warfare involved)

Let me give us all a break from the subject of class warfare and write about something more mundane that simply annoys (and I think damages!) us in the course of our everyday lives – namely wildly intrusive advertising on TV and online. 

I watch a lot of TV – both for news and entertainment. And I go online a lot – primarily for email, news, research, shopping, pictures for this blog and to decorate my computer desktop, and to play mind-improving brain games. I’m not into social media and I don’t find the Internet entertaining, but I do find it useful. 

However, no matter which online site I go to, even The New York Times, I am barraged with ads: ads that jiggle on the sides of my screen, ads that pop up when I click on something I want to read, ads that pop up in the middle of something I’m already reading, ads I have to endure before the video I’ve selected plays. I don’t keep my speakers on as a rule, but I suspect that if I did, I’d be equally barraged by audio ads. This crap is unavoidable and I find it very intrusive. It really pisses me off. And it feels relatively new. It seems I wasn’t being slapped in the face with an ad with every click of my mouse as recently as a year ago. What the hell is going on? 

Television is even worse. I stopped watching regular commercial TV long ago, particularly major networks. I can’t focus on a program when, literally, I get to see five to seven minutes of a show, then it’s interrupted with five to seven minutes of fast-paced ten and 15 second ads. By the time the commercials are over, I’ve often forgotten what show I’m watching and a dizzying headache begins. I’d like to watch more cable channels than I do, but they’re chock full of ads, too.

I particularly can’t watch movies that are constantly interrupted because I'm totally robbed of the mood and continuity of the film. In years past, I watched a lot of Sundance, Independent Film Channel and AMC when it was American Movie Classics (I don’t know what it is now), but even they have been overtaken with the 5-7/5-7 ad-to-program ratio. And what’s worse, Sundance is editing films (Sundance!) “for content and to fit the time allotted for this program.” Are you kidding me?

For escape, I watch a lot of free On Demand channels, where there were often no ads or you used to be able to fast-forward through them. But increasingly, the fast-forward function is being disabled just for the ads, so I’m in the same position as when I watch things in regular time. But at least I have the option of stopping programs for bathroom, kitchen and phone breaks, so they’re still worthwhile.

And of course there’s TCM, thank God, which is still commercial free and since I’m an old movie fan, I watch that a lot. But it both amuses and distresses me that “old” movies now include the 60s, 70s and 80s. They still have the 30s through 50s, which is what I consider old, but that’s because I’m old. For viewers in their teens, 20s and 30s, my old movies are ancient and young viewers don’t like them because they move more slowly and are in black & white; ‘nuff said.

As a result, I watch a lot of public television, which I love, and so far their commercials (they have them now) are at the start, end, and between programs. I don’t know how long that’s going to last, since public television is now so desperately underfunded, they may have to resort to intrusive ads; indeed, they started experimenting with them in selected markets in 2011. (I also enjoy the uninterrupted panel discussions and Book TV on C-Span.)

And then there are the pay-extra-for-them premium channels, a commercial-free panacea, but a pricey treat. Years back I had them all, then for a very long time I cut back to just HBO. Recently, I added on Starz and Epix – after a lot of negotiating for lower rates, but it still bumps up the cable bill. I justify this because I rarely go anywhere and do anything, especially go out to a $15 movie in a theater, and at home I hardly ever rent newer on-demand fare, so I think it’s a reasonable indulgence.

But it’s not really an indulgence at all, it’s a necessity. At my age, 62, I’m increasingly concerned with brain health and not falling prey to Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. I genuinely believe watching heavily commercial-laden programming is harmful for me and just as bad – perhaps more so – for younger viewers, because it truly lessens attention span and, I believe, increases ADD (or ADHD, but I never remember what the “H” stands for).

I recognize that advertisers, who pay a lot of money for TV airtime and Internet space, are desperately trying to get their sales agenda across and audiences are now so dispersed, they’re trying to capture eyeballs when- and however they can. I think what they don’t recognize is that most of us view them as an unwelcome interruption and I for one make a deliberate effort to ignore them and not even notice what they’re for. I don’t really have any sympathy for their marketing crisis because much of what they’re trying to sell us is crap and most of us are already buying more crap than we need anyway. But like insects, they’re determined to work their way in – and I shudder to think what they’ll try to do next.

