In Boston, the End of the Beginning

Boston Skyline (Photo credit: brentdanley)

We have a few questions about what happened in and around Boston this past week.  No answers, just questions.

• Out of the millions of photographs and surveillance videos the FBI says they used to get pictures of the Boston Marathon crime scene, they were able to narrow it down to two suspects.  Are they sure they got the right ones?  Or were the alleged suspects fall guys in a larger conspiracy?
• Why would the FBI ask for the nation's help in identifying the suspects when it became clear that they never left the Boston area?
• The alleged suspects were from Chechnya, an area in Russia that's had a history of violence and terrorism, not to mention a thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin.  What does this revelation do to diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia?  Since nuclear weapons in both countries are still aimed at each other, is a new Cold War coming?
• Was it really necessary to lock down an entire metropolitan area just to find one person?  Are self-appointed arbiters of the law so power-drunk at times like these that they can subjugate the populace to their will?  Are people that willing to give up their freedoms in a moment of crisis?
• Outside of Boston, was it really necessary for the TV networks to go wall-to-wall with manhunt coverage?  What purpose does it serve, scaring the hell out of its viewers?  And what if this had happened in, let's say, Milwaukee?
• Does "if you see something, say something" apply to news reporters who get bad information from otherwise impeccable sources (we'll just have to take their word for it) about arrests that were never made, news conferences that never happened and explosions that turned out to be mere fires?
• An explosion at a fertilizer plant resulted in several dead, and half of a small town in Texas destroyed.  Yet the networks couldn't spare any resources because Boston is just a hop, skip and a jump away from New York, and little old West, Texas is not?
• Could the bombings have anything to do with the U.S. Senate's not having enough votes to enact new gun control legislation?  What will this do to proposed immigration reforms?
• Despite predictions that next year's Boston Marathon will be the biggest ever, won't there actually be fewer runners and spectators because of the inevitable increase in security?
• Finally, aren't you already sick of "Sweet Caroline" and "Boston Strong"?

It Happened on Boylston Street

2011 Boston Marathon finishing line pavillion on Boylston Street. Looking west; runners would be coming from the east. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Within the last 20 years, the days in and around the third week of April have been marked with modern-day American horror stories.  First, there was the U.S. government torching the Branch Davidian compound after a long standoff with David Koresh and his followers in 1993.  Then there was the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building (often seen as payback for the torching).  And then there were the school shootings at Columbine High School (1999) and Virginia Tech (2007).

Now you can add Boston to the list.  On April 15, which was celebrated as Patriot's Day locally (Income Tax Day in the rest of America), two bombs exploded along Boylston Street near the finish line at the annual Boston Marathon.  Three are reported dead, and almost 200 are injured.  There have been no suspects, no motive, nor any claim of responsibility.  No one remembers who actually won the race.

Because of that distinction, it is hard to say whether this was a terrorist attack or not.  The media coverage, when they weren't looping the same video footage from shaky smartphones over and over, have been reckless in calling it terrorism.  Even President Barack Obama has been reluctant to call it a terrorist attack.
The investigation, if we may be forgiven for using a sports analogy, is going to be more of a marathon than a sprint.

There were two bombs that exploded within seconds of each other, neither of which were powerful enough to take down a building.  When you think about it, it's rather easy for somebody to slip explosives inside a building.  All you have to do is to wait for the multitudes of security, marathon organizers and spectators to focus on the finish line, play it cool, do your thing, then go disappear.  Then watch all hell break loose.

Because of what happened in Boston, the National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates were handed a big gift.  The bombings took the grieving Newtown, Connecticut families, who had joined with President Obama in lobbying Congress for stronger gun regulations on behalf of their dead children, off TV screens and delayed debate in the Senate.  That means the NRA can start working their magic while legitimately claiming that guns don't kill people, bombs do.

Boston will go on.  It has survived the Revolutionary War, violent weather and much worse.  But now Patriot's Day and the marathon will be remembered for something other than a celebration.  Future marathons around the world will now have restricted access to the finish line, and the route runners used may be changed to avoid city streets.

