4 May 2005

Wireless TV

I've decided to switch how I watch television: I'm going wireless. Now that I have a wireless phone, and I've done some consulting work for wireless networking, I've seen the light, and I'm switching my television to wireless technology.

Which is mostly just a futuristic spin to put on "I'm canceling my cable service".

I've spent most of my life without cable (or satellite) service. Of course there was the first decade and a half, before cable TV was invented (or at least before it reached my city). I had the necessary cable channels like MTV during my teen years, but not for my years in the dorm at college. I paid for cable for a few years after graduating, but when I moved into a 4th-floor-on-a-hill apartment where I got great broadcast reception, I didn't bother subscribing there. And although my current first-floor apartment doesn't get the channels quite as well, I was also a student again, with a part-time job, so I went without.

That changed last year, when - flush with a new well-paying job and frustrated at trying to pick up the low-power UPN affiliate when they moved their transmitter farther away - I finally subscribed to cable service and got wired. All I signed up for was "basic" service, which includes the must-carry channels (local broadcasters, public access), a few shopping channels, and a couple of the less glamorous "cable" channels: TBS and WGN. The filter to cut out the "standard service" channels doesn't work completely, so I could also pick up a few extra channels on the low end of the scale, including Cartoon Network, TNT, Oxygen, and ABC Family. All for only $13.64 per month.

The thing is... I've found that I don't watch much of anything on those extra channels (just the Justice League cartoon and the occasional commercial-interrupted movie), and the only show on UPN that I'd ever want to watch (Star Trek: Enterprise) is being cancelled. The other thing is... I quit that well-paying job for one I'd actually enjoy, so money's tight again. That $13.64/month would add up to over $160/year, and yeah, that would really make a difference. So I'm clipping the cable.

Instead I'm putting the rabbit ears back to work. These are somewhat better rabbit ears than we used back in the old pre-cable era; they're amplified, and do a pretty good job of picking up most of the local broadcast stations. Too bad I can't easily put a "real" antenna up on the roof; that'd be really nice.

I can't pick up the local CBS station (which actually transmits from two counties south of here) in my interior living room, however. So I've got another set of rabbit ears hooked up to my spare VCR in another room with a better southern exposure. There's only one show I watch on CBS anyway (Two and a Half Men), so I'll just set the timer and watch the tapes for that one.

I admit that I'm going to miss the clearer signal on a few of the channels. But broadcast TV still gives me at least an hour/day of decent shows to watch. (For the record, in addition to those already mentioned, that includes: Malcolm in the Middle, The Simpsons, Arrested Development, Scrubs, House, Lost, The West Wing, Smallville, Jack & Bobby, ER, and Nova.) Granted, someday when I'm old and feeble and can't motivate myself to do anything else with my time except watch TV, I might again subscribe to cable (or its future replacement) so I can sit and vegetate in front of it for hours on end. But not yet.

NYPD Blues

I've been watching old episodes of NYPD Blue lately... stuff my TiVo recorded for me, thinking I might want to watch it. I wasn't watching the show back when these were first on, about 5 years ago, so I've been watching some of them. There's some fairly good melodrama in them, a nice escape from thinking about the real world. Except for one thing.

At least once per episode (in the opening credits, and usually occurring randomly during the story) there's a poke in the eyes. A fast-cut shaky-cam shot of an everyday sight on the streets of Manhattan: the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Three years ago, those towers - and the people inside them - became martyrs in the minds of many Americans. They became a symbol of national mourning and outrage. "We will never forget," became not just a condolence to the victims' friends and families, but a battle cry, like "Remember the Alamo."

And we haven't forgotten. I don't think anyone (American or not) who saw what happened that sunny Tuesday ever could forget those horrific images. And that video snippet in the NYPD Blue credits, between snippets of Ricky Schroder and Nicholas Turturro, brings it all back. But what I feel now isn't outrage. It isn't fear. It's a momentary reflex of pain, and a lingering sadness. It's a sadness about what we lost that day.

America lost more than just three thousand spouses and parents and siblings and friends. It lost more than economic momentum. Some would say we lost our innocence, but I don't think that's it. It's more like we lost our bearings.

An American president who had campaigned with the message that America needed to act with more humility on the world stage turned around and snubbed several of our strongest allies, insisting that we had a right to wage "pre-emptive" war. An American public who had responded very positively to that message of humility... followed. It became acceptable in America to exhibit the kind of nationalist/ethnic bigotry against France and the French, that was given to Germans and Japanese during World War 2... and France hadn't even done anything to America. An America that once stood as an example to the world for the rights of the accused to a fair and speedy trial, came to condone or justify secret arrests, imprisonment without trial, and even torture.

