Pomp. Circumstance. Tragedy.

Image by cizauskas via FlickrBefore we go too much further, we'd like to congratulate the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (also known as Prince William and the former Kate Middleton) on their marriage.  Two billion people looked on as the royal nuptials spread a little joy into Britain's otherwise mundane existence.

In this country, the happy couple has had to compete for time with a would-be politician congratulating himself for forcing the President of the United States to prove once again that he was born here, the ongoing political unrest in the Middle East, and with a devastating cluster of tornadoes that tore through the South, killing over 300 people and destroying millions of dollars of property.

Add to that the scheduled launch of the space shuttle Endeavour, which was postponed by NASA because of mechanical problems.  Be honest, folks.  Would you have been interested in this if it wasn't for the fact that one of the pilots is married to a wounded Congresswoman, and she was supposed to be at Cape Canaveral to watch the launch?

As much as the coverage from London has been more pandering than illuminating to the female demographic the networks and their sponsors are trying to reach (there was speculation about who designed Kate's wedding dress. Really?!),  the transitions made by Katie Couric of CBS and Diane Sawyer of ABC were awkward and jarring.  How could it not be?  Death and pageantry don't mix.

Priorities.  Priorities.  This is what happens when network news divisions are so compromised by cutbacks of all kinds, leaving news gathering to unreliable social media, eyewitness accounts and relationships with other international broadcasters.  Maybe that's why the Obama administration seems caught off guard every time a situation comes up.

Yes, we need a break from the hardships that consume our lives from time to time, especially when a handsome prince takes his beautiful princess for a bride.  But news shouldn't be about escapism when, more often than not, the world resembles a Grimm's Fairy Tale.

The United States of Trump?

Image via WikipediaDonald Trump is a well-known real estate mogul and reality TV star who is worth $2.7 billion, according to Forbes magazine.  Now he's making noises about turning the White House into the Trump House.

Trump says he won't actually make a decision before the conclusion of his NBC show "The Celebrity Apprentice" in June, in which he finally tells some D-list entertainer that they've been "hired".  If he does run, it'll be as a Republican, as if that party needs more sideshow acts willing to challenge incumbent President Barack Obama, in 2012.  Some believe Trump won't run because this is all just a big publicity stunt, meant to goose the ratings for his TV show.

"The Donald" has many things in his portfolio:  hotels, office towers, casinos, golf courses and beauty pageants.  He's made lots of money in his time.  Unfortunately, he's also lost lots of money through divorces (he's on his third wife) and bankruptcies (four, at last count).  Most of those buildings Trump puts his name on are actually owned by someone else, apparently figuring that "Trump Estates" will bring in more clients than "Wingdorff Manor".  (If there is a real Wingdorff Manor somewhere, our apologies.)

Trump follows the usual conservative talking points (against abortions, same-sex marriages, gun control, Obamacare, etc.) that are almost mandatory if you want to be a good Republican in the 21st century.  What might give the GOP pause is that in the past, Trump has contributed to candidates from both parties.  At one point, he was even registered as a Democrat.

But what Trump has been getting headlines for is his insistence that President Obama was not born in this country, and that he should release his birth certificate.  The White House, hoping to put an end to this "birther" stuff once and for all, finally released Obama's certificate online for all to see.  It shows that the President was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state.  (One wonders why the President has let this go on so long.)  Trump being Trump, he took the credit for bringing the issue to a  head.  Now he's on to questioning how in the heck Obama got into Harvard.

If there is one basic reason why Trump shouldn't even be considered as a presidential candidate, it is this:  The United States is trillions of dollars in debt, and in danger of defaulting on its loans.  And Trump, who has had a history of financial problems, is the man to fix it?

No matter how much a Trump candidacy would mean to his ego, there is little chance that voters would say "you're hired"  once they've looked beyond the bluster and the hair.  If anyone shouldn't be quitting his lucrative day job(s),  it is Donald Trump.

Racism In The Morning

Image via WikipediaKDWB (FM 101.3) is one of the most listened-to radio stations in the Twin Cities, with a contemporary hits format that's been around since the AM days at 630.  Recently, though, they did something that hasn't been a hit with some members of its audience.

The "Dave Ryan In The Morning" show broadcast a song parody titled "30 Hmongs In a House", sung to the tune of Eric Clapton's "Tears In Heaven".  It makes fun of various Hmong stereotypes, including a line about teenaged girls who got pregnant early and often.

("Tears In Heaven" was Clapton's 1993 tribute to his four year old son, who died after falling out of a window in his Manhattan apartment.)

The result of all this were protests outside the KDWB studios, companies like AT&T and Blue Cross of Minnesota pulling their advertising, and numerous apologies from the station's staff and management.