Such is life in the 21st century.  You can run, but you can't hide from terrorism.

Roger Ebert (1942-2013): The Balcony Is Closed

Roger Ebert, american film critic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As long as there have been movies, there's been movie criticism.  Depending on what publication or website you read, these men and women gave us their views on whether a film was worth seeing or not, which performers impressed them and which did not, all while avoiding what we now call "spoiler alerts".  The reader's job was to decide whether to plunk down his/her hard-earned money for a night at the local Bijou, based on that review.  Many a Hollywood career soared or tanked because of it.  (Of course, some would choose to ignore the negative review and go anyway.)

Roger Ebert, who died at the age of 70 Thursday, wasn't the first film critic to gain wide attention for his work.  He was just the best-known and (according to his peers) the most powerful movie critic in America.  He also happened to be the first movie critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, as well as having a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Over a 46-year career at the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, Ebert had written thousands of reviews on the movies he saw.  His year-end list of what he thought were the best movies ran the gamut from Oscar winners to art-house specialties.  Most recently, according to Wikipedia, those films that topped his list included "The Hurt Locker", "The Social Network", "A Separation" and "Argo".

Ebert tried his hand at screenwriting early in his career, working for director Russ Meyer in co-writing the notorious cult classic "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls".

But Ebert's real rise to prominence came through his association with Gene Siskel.  Both were film critics, plying their trade at competing Chicago newspapers and local TV stations, having a nice little rivalry.  That's when a producer at public TV station WTTW got the idea of bringing the two of them together.  The result was the program that eventually became "Sneak Previews" on PBS.

For nearly a quarter century (and through three different shows), America got to watch two movie critics from Chicago mixing it up over the film they just saw, then delivering their verdicts with a thumbs up or a thumbs down.  Most of us got our movie education through Siskel and Ebert, who championed some films we never would have heard about in the days before Netflix because they weren't appearing at the local multiplex.

The partnership ended with Siskel's death in 1999.  Since then, Ebert tried other shows in which he was paired up with other reviewers.  But it just wasn't the same.

Today, thanks to Siskel and Ebert, everybody's a critic.  Though reviewers who did this for a living are now few and far between because of downsizing by newspapers and other print media, and by the Hollywood studios' increasing practice of not offering certain movies for preview, the art has been thriving on the Internet through film buffs with blog posts and social media accounts.

As Ebert's health deteriorated following his cancer diagnosis, he was able to continue his career through the Internet.  When surgery took away his voice, he used the new technology to help get it back, sort of.

It's easy to say that there will never be another critic like Roger Ebert.  Instead we now have millions of Eberts delivering verdicts on the movies we watch through words, word of mouth, and our wallets.

And that, as Roger Ebert might say, deserves two thumbs up.

North Korea: Life (or Death) Imitates Art?

In the recent movies "Red Dawn" and "Olympus Has Fallen", they depict the United States being attacked by North Koreans.  At the time these films were made, Hollywood executives (and most of the rest of us) must have figured the country was too small and remote to be anything more than a nuisance.  Besides, they made great stand-ins for the Chinese, a real military and economic superpower that neither the U.S. government nor Hollywood could afford to offend.

Now we have a situation where those cheesy movies just might have stumbled onto the truth.  Kim Jong-Un, North Korea's current "Dear Leader", has been hollering about breaking his country's 60-year armistice with its southern neighbors, threatening to throw nuclear weapons at South Korea and the United States unless economic sanctions are lifted and a peace treaty is negotiated.  Though the fighting ended in 1953, the two sides have never really let down their guards.

Foreign policy experts and U.S. government officials have noted that Kim, who only recently took power upon the death of Kim Jong-Il and is believed to be around 30 years old, is just doing this to convince his own people what a big man he is.  Also, Kim's predecessors have always said stuff like this whenever the U.S. and South Korea holds joint military exercises every spring.  Only this time. Kim's rhetoric is a bit more ominous than usual.