This loss of an America capable of moral leadership in the world affects the whole world, I think. I know it sounds arrogant, but I've heard from people in other countries who appreciated an America that might shame their own government into doing the right thing, or might stand by their government when it did so on its own initiative. They've lost that.

But more personally, I feel I've lost my ability to declare myself an American without losing respect from those who are not. I've always been a bit reticent about my country's position as an often-unpopular super-power, but even when spending time in Europe during the Reagan administration, I could shrug with a smile and say that I didn't vote for him, and I felt that my opinion on world affairs would usually get a fair hearing. I'm not sure I could count on that anymore.

I don't know if electing a different president will fix any of this or not. I do fear that re-electing the same one will mean either that America's truly lost its way, or will simply go further astray with bad leadership.

And I can't even watch a damn TV show without nagging reminders of all this.

Scotty's Star

I wrote recently about Scotty's comments in Star Trek IV about transparent aluminum, being vindicated by current research. Now I've just read the bittersweet news that James Doohan has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame... and has made what is probably his last public appearance. He's suffering from a list of degenerative conditions, including diabetes, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's.

Spock was always my favorite character from the original series, but Scotty was my favorite human on the U.S.S. Enterprise. Not only did he have the cool accent, but his character had an appealing spirit. I think I learned some of my "can do" attitude from his frequent remarks to the effect, "That's impossible, but you really need it, so I'll make it happen somehow."

Sure, he's really Canadian, and he's an actor, not an engineer, but he's still been an inspiration. You can't swing a cat in a university engineering department without hitting several faculty and/or students who got into the field specifically because of Scotty. I got a kick out of spending time at the University of Aberdeen, pretending that I walked the streets that Montgomery Scott would one day stroll. (Years of listening to his faux Scots accent also made it easier for me to understand the locals.)

Doohan is also a veteran of D-Day, losing a finger helping to liberate Normandy from the Nazis. (The TV series staged shots around it, and he used a "hand double" for close-ups of the transporter console.) He went on to serve as a spotter plane pilot. So he's a hero in the more traditional sense, not just as a celebrity.

Based on the interviews I've read and every account I've heard of his frequent appearances at Trek conventions, he's even more genial and down-to-earth than he appeared on screen. He appreciates how much he's received from his fans, and has tried to give back to them, such as the suicidal fan whom he coaxed to come meet with him at a convention, then another, then another, quite likely saving the man's life. He's a good person. Full stop.

Like most public figures with Alzheimer's, Jimmy Doohan is going to disappear from the public eye now, and someday we'll hear that he's died. I do hope that it's soon. These are horrible illnesses to live with, both for the patient and his caregivers. Even in the advanced stages, when the patient is too far gone to understand his situation, he still suffers from it.

So, Jimmy: May your dilithium crystals be fully charged, your matter/anti-matter reaction balanced, your wee bairns well cared for, and I wish you a safe and painless transport to your final shore leave.

Energise.

Bon Appetit

I just learned that Julia Child died last week. I fall pretty far short of being what is known as a "good cook", but I was always fond of her. I'm not sure if it was because my mother watched the show, or just because I enjoyed watching the lady with the funny voice, but she was a fixture of my childhood. Sure, I mostly made fun of her (and nearly wet myself when Dan Aykroyd lampooned her on SNL), but I wouldn't have paid enough attention to her to mimic her mannerisms and speech patterns if I didn't enjoy her.

As I said, I'm not much of a cook, but I think I owe some of my modest skill to her. Despite the pretentious name, The French Chef was almost like reality television, showing Julia dropping the chicken or burning the sauce, and generally assuring the audience that it was OK to screw up in the kitchen. And really, unless you have the courage to screw up, you'll never be able to get beyond reading the preparation instructions for a box of macaroni and cheese.

I admit that I haven't gotten very far beyond that. From time to time back when Andy and I were an item, I'll attempt something complicated enough to require a recipe, and it'd turn out OK, but I don't have anyone to do that kind of cooking for anymore, so mostly it's simple stuff. But when I'm chopping up a couple carrots or some onions to add to my mac and cheese, or mixing some strawberry jam into my pancake mix, in the back of my head there's a hint of a squeaky upper-class woman's voice prattling about how to get the best results from it.

Bon appetit, Julia.

