The "Seinfeld" Prince

In the aftermath of news that Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, has given birth to a baby boy that will someday become the King of England, a thought occurs:  As third in line to the throne, that kid will be waiting decades behind (in ascending order) father Prince William and grandfather Prince Charles.  However all of them will have to wait until Queen Elizabeth II's reign is over.  She recently celebrated her 61st year on the throne, and show no signs of slowing down.

The name of the future king is George Alexander Louis, or Prince George of Cambridge.  The name might be a tribute to British monarchs of the past, but it sounds like the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge might also have been fans of the 1990s sitcom "Seinfeld".  Let's break it down:

• George is for George Costanza.
• Alexander is for Jason Alexander, who played Costanza.
• Louis is for Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who played Elaine Benes on the show.

Whether it was intentional or not, the new prince has a lot riding on his shoulders.  Royalty may not be what it used to be, reduced to figureheads who don't do much except sit in huge palaces, do charity work and become fodder for the tabloids.

There have been six kings named George in British history.  Two of them who stood out were George III, who managed the feat of losing the American colonies.  George VI was the last man to rule prior to Elizabeth II, having ascended to the throne in the wake of Edward VIII's abdication so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson in 1936.  George VI served during the World War II era and afterwards until his death in 1952.

The person missing from all this is Princess Diana, Prince George's grandmother.  She was singled out by a celebrity-obsessed public and media because of her seemingly fairy-tale romance with Prince Charles, the details of her personal life breathlessly chronicled by Fleet Street, until she was in a fatal car accident caused in part by the very same celebrity-obsessed media.  Thanks to her, the royal family will never know another moment's peace.

By the time George VII becomes King sometime during the second half of the 21st century, we will know a lot more about him than any other ruler in history.  Will he accept his role with dignity and grace?  Or will he be just like George Costanza?

George Zimmerman: "Not Guilty" Doesn't Mean Guilt-Free

Six women jurors in a Florida courtroom gave George Zimmerman a new lease on life Saturday night, acquitting him of the murder of Trayvon Martin.  How long that lease lasts is anyone's guess.

The jurors ruled that Zimmerman did have the right under Florida law to defend himself against a 17-year old wearing a hoodie, who he thought was up to no good in the neighborhood he lived in.  No matter that the young man was unarmed, just coming home from a trip to the convenience store.  One confrontation later, and the young man was no longer a threat to the community.

Even with an African-American man in the White House, the state of race relations in this country vaulted what would have otherwise been a local Orlando news story into a national controversy.  Politicians, demonstrators, and 24/7 news coverage made sure we didn't forget that Zimmerman was white and Martin was black.

Because it happened in Florida, the whole world got to see the trial televised live.  The problem with that is, while we hear about possible clues and speculation from legal analysts, a sequestered jury only gets to hear the evidence presented to them by the defense and the prosecution, as dictated to by the presiding judge.  So a lot of the evidence which would have turned the case around against Zimmerman (who didn't testify in his own defense) never made it to the jury.  As it was, the jury did the only thing they could do under the circumstances, which was to acquit Zimmerman.

This trial went the way of similar verdicts involving O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony, in which most of America thought they got away with murder.  George Zimmerman may be a free man today, but in truth he really isn't.  He's in hiding because of all the death threats he's been getting, and the legal system may not be done with him yet.  We hate to say this, but Zimmerman might have been better off if he were convicted.

Aside from a few skirmishes, the reaction to the verdict across the country has so far been gratefully muted.  We may not like the decision, but we have to live with it.  Just like we have to live with those trigger-happy people who have delusions of grandeur, heroically defending their lives, their property and their loved ones from real or perceived miscreants as if this were still the Wild West.  We also have to live with racial profiling, (fill in the blank) While Black, and being careful what you're wearing so nobody else gets the wrong idea.   And that is why Treyvon Martin is dead today.