These same experts have taken pains to assure us that none of North Korea's missiles will get anywhere near the U.S. mainland, despite Kim's allegedly having a "hit list" of American cities he'd love to destroy.  They just don't have the technology for it, we're told.  Really?  There's probably a lot more to North Korea's military and the number of missiles they have than the "experts" are aware of, or are willing to share with the public.  To that end, the Obama White House has said it will increase the number of anti-missile systems on the West Coast over the next few years, just in case.

South Korea has remade itself since the war into one of the world's leading economies, helped along in part by America's continuing military presence there.  Should war come, that Samsung smartphone you have in your hand and that Hyundai car you're driving could become collectors' items.  And the International Olympic Committee had better have a backup plan ready in case South Korea is unable to host the 2018 Winter Games.  The Korean peninsula would become a mass graveyard.

The presence of China as North Korea's BFF serves as a deterrent to Americans' desire to reduce Pyongyang to rubble.  They'd either rather see Korean reunification on their terms, or keep things the way they are.  But even China seems to have problems controlling what Kim says or does.

The longer this thing goes on, the more likely it is that something or somebody could make a mistake that crosses the line into a war that could involve the planet.  Kim Jong-Un and his fellow countrymen and women may soon find that, unlike in the movies, suicide is not painless.

NBC: Here "Today", Gone Tomorrow?

Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show. Cropped from Flickr image. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a TV landscape where there's hundreds of channels and almost nothing on (to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen), the most talked-about network these days is NBC.  For the wrong reasons.

Ever since Comcast bought the network (which they will soon own lock, stock and barrel after GE sells its stake), things have gone from bad to worse.  The only place where NBC is dominant is with its "Nightly News" with Brian Williams on weeknights.  Otherwise, we'll just break them down into what the industry calls dayparts on where the network is going wrong.

Early Morning

"Today" was introduced more than 60 years ago as the first breakfast-hour news broadcast.  Imitators at the other networks have come and gone, but "Today" remained the first place people watched upon waking up or going to work.  Now?  It's a four-hour show from 7 to 11 a.m., with different topics for different audiences.

"Today" recently lost its morning crown to ABC's "Good Morning America" because they squandered it by repeatedly shooting itself in the foot.  There's the alleged arrogance of co-host Matt Lauer, who may or may not have had a hand in the bungled departure of Ann Curry, who has since moved on to other assignments at NBC News.  There's also the apparent failure of Curry's replacement Savannah Guthrie to catch on with viewers.

Meanwhile, "GMA" benefited from "Today"'s troubles by exploiting co-host Robin Roberts' illness to big ratings.  And CBS picked up a few new viewers to its critically-acclaimed, news-intensive morning broadcast.  But not enough to get them out of third place.

Prime Time

Two of the biggest shows on network TV, "Sunday Night Football" and "The Voice", are on NBC.  Unfortunately for them, the football season is over, meaning Sundays have been left to "Dateline" and Donald Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice".  And the "American Idol" ripoff has also been off the air for a few weeks, and is just now returning with Usher and Shakira replacing Christina Aguilera and CeeLo Green in the swivel chairs.

Without football and the singing contest, NBC's ratings have tanked so badly that they trailed a Spanish language network in the February sweeps.  "Do No Harm", "Smash" and "Deception", anyone?

As for the rest of network TV, Fox's "Idol" and ABC's "Dancing With The Stars" are fading in popularity while CBS just keeps rolling along.  NBC just keeps getting left behind.

Late Night

You've heard the reports that NBC wants to replace Jay Leno with Jimmy Fallon as host of the "Tonight Show" in 2014.  A couple of questions:  (1) Why on earth would they want to move the one man that's been king of the late night talk shows since Johnny Carson retired?  (2) Since it is speculated that "Tonight" would move to New York, why won't Fallon move to California, where the guests are?  Is Lorne Michaels of "Saturday Night Live" controlling things behind the scenes?  (3) Is this all a ruse for Leno to get a better deal out of NBC?  It's happened before, and Conan O'Brien is now plying his trade on cable because of it.

As you can see, NBC is a disaster area right now.  But there's nothing here that a Winter Olympics or a Super Bowl in the next couple of years won't fix.

