L'Affaire Olbermann

You da man!

Inside Television 527
Publication Date: 11-12-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn

I very nearly wrote about entertainment this week, but the case of Keith Olbermann intrigued me. I’ve written about Olbermann before - for my money he was the best sports anchor ever, while at ESPN and teaming with Dan Patrick, the Ruth and Gehrig of sportcasting - and his reasons for leaving ESPN were an exemplar for putting ethics above career. (He felt that women and minorities were unfairly treated at the cable profit machine.)

Currently, Olbermann hosts Countdown on MSNBC, weeknights at 8PM. Anyone who cannot tell that Olbermann is liberal, thinks ‘liberal’ is that new sedan from Toyota. But, as the ‘NBC’ in MSNBC implies, this cable news network is bound by the nominal non-partisan standards (nudge nudge, wink wink) of its larger broadcast partner.

Well, as I’ve said before and I suspect I will hold to until my grave, impartial journalism doesn’t exist and attempting to make it exist just makes it boring. I know the reporter has an opinion. She or he clearly knows more about the issue at hand than I do. I’d like to hear that opinion clearly stated. Give me the true and essential facts and all of them, but do share your thoughts.

Which tends to describe much of the cable/satellite news industry. FOX has a definite point of view, as does MSNBC. CNN is ... I don’t know what CNN is anymore and neither do they and neither do you. CBC is mushily liberal (or Liberal) CTV manages to be non-partisan and not boring, while BBC puts everything else to shame.

So, MSNBC with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow is the liberal Yin to FOX’s, er, Yang. But one must still keep up appearances dear. So when Olbermann donated a total of $7,200 - combined - among three Democrat Congressional candidates he received a two day suspension.

Two thoughts. Any Congressman who can be bought for $2,400 a) deserves to be; and b) the district that elects them equally deserves them.

Second thought: Two days? Two days is not a suspension. Two days is an early Thanksgiving weekend. Two days tells me that the network is saying to the world, ‘Yeah, we know we have liberal bias, but let’s all admire the stunning spring show of the Emperor’s tailor.’

I will still and always prefer liberal media to conservative media because liberals are self-flagellating and therefore compulsively seek out facts that immolate the seekers. (Don’t believe me? May I present Paul Martin and the Gomery Commission as evidence?) Conservative media? They flagellate but leave out the ‘self’ bit.

And yet, the conservative media shall always trump the liberal until the liberal dares to declare itself as it is. Until then, it shall always be as the great Steve Martin in The Jerk: ‘You mean I’m not BLACK!?!’

Be seeing you.

The 'Network' Voter

Politics for Joe 10

Peter Finch demonstrates the size of the GOP win ...

Although I've been saying if for years, someone actually decided to test my declaration that Paddy Chayefsky's Network was the most prescient picture ever made. We are living only a slightly less intense version of the world of rant over reason that the late screenwriter predicted all the way back in 1976.

I'm sure that you remember Network. But just in case you don't, that was the movie where Peter Finch played a news anchor gone mad, finally exhorting the viewers to shout out, “I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.” Thousands did, their echoes sounding out of windows and through the apartment block canyons of New York.

End of lesson in cinema history. Well, according to a poll conducted by Abacus Research in Ottawa, when 1001 Canadians were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement (you guessed it): I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more. 26% agreed. 31% disagreed. I suspect 43% had trouble tying their shoelaces that morning. Really now, either you're mad as hell or you're not.

Regardless of the indecisive, who usually don't vote anyway, this means that close to half the people willing to venture their opinion are mad as hell etc. Canadians were also in lock-step with their American cousins. Asked by Abacus if the next generation of Canadians will be better off than the present, 52% said no. When the New York Times/CBS Poll asked Americans the same question, 51% had the same negative opinion.

The smoking wreckage of the Democrats in the United States shows you what half the electorate sharing a dim view of the future can lead to.