Good News…Bad News

I was, of course, delighted and relieved that President Obama was re-elected and the Democrats maintain the majority in the Senate.  I’m wary but hopeful that Republicans, at least some, recognize the major changes in American demographics and attitudes and understand that if their party is to remain viable, they have no choice but to reject the far-right-as-you-can-go fringe and move more to a workable center in order to actually help run the country – which they can now do, since they failed to achieve their primary objective: making Barack Obama a one-term president.  I was also very pleased that both marriage equality and the decriminalization of marijuana made strides in a few states.  All of this is good news.

But, now that the nation has managed to suffer through this seemingly-endless campaign, there is a considerable amount of bad news to contemplate and correct  – and some of it isn’t “news,” just situations, some fairly recent and others that have been with us for quite a long time.

Let’s begin with the length and cost of this election: two years and $4.2 billion.  The rest of the Democratic World (yes, Virginia, there are over 170 democratic countries) manage to hold elections in just six months to a year.  Why can’t we?  They also manage to not spend billions of dollars or euros or whatever currency they use, and the funds raised aren’t largely comprised of “dark money” (unidentified individual and corporate donors) in massive Super Pacs.  These two situations alone hugely undermine the truth/reality of our democracy, let alone its ability to function.  The fact that more than half the country didn’t vote at all is directly tied to these two factors.

The lack of voting can also be attributed to political cynicism and fatigue on the part of the citizenry; the inability of the two parties to agree on facts – which are different from opinions and perceived solutions to problems big and small; the willingness of both parties to fight dirty and outright lie; the hugely disparate methods of voting, from registration to voting to counting the votes; the outrageously blatant voter suppression that went on during this election cycle; the distinction of “important, battleground states” that make many people in and outside those states feel that their votes are meaningless; and, most of all, the existence of the long-outmoded Electoral College.  These issues pose a valid question: given these factors, why should anyone feel obliged to take an active interest in politics, let alone leave the comfort of home to go out and vote?

Last but most assuredly not least is the media – from daily television news coverage to the “debates” to coverage of the results on Election Day.  Let me take these issues in reverse order.

When I was a kid and then a young voter, there was such a thing as “No electioneering near the polls.”  You couldn’t even enter a voting station wearing a political button.  Then, the three major broadcast TV networks (which was all we had) didn’t begin coverage of the results until the West Coast had largely closed its polls.  These practices were designed to not influence voters on Election Day itself and they were sacrosanct.

In this day and age, however, we have 24/7 news channels: three majors (Left, Right and Center) and a few minors.  Their Election Day coverage began at the crack of dawn on Tuesday, which amounts to electronic electioneering near the polls.  This isn’t good; this isn’t right.  We also have legitimate news sources as well as blogs and social media on the (relatively) new-fangled Internet, which operates on its own 24/7 spectrum in the space-time continuum and is governed and controlled by nothing and nobody.  Sounds great in theory, but a lot of Internet power is in the hands of irresponsible, disreputable and self-serving persons and groups.  What can be done about this?  Lastly, we have polls and pundits.  Polls and pundits are nothing new, but we now have a monumental number of them, some of them credible, others not.  Combined, they contribute to the divisiveness and dullness of political information, not to mention a serious blurring of factual news and both informed and uninformed opinion.

As a result of all this, we have daily news coverage that can frequently rot the brain the way sugar causes cavities.  News outlets spend more time on gaffes,  scandals, taking things out of context, and on the political horserace than they do on major issues.  Right now, before President Obama has even been re-inaugurated, much of the media are speculating about the horse races of 2014 and 2016.  This does not help politics or elections seem meaningful; it’s like sport for news/political junkies.  I totally ignore major/minor league athletics because they bore and annoy me.  With this kind of political coverage, why should many citizens feel differently about politics?  Then there are the debates the media moderate and broadcast.  These might be helpful if they truly covered all the important issues of the day.  But they don’t.  They’re rigid, limited and vary in format in a way that does nothing to help bring issues to the fore.  Is this any way to run a railroad?

