Rocco saves the day; consumers pay the way

Tonight was supposed to be the night when Sinclair Broadcast Group pulled the plug on Mediacom’s right to broadcast 22 of its television stations, including the CBS affiliate in Cedar Rapids. Today’s newspaper even included a how-to guide for people to obtain the channel over the air and the cable giant began issuing free antennae to its customers.

Then came word from Mediacom Chairman and CEO Rocco B. Commisso (not an alias, I swear) that he has offered Sinclair 33 percent more money to resolve the ongoing dispute over compensation for carrying its stations. Commisso said the latest offer included several options for Sinclair, including a deal that is more than double the average compensation Sinclair gets for rebroadcasting its signal from any other satellite or cable provider.

A few hours later, Sinclair reached an agreement with Mediacom to delay disconnecting its stations from the dominant cable TV provider in Iowa until Jan. 5 while negotiations continue.

Affected markets include Des Moines and Cedar Rapids in Iowa; Minneapolis; Nashville, Tenn.; Birmingham, Ala; and St. Louis, among others. Subscribers in 16 markets may lose one or two local stations each.

For the time being, anyway, local Mediacom customers will continue to receive NFL games broadcast on CBS, Iowa Hawkeye basketball, “The Amazing Race,” “Late Night With David Letterman,” all those CSI shows and, come Dec. 29, the Brut Sun Bowl.

I walked away from the dispute when I purchased a high definition antenna – thus not rewarding Sinclair nor punishing Mediacom. To my surprise, the antenna pulls in all of my local channels, including CBS, and also their HD signals. I wasn’t able to get CBS HD through Mediacom, but can through the antenna.

So why do I care? Because, ultimately, this is a consumer pocketbook issue. If Mediacom buckles to Sinclair’s demands – and it appears they have – who do you think will foot the bill? Not Rocco.

Not so suburban after all

And now, the exception to Lonnie's rule:


I don't live in a particularly small town. There's a university, an actual, functional downtown with an infamous courthouse, gracious old homes and interchangeable McMansions, and an increasingly alarming number of big box stores. I don't live particularly far out on the prairie, either. It's barely 20 miles from my house to the Arch. But I do live in a place where a subdivison is named Burns Farm because, not all that long ago, it actually was the Burns family farm. And, apparently, I also live in a place where, sometimes, there's a cow at the Home Depot.

So, there you go, all my coastal friends. All your suspicions confirmed!

My yin to her yang

It was probably predictable, but a pattern has developed in the few short weeks since this blog was launched. Perhaps you've noticed.

Allison is the good cop, I'm the bad cop. I'm the yin, she's the yang. Her posts are almost always insightful, thoughtful and well-written. (See "No day like a snow day," "A dilemma," "What the future holds," "Already Merry" and "A Thanksgiving Miracle," just to name a few.) My posts are almost always snarky, curmudgeonly, sinister and/or offensive. (See "Borat -- must see entertainment," "Holiday humbug" and "Mediacom vs. Sinclair -- which evil is the lesser?")

There's nothing wrong with this, mind you. It's just the way it is. And, perhaps, an accurate representation of who we really are. Hopefully, that combination will find an audience. If not, no big deal. We're having fun, which is all that really matters.

But if, by chance, something on this blog inspires someone -- anyone! -- to think, to laugh (see Borat or "Happy Thanksgiving America"), to get angry, to be entertained, to act or, most of all, to POST A COMMENT!, Allison will be thrilled. I, of course, couldn't give a damn.

No day like a snow day

If this isn't life in the Midwest, I don't know what is.

As I write this, around 5 o'clock Wednesday, it's 68 degrees and humid. By this time tomorrow, if the forecast holds--and for the sake of my topic, let's throw the weather guy a bone and assume that it will--it'll be 28 degrees. What kind of weather will accompany this forty degree drop? All of it! Rain, thunderstorms, freezing rain, sleet, ice, and snow are each expected. Considering that even the normally conservative weather service is guesstimating 6-10 inches of snow, it seems a safe bet that the shovels and de-icer will be making their first appearances of the season before the weekend. It's not even December! Hey Al, are we SURE about this global warming thing?

