Thursday, July 7, 2005

Okay, Okay...

It's governor GEORGE Pataki and mayor MICHAEL Bloomberg. Michael Pataki is an actor. Come to think of it, so are the governor and the mayor.

• Posted at 1:01 PM · LINK

One More Thought...

I was switching back and forth between CNN, MSNBC and Fox News as I watched the early reports on the London bombing. For a long time on (I think) CNN, what was on my screen was news coverage by Britishers, originating in England. It was restrained, informative and focused on what had actually happened.

At some point, the broadcast switched over to American control and, boy, was there a difference. First of all, we suddenly got an avalanche of speculation: Were these suicide bombers? What else might happen? What message were they sending? And most importantly, what does it mean to US? The topic was not that London had been attacked but that America was scurrying to prepare, just in case we are. New York governor Michael Pataki was suddenly on all channels to assure people that although there was no reason to suspect Manhattan was about to be attacked, everything was being done to be ready. (Uh, there was no reason yesterday to suspect Manhattan was about to be attacked. If all this stuff has to be done today, why didn't it have to be done then?)

I switched over to BBC America to watch their reporting. Much better in every way. For one thing, it was actually about what had happened to the people who were attacked.

• Posted at 10:41 AM · LINK

London

It's not enough to say that this morning's bombings are horrible, tragic, sad, fill in the description of your choice. They're talking about 33 dead and more than 45 injured...but obviously, the damage goes far beyond that.

On my TV, news folks and government officials, both here and in Great Britain, seem to be asking people to juggle a number of different thoughts...

• There is no hard evidence as to who did this and it would be irresponsible to speculate and assume it was Al Qeada.
• Nevertheless, it was Al Qeada.
• London authorities had no advance word of these bombings.
• It was inevitable that something like this would happen there, sooner or later.
• There is no cause of panic here in the United States since we have no indications of any such plotting here.
• Nevertheless, be especially vigilant, though we can't say about what.
• And by the way, we're raising the Terror Alert to orange in some areas.
• You know, it's almost impossible to prevent this kind of thing.

For some reason, CNN keeps running a crawl that says, "Police Chief: Concerned this was a co-ordinated attack." Like it would be a relief to know that all these bombs exploding at roughly the same time and in the same place was a coincidence.

• Posted at 8:49 AM · LINK

In Case You Were Wondering...

Just how much is the Iraq war costing us? (And this is just in terms of money.)

• Posted at 12:58 AM · LINK

Norm Prescott, R.I.P.

Norm Prescott has died at the age of 78. A former disc jockey (he worked alongside Bob & Ray at WHDH in Boston, among other gigs), Prescott moved to Hollywood and into film production. In 1962, he partnered with Hal Sutherland and Lou Scheimer to form Filmation Studios, which produced hundreds of episodes of animated TV shows — including Superman, Fat Albert, Masters of the Universe, the animated Star Trek and various and sundry Archie shows — and even a number of live-action series before it closed down in 1989. Here's a list of them. Norm's smooth radio voice did not go to waste, as he could be heard speaking for characters in almost every Filmation show and often functioning as announcer/narrator.

In the above photo, Prescott is the gentleman at left, Sutherland is in the center and Scheimer's on the right. Here's a link to the only obit I was able to find online.

• Posted at 12:00 AM · LINK