Wonderfalls: Proof That TV is Broken

Over on complex superior there's an article about Wonderfalls, a very-short-lived mid-season replacement that appeared on Fox for a few weeks this past spring. While it was no M*A*S*H or All in the Family or even Cheers, it was entertaining. It was about a young woman who hears inanimate objects (shaped like animals) telling her to do things, and when she (against her better judgment) does what they tell her, it has a remarkable impact on the course of people's lives. Of course she's the only one who hears them, and she's not sure she's not crazy... but assuming she's not, she wants to understand who/what is behind it and what their agenda is.

I enjoyed it. So of course it got cancelled after four episodes. And we viewers were all left twisting in the wind, with no hope of ever finding out.

But wait: there's more. Nine more, to be exact. Apparently all 13 of the episodes Fox ordered were made. And somebody's been leaking them, with the last of them - the season (and series) finale - now available through the usual legally-questionable channels.

This speaks volumes about the insanity that pervades the entertainment industry. Not just the fact that a good TV show got canned after four episodes, but the fact that so many people worked so many hours and put so much creative effort into producing nine episodes of entertainment... which then got put on a shelf. It was finished. It was paid for. So it wasn't a question of whether it was cost-effective to employ overpriced directors, and writers, and actors. They just needed to broadcast it. And they didn't, because somehow they could make better advertising money showing America's Funniest Home Videos or whatever.

And this isn't an isolated case. Every year, all six commercial broadcast networks launch new programs, and invariably some of them get cancelled after a few weeks. Granted, many of them deserve to die (and never should have been carried to term in the first place), but nearly all of them die with episodes on the can, that aren't even (financially) worth showing.

This isn't a completely new phenomenon (though it has gotten worse in the past decade). But there's a new twist that's developing: dead series can rise from the grave. There have been several series in recent years that got cancelled by one network then got picked up by another. But Wonderfalls is reportedly going to see a temporary revival on home video. So instead of the traditional advertiser-supported broadcast model (where it isn't financially viable), it'll be released to the public via the buy-it-and-keep-it model.

Maybe that isn't especially "viable" either. It could be just an attempt to recoup some of the costs by getting the hardcore fans who really loved the show to pony up some cash to see the rest. But there seems to be a growing market for TV programming on home video (whether VHS or DVD).

Personally I've never really understood that. There have been a handful of TV series that I would bother to watch more than once, but most of them really only stand up to a single viewing. (Not that there's anything wrong with that; even the best-prepared food is only good the first time you eat it.) So it makes more sense to me to see it in a disposible format (broadcast) than in a permanent format (DVD). I studiously recorded every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5 when they were being broadcast, but I've only re-watched each series once or twice. Buying the DVDs instead would be quite excessive; even renting them would be iffy. Same with most movies.

But if the increasing inability for broadcast TV to make money bringing programming to the viewing public is any indication, the buy-it model may be where we're headed. Subscription-based TV channels like HBO are another possible home of future programming. Either way, it looks like I'm going to be watching less TV (of whatever kind).

Just Another Democratic Party

The TV networks hardly carried any coverage of the Democratic National Convention this past week. I didn't watch any of it. I did hear snippets of the speeches on NPR the following mornings, and glanced through the articles in the newspaper the following afternoons.

I don't blame the networks for not bothering, because this wasn't really a party convention. It was a party. I'm not that old (no, really, I'm not) but I can remember a time when things actually happened at these events. Like in 1980, when there were the negotiations between Ford and Reagan over the former president being the vice presidential candidate, and Ted Kennedy's challenge of President Carter for the Democrats' nomination.

I vaguely recall that the state-by-state roll call of votes used to have some drama to it, because the outcome wasn't already pre-determined. This was especially true of vice-presidential nominations, which might have to go to a second or third vote as deals were made and votes switched or candidates dropped out. Not a very little-"d" democratic way to select a vice president, but at least it's better than the current system where the choice is made by the nominees for president, from a list culled by their staff. (Hell, G.W. Bush even managed to pull Dick Cheney out of right field - someone most voters had never even heard of, and even the delegates had never even considered - and the party dutifully nominated him.)

There used to be fights over the party platform, whether it would reflect the right or left wing of the party, try to go for centrist and opportunist voters, etc. Some of the agenda for the party, including not just the president (if elected) but their leadership in Congress, would be determined.