The upside, of course, is the magic phrase that dances through my head any time the forecast gets wintry: snow day! They might kick me out of the NEA for admitting it, but I'm not ashamed to say that sometimes there is no joy like snow day joy. It's just as good as you remember. Of course, these days, clicking the list on a local station's website has replaced intently listening to the radio. Instead of being frozen in place lest I miss my district's name among all those Catholic schools that seemed to close at the first sign of a flake, I sit in the dark and reload the page. The anticipation, however, is the same.

Sure, in the light of day, the screwed up schedules can be a pain, and when Madison's school closes and mine doesn't my mood is significantly darker as we scramble to plan the day, but the moment we both hit the closed-school jackpot is a pure pleasure rare in the grown-up world. Whatever responsibilities I had that day, I can't complete, and it's not my fault; the weight of daily life is lifted. Maybe I'll do something productive later, use the bonus time to catch up or get ahead. Hey, it could happen. But first I get to go play early-morning Santa Claus and whisper "snow day!" to Madison before jumping right back into bed as those with less fortuitous career choices scrape windshields and shovel drives. Snow day! May we all have one sometime.

Kazakhstan National Anthem

A scene from "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"

Very nice!

To Do List

The first order of business today is to move that Borat picture far enough down the page that I don’t have to look at it again. I’m not saying it’s not funny; I’m saying, “Oh, my eyes!”

How to achieve this important goal? If only I had a flight suit, I’d resurrect the classic strategery of declaring that my mission is already accomplished before it's even begun. I hate to imitate anything that guy has done, but at least I wouldn't really be stooping to his level: by the time I finished explaining that my mission was accomplished, it actually would be.

Borat -- must see entertainment

My wife was surprised I didn't write more about “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” so I will. It's funny. It's laugh-out-loud, pee-your-pants-a-little funny. Some people have taken offense, and I can understand that in the truth-hurts sort of way. Mostly, I feel the film is an equal opportunity offender. By that I mean, it plays no favorites. Everyone, especially if they're looking, can find something in it that offends them. I'm not like that. Apparently Kid Rock is. NIIICCCEEE!

WWJDecorate?

So, the Colorado peace-wreath story is over, with the head wingnut apparently deciding his principles aren't really worth the publicity. Unchanged, however, is the fact that we share our world with people determined to find Satan under every evergreen needle and with people who choose to be offended by PEACE . Somebody is going to have to hold my hand, speak slowly, and explain how this way of thinking works, because otherwise I am never going to get it.

Congratulations to visitor #250

Which I think was me. If not, it was Allison. Either way, congrats!

A dilemma

[Monday night! Packers! Snow! Favre! . . .Dang.
Sorry, Lonnie. Want a cookie?]

The annual ritual is over, or nearly. The weeks in which the family room is overtaken with overpriced yet strangely popular boxes have virtually come to an end, and our regular clutter has resumed its accustomed place. You know those boxes--the colorful ones decorated with peppy slogans and pictures of multicultural groups of girls achieving or bonding or at least posing in front of some wholesome yet non-traditional activity. Boxes of cookies: the Girl Scout kind.

Compared to previous years, this one wasn't too bad. No one dropped more than $500 of cookie money on a dark, windswept porch and walked away without realizing it*, for one thing. And no one got hives from eating six boxes of Thin Mints*, either. Other than the personal fortitude it took for me to not sell 13 boxes myself to reach the goal the actual Girl Scout in the house clearly wasn't interested in, and the tediousness of the counting and sorting, and, how can I forget, the long-term stakeout that was required to determine where the heck the door to that gray house is now that they added that garage, it was painless.