If indeed America is to remain a democracy and if we’re going to continue to have elections big and small that actually mean something, then we must (no ifs, ands or buts) reform election law from financing to process.  And if we’re going to continue to have 24-hour news cycles (and that’s not likely to change) on TV and online, modern journalism must honestly re-assess its strengths and weaknesses and how they use their time.  Currently, public television (which those who apparently don’t watch it seem to think consists largely of children’s programming; so not true!) and C-SPAN are the only outlets I’m aware of that routinely produce and air a diversity of documentaries and panel discussions on major political issues, both fiscal and social, on a regular, ongoing basis.

So, while I’m glad my guy won, I’m definitely not a happy camper about the dysfunction of political contests and the media that cover them.  Once we manage to not fall off the fiscal cliff that is currently of serious concern, I hope our leaders and our media will make the time to examine and clean up their acts.

Where Are the Moderate Muslims?

We are still just getting a clearer picture of yesterday’s attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three of his staff.  A similar angry, armed mob also attacked the US Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, which resulted in more general destruction, injury, vandalism and demonstrations of Muslim extremist hatred for America.  What we have not seen, as usual, nor are we likely to see, is a swell of protest against these actions from moderate Muslims – not in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, or most important, Muslim-Americans.  Why not?  Where are the Moderate Muslims?

I do not condone the sentiments and often the behavior of those who are Muslim-phobic in this country, and I fully understand that most Muslims worldwide are not extremists engaging in or supporting of terrorism and political violence.  But it becomes increasingly irritating to not see this larger Muslim World stand up to the extremists – the violent, ignorant, bullies – in their ranks.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.  He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

These most recent incidents were apparently set off by an obscure, amateur video that is extremely anti-Islam and, of course, deeply insulting to the Prophet Mohammad.  And as stupid as it may seem to us, the extremists believed the video was a blockbuster Hollywood movie that was going to be released to coincide with the 11^th anniversary of the September 11^th attacks.

According to today’s New York Times:

“The trailer was uploaded to YouTube by Sam Bacile, whom The Wall Street Journal Web site identified as a 52-year old Israeli-American real estate developer in California.  He told the Web site he had raised $5 million from 100 Jewish donors to make the film.  ‘Islam is a cancer,’  Mr. Bacile was quoted as saying.

“The video gained international attention when a Florida pastor began promoting it along with his own proclamation of Sept. 11 as ‘International Judge Muhammad Day.’  In a statement on Tuesday, the pastor, Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., called the film ‘an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam’ and said it ‘further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad’.”

Lest you’ve forgotten, it was Mr. Jones who, a while back, thought threatening to burn a copy of the Koran would be helpful in fighting terrorism and strengthening positive relationships between the US and Muslim nations.

I don’t want to devote too much space to noting that in today’s impossible 24-hour news and politics pace of life and governing, it is regrettable that Gov. Mitt “Foreign Policy is a Distraction” Romney felt both obliged and entitled to immediately criticize the President’s initial response.  After all, in the middle of The Campaign, everything is fair political game for a kick in the balls.  “America First,” indeed.

For the record, Obama’s “objectionable” statement was as follows: “While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.”

No, I want to concentrate on the fact that contemporary, moderate, ordinary-folks-just-like-you-and-me-Muslims have never collectively done anything to disparage the brethren who are making them look bad and are doing nothing to make the world better – in general or for Muslims in particular – with their violence, hatred and, frankly, a complete lack of sense of humor about themselves and what they believe in.

If you really believe in what you say you believe in – whatever that may be – you don’t get crazy every time someone writes a book or draws a cartoon or makes a movie that offends you.  You let it roll off your back at the least, and peacefully protest about it at the most.  And it would also have been nice, in this instance, if the protesters had given the US some slack, given our support of the Arab Spring and our efforts to avert a Libyan genocide.

To his political detriment, President Obama has consistently tried to walk a fine line between improving relations and communication with the Muslim World and maintaining a consistently supportive policy with Israel.  For his efforts, he’s been accused by the radical American Right of being a Muslim; and rejected, even reviled, by American Jews for not doing enough for Israel.  Instead, Obama and the US have been attacked by Muslim extremists who have no understanding of a culture in which ideas are expressed that are not shared by government, religious leaders, or the populace at large.