But, no, we already knew who the presidential nominee would be. That had been decided by media coverage of the primaries. ("No, it's not going to be Dean; we've decided to start calling Kerry the 'front-runner'.") Everyone already knew who Kerry's choice for vice-president was, leaving the delegates to rubber-stamp Edwards. We even knew who all the speakers would be, so there were no surprises like Reagan's remarks after losing to Ford in 1976. If there was a platform voted on, I didn't see a word about it. Even the speeches were all screened by the nominee's staff.

Which is probably why I found myself (to my surprise) most enjoying the sound bite I heard on the radio of Al Sharpton and the quotes of him I saw in the paper. To be blunt, I generally consider Sharpton to be a buffoon at his best, and he can come across as a sensational and divisive racist at his worst. I was glad to have someone speaking for the black community sticking in the race, but watching his campaign for president this past year has reminded me how much I miss Jesse Jackson. But he was the only convention speaker I heard who actually inspired me with what he had to say. Among all the "mainstream" rhetoric laced with military overtones, nationalist themes, and empty slogans, Sharpton talked with conviction and enthusiasm about how the Democratic party stands (or stood) in contrast to the white puritan patriarchy of the Republican party.

One article I read in the paper talked about the contrast between Sharpton and Barack Obama, casting the preacher as "the past" and the Senator-apparent as "the future". Maybe Obama does represent the future of race in American politics and that could be a good thing, but I'd have to argue that Sharpton still represents "the present". This is still the nation of racism, injustice, and a personally invasive government that Sharpton describes. The news media made more of the fact that his speech went over his allotted time and deviated from his script, than of what he actually said, but at least by breaking the rules of the convention he got some of his message across. And gave me something to bother writing about regarding the convention.

PATRIOT Abuse Isn't Science Fiction

Just in case there was any doubt left about whether the so-called USA PATRIOT Act would be used far beyond the advertised goal of fighting terrorism, here's the latest example to come to light.

The operator of SG1Archive.com (a fan site dedicated to the sci-fi TV series Stargate SG-1) has been charged with "criminal copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit services". He may or may not be guilty. Let's assume for the sake of argument that he's guilty as hell, and has been operating a large scale business pirating Stargate programs. Let's assume that MGM (the show's producers) are just doing what their stockholders would demand by asking the FBI to go after him. And let's set aside the question of whether copyright law treats folks like him (fans who feel they're helping to promote the show) fairly, since that's not the critical point here.

Now let's look at how the government went after him. The search warrant used to raid his apartment cited his international network of fellow fans as evidence of a vast conspiracy. The FBI wrecked some of the equipment they seized, either through malice or incompetence. And the kicker is that they used a provision of the USA PATRIOT Act to obtain financial information about the accused from his internet service provider. For that record, that's the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" Act.

Maybe if this guy had been involved in terrorism, or some other criminal activity that posed a danger to people, this violation of his privacy would be justified. I'm not opposed to giving the police the tools to do their job. But for giving away copyrighted stuff from a TV show without permission? That's ridiculous. And one more reason for the prompt repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act and removal from office of those who wrote it and voted for it.

Century City - An Improbable Hybrid

Century City is a new mid-season replacement series that tries to combine two genres in hopes of creating something new and different. It's Yet Another Law Drama, but it's set in the year 2030, for a Sci-Fi spin. Unfortunately, it isn't a particularly remarkable example of either genre.

The Law Drama aspect features an assortment of partners in the law firm, including the idealistic young associate, the seasoned senior partner, the hottie and the nebbish who has the hots for her, etc. Nothing terribly new or interesting there.

The Sci-Fi angle tries to take advantage of the genre's ability to comment on current issues under the pretext of looking at issues of the future or another society. Unfortunately the issues don't derive from the setting. Instead they're contrivances that seem unlikely to come out of nowhere as precedent-setting cases 25 years from now.

It's a bit like when Star Trek has tried to do legal episodes, establishing for the first time questions that would have to be settled long before the episode in question. Like, they've got a sentient android enlisted in Star Fleet, but nobody's established yet whether he has the same rights as any other sentient being. Yeah, right. And in the year 2030 they're just starting to wrestle with the legal standing of a cloned embryo and whether it's a "son" or a "brother" of the donor? I don't think so. Or a boy band who were on the charts in the 1980's, and still look twenty-something and doing a reunion tour (except for the one member who didn't get the anti-aging treatments)... but the lawyers are taken completely by surprise by it? Um, sure. And the young lawyer who was the product of substantial genetic engineering... which, if you do the math, would have to be taking place right now? Er, no.

The series seems to have it's heart in the right place, trying to put quesions like cloning into some context, free of the current debates. But between the unrealism of its portrayal of the legal profession, and the Very Special Episode theme of every week's cases, it's not something I'll be making a big effort to watch.