This isn't the first time Ryan and company crossed the line in getting laughs out of minority groups.  In 2006, they aired a parody of "Jeopardy!" that made fun of Muslim stereotypes.

The Hmong people came to America in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, fleeing from the Communist takeover of their native Laos.  Like every other ethnic group that came here to escape war and oppression, most of the Hmong have managed to make a better life for themselves in spite of adjusting to a new country, and the resentment of others who believe that they're getting a free ride thanks to Uncle Sam.

The U.S. Census tells us that 171,000 Hmong currently live here, mostly residing in California, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  The two largest Hmong communities are in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Fresno, CA.

Will Dave Ryan, who has hosted the morning show on KDWB for 15 years, end up like Tom Barnard or Don Imus?  Barnard kept his morning job at KQRS even though he's mocked ethnic groups in the past.  Imus lost his job at New York's WFAN-AM for making jokes at the expense of a (mostly black) women's college basketball team, but has since turned up at rival station WABC-AM.

No one that we know of has been fined or disciplined in this matter.  But given the fact that KDWB's owner Clear Channel has been known to clear-cut its staff due to its financial problems, they might use that as an excuse to let go of the people responsible.

Broadcasters ought to realize the power they wield every time they speak into a microphone.  They are being heard daily by people of different races, ages, genders and nationalities.  Stations like to talk about how they serve the community through their broadcasts.  Song parodies denigrating a certain group of people isn't "serving the community".

All My Cancellations

Image via WikipediaABC is whacking two of its daytime dramas, "All My Children" and "One Life to Live", by the end of the year as the genre becomes more of an endangered species due to changing times.

After those soaps are gone, there will be four left:  "The Young and The Restless", "The Bold and The Beautiful" (CBS), "General Hospital" (ABC), and "Days of Our Lives" (NBC).  Most of them have been on the air since the 1960s and '70s.

It's not like AMC and OLTL have been around since the days of radio like "Guiding Light" was.  AMC was introduced in 1970, while OLTL began in 1968.  Both were creations of Agnes Nixon.

ABC is replacing both soaps with talk shows devoted to food and lifestyle, starting in the fall.  They should really be reducing their daytime presence and let local stations schedule what they want.

It's also no coincidence that SoapNet, which rebroadcasts the ABC daytime dramas at night for those who were working, is being replaced by another Disney-branded kids channel.

This means it's the end of the line for Susan Lucci, who as Erica Kane has been the face of AMC from the beginning.  Lucci is probably best known as the actress who was nominated multiple times for an Emmy award without ever winning one, much like the Minnesota Vikings never winning a Super Bowl or the Chicago Cubs never winning the World Series.  It became a running joke until Lucci finally won in 1999.

Have you ever watched a soap?  It's an alternate universe where characters with unbelievable names and backgrounds constantly remind themselves (and the viewers) why they're in the predicaments they're in.  Coupling is rampant, yet birth control is nonexistent.  Gays and lesbians, though rare, are a recent development.  And interracial relationships are handled as if everyone's color-blind.  In other words, the 21st century is barely acknowledged.

Women make up the majority of the audience in daytime TV, much like they do the rest of the day.  You would think that daytime dramas could have benefited from the Great Recession, with all the unemployed workers watching TV instead of pounding the pavement for their next job.  But that didn't happen.

Instead, viewers have been flocking to reality TV.  "Jersey Shore", "Real Housewives", "Keeping Up With the Kardashians", you name it.  Whether the producers admit to it or not, those shows are about as real as any of the daytime dramas.  Who needs amnesia, fake pregnancies and suddenly-grown-up children when you've got this?  And did we mention that they're cheaper to produce?

So the denizens of Pine Valley and Llanview are consigned to the scrap heap of video history.  They'll never be Lake Wobegon or Yoknapatawpha County, but there's been enough goings-on for the past four decades in those fictional burgs to fill a library's worth of novels.  And the long-suffering fans of "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" are about to find out how it's all going to end.

Keeping The Lights On In Washington

Image via WikipediaThe federal government is open for business.  For now.  President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made a last-second deal that would cut $38 billion from the budget, sparing everyone the embarrassment of the first government shutdown in 1995.  Congress is scheduled to vote on it this week.  The art of compromise is still alive in Washington, even if it is just for show.

Despite all this needless drama caused by the usual partisan bickering and Tea Party heckling, in which everyone thought national parks would close, tax refunds would be delayed and soldiers fighting in wars would not be paid, what wasn't so well known is that members of Congress, the President and other "essential services" would still get their money.

Nothing's been finalized, but some media outlets are reporting that the cuts would come from education, labor and environmental programs.  Planned Parenthood and public broadcasting are among those programs that the Republicans tried to gut, but won't be affected.  The military will still get what it wants.

