Keith Olbermann Says Goodbye

I was caught by surprise Friday by Keith Olbermann's departure from MSNBC, as, I suspect, were many.

I'm not a student of ratings, so I have no idea how his show was doing, but as Howard Stern said about Doug Trachte, the Greaseman, when Trachte was fired from radio for racist statements, "If his ratings were better, they wouldn't have let him go."

So true.

Economics, ultimately, rule the commercial airwaves. It doesn't really matter how tasteless you are (and Keith always struck me as somewhat tasteful: the beautifully tailored suits, the $100.00 haircut), it only matters how much money you are making for your sponsors and your network.

I liked Keith's show at times. Of course it was unbalanced. Keith never claimed to be the voice of reason. If you want to hear that voice, tune in Rachel Maddow, whose show is probably the smartest on TV, besides NOVA.

Conservative pundits have a curious set of rules that govern what they can say. Even as he presents himself as a guardian of "family values" (whatever that means), Rush Limbaugh can mock Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease symptoms with total impunity.

Frankly, there's not enough liberals mocking anything these days as far as I'm concerned. Liberals are so afraid of offending some group or another that there's very little wiggle room for them to be pissed off publicly, but Keith managed to find that room and glory in it.

When Keith did get pissed off, he was very good at saying why he was pissed off. Interestingly, in the clip above he compares himself to Howard Beale, the "Mad as hell..." character in Paddy Chayevsky's script for the movie Network. But he never seemed quite that angry.

I recently read Roger Kahn's biography of Jack Dempsey. Kahn spends a lot of time writing about himself and his father and the times in which Dempsey thrived. Kahn is a sportswriter first and foremost, but he's a New Deal guy and he makes sure you know it.

That's how sports commentator and sports buff Keith Olbermann ran his show- like a sports writer. Not like a sports show (how much stupider can they get? The only worthwhile sports show is John Riggins', and that's because he hates Dan Snyder as much as I do, and says so), but like a classic Damon Runyun-eque sports column, the kind Philip Roth parodied so deftly in The Great American Novel.

So, I'm going to miss Keith. His labored attempts at humor (really, really dry), his liberal outrage (never that outrageous), the cut of his jib (whatever that means.) In these insipid, depressing times, Keith was refreshing. Not incredibly refreshing, just... refreshing. And now that's gone too.

A Shameless Plug

Is there any other kind?

I'm shamelessly plugging my photography blog, as opposed to my online portfolio, www.littlehales.com.

I've been able to put up a picture a day recently, most of them shot with my Canon G11 point and shoot, a lovely camera that I highly recommend.

So far, so good, except no one knows about the site, so no one goes there. In droves.

Give it a try- the link is under the words "photography blog" and please let me know if you like it or hate it. Or in between.

At the Doctors' Office:

©2011 Breton Littlehales

Blogging Tips and Tricks

One of the first things I learned about maintaining a blog is that you have to keep blogging on a fairly regular basis. If I go to someone else's blog and see that the last entry was sometime in 2007, then I lose all respect for that blogger. That's right- all respect. Blogging is a very respectable past time.

However, because my blog does not detail my adventures with, say, my grandchildren or what I did today, I often run out of things to say in the context of the blog. In real life I just talk and talk, loudly, until everyone begs me to shut up.

What to do?

Here's a few tricks I've developed over the last year and a half:

1. Watch some pundit on television passing themselves off as an intelligent objective observer of current events. Fox News is is a sure thing. This usually makes me so angry that I'll write an ill- reasoned diatribe.

2. Check dates for birthdays. Especially musician's birthdays. This is very different from actually planning to write something on their birthdays, which I rarely do.

3. There are other blogs where someone else has done a lot of work or research and found some cool pic or video. Just re-publish (with credit of course) and there's your blog!

4. Make a list. Number it.

There you have it: four short blogging tricks. I'm sure other bloggers have their own shortcuts, but these are mine and I'm passing them to you, gentle reader. Blog on!

