Category Archives: To Be Filed

Greg Eckler notes…

A decade ago there were nine daytime soaps and now there are four, and at least two of those are clinging to life. I think that largely explains the lack of interest.

I think it explains a certain amount of it…but people are watching something on Daytime TV. They're not watching soaps, and game shows have also declined to almost nothing…but Ellen's show has a large viewership. So does The View. So does Dr. Phil. So do a number of syndicated shows. Those shows draw enough interest to remain on the air but not enough to telecast the awards on E!. I think fans of these programs are simply no longer as possessive about them as they once were. Folks who watch The Price is Right don't care as much if Drew Carey wins an Emmy as they once did about whether Bob Barker did. And I don't think it's the show or the host as much as it is changing times.

A flash mob in Moscow tries real, real hard to be like Gary Cooper. Take this one full screen and thank Carolyn Kelly for sending me the link…

The second of two Daytime Emmy ceremonies airs tonight on the HLN cable channel. The first, which was last Sunday evening, was not televised. That's the one where June Foray won her first Emmy at age 94. I do not know for a fact that they will show a clip of that moment (or any moments from last Sunday) on tonight's telecast but it wouldn't surprise me.

It's interesting that there's so little interest in this ceremony. The first time I was nominated, it was not televised. The event was an afternoon, non-tuxedo event at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City and I found it pretty boring and did not go the next few times I was up for a statue. By that time, they'd begun airing it on TV…and as I recall, it aired during the daytime, preempting The Price is Right or other shows, for a few years until they tried it in prime-time for a while. It's still pretty much the same event it ever was but no one seems to want it these days. HLN was a last-minute deal because nothing more appropriate seemed possible. The E! Network didn't want it. TV Land didn't want it. And even though much of it is about their shows, CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox didn't want it.

I understand institutions like the Miss America Pageant losing a mainstream audience. Beauty contests celebrate some kind of antiseptic, phony worldview that most folks today don't relate to. But awards for soap operas, game shows and kids' programming have not gotten any less relevant or any more interesting. I don't think it's a bad thing that folks no longer care that much about such honors. It may even be a good thing. It's certainly an odd thing.

If the entire Affordable Health Care bill gets killed by Scalia and his political-action pals, a lot of people are going to be in this situation: Unable to afford life-saving medical treatment.

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Alan M. Turing. If ever the word "genius" applied to a human being, it applied to him…and I don't mean "genius" in the way Milton Berle used to use it to describe anybody who knew how to get a laugh on stage. I mean "genius" as in: The man who figured out the basic concepts of artificial intelligence on which most computer science is based. That was after he was the master cryptologist for the Allies during World War II and broke many key Nazi codes to aid our side. Either achievement is pretty impressive.

Turing was born June 23, 1912. He died June 4, 1954 — a suicide obviously caused by being persecuted for his homosexuality. This world has wasted a lot of geniuses that way.

Thanks to Ed Toomey for reminding me about a day well worth noting. Turing is also the subject of today's Google doodle which I'd try to figure out if I had a few hours…

Matt Taibbi is just about the only reporter out there covering (a) the recent criminal doings on Wall Street that will likely go unprosecuted and (b) the tactics that you'd think would be illegal — and perhaps were at one time — but aren't. I'm not sure which category is more outrageous. I think what most bothers me is this notion some people seem to have that it's wrong for the government to ever stop anyone from making vast sums of money even if the way they make them are to steal them from someone else. If you want to get mad today, read the linked article by Taibbi.

Number two hundred and sixty-four in a series…

What Jerry Sandusky did disgusts me. So does cheering for him to be raped or killed in prison. So will the lack of accountability, if that's how it all plays out, of those who knew what he was doing and did nothing to stop it and/or covered it up.

Admittedly, I have not followed every detail of this case but I've read a number of articles. I hope somewhere in it there's someone who acted honorably and with true heroism. So far, I haven't heard of any such person.

Gilbert gets more things that Gilbert gets…

Here's a piece about why those Nigerian Prince e-mail scams are so obvious. And make no mistake about it: They are obvious. I only fell for five or six before I got wise. They're not legit like those messages I get from rich people who are stranded in a foreign country, need money and are willing to pay me back 1000% on the money I'm sending them.

Is there anyone out there who can help me with something? I need a couple of frame-grabs from an episode of the TV series L.A. Law that was, I believe, in its Season 6. These do not seem to be available online or on DVD and no channel I get on my satellite dish appears to be running them at the moment. Is there some devout L.A. Law fan reading this who recorded that season, is willing to help me out and — most important — knows how to make a frame-grab?

If you're curious why I need such a thing, just keep reading this blog. I have a great anecdote to tell about one particular episode but I'd like to have a visual aid to go along with it. If I can't find one, I'll eventually post it anyway.

Number two hundred and sixty-three in a series…

I think I agree with Daniel Larison. Mitt Romney's candidacy isn't really about much more than not being Barack Obama. Which is about the only thing you can say about Romney with any degree of certainty. Oh, yeah — and that he's very rich and thinks the country should be run for others who are.

The song doesn't blow me away but I had to watch this video from start to finish. Nice job. Wonder how many takes it took to get it in one continuous one…

Ezra Klein on why we shouldn't be surprised that the U.S. Supreme Court has become so political.

I've often thought that one thing that really doesn't make sense about that highest of courts is that its makeup hinges so much on an unpredictable factor like life expectancy. It's usually worked out that there's around one vacancy in each four-year presidential term. But some day, there's going to come a period when a number of justices will all go at the same time and some president is going to be called on to fill three or four seats. All of a sudden, the party that's not in power will be screaming that it's not fair; that one Prez can't make so many lifetime selections, thereby skewing the court his way for decades to come. They'll be demanding constitutional amendments to prevent that from ever happening again…but then it'll be too late. Imagine if Obama got to replace three Conservatives or Bush had gotten to replace three Liberals. You think this country is polarized now?