House budget chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has been making quite a name for himself in suggesting that the government should slash $6 trillion over the next decade.  Washington being what it is, you know they're not going there.

But there's still more budget battles to come.  Next up is a push to raise the federal debt ceiling, because by law the government can only be in hock for so much.  If there's no agreement, the doomsayers tell us, the United States might be the next country to default on its loans.  Gee, wonder how China will feel about that?

We've all seen those reports on the evening news investigating how the government spends "our" money on silly programs.  They make for good TV, but are kind of meaningless.  To most people, the money that the government spends is all just numbers that run perpetually on the federal debt clock.  Besides, once that money leaves your pocket, it isn't really yours any more, is it?

If government can't (or won't) spend its money wisely, how can they expect anyone else to?

Katie Couric and Glenn Beck: Moving On

Image by Image Editor via FlickrThe word "footsteps" comes to mind when it comes to the fortunes of two media personalities.  Katie Couric wants to go down the path of Oprah Winfrey instead of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather.  Glenn Beck just wants to march to his own drummer.

Katie Couric is apparently leaving the "CBS Evening News" when her contract is up in June, though it hasn't been officially announced.  It is widely believed that she will be hosting a syndicated talk show starting in 2012.

When Couric arrived from NBC's "Today" in 2006 to become the first solo female network evening news anchor, she tried to think out of the box.  More interviews, commentaries and soft features along with the news of the day were tried at the beginning.  But that didn't work, so CBS went back to a more traditional newscast, one that's been in place since the days of Cronkite and Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.  It wasn't a bad newscast, either, having won awards for broadcast excellence.  Still, the network news pecking order during Couric's tenure read:  NBC, ABC and CBS.  She inherited a third-place newscast and kept it there.

Couric is a lot better at interviewing than she is at anchoring.  The best remembered example is the one she did with Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign.  Couric made the then-vice presidential candidate look like a fool who didn't know what was going on.  Maybe she's better suited for a talk show gig, where she can remind viewers to get colon cancer screenings, just like Bob Barker used to end every episode of "The Price Is Right" telling us to spay and neuter our pets.

As for Glenn Beck, the conservative commentator became a cultural figure the moment he moved from what is now HLN to Fox News Channel, the top-rated cable news channel.  A huge audience--2.5 million viewers at its peak--tuned in to hear Beck's professorial-like rantings on the world as it is.

Then it got bizarre.  Beck's emotional gloom-and-doom pronouncements, which included calling President Barack Obama a racist, led to advertisers fleeing and ratings plummeting.  He became the Chicken Little of the right, scaring people with his talk of the end of the United States as we know it.

So Beck and Fox News have mutually decided to call it a day, with the end of his TV show to be determined.  But that doesn't mean Beck is going away.  He still has a radio show (with a dwindling number of stations) and a website to do once he leaves TV.

Fox News may have lost Beck, but they still have plenty of blowhards to go around.

UPDATE:  Couric has formally announced that she's leaving the "CBS Evening News" when her contract ends in June.  Her successor, according to USA Today, might be Scott Pelley, who is probably best known as a correspondent for "60 Minutes".  CBS News will make a decision soon.

Let The Race For 2012 Begin

Image via WikipediaThe 2012 presidential election is a mere 18 months or so away, which means it's almost time to put up or shut up when it comes to declaring yourself a candidate.

President Barack Obama has announced his intentions to run for a second time.  He has a good shot at winning if the voters look past the fact that the United States is now involved in three wars, a soft economic recovery, a record federal deficit, and people who still don't believe he's qualified to be President in the first place.

That takes care of the Democrats, unless current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decides to mount a challenge against her boss just like Eugene McCarthy did against Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and Ted Kennedy against Jimmy Carter in 1980.

The Republicans are a different story.  There are so many possibilities--Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, even Donald Trump.  Yet the only one to declare so far is Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor.  He's formed one of those "exploratory committees" to help him decide whether a White House run is more than quixotic.

Pawlenty might not be the only Minnesotan in the running.  The noted congresswoman and historian Michele Bachmann is telling some media outlets that she might go for it.  And Jesse Ventura, former governor turned conspiracy TV host, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that he wants to be Ron Paul's running mate should the GOP congressman from Texas run as an independent.

Whoever the Republicans choose to run against Obama must also pass muster with the Dittoheads and Tea Partiers of the world.  Any kind of deviance from the conservative doctrine will cost them dearly in terms of votes and support.

It has been speculated that more than a billion dollars will be spent in the upcoming campaign, now that the Supreme Court has given the go-ahead for corporations to actively support candidates.  This means more mudslinging political ads than ever before, if that's possible, until Election Day finally arrives.  That, America, is what you have to look forward to.