Oh, "Big Brother"

English: Julie Chen and Les Moonves at the Vanity Fair celebration for the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"Big Brother", a reality competition TV show CBS promotes as lightweight summer entertainment, got some unwanted publicity.  Three of its contestants are in hot water for uttering racist and sexist comments live on the air, and two of them have been fired from their day jobs.  Until recently, the network declined to address this matter either to the contestants or the viewers, and they've taken serious heat for this.  But it's better late than never.

We'll talk more about this later.  But first . . .

"Big Brother" is a European import that's been running the American version on CBS since 2000, and is currently in its 15th season.  It takes 16 strangers (known as "houseguests")--mostly of the young and beautiful variety with the occasional minority, middle aged person and gay/lesbian contestant thrown in--and moves them into a specially-designed "house" with cameras, microphones and one-way mirrors everywhere, cut off from the real world.  The last one to survive weeks of backstabbing, "showmances", silly games and other assorted drama wins a half-million dollars.

Julie Chen, who used to be a CBS morning news anchor, has hosted "Big Brother" from the beginning.  Her husband is President and CEO Les Moonves, who has guided the network to the top of the broadcast TV heap for more than a decade.  Which means that as long as Chen remains married to Moonves, she'll always have a job at CBS.  Right now, her other gig is co-hosting "The Talk", the network's daytime ripoff of ABC's "The View".

Now back to our story.  The three houseguests made their allegedly racist and homophobic comments on the live feed that runs 24/7 on CBS' website.  Two of  the women have been fired from their jobs outside of the show (for the record, they were for a modeling agency and as a pageant coordinator), and the other's employment status is pending.

Since the 16 original contestants entered the "Big Brother" house, they are cut off from the outside world.  No TV, no Internet, no smartphone.  It's also possible that they could not have known about Paula Deen's career implosion, caused by her alleged use of the N word decades ago.

Some people would like to see the offending houseguests booted off of "Big Brother".  It's not likely that it will happen before the show concludes its run in September, because once the other houseguests vote to evict them, some of them will remain sequestered to serve as a jury to determine the show's eventual winner.

In reality television, producers don't look for solid citizens.  Instead, they want people with outsized personalities and good looks who could shake things up.  They do conduct background checks, but sometimes let things slide with disastrous results.  It's all about goosing up the ratings.  The more controversial the contestant, the better the network and its advertisers like it.

So what's a couple of people who say nasty things about gays and minorities?  For a show that's struggling in the ratings as "Big Brother" is, you can't buy this kind of publicity.  Now all they have to do is to stem the tide of viewers spending more of their time outdoors, instead of watching a bunch of pretty and obnoxious people hamming it up in a closed environment.

Paula Deen: Recipe for Disaster

Paula Deen holds court (Photo credit: Bristol Motor Speedway & Dragway)

Until recently, Paula Deen was a popular TV chef who sold her Southern brand of cooking (meaning lots of butter, sugar and fat) to an America that had grown weary of dishes that were good for them, instead of food that tasted good.

Now Deen's desperately trying to save her livelihood, becoming the latest celebrity to lose credibility and millions of dollars for saying something inappropriate.  It came in a deposition for a lawsuit filed against Deen, in which she allegedly admitted to having uttered the N word way back when.

With that, at least a dozen companies have so far bailed on Deen, including Walmart, Target and Sears.  Her TV show has been canceled by Food Network.  Because nobody wants to do business with a racist, whether real or perceived.

Deen's Apology Tour has so far succeeded only in making her look like a sad and desperate woman.  She got mixed reviews on her "Today" show appearance, in which she wept, read Bible passages, and declared "I is who I is".

It's been almost 150 years since the end of the Civil War, when thousands of soldiers died because both North and South had different visions of what the future of the United States should be.  The North wanted to keep the union together.  The South wanted to form their own country, so they could keep their slaves and their cotton.

Today, we're still fighting that war, even though thousands of Northerners have come South in search of better jobs and a better climate.  The political structure of the nation is weighted toward the South, but much of the economy is in the North.  Racial attitudes have improved considerably, but there's still work to do.