If the vast majority of Muslims just want to live their lives and practice their religion in peace, they must show some collective gumption and stand up for sanity and order.  If they don’t, the extremists will make it even worse for them, as well as incur reprisals that would otherwise be unnecessary; it will be a self-fulfilled prophecy, realized in large part by those who stood by and did nothing.

Life Without Television

Today begins my sixth day without a working television in my apartment.  I used to have two TVs – a big one in my bedroom (big by 80's standards: modest-sized screen housed in a box the size of an easy chair), and a small one in my kitchen/dining area (small by 90's standards: small screen housed in a box the size of a large microwave).

The bedroom set died about 1½ years ago (it’s still there, because it’s hard to find someone to cart off a 100 lb. relic), and it didn’t bother me much; I’m too old to lay in bed and watch a movie, I doze off fairly immediately.  Besides, I’ve come to view my bedroom as an escape from media, a quiet place to read and think and nap without TV waves seeping into my brain.

But the small TV – which breathed its final breath Saturday night – was my friend and companion.  It kept me company while I cooked, while I ate, paid bills, washed dishes and more.  It brought some of the news of the world up here to the Tower, and comforted me with old movies and comedy and the vast wealth of public television.  I loved it.  I depended on it.  Now it’s dead, still on the small counter it’s been on since 1993, shrouded with a pillowcase, because the sight of it makes me want to reach out to it, but it’s just an empty shell now.

If you’re not a “TV person,” this probably reads like a big So What? to you, but for me, the lack of it intensifies my loneliness.  I miss the news; I missed the last Monday night of “Cutting Edge English Films of the 60s” on Turner Classic Movies; I’ll miss Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday, along with the lineup of Britcoms on PBS.  It’s like someone left town without even saying goodbye.

Fortunately, I was able to order a new TV, a 24” flat screen HDTV (you can’t buy the old kind anymore); should be here by the end of the week and I’ve already arranged for new cable equipment and installation next week.  So I’m not hysterical, just a little impatient and discombobulated.

In fact, I was determined to take this traumatic No TV event in stride.  I dusted off my old boom box and discovered that radio, FM and AM (which I stopped listening to in the 90s), is worse than ever – at least based on the poor reception I get here in the canyons of Manhattan.  Lots of mediocre music, endless talk and news, and a wide assortment of foreign-language stations.  Yuk.  Then I found a box of old cassettes, including a 4-tape set of Garrison Keillor telling Lake Woebegone stories.  That’s been fun.

It’s also been fun surfing more of the Net and discovering that You Tube shows movies.  The free ones are a largely motley assortment (and I won’t pay for the better ones), but I found a few bearable ones.

Mostly I’ve been reading more.  Over the last few years I’ve been reading more in general, but this week’s technical difficulties have increased my hours with books: actual paper books you can hold in your hands, which is how I like them.

But the point of this story – besides conveying the fact that I, a fully-addicted TV person, am handling its absence well – is that I nonetheless can’t wait for the new one to arrive.  I miss my friend and companion.  I miss its distinct sound and vivid pictures, which I hear will be more vivid in high definition, but I’m not sure.

Back in the 90s, before HDTV came to retail, I attended a demonstration of HDTV in the Capitol building in D.C. along with a few hundred other TV pros.  Maybe it was my poor vision, but I couldn’t see any difference whatsoever.  And when I heard it would hit the market for about $2,000 I was incredulous.  Who’s going to pay that kind of money for a television?, I thought.  Just another example of how expertly I have my finger on the pulse of the nation…

That said: while TV may indeed have killed radio (at least FM), the Internet has not and will not kill TV, because TV is “passive,” and because, even in its new form, it’s steady and stable and sits in your home like a combination of furniture and guests, and you don’t have to “interact” with it: you just switch it on and it interacts with you.

I suppose that in the same way, people who are organically attached to their pods and pads and berries feel the same way about their devices.  Many of them grew up with cell phones and beepers and segued happily to all that’s come since.  But I don’t like all those devices.  I don’t like seeing people in the street and on the bus, heads down, tweeting and texting, Facebooking and Kindling and calling, always calling, who knows who or what for.

