A Blizzard of Random Thoughts

English: This is an alternate crop of an image already uploaded. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Gov._Sarah_Palin_in_Dover,_NH.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Blizzard of 2016 (or Winter Storm Jonas, if you believe the Weather Channel) that affected the East Coast was certainly one for the record books, with up to three feet of snow in most places between New York and Washington.  Nearly thirty are dead, thousands of flights either delayed or canceled, Broadway and other events shut down, and millions of dollars are or will be spent on cleanup due to piles of snow or rising flood waters.

To paraphrase former House speaker Tip O'Neil, all weather is local.  Unless you live on the East Coast, which means the rest of the country has to hear about your big wet snowstorm.  If this had happened anywhere else, would we be seeing so much coverage?

You won't hear much about what the blizzard has to do with climate change, because the media fears offending the Republicans and other deniers who write their checks.  But we've heard plenty about how this is the work of El Nino, the weather phenomenon where jet streams bring storms to the coasts while much of the Midwest remains dry.  Could it be that climate change is just making things worse?

So where was President Barack Obama during all this?  You'd think that with Washington getting the brunt of the storm, staying in the White House would be a national security concern.

Sarah Palin is endorsing Donald Trump for President.  While these two former reality TV stars are tailor-made for "Saturday Night Live" parodies, conservatives and anyone else with a brain are heading for the exits.  What other idiotic comments have yet to come from Palin's mouth that could come back to haunt the Trump campaign, such as her blaming President Obama's lack of respect for veterans for her son's arrest on charges of domestic violence?  Or, given that this is Trump we're talking about, we're past the point of no return.

In the latest Star Tribune Minnesota Poll, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida--not Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz--leads among the Republican candidates.  Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by a wide margin, but the former Secretary of State would have problems beating Rubio or any other GOP candidate head-to-head.  Maybe all that baggage is about to collapse on her?

What's happening in Flint, Michigan is why we shouldn't be too hasty about banning drinking water in plastic bottles.  Anyone who makes a boneheaded decision based on budget to get its drinking water from a nearby polluted river, causing thousands of residents to develop toxic levels of lead poisoning, should go jump in that river.

Glenn Frey (1948-2016): The Eagles' Co-Pilot

Glen Frey is a member of the band, The Eagles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Eagles started out in the 1970s as a country-rock band capitalizing on the easy California sound of the era, as popularized by Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons and others.  That they went on to influence pop and country music over the next four decades is a tribute to their lasting popularity, never mind the rough flights along the way.

Off all the successful musical partnerships--John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard--Eagles co-founders Glenn Frey (who died at 67 Monday) and Don Henley should be included in the same sentence.

The songs speak for themselves:  "Taking It Easy", "Peaceful Easy Feeling", "Life In The Fast Lane", "Tequila Sunrise", and so many others.  The Eagles, having sold more than 100 million copies of their albums, still have two of the best-selling of all time:  "Their Greatest Hits (1971-75)" and "Hotel California".

After a few years of disagreements and personnel turnovers, the Eagles were grounded during the 1980s.  Frey and Henley both pursued solo careers.  Henley's was the most musically successful, with a streak that continues to this day.  Frey had a few hits during the decade with "The Heat Is On" and"You Belong to The City", but he also dabbled with acting.  His most notable roles were a guest appearance on TV's "Miami Vice" as a drug dealer, and playing the general manager of the Arizona Cardinals football team in the film "Jerry Maguire".

The Eagles returned to performing and recording in 1994 after having vowed never to do so again unless "hell froze over", as they put it.  They spent the next two decades touring to sellout crowds everywhere they went.

These days, you can thank (or blame) the Eagles for the way country radio sounds, with a little more rock and a lot less twang.  Acts like Travis Tritt, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Blake Shelton owe their careers to the soft twang and high harmonies of Henley, Frey and company.  There's even been a tribute album recorded by some of the country stars.