UPDATE:  The rumors are true.  NBC has announced that Fallon is replacing Leno as host of "Tonight" come the spring of 2014, right after the network's coverage of the Winter Olympics.  The show is moving to New York, and Michaels will be the executive producer.  The next move is up to Leno.  Will NBC chicken out like they did last time?

Meet The New Pope. Same As The Old Pope?

"Habemus Papam" - Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., has been elected Pope Francis I (Photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales))

When the most-watched chimney in the world belched out white smoke Wednesday in Vatican City, it meant that the conclave of cardinals who had hidden themselves away behind closed doors had come to a decision about who was going to replace the newly-retired Pope Benedict.

The cardinals decided on a man who came from what they call the New World, an Argentinian who eschewed opulence in favor of public transportation and lived in ratty old apartments.  His name is Jorge Bergoglio, but to the world he will be known as Pope Francis I.

There are a number of firsts that came with the selection of Francis.  He comes from South America, where he was previously Archbishop of Buenos Aires.  He is a Jesuit priest. And he's of Italian ancestry, which is what might make the choice go down easier with Europeans, having seen the title of His Holiness go to a Pole and a German in recent decades.

Though Francis has been described as humble, the cardinals voted for a man who is as socially conservative as his predecessors.  He is also 76 years old and lives with one lung..  If the Catholic Church were serious about reforms, they would have chosen someone who was younger and in better health.  As it is, they elected another caretaker with one foot in the grave.

Almost half of the one billion Catholics around the world now reside south of the Equator.  This has come about through not just European emigration, but through the successful proselytizing of the locals over the centuries.

Francis and the Catholic Church now face many challenges, whether it's from changes in the world at large or scandals they've brought on themselves.  Contraception, gay marriage, women priests, etc., all demand attention.  All will be routinely ignored.  As for the complaints and lawsuits from those who believe they were molested as children by their friendly priest, it won't be as easy to sweep under the rug.  In other words, for the Catholic Church to make themselves relevant in the 21st century, the pope has to do more than tweet.

We have no idea what Francis I will do once he settles into his new position.  What we do know is that, with all the problems he has to face, he'll need all the prayers he can get.

The Worm and The Dictator

Dennis Rodman (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

North Korea is a land that sits above the 38th Parallel from its neighbor South Korea.  We don't know much about the country because its government bans most international visitors.  We do know (by way of anecdotal evidence) that its people are desperately poor and oppressed, while its leaders tease the rest of the world with firing nuclear test missiles and indulging in American pop culture.

Recently, the world saw Kim Jong-un get chatty with former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who was in North Korea for a series of basketball exhibitions with members of the Harlem Globetrotters.  Reportedly, they are the first Americans to have met Kim ever since he took power upon Kim Jong-il's death in 2011.  It must have gone really well because Rodman started referring to Kim as a close personal friend of his.  And he wanted to relay a message from Kim to President Barack Obama:  Call me maybe?

Rodman's skills as a diplomat have been pooh-poohed by the White House and the State Department, possibly hinting that he's being used for propaganda purposes.

Kim has become quite proficient in the art of saber rattling in the short time he's been North Korea's New Leader.  In response to ever-more stringent economic sanctions, Kim has been authorizing the launching of test nuclear missiles capable of possibly hitting the west coast of the United States.  Now he's threatening to undo the 60-year old cease fire agreement with South Korea.  Both countries have remained in a state of war since 1953.

It's been years since Rodman, whose flair for outrageousness sometimes exceeded his basketball talent, has been relevant.  He's won five NBA titles during his playing career--two with the Detroit Pistons and three with the Chicago Bulls during the 1990s (although he had lots of help from a couple of guys named Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen).  But Rodman's penchant for calling attention to himself through various forms of body art and bizarre behavior have gotten him into trouble on and off the court.  That includes dating Madonna, and a brief marriage to Carmen Electra. These days, Rodman is a reality TV star who can currently be found trying to avoid getting "fired" by Donald Trump on NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice".

Whether this brand of "basketball diplomacy" has any chance of easing relations between the United States and North Korea remains to be seen.  Who knows, this just might be the start of a beautiful (if strange) relationship between The Dictator and The Worm.