But TV addicts are no better.  While I quite dislike seeing TVs everywhere: cabs, stores, doctors’ offices, pizza parlors, et al, my home TV is as important to me as a human being.  I know my parents’ generation was hooked on radio and frequent trips to movie theaters where double-bills with newsreels were easily affordable, even during the Depression.  But they were equally hooked on newspapers/magazines and books and musical instruments and conversation and people-watching and quiet thought.  Since we Boomers were born, Americans have been addicted to devices of one kind or another, all based on electricity.  God help us if the juice is ever turned off and all we’re left with is candles and each other.

Separation of Church and State For Real

I want to remind you, dear reader, that I'm an ordained Interfaith Minister of Spiritual Counseling.  It is most particularly in this capacity that I'm deeply troubled by the increasing lack of separation of Church and State.  One’s personal faith, or lack of it, legally and, yes, morally, should have no place in how government or business operate.  Religious fundamentalists, whose political influence is extensive and disturbing, would have citizens and government believe otherwise.  They are legally and, yes, morally, wrong.

Nonetheless, recent presidential elections – most starkly in 2000, but it’s been going on for longer than that – have taken on a dangerous and onerous religious undertone, overtone and shocking role as a necessity in a candidate’s persona and policies.  Regrettably, there is little genuine understanding (by politicians, the public and the press) about the Constitutional proviso for “Separation of Church and State.”

It is ironic that during the 1960 presidential campaign, there was wholesale concern that John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism would play an inappropriately active role in his governmental leadership.  Now, the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction, there is wholesale concern that a leader who does not bring strong personal religious belief to the political table will lead us straight to hell.  How times do change…

This week, President Obama announced that all employer-provided health insurance plans had to pay-in-full for women’s contraception, including those plans offered by secular institutions administered by religious organizations – including the very rich and politically powerful Catholic Church, with its many universities, hospitals and charities.  The Church,  the Republicans, and some members of the media (including a few on the Left) responded as if the President had just ordered the slaughter of all first-born male babies.  The Democrats and others who are presumably Left of Conservative Everything, have, as unfortunately usual, done nothing to present a cohesive rejoinder.

Here is what the First Amendment of the Constitution says about religious freedom: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… (the remainder details all that pesky free speech and free press stuff).  President Obama’s regulation regarding the limits and responsibilities of religious employers who provide health care coverage does nothing that breaks this law.

There is a great piece in today’s New York Times Online “Opinionator” section by Linda Greenhouse entitled “Whose Conscience?” that I earnestly hope you’ll take a look at, since she covers more legal ground and cogent observations than I have room for here.  Suffice it to say, however, that this latest brouhaha over the relationship between government and religion and its impact on all citizens (regardless of their religion or lack of it) brings into uncomfortable relief the fact that there has been far too much overlap for far too long.

As Ms. Greenhouse points out: “The regulation doesn’t require anyone to use birth control.  It exempts any religious employer that primarily hires and serves its own faithful, the same exclusion offered by New York and California from the contraception mandate in state insurance laws…  Permitting Catholic hospitals to withhold contraception coverage from their 765,000 employees would blow a gaping hole in the regulation.  The 629-hospital Catholic health care system is a major and respected health care provider, serving one in every six hospital patients and employing nearly 14 percent of all hospital staff in the country…  These institutions, as well as Catholic universities – not seminaries, but colleges and universities whose doors are open to all – are full participants in the public square…”  In other words, when the Church ventures into the public secular arena, it is obliged to play by public secular rules.

Let’s forget for a moment that numerous statistical sources show that 98% of sexually-active American Catholic women have used contraception at some point in their reproductive lives.  The larger point is that until now, the same insurance companies that routinely pay for men’s erectile dysfunction medication do not pay for women’s contraception, a disconnect that would be laughable if it weren’t so serious and downright discriminatory.

The fact is, all women who want contraception, regardless of the religious strictures of their employers, should be able to get it free of charge.  The alternative is an $800-$1200 out-of-pocket annual expense that is an extreme hardship for many women and therefore a clear path to more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions.  How Church or State can justify this is beyond me.