There's no telling what will happen to the Eagles now that Glenn Frey is already gone, but we do know this:  He's now in a place where, unlike the Hotel California, he can't check out any time he likes, and he can never leave.                           ;

One Week of Political Sound and Fury

English: South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With a couple of weeks to go before Iowans go to caucus and New Hampshirites vote in their primary, the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are honing their strategies and sharpened their attacks against each other, leaving the voters in those two states either listening intently or running for cover.  Oh, and President Barack Obama had a few things to say too.

Tuesday, January 12--Washington, D.C.  Obama's final State of the Union address consisted of his summary of his accomplishments in office, along with an optimistic laundry list of what he'd like to see the country become in the next decade or so.  He did acknowledge that not everything is hunky-dory, with terrorist attacks, gun violence, income inequity and the general mood of the populace that made him regret not bringing the country together.  Of course, he blamed the Republicans and Donald Trump for that one, if not by name.

All this was mostly greeted enthusiastically by the shrinking number of Congressional Democrats in the House chamber, an indication that the President isn't going to get much done with one foot out the door.  The GOP majority, who have made it their mission to oppose anything Obama supported from the word go, sat there stone-faced until-- as if by Pavlovian instincts--they got up and applauded whenever the military was mentioned.  That's why the President has had to resort to executive orders just to get his pet projects going, even if they're only symbolic.

After the speech, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley made the Republican response to the SOTU, asking the presidential candidates in her own party to please turn down the volume on the rhetoric.  Her state has gone through so much in the past year, what with the historic flooding and the mass shooting at a Charleston church, that it seemed like a reasonable request.

Thursday, January 14--Charleston, S.C.  Instead of honoring Governor Haley's request, the volume was turned up to 11 for the latest GOP debate, televised by Fox Business Network.  Of the seven candidates invited to share the prime time stage, only Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz seemed to matter.  When they weren't bashing immigrants, ISIS, Hillary Clinton or President Obama (not necessarily in that order), they were arguing the merits of Trump's "New York values" vs. Cruz' questionable qualifications for the Presidency.  It was as depressing as the Oscar nominations.

Three things:  (1) How long can Trump go on invoking 9/11 to shut down any debate critical of himself or his favorite city?  It's been 15 years.  Most of us are over it already.  (2) You could make a drinking game based on the number of times Cruz or the other candidates mention the phrase "radical Islamic terrorists" (or something similar).  (3) Don't GOP politicians sound like parrots whenever they suggest replacing the income tax with the flat tax?  You're not going to get rid of the IRS, no matter what.

Even though Cruz is gaining on Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire, The Donald is still the biggest and loudest mouth in the room.  And still the front-runner nationally.

Sunday, January 17--Charleston, S.C.  Unlike most of the other Democratic debates, which seemed to have been scheduled for times normally reserved for infomercials, this one was on Sunday night prime time on NBC.  Even the GOP can't say that.

This debate was the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders Show. with former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley brought in to occasionally act as the voice of reason.

The former Secretary of State and current Vermont Senator clashed over the Affordable Care Act (for which Sanders wanted a do-over to include universal care), gun control (for which he also changed his position) and whether Clinton was bought and paid for by Wall Street.  The gloves did come off in this debate, but not to the point where Sanders declined to bring up Bill Clinton's personal life (for which we're all grateful).

There was some agreement on how to handle ISIS in the Middle East in a way that differs from the GOP, as well as how to handle the continuing influence of Russian president Vladimir Putin.  What we're not hearing from any of the candidates in either party is who or what should replace Bashar al-Assad in Syria, since he's either killed off or exiled most of his opposition.

What we also did not hear from both parties is the state of race relations on the observance of Martin Luther King Day, though the Democratic candidates did take the time to honor him.

Clinton currently leads Sanders by a wide margin nationally, but her lead is slipping away in Iowa and New Hampshire.  Is it 2008 all over again for her?

Now all the candidates will spend the next couple of weeks directing their pitches to the good folks of Iowa and New Hampshire, hoping to turn them into delegate-generators come early February.  What happened this past week could go a long way toward where the campaign goes from here.  