The wonder is that Canadians are as negative as Americans. By any reasonable standard, the Canadian economy is as sunny and gold-filled as Scrooge McDuck's vault, relative to the U.S. According to slate.com, the true structural unemployment rate in the U.S. is not 9.6% as reported, but instead closer to 20%. Canada's official rate is at 8%, as of October 9,. 2010.

For those curious about it, the principal difference in American and Canadian reporting is that Canada counts anyone who made 'any' attempt at finding a job as part of the job market, whereas the U.S. only counts those who made 'active' job searches. Those who just look at Job Wanted ads are passive – those who lie on a resume and send it in are active. This of course means that those who are so under-educated or otherwise unqualified for any job offering are therefore passive and are therefore not included in U.S. employment figures. It makes for a very big lump when swept under a rug.

Regardless of technical niceties, voters on both sides of the border feel a spirit of – yes – true fear and loathing and in politics feelings trump science. Regardless of whether the Wall Street bailout was a good idea or not, or whether the massive stimulative speeding was a good idea or not, Americans looked at trillions of dollars being spent in deficit and felt uneasy, unhappy, and afraid. There was/is a sense that the classic hard-earned tax dollars were going to the bums who made this mess in the first place.

America can be explained, but Canada? Why exactly are Canadians mad as hell and ready to take it out on the next person who hands them a political pamphlet? The party or parties that unlock that puzzle and show the way out of the maze will be the victors. Right now – although I usually disregard American precedents in Canadian elections – I would not be wagering heavily on any incumbents.

To borrow one more classic movie line, as Bette Davis said in All About Eve, 'Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.'

Be seeing you.

Hubert O'Hearn

Lake Superior News

If Richler Had Lived - What Would He Have Thought?

Oh he would have had lots to write about ...

Inside Television 526
Publication Date: 11-5-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn

I was thinking about how to start this, for there are both light and serious arguments to be made, when it occurred to me that I had just written a review and done an interview on Charles Foran’s excellent ‘Mordecai: The Life & Times.’ And I wondered, what would Mordecai Richler have made of these times?

For he wasn’t just a novelist, you know. People rarely think of him this way, but I’m willing to put Richler on a short list of the ten best journalists this country ever produced. He had the sharp observer’s eye for the telling detail, understood human foibles and our means and desire to cover them up, was brutally honest, explosively funny and didn’t give a good damn what anyone thought of him or his opinions.

It is a dangerous thing to attempt to guess the opinions of a man deceased for ten years about present events, so I won’t. But i do think I know my Richler canon well enough to surmise what would have fascinated and horrified him.

I believe he would have looked at the politics in the United States and its people as being akin to the Depression-era Jewish neighbourhood he grew up in; Montreal’s The Main. One took shelter in cultural neighbourhoods because the state was distant and belonged to Other People. Interestingly, that Federal riding twice returned an actual Communist MP to Ottawa. He was eventually locked up on sedition charges as was the Mayor of Montreal, Camilien Houde. They had opinions that ran contrary to the prevailing wind, opposing Canada’s entry into World War Two. On the bald face of it, yes, Canada has imprisoned people for having political opinions. Our hands are not that clean.

Nor are those of the hustlers and con men, the Boy Wonder and Duddy Kravitz, fleecing the good neighbours in order to finance grandiose real estate deals. Yes, I think Richler would have recognized those characters placed on a higher pedestal in the grand offices of wall Street. The difference is that Duddy had a conscience about it all. But then again, Duddy was a fictional character.

In culture, there was the same rendering of the family fabric both then and now. Young Mordecai, his brothers and friends were drawn to the exciting new media of comic books, radio thrillers and multiple bills at the local cinema - which now had colour! In the meantime the elders were composing the last audiences cum mourners of the dying Yiddish theatre, just as today’s elders watch a television that is increasingly being taken over by content similar to that produced for telephones. From Action Comics and Superman to iPhones and apps.