Open the Presidential Auditions

I just gave in on one of my chief badges of iconoclasm. I have cable TV service. Not one of those $100/month digital packages, but just Basic Cable, which includes only the channels required by the local cable monopolies, plus some all-shopping and all-ads channels. I got sick of trying to pull in weak signals with rabbit ears.

So I sat down last night and watched a little CSPAN. There was Alan Keyes (the anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-capital-punishment, pro-flat-tax, anti-public-education, black Republican candidate) talking. "Oh, fucking great..." I thought. "I thought we were rid of him." But you know what? He was making perfect sense. He was appearing in a press conference for Open Debates, who are filing a complaint with the FEC over the Commission on Presidential Debates' handling of televised debates. On the dais with him were a handful of other "fringe" politicos whose viewpoints have been locked out of the presidential debate process. (I missed the beginning of the conference, so I don't know who the others were.)

In one of his few positive contributions to the 1996 campaign (aside from the mere fact of being black and in the race), Keyes was arrested for trying to join a televised debate between Republican candidates. Here he was talking about the larger problem of how democracy is being subverted by a process that reduces the options before the voters even get a chance to act. As a speaker, he's no Jesse Jackson, but he had some good analogies, comparing horse races (where we're betting on the outcome) to presidential races (where the same thing happens, but we're supposed to be determining the outcome). He compared our system to that of the old Soviet Union, where 99% of the people voted, but the candidates had all been pre-selected , so the "democracy" was a sham.

He blamed the Commission on Presidential Debates - a cartel created by the two major parties - for making their events so deadly dull that people don't even bother watching them. Which is exactly what the Big Two's leaderships want: to keep people out of the electoral process, so that it's easier for small groups (such as them, or the corporations who fund the CPD and most major elections) to determine the outcome. It's a "keep out the vote" program. And there's a growing list of people from all over the political map who are willing to say so.

Keyes only hinted at what his own political agenda is, and he acknowledged (without ridiculing) the very different agendas of some of the others behind this complaint. Keyes mentioned Ralph Nader a few times as someone who should have been included in 2000, not because he likes Nader's positions, but because that's what it takes to make our electoral system work properly. Nader (who wasn't there) presumably feels likewise about Keyes. I certainly do. I was pissed that Keyes was locked out of that debate, and I'm pissed that the CPD is already planning to keep this year's debates limited to Bush and (presumedly) Kerry.

(I'm also more than a little disgusted at the primary process that's already appointed Kerry to be the nominee. I live in one of the states with a relatively early primary, and the list of candidates I got to chose from was already shortened from the original. The one I wanted to vote for (Kucinich) was still there, but that's only because he and Sharpton aren't playing the game by the rules, and sticking with it even though they're not "winning". If you're a Democrat and you like Gephart or Lieberman or Clark or Braun, that's just too damn bad because the pundits analysing the results from Iowa, New Hampshire, and so on have forced them to bow out. They've pretty much crippled Dean as well.)

People have been saying for years that the debates are no longer even debates. At best they're joint press conferences, and they're really closer to auditions for Martin Sheen's role on The West Wing. Maybe that's inevitable with the nature of the presidency today. But at the least they should be open auditions, with room for a variety of viewpoints, not just the moderate-liberals and the moderate-conservatives, both trying to look like just-plain-moderates.

Helen Thomas, National Treasure

Courtesy of The 18½ Minute Gap, is a transcript of G.W. Bush's press secretary trying very very hard not to answer a simple yes/no/I-don't-know question about the president's alleged military service record. The transcript doesn't identify who the various reporters posing questions were (they're all listed as "Q"), but even if McClellan hadn't addressed the main questioner as "Helen", I would've guessed that this was Helen Thomas in action.

Way back before I was born, Helen Thomas was important for simply being a woman assigned to cover the White House. In the meantime, she became important for being such a fixture there (and following every president since Kennedy on trips abroad), probably making her the most-recognised journalist (not counting anchors and weather reporters) in the world. And finally she's distinguished herself for standing up to yet another president and demanding the respect - and answers - she deserves... even though this has led to her banishment (by the most cowardly president of our age) from the front row to the back of the room during his rare appearances in the briefing room.

The issue she was asking about - whether the president was ever required to take time out from his duties in the Guard to perform community service - is important, but the how and why of that is self-evident. The value of Helen Thomas is probably self-evident as well, but I wanted to mention it anyway while I was thinking about it.