UPDATE:  Tuesday, January 19  Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump.  Make up your own joke here.

David Bowie (1947-2016): A Life of Changes

English: David Bowie at the Area2 Festival, San Francisco (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Change was what David Bowie's life was all about, whether it was personal, on stage or in his musical styles.  The final change came shortly after he turned 69--and the release of his album "Blackstar" (which has already shot to the top of the charts)--with his death.  He had had cancer for the past year and a half.

Bowie, who changed his name from David Jones to avoid confusion with the future Monkee, was a musical chameleon.  Whether it was as Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke or some other stage persona, he kept being relevant in an ever-changing music scene by going along with whatever the current style was, be it disco, R&B or just plain rock:  "Space Oddity", "Fame", "Changes", "Golden Years", "Let's Dance" and others.

Bowie also influenced fashion as Ziggy Stardust, defining the word androgynous and its meaning for a generation.  Sometimes it was hard for rock critics (and even some of his fans) to figure out where Ziggy and the Duke ended, and Bowie began.

Bowie's acting career was hit or miss.  "The Man Who Fell To Earth", "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" and "Absolute Beginners" were some of his contributions to Hollywood.  He also appeared on Broadway, taking the lead role in a production of "The Elephant Man".  And he also had the distinction of appearing on Bing Crosby's last TV special, which aired after his death in 1977, collaborating on a version of "The Little Drummer Boy".

In his career, Bowie has influenced (and been influenced by) many a musician, trends, and others who saw him as a voice brave enough to break down the walls of societal norms when it came to sexuality.  Others saw him as the antidote to the 1970s-era bloated rock star, with lifestyle to match.  Bowie was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, though he declined to attend the ceremonies.

Time has run out for David Bowie.  All that's left is the glitter, the stardust, and the notion that time marches on.  But music and lifestyles will keep on changing whether Bowie's around to influence it or not. 




 

All Systems "Go" For a New Radio Station

Philco 90 "cathedral" style radio from 1931. Courtesy of Scott Robinson. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Pohlad family, after a few years of trying to make KTWN (96.3) FM radio work with various formats, including its current one of shoehorning Minnesota Twins baseball games (also part of their portfolio) into its Adult Alternative programming, is going in another direction.

Their company Go Media (until recently Northern Lights Broadcasting) purchased longtime religious outlet KNOF (95.3), then turned it into contemporary hip hop station KZGO.  In fact, both KTWN and KZGO will be branded as Go 96.3 and Go 95.3, in that order.  The Pohlads are hoping that the millenials they want to attract will know the difference between the two signals, even if some baseball fans might not.

Go Media has been down the hip hop road before, having tried and failed with B96 a few years ago.  Since then, two throwback rap stations owned by major radio chains--Hot 102.5 (iHeart) and Vibe 105 (Cumulus)--have opened up.  So it was apparently decided to bring hip hop up to date around here.  And unlike the other guys, the DJs are live and local.

This means Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Kanye West and The Weeknd will no longer be restricted to KDWB (101.3).  And Twin Cities-based artists like Dessa, POS and anyone else associated with the Doomtree collective will finally get airplay beyond The Current (89.3).  All of this coming with plenty of FCC-friendly bleeping, in between a solid block of commercials.

Maybe another hip hop station will work in an increasingly diverse market like this one, maybe not.  But if Go Media insists on branding two different stations with the same name while holding a Major League Baseball team's broadcasts hostage on an incompatible format, they're going nowhere fast.

In other radio news . . .

• Salem Media, the purveyor of conservative Christian and secular talk that already owns three AM signals here (KKMS, WWTC and KYCR), has bought their fourth.  They took KDIZ (1440) off of The Walt Disney Company's hands as part of the Mouse House's selloff of all but one of its Radio Disney children's radio empire (they're keeping the one station in Los Angeles for streaming purposes).  What Salem did with 1440 is to switch places with KYCR's business news and talk shows on 1570.  KDIZ has moved to 1570 with a format to be determined.  As of 1/5/16, KDIZ is running a loop telling whatever listeners they still have that the business shows have moved to the slightly stronger signal of 1440 AM.
• 2015 was they year when several popular local radio figures saw their fortunes change.  Barb Abney was let go by The Current, only to be picked up by Go 96.3, which dropped BT Turner.  Brian Oake left an increasingly confusing Adult Pop format on Cities 97 (97.1) to become the morning man on The Current.  And Mary Lucia recently returned to the air at 89.3, following a leave of absence having to do with a man who was stalking her.  He was eventually sentenced to probation and fined.