Had Richler lived, he would have found ample forums for his views. One good thing about our times is that we live in the golden age of social satire. Even besides The Daily Show, Colbert, Conan and all the other offspring of Saturday Night Live’s Jovian forehead, I don’t think there was one of the fifty or so novels I read so far this tear that didn’t have some sort of pungent social comment. Yes, even the historical ones.

When I talked to Foran he summed up by saying that he hoped that his work would help keep Richler’s canon alive. I suggest that is a fine idea for the reader to adopt. For if you look at the images slipping past our screens, both great and small in size and significance, it might help if you imagine seeing them through the eyes of Molrdecai Richler.

And because that is much too kindly a way of ending a piece about the great cynic, I must add - that a shot or two of The Macallan wouldn’t hurt either. Be seeing you.

Thoughts on the Stewart/Colbert Rally

Inside Television 525
Publication date: 10-29-10
By: Hubert O'Hearn

As anyone who has ever followed these columns for any length of time might guess, I'll definitely be tuning in to watch the twin rallies Saturday afternoon featuring Jon Stewart's 'Rally to Restore Sanity' with Stephen Colbert's 'March to Keep Fear Alive.' Bizarrely, I'm not going to be able to watch shows hosted by two men whose regular shows are carried five nights a week in Canada by both CTV and The Comedy Network on television. In Canada what I suspect will be the largest live comedy event in history can only be seen via live streaming video on thecomedynetwork.ca

Not that one really needed much more evidence, but this is one of the smoking guns indicating the demise of broadcast and cable networks as we knew them. They most definitely will continue to exist, after a period of mergers and acquisitions that will leave a baker's dozen or so large content providers amidst a sea of independently producing media buskers. All that truly remains for the takeover to be complete is for the boxes connecting internet content to your Big Boy flat screen TV to be a whole lot less greedy.

Apple is or has rapidly become everything it ever accused Microsoft of being – an Evil Empire setting the rules the rest of us must follow – Achtung baby! The Apple TV2 is sleeker and easier to use than the original Apple TV, but Apple is still a manipulative parent that only favours some of its children. Apple TV 2 rejects the AVI and DiVX files and charges its now usual 99 cents for a TV show. At that rate, assuming four hours of viewing a day, that would run up a pretty nifty bill of $120 a month. My satellite is safe for now.

Getting back to the shows in question, I do keep saying this but had he lived Paddy Chayefsky might well have been fascinated if not horrified at the world he imagined in 'Network.' Why? Name me any other 'liberal' figure in American life who could draw six figures worth of people to a live event and seven or eight figures worth of  U.S. TV and on-line viewers?The only other events – political or otherwise – that could pull that off would be a music star at the absolute white hot peak of fame, or Jennifer Aniston v. Angelina Jolie in a Steel Cage shoot fight at Wrestlemania XXVII.

The Stewart and Colbert twin events are of course responses to the Glenn Beck and Tea Party rallies. All have been criticized for being non-serious responses to grave and complicated issues. To which I can only respond that we have had generations of politicians deluding the public with bread and circuses – I believe the public has the right to reverse the flow. Be seeing you.

They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar: Thunder Bay Votes

Politics for Joe 9:
They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar

by Hubert O'Hearn
for Lake Superior News

I've always thought that the best thing the late Rod Serling ever wrote and produced wasn't an episode of The Twilight Zone, or even Requiem for Heavyweight. There was an Emmy-nominated episode of Night Gallery in 1971 called 'They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar' in which a  down-on-his luck William Windom stands outside his now closed neighbourhood purveyor of liquid pain relief and is visited by the ghosts of his past. It ends with Windom left alone as an emotionally broken man, a grey soul living the words of the under-appreciated William Greenleaf Whittier, “of all words of tongue and pen, the saddest are, 'It might have been'”.

Which of course leads us to election night in Thunder Bay. This will definitely be the last of the parochial Thunder Bay columns for a long, long time – but having begun a story one should finish it.