We castigate public figures who use racial or sexual slurs, whether they're innocent or not.  Why do they do it?  Is it because it's part of the environment they live in?  Do they think it's cool?  Or do they think that, once they've said it, it won't come back to haunt them some day?

Deen should have known that the antebellum South of "Gone With The Wind" and the attitudes that came with them are, well, gone.  She may now claim to have the utmost respect for the African Americans and anyone else she offended for what she allegedly said long ago, with her bank account and reputation in tatters.  Once she gets familiar with her new reality, she can let the healing and forgiveness begin. 

Supreme Court: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

English: The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2010. Top row (left to right): Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Bottom row (left to right): Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As conservative as the makeup of the current United States Supreme Court is, they can always be counted on to do the Right thing.  But sometimes they can rule on an issue that puts them in the right with those who don't agree with them.

First, the justices roll back the main portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which civil rights activists in and out of government fought so hard to get passed.  The Court ruled that local election laws in some southern states no longer need the federal government's permission to be implemented on account of possible racial bias.

The Court says things have changed in the South in the past 50 years.  More African-Americans are voting than they did then.  Elections are a lot fairer than they used to be, except for the occasional hanging chad.  Republicans have replaced Democrats as the dominant party in the South, and now rule the country at large.  There are minorities such as Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal who happen to be Governors of southern states (and who also happen to be Republican). And do we need to tell you that there's an African-American President in the White House?  All this wouldn't have been possible without the Voting Rights Act.

So who needs the Voting Rights Act?  Why fix what isn't broken?  Maybe its gutting won't bring back the days of poll taxes or IQ tests on Election Day.  But it sure won't make African-Americans' experiences at the voting booth or in public office any easier.

Second, the Court did gay couples in 12 states a big favor by striking down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.  This means that, in states where same sex marriage is legal, gay and lesbian couples could file joint tax returns and receive federal benefits previously denied them.  Just like any other couple.

The justices also declined to act on a lower court ruling which overturned Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage in California.  So make that 13 states.

What the Court did not do was to rule on the constitutionality of gays and lesbians getting married in the first place.  Thirty-six states currently outlaw it either by statute or constitutional amendment.

Then there are those who believe government should get out of the marriage business and leave it to the churches.  Since marriages are as much a legal and business matter as well as an emotional one, that's kind of naive.  Besides, if we left it up to the churches, the matter of same sex marriages would be settled.  There just wouldn't be any.

As the Supreme Court's nine justices take off for the summer, only to don the robes again come the first Monday in October, they're leaving behind a mixed legacy.  They might not be the big, bad conservative monsters progressives and other Washington pundits have led us to believe they were.  But they've done enough damage to the country's sense of fairness to make it seem that way.

Security Nation

The seal of the U.S. National Security Agency. The first use was in September 1966, replacing an older seal which was used briefly. For more information, see here and here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The revelations published by the Washington Post and The Guardian that the United States government has been snooping into our phone records and Internet use for some unspecified reason other than wanting to keep us "safe" should come as no surprise.  After all, the American people are just children to them, to be talked down to when trying to justify matters that only they can understand.  Such as using drones to kill those big bad terrorists, invading foreign countries and pretending it's for national survival, and tapping domestic communications just for the heck of it.

So how come it took an IT guy named Edward Snowden, who had worked for only three months for a contractor named Booz Allen, to claim credit for spilling the beans on what the National Security Agency was really up to?  He now joins Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Daniel Ellsberg as individuals we should either thank or blame for exposing some of the government's secrets.

It isn't just the government that takes advantage of gullible Americans through data mining.  It's also big business who tracks your online habits, whether intentional or not, then uses that information to either sell you stuff or embarrass you.

You can put on the latest and greatest security system on your smartphone or computer.  But they'll still be subject to hacking and snooping.  It also doesn't matter that government and big business has equipment that's far better technologically than anything sold to the general public.  Not unless cyberterrorists and amateur hackers can find a way around them.