But today we still possess three boxes of cookies that aren't ours, and I'm not sure what to do. Well, technically, they are ours, as they were covered in the giant check I wrote to the Girl Scouts a few weeks back, but we didn't order them. We've tried to deliver several times, but no one has ever answered the door, and no one has ever returned the message I left asking when would be a good time to try again. Personally, if I were pressured into ordering cookies from an unfamiliar yet charming 9 year old, I wouldn't be too sad if no one ever showed up to collect, but I have visions (small, vague, non-threating visions, but visions nonetheless) of my daughter being branded as the Girl Scout who Didn't Deliver, and I hesitate. Do I post a last chance note on the door? Sell them to the aunt who called dibs? Have a snack? The debate continues. On the other hand, if we deliberate just a little longer, we can wrap them up, leave them on the porch, and call it an anonymous holiday gift. I bet there's even a badge in that.

*Madison, 2005
*Allison, 1975



girl scout cookies

Holiday humbug

I don’t mean to be a Scrooge, although my kids will tell you I have those tendencies, but the Thanksgiving holiday didn’t exactly put me in the Christmas spirit.

Sure, our outside lights are up, but only because my wife and daughter took matters into their own hands. Our tree isn’t up because we still insist on a real evergreen and don’t want to tempt a fire by getting it too early.

My mood has been in steady decline since Thursday, when we gathered with my family at the home of one of my sisters. Now I don’t claim any right to tell anyone how to run their household, but “take off your shoes and come in” doesn’t exactly sound like “you’re welcome here” to me. All of my sisters are inflicted with this shoe phobia, even though most of them have hardwood floors or tile.

What’s worse is the Thanksgiving sister has a dog that is allowed his run of the place, including any furniture and people within it. I love dogs, especially my own, but I don’t believe in treating them better than people, let alone relatives.

So we survived Thanksgiving and the dry oven roasted turkey – once you’ve had deep fried turkey, nothing else compares – and I looked forward to celebrating National Sleep-In Day, known to many as Black Friday. Until the phone rang and I was notified that the neighborhood arts center where I devote considerable community service was vandalized.

The center is located in a fairly rough neighborhood that I also call home. Historically, the center has been spared violence, I liked to believe, because the residents believed in our mission and supported the good things we were trying to accomplish for the neighborhood. That notion was shattered with one glass bottle thrown through one of four large, double-paned picture windows. So I spent Friday cleaning up broken glass and boarding up a window in a neighborhood that already has far too many boarded windows.

Saturday I ventured out to the Bull's Eye Boutique, primarily because I wanted some of their yummy rotisserie chicken salad. Alas, the deli I have come to love was gone, replaced by refrigerated shelves of pre-packaged deli items, including the aforementioned chicken salad in half-pound and pound containers. I don’t consider this progress and leave with my craving unsatisfied and my confidence in humanity declining.

The day ended on a high note, though, as I went to see “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”. My one word review: Brilliant! I have never laughed so hard. Go see it, unless you’re easily offended, in which case you should get over yourself first.

Next came Sunday, the best day of the week for fantasy football players. Unfortunately, I hitched my wagon to Eli Manning and the New York Giants. As a result, I lost my seventh game and have been eliminated from playoff consideration. My 14th season will end like all the others, with me presenting a trophy to someone else.

So I look forward to Monday and returning to work. At least I have a job to return to, unlike my Minnesota friend, a part-time copy editor at a once-respectable newspaper. The new owners have put their stamp on the place by firing all part-time employees as of Dec. 1. Merry Christmas!

At least I have the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football to look forward to. Or do I?

What the future holds

World peace is more important than dancing carrots!"

So said my daughter, reacting to the Thanksgiving drama she was in last week. The program included the obligatory salute to the troops, and Madison was both touched at the reminder of war and fearful that the grownups, as we so often do, were missing the point. "Sometimes, she said, "it feels like that war will never end."

For the record, there were no dancing carrots, but that girl does have a way with words. She also has a sensitive spirit, one that can be moved to tears by pollution-spewing smokestacks. She is equally offended by the destruction of the rainforest and the moments of injustice she sees in her small but growing world. With all the wrongs she perceives, it wouldn't be hard to be overwhelmed, and sometimes I worry that she will be. If she can channel her strong feelings, though, she'll be a force.