UPDATE (1/11/16):  Salem has found a format for the new KDIZ/1570, and it's Health and Wellness.  It's supposed to be talk shows combined with sponsored programming on how to stay healthy which, according to Wikipedia, is a "first of its kind" format.  We'll soon see if this new station has any kind of pulse.

2015, More or Less

English: Kim Kardashian at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival for the premiere of Wonderful World. Photographer's blog post about these photos. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This was the year of More or Less, though it seems that way every year.  Only more so.  And our options for doing anything about them are less.  In 2015 alone, there was . . .

• More war in the Middle East, which leads to more terrorism, more refugees (or migrants, if you prefer), more bombing strikes which makes the enemy stronger, and fewer answers.
• More attacks on civilians, whether it's of the terrorist kind (Paris--twice--and San Bernardino), the lone-wolf type (Charleston, Colorado Springs and Lafayette, Louisiana), or any other random act (anywhere in America).  Less willingness to control guns or improve mental health screening, more security theater.
• More protests against white police officers who kill African American suspects.  Less willingness to convict those officers, video evidence or not.
• More evidence that climate change is going to be worse than imagined. Meanwhile, we're reading that even though people are paying less money for gas, the American economy's alleged recovery isn't happening.
• More rights for same-sex couples, as even the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to let them marry.  Which leads to more people like Kim Davis who want to send LGBTs back into the closet.
• More Catholic (and other) priests are being reined in for sexual abuse charges several decades in the making.  Which is part of the reason why less people consider themselves Christians, and why more of them have given up on religion altogether.
• More candidates stepped up to campaign for President Barack Obama's job, which becomes available in 2017.  More campaign money than ever before has been coming from big political donors.  Unless your name is Donald Trump.  Less of a chance that Republicans can successfully counter Trump's outrageousness and in curbing their zeal for turning back the clock on Obama's accomplishments, or for Democrats to take anyone but Hillary Clinton seriously.
• More women have come out of the shadows (some after several decades) to accuse Bill Cosby of allegedly drugging, then raping them.  Unless Cosby and his lawyers can prove otherwise, his accomplishments as a groundbreaking entertainer become less and less reputable.
• More publicity for the Kardashians.  Bruce Jenner is now Caitlyn, and is being hailed as a role model of sorts.  Lamar Odom, the former basketball star married to Khloe, has a near-death experience at a brothel in Nevada.  Kim poses nude for an obscure magazine, then gives birth to a boy.  Husband Kanye West wants to run for President in 2020.  Less chance that we've heard the last of The Family K in 2016.
• More movie blockbusters like the "Star Wars", "Hunger Games" and "Jurassic Park" spiking the box office totals.  Less reason to bother watching films intended for comic book geeks, requiring a working knowledge of the chapters that came before, at prices that rival a night at the ballpark.
• More shows and personalities leaving TV:  "Mad Men", "Parks and Recreation", "Two-and-a-Half Men", "How I Met Your Mother", "CSI:  Crime Scene Investigation", David Letterman and Jon Stewart.  Less exposure for former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams, whose "misremembering" of events he may or may not have been a part of got him demoted to MSNBC.
• Taylor Swift and Adele are seeing more and more sales for their albums and their concert tours.  Miley Cyrus, Iggy Azalea and Justin Bieber are seeing less and less people care about them.
• More use of hashtags on social media, meaning less use of the words "of", "and", "the" to drive English teachers nuts.
• More people bought copies of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman", her first published novel in more than 50 years.  After seeing what became of Atticus Finch, however, "To Kill a Mockingbird" is less of a classic than it used to be.
• Playboy magazine, which helped start the sexual revolution in the 1950s, is giving up its nude centerfolds because more and more people are getting their naked female fix on the Internet, which translates into less and less subscribers.  Obviously, Hugh Hefner's creation is hoping that more and more people will be reading the articles.