Thunder Bay went through what I will call its Tim Riley moment. The raw results – at first glance a crunching win for Keith Hobbs over the incumbent Lynn Peterson, while the  City Council team effectively kept the varsity, added from the alumni and only has one intriguing new face. This mix of change and stability is like a revolution going on in a library reading room, but quietly enough to not wake the snoozing retired majors. How can something so refreshing still seem so stale?

For change is refreshing. It's why we have elections – endless trials and errors of formula combinations attempting to perfect a life for a community of people. Until the last week, as you know, I thought Peterson's 'run from the Rose Garden' strategy of pointing to past accomplishments was going to be good enough to hold the vote. Hobbs clearly had the momentum going, but I honestly didn't think his campaign was good enough or clear enough to carry the day.

I suspect – and hopefully some inspired Politics class at the College or University will investigate this – that there must have been close to a 10% swing in the last two weeks. To call a spade a spade (and risk termination by another employer) the stronger I sensed the Chronicle-Journal protecting Peterson's position, the more I felt Hobbs was gaining. Hobbs ended up winning the popular vote by 46% to 30%, which has to set some kind of record for a slaughtering of an incumbent in any office in this City's history.

That will be a hard number to beat in the future. The only way a multi-term incumbent in a non-party race gets that crushed usually requires a sheep or two and money missing from the safe.

Peterson's campaign wasn't all that bad. As I've written before, if you don't have an inspiring picture or design of the future to offer, then sure you run on the resume. Lynn Peterson does have the problem of coming across as shrill when defending herself from attack – I'm not being sexist, just observant. Shrillness to women politicians is what bad mustaches are to the males – they are qualities people don't endorse. But it shouldn't have proven fatal.

I did think Peterson was in danger were there to be a sudden change of events close to election day. Thunder Bay is not exactly the Magic Kingdom when it comes to optimism, no matter what the three levels of government attempt to tell us. Good Lord, they keep singing us a chorus of 'Everything's Coming Up Roses' from Gypsy, to a community that is living 'Rent.'

Perhaps too obscure, but those who got that will have enjoyed it.

It's a depressed, scared and frightened city that has little if any faith in its governments. Granted, there are interesting economic opportunities arising from Lakehead University as it follows the American model of pimping itself out (sorry, but that is my opinion) as a supplier of cheap research for multinational corporations. Still, a job's a job, and the rert of the economic activity at present seems to consist of the destruction of gas stations and the construction of Seniors' Homes and doughnut shops.

While the Transit strike was averted after the eleventh hour – and their Union team is to be congratulated on the brilliance of their timing in getting the best deal for their members – the Horizon Wind Farm turned an already jittery public into jabbering William Windoms.

Frankly, I've always supported the wind farm. For once this City could be ahead of the timeline and if we don't need the power at present, might it not be nice to offer it as an incentive to business? Energy will be the ultimate incentive starting on a day within our view. And if it wrecks your view, well dear, some of us recall being rocked to sleep at night by passing trains so suck it up princess.

But regardless of one's position on that subject, all of a sudden the public was looking at City Council scrambling and grasping for a position to appease protesters, there were in camera meetings being held and now this damn Horizon company was dropping a $126 million lawsuit on Thunder Bay. Pass the pitchforks and heat up the tar, someone's going to pay.

And that was the end of Lynn Peterson.

But this election also had a pathetic turnout of 47.43%. So even Hobbs' near-majority of 46% is really less than a quarter of the over 18 population. The angry voted, the satisfied stayed home with the bored.

I was part of the bored. But as there were no actual platforms, visions, meat and potato  proposals by 90% of the various candidates people went back to Tim Riley's Bar, back to the past, back to when Mom and Dad would make it all better. And therefore Ken Boshcoff again led the polls – gaining 22,516 votes, almost exactly 5,000 more than Hobbs. With the exception of McKellar Ward's Paul Pugh – who actually had to face a Red-baiting smear campaign in 2010 – Council is very much a reunion tour.