Democracy In Action, GOP Style

In my opinion, the GOP’s political positions, cultural attitudes and active policies are in likely danger of literally destroying this country.  Currently, this effort is coming very strongly from Speaker John Boehner’s unbelievably deceptive (and so far successful) effort to kill the extensions of cuts in middle-class payroll taxes and much-needed unemployment insurance extensions.

Boehner claims this is because the 60-day extension isn’t long enough; Father Teresa, well known nationwide for his concern for the poor, believes the extension should cover a full year.  And so it should!

But what Boehner and most of the media are not saying – and relying on the politically lazy American public not to notice – is that Boehner’s “generous” year-long-extension counter proposal has as many extraneous rotten policy links tied to it as Jacob Marley’s ghostly chain.

Top among these encumbrances is the ability to con- struct the environmentally-dangerous Keystone oil pipeline.  And, to add a little indignity to his so-called concern for the middle-class, unemployed and elderly, Boehner’s proposal calls for shorter extensions for
unemployment insurance, along with mandatory drug testing to get unemployment insurance at all.

Boehner’s compassionate plan also calls for severely cutting back Medicare payments to medical providers (in addition to such cuts already in place for 2012); and a law that forbids the use of Food Stamp electronic cards in “liquor stores and strip clubs,” since, as everyone knows, countless children are starving because their degenerate caregivers are blowing the food benefits on lap dances.

However, as reprehensible as Santa Boehner’s Clause may be, it can be filed under “21^st century politics s.o.p.”  What is even worse is the GOP’s ongoing, nationwide effort to prevent people from voting in 2012 – specifically, the people most likely to vote for that foreign-born, Muslim/ Socialist, Barack Obama.

This is an issue that should be of great concern to all Americans, regardless of your political beliefs, because what stops the vote for your adversary this time around may stop the vote for you next time around!

For your thorough edification, I’m reprinting the following article (italics are mine), which I dearly hope you will read in full.  Afterwards, I hope you’ll contact U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at the Justice Department and let him know you demand that these voter suppression efforts be stopped (which the DOJ has the power to do).  Here’s the article:

_____________________ 

GOP VOTER SUPPRESSION PLAN: SEVEN TACTICS TO BLOCK YOUR VOTE IN 2012

If you live in a state where voting is becoming tougher, plan ahead to register, to get the right ID and to know where you can vote.

Reprinted from AlterNet, December 20, 2011, by Steven Rosenfeld, who covers democracy issues for AlterNet and is the author of Count My Vote: A Citizen’s Guide to Voting (AlterNet Books, 2008).

If you are a member of a racial minority, student or young voter, working poor, elderly or disabled, your ability to vote may be a lot harder in 2012—especially if you live in states that have a history of racial repression during the Civil Rights Movement.

Simply put, the Republican Party knows which segments of society helped to elect President Obama and other Democrats in 2008, knows tens of millions of these people did not vote in the 2010 midterms, and has worked very hard to stop these people from voting again next year.

   

Their strategy has been simple: raise the barriers by complicating the rules to register to vote, to get a ballot, to vote early or speedily. What follows are seven major trends that will affect you if you live in a state with new rules.

Republicans know that most people do not pay attention to the fine print of election law. They get excited in the final days before presidential votes. But that may not be good enough in 2012.

Whether you are encouraged, discouraged or something in between about the coming presidential season, if you want to vote, look at the trends described below, see if you live in one of these states, and plan ahead: to register, get the right ID, and know where you can vote.  If you don’t, the Republicans may silence your vote and voice.

“Heading into 2012, we are seeing the largest assault on the right to vote since the post-Reconstruction Era,” said Denise Lieberman, senior attorney with Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization.

“This is an unprecedented attack on voting that could affect more than 5 million voters in 2012 in states that represent nearly two-thirds of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Twenty new laws and executive orders in 14 states stand to turn back the clock and make it harder to vote. In 2011, two-thirds of the states introduced legislation that could impede voters and more is on the horizon for 2012.”

Tactic One: Toughen Voter ID Requirements

Before this year, most states allowed voters to use all kinds of identification, even utility bills, to get a ballot. Not anymore. Now a non-expired, state-issued photo ID is needed in eight states: Alabama, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

Looking at 2012, similar bills or ballot measures to toughen ID rules will surface in New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, Maine, Minnesota and Missouri, where legislation already has been filed.