There are more notable people who died this year than this list provides.  That doesn't mean we think anything less of them.

Mario Cuomo, Stuart Scott, Rod Taylor, Bob Simon, David Carr, Lesley Gore, Leonard Nimoy, B.B. King, Omar Sharif, E.L. Doctorow, Bobbi Kristina Brown, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Julian Bond, Paul Prudhomme, Maureen O'Hara, Fred Thompson, Allen Toussaint, David Canary, Scott Weiland, Donna Douglas, Dean Jones, Ben E. King, Cynthia Lennon, Colleen McCullough, Rod McKuen, Jayne Meadows, Anne Meara, John Nash, Al Molinaro, Dick Van Patten, Bud Kraehling, Dick Chapman, Stan Freberg, Meadowlark Lemon, Theodore Bikel, Yvonne Craig, Richard Dysart, Anita Ekberg, Marty Ingels, Louis Jourdan, Kirk Kerkorian, Christopher Lee, Robert Loggia, Marjorie Lord, Patrick Macnee, Gary Owens, Betsy Palmer, Jerry Weintraub, Natalie Cole and Wayne Rogers.

That was 2015.  Here comes 2016 . . . more or less.

Democrats Debate: The Campaign Awakens

Hillary Clinton in Hampton, NH (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The last Democratic debate of 2015 in New Hampshire ended Saturday night with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telling her audience "May the force be with you", in acknowledgement of a certain movie that premiered this weekend.  That's appropriate, since Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley might soon be doing battle against the dark forces of the Republican Party.

The evening began with Sanders apologizing to Clinton for a campaign worker who allegedly stole voter data from her camp, which caused the Democratic National Committee to bar Sanders' campaign from using any data. Sanders filed suit, claiming the DNC was doing all it can to make it easier for Clinton to win the party's nomination.  With that out of the way, the debate could begin.

Clinton, Sanders and O'Malley then spent the rest of the evening talking (sometimes over each other) issues such as national security, gun control, the economy, health care, student debt, taxes, race and police relations, heroin abuse and Hillary Clinton herself.  In other words, it's nothing you haven't heard before if you've been following their campaigns.

We didn't hear much about what to do about immigration or climate change.  Nor did we hear any mention of the GOP candidates besides Donald Trump, who might as well be Darth Vader to the Democrats.

This was a civil and substantial debate compared to the Republicans' display of fear and loathing in Las Vegas (apologies to Hunter S. Thompson) earlier in the week.  That one was mostly about national security, the candidates having not met since the terrorist attacks on Paris and San Bernardino, California.  It prompted conservative moderator Hugh Hewitt to ask the candidates what happened to the sunny optimism GOP icon Ronald Reagan had used during his presidency.  They didn't really answer that question.  But you could say that Reagan never had to deal with 9/11 and its consequences, among other things.

We mentioned before that Sanders has a beef with the DNC about their alleged favoritism toward Clinton, which includes the limited number of debates compared to the GOP's, then get scheduled when people are least likely to see them.  This Democratic debate was put on ABC on a Saturday night in December, opposite a New York Jets-Dallas Cowboys football game on NFL Network.  Not to let the DNC off the hook, but it could also be argued that ABC didn't want to pre-empt "Dancing With The Stars", "Modern Family", or any of the Shondaland dramas to broadcast a low-rated debate.  So they stick it on the least-watched night of the week, hoping that those who really cared took the time to program their recording devices.

A few weeks before primary and caucus season begins, Hillary Clinton still holds a commanding lead in the polls over her rivals.  If form holds true, she might be the one who has the task of keeping America from going over to the dark side.  Light sabers not required.