Finally, in the spirit of tip # 3, here's a very sweet pic from the great If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats:

Here's Willie Dixon, Big Joe Williams and Memphis Slim sharing a laugh on the streets  of Chicago. This is one of those photographs where I wish I had been there,  a cosmic snapshot of three icons doing something they probably did everyday at that point of time.  

After this all three would go their separate ways, Dixon back to the Chess Studios to record some future classic, Big Joe back down south to continue his career as the definitive itinerant nine-string- guitar- welding blues man and Memphis Slim ultimately to Paris where he lived out his life playing nightly in a high- priced bistro.

Luckily for us, on that day in Chicago, someone made this snapshot: Joe with his briefcase and champion belt- buckle, his hat at a rakish tilt and a lit cigarette in his left hand, Willie with his skinny tie and perennial white socks and Slim wearing his  elegant slip-on loafers and wrinkled raincoat. 

Compare their nonchalance with the uptight guy in the background and you realize immediately why it's better to be a great bluesman than to be almost anything else.

New Orleans Panoramic

New Orleans Panoramic, 1919

  





The street in the approximate middle running toward the water is Canal  and we're looking toward the Mississippi River, visible on the horizon.

Storyville, although closed by 1919, still physically existed and can be seen on the left, near the Regency Shoes' smokestack. The railroad was still there in 1919, on Basin Street. Tom Anderson's Saloon can be seen on the corner of Basin and Iberville.

Most of the French Quarter is obscured by the large white building at the middle left. Maison Blanche's sign can be seen in the background through the building.

Oddly enough, New Orleans still looks a lot like this.

This image is from the Library of Congress collection, and was photographed by George Prince.

Welcome to 2011 or Not, and the Special K Challenge

When we last communicated, gentle readers, it was atop the London Eye with its sweeping view of that great city. Or was it the DC Eye, with its graceful panorama of the Potomac and the monuments?

Well, now it's 2011 and time to get back to the business at hand, whatever that may be. For me, it's photography and music, neither of which will make me a millionaire, but who wants to be a millionaire. I do, of course, we all do. However, short of going on a quiz show (probably rigged) or winning a lottery (need to buy a ticket), it ain't gonna happen.

As I write this, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords lies in critical condition, the result of a terrible shooting incident that left a little girl dead, as well as Rep. Gifford's Chief of Staff and others. In custody is a man of questionable mental stabilty. Representative Giffords had been literally targeted by Sarah Palin in a map advising her followers how to vote.

Needless to say, the media is having a field day trying to implicate Ms. Palin (who has taken the target map off of her website) in the shooting.

Her staff has referred to the crosshairs as "surveyor's marks", which makes about as much sense as heaping all the blame for this tragedy on a misguided, ex-beauty pageant participant from Alaska with a penchant for flamboyant opportunism somewhere between, say, Roseanne in the '80's and Paris Hilton in the '00's. (The zeros? Can we call it that?)

According to the more responsible members of the press, the suspect is extremely delusional. Even David Korn of Mother Jones pointed this out on Keith Olbermann's show, until Keith cut him off.

Can we blame Sarah Palin for any of this? Sure, if we want to grossly oversimplify the situation. Certainly if the shoe were on the other foot, Sarah Palin would blame the President, the Democrats and the "liberal media" and anyone else who might help her make more money.

However, as in all of life, it's more complicated than anyone on television would care to admit. I mean, it's not impossibly complicated, like string theory, it's just more complicated than a sound bite or a movie pitch.

Ultimately, one hopes that instead of pointing fingers, which is fun, we begin to rebuild the informational structure and think more for ourselves, which is not as much fun. We need to access more real information, as opposed to weighted opinion dressed as objective reporting, and make up our own minds. Our opinions are just as valid as anyone's in the media- we have access to the same information as radio/ television personalities, although not as quickly, and are still allowed to come to our own conclusions.