Can anything be done to ensure whatever is left of our electronic privacy?  Don't count on it.  Congress passed the Patriot Act years ago without so much as having read it first, and they're too intimidated by all the intelligence briefings they're getting to change it now.

President Barack Obama, who once campaigned against the abuses of national security so prevalent in the George W. Bush administration, has softened his stance once he got into office.  Obama has maintained the status quo in his use of drones and in domestic surveillance begun by Bush, and has led to some successes in rooting out certain members of Al Qaeda while alienating countries like Pakistan.

The President's assurance that nobody in government has been listening to domestic phone calls is kind of hollow to those who already feel betrayed by his two-faced policy on surveillance.  This controversy could wind up damaging the remainder of Obama's presidency.

We wouldn't be talking about any of this if the Bush administration had been taking care of business in the days and months prior to September 11, 2001.  Since then, it has been one security nightmare after another.  Conservatives complain about the 'nanny state', but here they may not be crying wolf.

It was President Ronald Reagan who once coined the phrase "trust, but verify", which was in reference to his negotiations with the Soviet Union over nuclear weapons.  In this case, government and big business ask us to trust them, because they know what they're doing.  The thing is, we can't verify.  It's all classified.  If they can't trust us, how can we trust them?  It's a two-way street.

Reshuffling the WCCO Dawn Patrol

Everlasting DeRusha (Photo credit: Jason DeRusha)

We've said this before, but it bears repeating:  WCCO-TV (Channel 4) likes to brag that more Minnesotans watch their newscasts than any other TV station, and that it's not a coincidence.  They lead at 5, 6 and 10 not just because viewers seem to like (or at least tolerate) Mr. and Mrs. News a.k.a. Frank Vascellaro and Amelia Santaniello, but also CBS' prime time shows.

There's one newscast WCCO doesn't brag about as much, and that's in the morning.  As more and more folks head off to work earlier and earlier, the news is now from 4:30 to 7 a.m. (In some places, it's 4 a.m.)  That's 2 1/2 hours (longer if you're a Fox station or an independent) of warmed-over headlines from last night, weather, traffic reports and fluff before the networks take over.  They've become a cash cow for local stations.

WCCO's morning news currently sits in third place out of four stations.  We don't know who's in first because no one makes local news ratings public any more, unless you happen to be in advertising or station management.

So WCCO makes some changes.  In this town, anything WCCO does becomes headline news.  Nobody cares what the other stations do,

Jason DeRusha and Jamie Yuccas (part of the 'CCO Blonde Patrol, so named for the station's tendency to hire golden-haired female on-air talent) are the new co-anchors, replacing Mike Binkley and Angela Davis (no relation to the activist).  They're moving to Sundays and to substitute anchor work.

For DeRusha, this could be a career game changer.  Up until now, he has parlayed his "Good Question" reporting gig into a magazine column, as a substitute radio host, and an almost constant presence on social media.  (Yes, we follow him on Twitter.  And he follows us.  Why?  That's a good question.)  He's traded it all away for an audience that treats its TV as if it were all-news radio.

Replacing DeRusha on "GQ" is Heather Brown, who recently returned to WCCO from a stint at WNYW/Fox 5 in New York.  Brown is the third reporter in that role, which was originated by current CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy.

There's one other reason why WCCO's ratings are lagging in the morning, and it's a problem shared by other CBS affiliates:  the presence of "CBS This Morning".  Now, the network has never had much luck with its morning news broadcast when compared to NBC's "Today" and ABC's "Good Morning America".  But this version, with Charlie Rose, Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King as co-anchors, has gotten so much positive buzz for emphasizing news over fluff that you wonder why that hasn't translated into more viewers.

Only time will tell if WCCO's morning ratings will rise and shine, but we do know one thing:  The hype machine will continue to turn its reporters and anchors into stars, while the quality of its journalism sinks into the abyss.  Always.