Before 2011, only two states, Georgia and Indiana, prevented voters from casting ballots if they did not have a government-issued photo ID. In 16 mostly southern states with a history of Jim Crow laws, the Justice Department must “pre-clear” or approve any change to voting laws before they can take effect. The ID laws in Alabama, South Carolina and Texas have not yet been cleared.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a major voting rights speech opposing all voter suppression tactics. But the Justice Department has not yet made a determination about these and other new voting laws in “covered” states.  

Here’s why this is such a devious strategy. The GOP knows most Americans have little sympathy for people who lack photo ID.  Polls by Democrats show that. There is a class divide here, where minorities and lower-income people, including students, disproportionately lack state-issued photo IDs. College ID cards are not the same. The GOP also knows that recent presidential elections [have] often come down to very close votes in a handful of states, and many people in those states will want to vote next fall, but will discover they cannot.  

The voting eligible population of Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, which all have new ID laws, is 29 million. Of that, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School has reported that 10.3 percent – or 3.2 million voters – lack a state photo ID. In those states, Lieberman said, the number of voters without the requisite photo ID is larger than the margin of victory in the 2008 presidential or U.S. Senate (Texas) races.

In other words, with one change in law, the GOP will require Democrats and Independents to do “a better job” turning out voters in 2012 than they did in 2008 when electing Obama. 

Tactic Two: Create Hurdles To Get Required ID

It takes time, money, patience and determination to get the required photo IDs. In some states, state budget crises have led to shortening the work weeks at the state agency, notably motor vehicles, or even closing branch offices—such as in Wisconsin, Tennessee and Texas — where people need to go to get the ID.

The ID itself may cost between $10 and $30, but there can be hidden costs if other forms of identification are needed to verify one’s identity and residency necessary to get a state ID. For example, not everybody has a birth certif- icate, marriage license, passport, divorce record or other documents, adding a complicating and time-consuming factor.  

The requirements for secondary IDs, if available, can cost upward of $200 (for naturalization papers, not passports), and 17 states require a photo ID to get a copy of a birth certificate, which by itself can take weeks or months. Many elderly people born at home simply do not have these underlying papers, transportation, or funds to get the required voting ID. These bureaucratic steps amount to a poll tax, a notorious tactic used to stop African Americans and poor whites from voting.    

Tactic Three: Intimidate Voter Registration Groups

The Republican Party knows that the majority of people who register to vote in registration drives tend to be in minority and low-income communities, and are likely to vote for Democrats, if they vote at all. They also know that voter registration drives can be sloppily run, with errors on as many as one-third of all the applications turned in, although local election administrators are well-versed in weeding out bad forms (although they resent the last-minute workloads).

As a result, seven states tried to add new restrictions on groups and their members doing voter registration drives in 2011, and these laws passed in Florida and Texas. The restrictions in these populous states must be pre- cleared by the Justice Department, which has yet to act.

But the impact of these laws—which, in Florida, creates a more rigorous schedule to turn in applications and imposes stiff fines for errors—has already discouraged some groups, such as Florida’s League of Women Voters, from even getting started for 2012. In addition to Florida and Texas, Michigan is also considering legislation to more aggressively regulate the registration drives.

Tactic Four: Try To Eliminate Same-Day Registration

In recent years, states have tried to make the voting process easier—not harder. One of the most convenient ways to help people to vote is to allow them to register at the polls or county offices and then vote.

In 2011, Republicans in Maine and Ohio eliminated same-day regis-tration, although citizen-led organizing overturned the Maine law on Election Day this past November and put a ballot initiative on the November 2012 Ohio ballot, suspending a package of draconian election laws until that vote.  Meanwhile, North Carolina's legislature will consider a bill ending same-day registration next year.   

Another hurdle concerns proof of citizenship. Arizona was the first state to require proof of citizenship to register to vote, but the law has been tied up in court. Meanwhile, bills requiring proof of citizenship passed in 2011 in Kansas, Alabama and Tennessee. Only Alabama's law has to be cleared by the Justice Department, which has yet to act.