Looking to the future, the flaw of Hobbs' campaign in not having any kind of detailed plan can work as a strength if he uses it correctly. He will need to meet the Councilors individually and privately, figure out who he can best work with to form a working coalition of seven. If he is wise, he will find a meeting of the minds with Lawrence Timko as well. Timko was the Bubble Boy, finishing sixth out of an At-Large race where the top five were promoted. As Boshcoff will effectively be turning training laps waiting for the Federal election, Timko will likely be coming on board at some point in the next twelve months.

In looking at it, I can see Hobbs building a group consisting of Boshcoff (who will want to be seen with the winners in Getting Things Done), Rebecca Johnson, Larry Hebert, Brian McKinnon, Joe Virdiramo and Mark Bentz. Now, the former head of the Police Association may not like the look of this centre to centre-right grouping, but it will hold and the voters have put their trust in what is largely the old guard.

Well, it'll be interesting. Be seeing you.

Hubert O'Hearn
Lake Superior News

Twitter, TV Theme Music and Santa's on Fox Sports!

All men bowed to Lola Albright ...

Inside Television 523
Publication Date: 10-22-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn


At long last, if an existence of two years can even be termed long last, I am starting to understand Twitter. I ignored it until around August, as I could not get my head wrapped around why anyone would want to spend time sending teeny tiny messages to the world. And if it was going to be like Facebook, where people breathlessly inform me every time they brush their hair or teeth, why on earth should I waste even more time.

But in the personal style which has made my card opponents quite happy over the years, I had guessed wrong. Twitter is more a gigantic cocktail party where you can join in the conversation with the Cool Crowd. It is a phenomenally efficient marketing tool, much more effective than Facebook in attracting Web traffic, and now it is supplying grist for the column mill.

So I follow Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC Anchor as well as the finest sports news anchor in history. You really haven’t lived as a baseball fan until you watch a game with your Twitter open (my that sounds rude) and follow along with Keith’s commentary. Keith made a reference to the Fox Sports music, as follows:

“15 years of this Fox music at the end of innings, in NFL broadcasts, and every time I think: "Why are they playing 'Sleigh Ride'?"

And later as explanation: “used to hear it in the studio when I did MLB on Fox and we'd all start humming Christmas music. In July. In L.A.”

Well, needless to say I laughed a Man’s Laugh at that one. For it’s true, that blaring trumpet anthem just seems made to be followed by jingling little bells and maybe some high-stepping reindeer can-canning their way across the bottom of the screen.

All of this made me think about TV theme songs and about how they don’t play ‘em like they used to. That said, those who follow those column on-line are going to have way more fun that newspaper readers, as on-line you can right click the links and YouTube your way to a hap-hap-happy day. Then again, newspaper readers might have one of those Apple thingies that you paid $1200 for new, which you can re-sell for $300 next year. Anyway, let’s tune up the Nostalgia Band.

Back in the day, TV didn’t mind wandering off into genres that weren’t all mock-funk synth pop. (And by the way if you can say ‘mock-funk synth pop’ five times in a row ... you will sound extremely silly and people will avoid you in the future.) And not just dramas, sports and comedy shows either. For fourteen years NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report closed their newscast five times a week with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony 2nd Movement. And by the way, if you look up the clip, notice the level of erudition and intelligence that Chet Huntley and David Brinkley possessed. Were one or both to appear on Fox News today (or heck, throw in CNN) they would sound like Aristotle dropping in on Mrs. Whimsy’s pre-kindergarten play period.

Jazz used to be quite well-represented, I think most memorably by Henry Mancini’s theme for the hard-boiled noir detective series Peter Gunn. That repeating bass line and hot brass certainly told you there was excitement ahead - plus the show’s principal set was a jazz blues bar -  Mother’s - whose singer was Lola Albright. Lola Albright’s curvaceous figure and sultry sultriness taught many a young boy important lessons; the meaning of curvaceous for one.