How to help her preserve her soft-hearted nature yet be resilient enough to cope with the world and strong enough to change it? I try, but I'm not sure I know; growing up so often seems to mean growing jaded, and people who don't engage don't act. It's typical, but telling, that the headlines that tabulate the deaths in Iraq barely make me blanch. It takes a striking atrocity, like six Sunnis being burned alive in Baghdad, to really make an impression. No good can come of being inured to stories--realities--like that, and no good can come of ignoring them because they're "too much." That it's too much for anyone to deal with is exactly the point! Real people are dealing with it every day; the rest of us have no right to claim "war fatigue" and tune it out.

Incalculable damage has been done, but the decisions that determine how long that damage will last and how far it will spread have yet to be made. Perhaps, if we pay attention, the result will be slightly less terrible than it could be. The world will hold plenty of messes for my daughter and her generation to clean up; let's hope this isn't one of them.

Iraq war

Already Merry

Our tree is up.

Christmas is more than a month away, it's 70 degrees and sunny, the yard is still full of leaves and a stray Halloween ghost that I haven't bothered to snag from an upper branch of the maple, and our Christmas tree is up.

I blame my mother.

Because I spent my entire childhood decorating the Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving, putting the tree up that early is one of our few irrational, inviolate holiday traditions. Our moods and our schedules don't matter at all; the calendar leads and we follow. For a week or so, that tree will surprise me every time I walk into the living room, some alien evergreen that's landed in the wrong season.

Why bother? My daughter is already indoctrinated; it's her tradition, her memories we're making now. Better to go along and listen to her sing Jingle Bells than create the memory of The Year Christmas Was Late and It Was All Mom's Fault.

Thanksgiving is over. The tree goes up. That's what we do.

A Thanksgiving Miracle

I'm shocked. It's Thanksgiving Day and not a single animated angel has appeared in my inbox to remind me to thank Dear Leader for protecting us from the heathens. I've received no bad poetry about soaring eagles and the innate superiority of America. Not one chain letter warning me that if I don't eat my share of factory-farmed turkey the terrorists will have won.

Either those filters are working or a certain faction of relatives has finally given up on me. And wouldn't that be something to be thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving America

Thanksgiving
America
YouTube

Mediacom vs. Sinclair -- which evil is the lesser?

I haven’t quite been able to figure whose side to take in the current standoff between Mediacom and Sinclair Broadcast Group. I have the great misfortune to be a Mediacom cable customer in a television market with a Sinclair-owned CBS affiliate.

Faced with the impending loss of CBS – home to The Amazing Race, Late Night With David Letterman, NFL broadcasts and (gulp) Super Bowl XLI – I’ve devoted far too much time investigating satellite television providers. I’ve compared DirecTV, which Sinclair suggests for Mediacom customers, with Dish Network.

My conclusion is that Dish would be slightly cheaper than DirecTV. Both offer NFL Network, which has exclusive broadcast rights to eight games beginning on Thanksgiving, which Mediacom does not. Only DirecTV has the NFL Sunday Ticket, but do I really need to spend $240 for the ability to see every NFL game when all I really care about is seeing the Green Bay Packers? (Rhetorical question.)

Neither Dish or DirecTV can compete with cable in a household with seven TVs, all of which need to operate independently of the others. (I’m guessing 1.75 TVs per person puts me on the high side, even in the good old USA.)

With my mind still not made up about which direction to go or not go, I marched into the local Best Buy looking for answers. Voila! For a mere $53, I walked out with a high definition antenna that pulls in all of my local channels, including CBS, and also their HD signals, which Mediacom doesn’t.

So my problem is solved, for the most part, but now I have another quandry. Why is Sinclair pushing Mediacom customers to switch to DirecTV when all they need is an auxiliary antenna to pull in the local channels Mediacom will soon drop? And why doesn’t Mediacom fight back with the same argument?