Remember- Sarah Palin is a former politician. She is not an office holder of any kind. She is not in service to this country in any way. She, like Paris Hilton, is a media construct, a personality exploiting a broken system in order to accrue lots and lots of wealth and fame. Unlike Paris, who charged money to go to private parties, Sarah goes to all the parties with a figurative sign around her neck: "Look at me!" it says. "Hel-lo!"

Now, the Special K Challenge: my daughter Emilie writes a blog listed to the left there called I Came to Run.  She does run, every day, and has participated in marathons and other endeavors that make me tired just typing about them. Recently, she wrote a perspicacious (yeah, I said it!) entry about the Special K Challenge. The blog was picked up by Jezebel and has garnered over ten thousand hits on Emilie's blogsite.

I could reprint it here, and spike up my own readership, but instead let's get more folks to Emilie's original entry, found here.

Instead of taking the Kelloggs folks' word for it, she researched their so- called challenge, added up the facts and wrote about her own conclusions and the research behind those conclusions.

Need I say more?

Note: Since I wrote this, I've heard that Ms. Palin has not removed her target from her Facebook page.

The London Eye

The Ferris Wheel made its debut at The Chicago World's Fair (or World's Columbian Exposition) in 1893. Since then it has been a mainstay of amusement parks and county fairs all over the world. One would think that the Ferris Wheel, named after its inventor, George Ferris, would be passe- certainly not an earth- shattering attraction or an economical revitalizer. I mean, hey- it just goes round and round, right? Like a vertical Merry- Go- Round, right?

George Ferris's Original Wheel, Chicago, 1893.

Well, yeah, but....

Let's not forget the power of the wheel. The original Ferris Wheel saved the Chicago Fair from bankruptcy, despite the fact that there were hundreds of incredible exhibits there, as well as an advanced architectural concept that still fascinates today.

Which brings us to 2010, on the eve of 2011, and the London Eye. The Eye is a modern- day Ferris Wheel, the creation of husband/ wife architectural team David Marks and Julia Barfield. Begun in 1999, it opened in 2000 as the Millennium Wheel, under the primary aegis of British Airways. Soon after it became known as the London Eye.

Situated on the Thames, the Eye has become the United Kingdom's biggest tourist attraction. It has changed the landscape of London, and is a major focal point for movies and TV shows. Thirty two air-conditioned (and presumably heated) capsules hold twenty- five people each. The Eye revolves slowly and apparently, doesn't stop as people get on on and off.

The capsule, which comfortably holds twenty-five

I don't know about you, but I find this amazing. In 2011, the number one attraction in Great Britain is a Ferris Wheel. Never mind the Tower of London or the changing of the guard or the Queen's Dollhouse or Abbey Road or whatever- let's go to the Ferris Wheel, which uses no new technology (unless you think air conditioning is new) and has been around since 1893.

So- how come there aren't more? One reason is that the Eye has not yet turned (get it?) a profit. Patience, Eye- watchers- it will!

Here in Washington, DC, we have a beautiful river, the Potomac. Some of the most famous sites of the city are on or near the river: the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Smithsonian, not to mention Arlington Cemetary and the Pentagon.

There's a great park, Haines Point, right there, on the river! Perfect location for the DC Eye. The city is always whining about revenue- let's build an Eye! A sultry summer's evening, a stroll to the park and a ride on the DC Eye.

I can't wait.

Okay- I know it's DC, the home of nothing (except the government- so, close to nothing), the city well- known as the enemy of creativity, graciousness, beauty, etc. but this seems like a no- brainer, even for the morons who run this town. As long as we can keep the Dan Snyders and their ilk out, we could probably get it right within, oh- a good ten or so tries, including bankrupt construction companies, graft, greedy lawyers, corporate indifference, unpaid bills and shoddy construction.

Seriously- the Eye has it!

A Really Good Question Deserves a Really Good Answer

From Super Magician Comics #3:

This one's for the Freeland- Archers (not their real name).