I don’t want to go too far with this, because we could spend all day going, ‘Remember when?’ But  just a few more to illustrate the point. I do miss the campfire quality TV theme, your Beverly Hillbillies or Gilligan’s Island. And who among us has not bravely taken the Eva Gabor part in a beer hall version of Green Acres? (No, me neither. ahem.)

For curiousity’s sake, send me your favourites in the comment box below. Or if there is any other topic you would like me to look at, let me know. As Dean Martin used to say, ‘Jeannie and I looove getting letters.’ Until of course the letters were from divorce attorneys, but that’s a story for another day. Be seeing you.

Politics for Joe 8:

Where Have All the Parties Gone?

Why isn't this man your MP? No Party behind him silly!

The living journalist I admire above all others is Christopher Hitchens. It is not that I necessarily agree with his every stand, but I so admire his willingness to take them – proudly, publicly and well-reasoned. And even those points of disagreement somehow emerge from the same ethic. For instance, Hitchens believes in the Afghan War as a necessity to eliminate radical Islamic sects ben on destruction of the West. I concur with the goal, but the war itself is a March of Folly. Like the wonderful histories told in that title by Barbara Tuchman, this particular expensive, exhausting, long and deadly fight began with the noblest of goals.

In any event, Hitchens is better-read than the contents of the average political studies section in a university library, bears no prejudice against any race or colour, is unafraid and is a compelling writer and public speaker. Why in heaven's name (sorry, Hitchens is an atheist) has he not at least been the Honourable Member for Cheddar-Spread-Sandwich?

Clearly the thought has occurred to him as well, judging from his latest on-line column on slate.com. To quote:

I could introduce you to dozens of enthusiastic and intelligent people, highly aware of "the issues" and very well-informed on all questions from human rights to world trade to counterinsurgency, to none of whom it would occur to subject themselves to what passes for the political "arena." They are willing to give up potentially more lucrative careers in order to work on important questions and expand the limits of what is currently thinkable politically, but the great honor and distinction of serving their country in the legislature is only offered to them at a price that is now way too steep.

Being an elected member – a term that does imply some form of amputation – is indeed a brutally tough job. On the other hand, name me anything that is really worth accomplishing in life that isn't brutally tough. And no, winning a lottery doesn't count. It's almost a cliché that you can watch American Presidents age two years for every one served.

Now I grant you that the American Presidency is probably the most stress-inducing political job in the world … save for being the President of some corrupt dictatorship who's just got the midnight call that the Army has turned against him. But neither of those is the norm, thankfully, for elected officials. No McKellar Ward Municipal Councillor ever turned to the bottle because the sewer down the street backed up, unless he was headed there already.

Which in a way is the point I wish to add to Hitchens' lament. Canadian politics faces nowhere near the scrutiny and hyper-judgment of its American counterpart. Personal religious views have never been an issue in Canada (thankfully) and Ontario has had a succession of powerful provincial Cabinet Ministers who were gay without the electorate batting an eye.

And yet, the reader can undoubtedly compile a personal list of names of people they knew or know who would be thoughtful and effective politicians, none of whom ever threw a hat, golf glove or parchment into the ring. Why?

One interesting place to look is at the process we are going through right now: municipal elections. These should be the breeding grounds, the fish hatcheries if you will for future Provincial and Federal members. The tradition of the political parties avoiding full endorsement and – God forbid! - application of party machinery to school board or City Council candidates has always puzzled me. Do correct me if I'm wrong, but outside of certain wards in Toronto and Vancouver, the traditional parties all go on vacation.

What a missed opportunity.

Mind you, to be able to do that requires a political party to actually exist in between elections, nomination meetings and delegate selection to leadership conventions. Were help to be offered to a challenger in a Ward there would actually have to be, er, help to be offered. And none of the local political parties in Northwestern Ontario really have such a machine, with the exception perhaps of the NDP in Thunder Bay – hence two elected Mps.

Still and finally one wonders: How many of those talented individuals who never ran and never will run made that non-decision simply because they were never asked?

Be seeing you.

Hubert O'Hearn

for Lake Superior News