It seems neither is acting in good faith or in the best interests of its viewers as they wage their high-profile pissing match. It makes me want to pull the plug on both of them – but not until after the Super Bowl.

Time in a bottle?

Funny how the first weeks of this little project have resurrected so many memories, from felonious coworkers to former golden boys. I had long since put OJ out of my mind, but I now recall gathering around a radio in the Green Bay offices of a cheese company to hear the verdict. (Where else could one work in Wisconsin?) A few weeks later, I left that job in order to move to Iowa, and I can still hear the straightforward Texas twang of one of the R&D guys as he told me to have a nice life since he’d never see me again. The secretaries thought that was cold, but it was certainly true. Life goes on.

Sometimes I play a kind of mental chicken, daring myself to calculate how many years ago something happened, seeing how far back I can go without having a stroke. Part of that comes from hanging out with high school kids all day; prying questions are part of the mutual anthropology project we seem to be engaged in. The students assume that I envy them and try to spook themselves by imagining the someday when they’ll be “old”. They don’t realize what we have in common, that in twenty years they may still be playing games with chronology just to see how it feels.

Most of the time, once the shock fades, I'd say it feels pretty good. An accountant friend of mine is not a fan of my little word problems; maybe she takes the numbers more literally than I. Cold calculations that imply too much about mortality and not enough about memory unnerve me as much as anyone. I'm ever on a quest for a cosmic pause button that would allow us to add experiences without subtracting time. As symbols of what matters, though, these figures are pretty satisfying: I’ve known my best friend for nearly 19 years. I’ve been married for 14. A friend to my collaborator here for 10. A mother for more than 9. I like what numbers like that stand for, and I know that's another thing I understand that the teenagers don't. Why would I wish to be younger if it would wipe all that away?

PS: Beloit College's annual Mindset List provides a good reminder of how or why young people may think or act differently than older folks like Lonnie.

Beloit College
Mindset List

Worst Hollywood Production Ever

Forget "if he did." Why do we care?

Exhale America. Mediamaniac Rupert Murdoch has squelched plans for double-murdering NFL Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson’s book and Faux television special.

Whew!

Talk about your must-see TV. You mean a man found “not guilty” is going on TV to say how he would have committed a crime, if he had? What a bizarre twist on the usual guilty-guy-claims-innocence theme. Credit Faux for at least trying to give the viewers something different.

“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” Murdoch said. “We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”

“But you’re not sorry about the publicity the whole matter has brought to your evil empire,” I added.

They must have had producers of Cops spinning in their graves, if they were dead. What they forgot are the two people who ARE dead. I can’t fathom how any credible network – or Faux even – could think this was a good idea.

I won’t belabor the point. It’s covered extensively at The Huffington Post and elsewhere. But “The Juice” – and I don’t mean alcohol – changed my life – and I don’t mean for the better – with his heinous crime. For months that seemed like weeks and were probably actually years, I was glued to the TV. I couldn’t get enough of Geraldo Rivera!

The thought of it makes me sick. I need to take a shower now.

murderer
mediamaniac
Evil Empire
Geraldo

Monday nights on NBC

Am I a good liberal if the mere sound of Aaron Sorkin dialogue sends me running from the room? I can remember speeding home from a night class to watch The West Wing, back when it was good, but I have no patience for this new version of the Hollywood Sermon on the Mount. I'd much rather spend my time with a self-regenerating cheerleader, the Japanese guy who bends space and time, and the only corrupt Republican who has ever charmed me. Escapism much?

Oh, and speaking of NBC, does anyone share my pain that the complete DVD set of Homicide: Life on the Street has been released for a list price of THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS? Sure, it's 35 DVDs, and sure, I'd never watch them all. But, man, I'd love to have it sitting next to the other TV DVDs I never watch. Best. show. ever.


Aaron Sorkin Heroes Homicide: LOTS