Tactic Five: Curtail Early Voting

In recent years, states have also tried to make voting easier for people by creating or expanding the option to vote before the first Tuesday in November. In 2011, five states — Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia—passed laws rolling back early voting options.

Florida’s law reduces early voting from 13 days to seven days. That is potentially very damaging to minority communities, as nearly a third of all Floridians cast early ballots in 2008, with African Americans doing so at twice the rate of whites.  

In Ohio, the law—which has been put on hold by a ballot initiative that will appear in November—would have eliminated voting on the Sunday before Election Day.

In Georgia, the law reduced early voting from 45 days to 21 days; and in Tennessee from 15 days to 13 days. The changes in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee must be pre-cleared before they can be implemented. However, the Justice Department has yet to make its determination in those states. 

Tactic Six: Ban Felons From Voting

Many people remember what the Florida Secretary of State did in 2000 with erroneous lists of convicted felons in her state: she intentionally purged tens of thousands of legal voters, which was one of many factors leading to George W. Bush’s victory in that year’s presidential battleground state. That tactic’s ghost has risen in Florida and Iowa, where governors have issued executive orders either delaying or revoking the rights of former felons to regain their right to vote.

Across America, there are 5.3 million people, dispropor-tionately people of color, who cannot vote because of felony convictions.

Tactic Seven: Bleed Election Administration Budgets

This may be the least-understood and most far-reaching barrier as people try to vote in 2012. Already, tight state budgets have given cover to political decisions in Tennessee, Wisconsin and Texas to limit the operating hours of, or [to] close, the state offices where residents can obtain required photo IDs.

As a result, waiting times in the offices that remain open have grown longer in Tennessee and Wisconsin. In Texas, there are 34 counties with no Department of Public Safety Offices, including four counties where the Hispanic population is more than 75 percent. 

Limiting access to voter-related services before Election Day creates very troubling precedents for Election Day, when longtime polling places might be consolidated and moved with little public notice, or under-staffed by poll workers, who are volunteers — not professional election administrators. In other words, not only do would-be voters in many states have to get their credentials in order, it may take them much longer to vote, because poll workers will have more work to do to process voters.

In Madison, Wisconsin, County Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said the time it will take to process voters next November “has at least doubled.” In Florida, 30 percent of voters in 2008 voted early. If that state’s law stands, cutting the period in half, that means perhaps an additional 15 percent of the states’ voters will have to be processed on Election Day, doubling waiting times at peak hours. Meanwhile, as states have to spend millions to produce new voter identification documents, that will cut into promotional messages alerting voters about changes in the process.

And Where Is Obama’s Justice Department?

The biggest variable that may curtail or blunt these various voter suppression tactics is [the] Justice Department taking any number of steps to reject laws limiting or complicating the right to vote in the 16 states covered by the federal Voting Rights Act—which are mostly in the Old South. Attorney General Eric Holder gave a major speech last week in Texas where he criticized the laws aimed at discouraging voters and suppressing votes.  

However, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under Obama has not been very assertive in protecting voting rights. In its first two years, it filed fewer lawsuits than the administration of George W. Bush. While it has the power under the Voting Rights Act to reject many of the draconian laws passed by some of the biggest states — notably Texas and Florida—it has yet to do so and the 2012 political season is about to begin. 

“The Justice Department plays a very important role,” said Advancement Project’s Lieberman. “Not only are they required to clear new voting laws in states that are subject to this pre-clearance requirement, generally 16 states in the South, but they also have the ability to bring affirmative lawsuits in any state under Section Two of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits laws that have a discriminatory impact on voting. They can also intervene in other lawsuits alleging Constitutional violations.” 

The attorney general’s speech last week decried many of the new hurdles to voting. But civil rights lawyers want action—not words—and are nervous about the Depart- ment’s reticence to act. Last week, the Advancement Project delivered 120,000 petitions to Attorney General Holder urging the DOJ to do just that: enforce these federal voting laws.  

In the meantime, the very people targeted by Republicans—racial minorities, young voters, the working poor, the elderly and people with disabilities—should not take any chances. They should get their identity papers in order, be sure to register before state deadlines, and look for online tools to find polling places. In other words, they need to know and assert their voting rights, because the system may not help them in 2012.