Culture – Page 47 – Doug's Views

November 4, 2006April 18, 2020

Late info on Republican candidates

A friend of mine passed on this list of info about some of the various Republican candidates this election season. Some pretty interesting reading.

–AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
–AZ-01: Rick Renzi
–AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
–CA-04: John Doolittle
–CA-11: Richard Pombo
–CA-50: Brian Bilbray
–CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
–CO-05: Doug Lamborn
–CO-07: Rick O’Donnell
–CT-04: Christopher Shays
–FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
–FL-16: Joe Negron
–FL-22: Clay Shaw
–ID-01: Bill Sali
–IL-06: Peter Roskam
–IL-10: Mark Kirk
–IL-14: Dennis Hastert
–IN-02: Chris Chocola
–IN-08: John Hostettler
–IA-01: Mike Whalen
–KS-02: Jim Ryun
–KY-03: Anne Northup
–KY-04: Geoff Davis
–MD-Sen: Michael Steele
–MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
–MN-06: Michele Bachmann
–MO-Sen: Jim Talent
–MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
–NV-03: Jon Porter
–NH-02: Charlie Bass
–NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
–NM-01: Heather Wilson
–NY-03: Peter King
–NY-20: John Sweeney
–NY-26: Tom Reynolds
–NY-29: Randy Kuhl
–NC-08: Robin Hayes
–NC-11: Charles Taylor
–OH-01: Steve Chabot
–OH-02: Jean Schmidt
–OH-15: Deborah Pryce
–OH-18: Joy Padgett
–PA-04: Melissa Hart
–PA-07: Curt Weldon
–PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
–PA-10: Don Sherwood
–RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
–TN-Sen: Bob Corker
–VA-Sen: George Allen
–VA-10: Frank Wolf
–WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
–WA-08: Dave Reichert

October 21, 2006April 18, 2020

Project Runway at this Old House

Nifty title, no?

I just wanted to comment on 2 TV shows I watched this week in the same post. So, sue me.

Project Runway

I have really tried not to be sucked into this reality show. I am not a fashion person or even care about the fashion industry even though I do know something about the history. Simply put I watched a few episodes of the Season 3 of Project Runway because Bravo repeats it so often – talk about roadblock programing.

I did watch the finale and I was not shocked that Jeffery won. Couture isn’t about what regular people will buy and wear – it is all about art and style. Jeffery had the trendy and arty part down. A woman wearing a dress that makes her look like peppermint candy has to be arty, no? The judges on the show were looking for that and that is why Jeffery won. Why else would they ignore the fact he went over budget on his finale designs.You knew he would win the show when he won the couture challenge in episode 9.

If the criteria was about what practical people would buy and wear then it was a tie between Uli and Laura. I liked a number of their designs. Laura’s bead work was stunning and the swimsuit Uli designed was nice.

Project Runway

This Old House

One of my long time favorite shows is finally getting back to basics – at least for this season.

The crew of Norm, Tommy, Richard, Roger, and Kevin began work on renovating an East Boston duplex that was built in 1916. This time money is tight and they have a strict $250,000 budget to use on both units.

Some recent projects had moved away from the formula that made the show a great watch as money became no object. It is great seeing what someone can do with unlimited funds but that gets boring and doesn’t relate to what many regular rehabbers go through on their houses.

For example, in a scene in a recent episode of the East Boston project had Tommy, Norm, and Kevin looking at the stucco on the outside of the house and an expert told them the stucco was original. They learned that totally redoing the outside would require a good chunk of the budget and only patching the cracks would be the least expensive option. Another episode had an electrician explaining to Norm that the house still had active knob and tube wiring that would need to be replaced. The homeowner also learned that the cost of removing a street tree that has clogged up the sewer main to the house would be the same as if they just dug up the sewer and relocated it.

The other part of the return of the show is the homeowners would do some of the labor to save money.

The refocus on the basics seemed to start this past spring, when TOH helped renovate a burned out row house in Washington DC that would sold to a moderate income family through the group Mi Casa.

I remember one episode when Kevin is told the budget for that rehab would be $200,000 he mentioned they spent that on just a kitchen on another project.

It is great to see it back. Now if I can just get my local PBS station not to interrupt it for their pledge drive so I can watch whole project it might be better.

This Old House

September 11, 2006April 18, 2020

9/11 still powerful after 5 years

The media has begun their observances of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This weekend I watched some of the documentaries on some of the channels like PBS and CBS and the images and feelings are still very powerful.

I still vividly remember what I was doing that morning in 2001 when the first reports came in, I was noodling on the computer. I had just come home from my night job and I had the “Today” show on in the background while I decompressed before going to bed. After seeing the 2nd plane hit the tower I didn’t go to bed until around Midnight the next day.

I wrote my thoughts into an essay posted on my iHumanism website.

September 11: A Humanist Response

I read on some website that non-theists didn’t speak up when the event happened, giving the impression that they didn’t care about the tragic event. That is just a myth. We just don’t put out press releases about how we feel. Even if we did we couldn’t afford to have it published.

The only real thing that I am still upset about is our present government officials are fear mongers. President Bush took the opportunity to give a speech the other day about “our” fight against terrorism. In one speech he claimed we were “safer” but faced increased threat of terrorism and that the war on terrorism includes Iraq (even though before we invaded in 2003 Iraq was not part of 9/11 or the war on terrorism).

The Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on the Sunday morning talk shows and claimed the administration was doing “a hell of job” on security.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of securing the nation against terrorists. You know, we’re here on the fifth anniversary (of the 9/11 attacks). And there has not been another attack on the United States. And that’s not an accident, because we’ve done a hell of a job here at home,” Cheney said in the broadcast interview. “I don’t know how much better you can do than no, no attacks for the past five years.”
Cheney Defends Hardline White House Role

But he and the administration have not been questioned as to why the leader of the group that attacked the World Trade Center is still at large 5 years later. Or why a military solution has not defeated al-Qaida either abroad or closer to home.

Besides we’ve heard it before. Remember, Brownie was doing a great job as head of FEMA after Katrina and we know how that turned out.

August 31, 2006April 18, 2020

Cowtown Qube

In an earlier post on the history of MTV I mentioned that the idea evolved from a successful music video program on the Qube network in the late 70’s.

Qube was the first try at interactive television and debuted in Columbus in 1977. It was a demonstration project from Warner Cable (now Time-Warner Cable).

The subscriber used a large remote box that plugged into their set-top cable box and allowed them to pick from the 30 channels available and it included 5 buttons for the interactive part. Programs on Qube could ask poll questions and users would pick their answer and the results would be collected then displayed during the program.

Qube had a live local component that originated from a studio in Columbus. I remember that local TV personality Flippo the Clown had a show on Qube. When Qube was installed in other cities (like Dallas and Cincinnati) there were shows that were shown nationally like Sight and Sound (the prototype of MTV) and Pinwheel, a children’s program that evolved into the Nickelodeon channel.

For a more geeky version of the history of Qube check out the following link:

When CableWent Qubist

August 23, 2006April 18, 2020

Madigan says we should be lucky to have Wal-Mart

Charles M. Madigan wrote an op/ed piece in the Chicago Tribune Tuesday complaining about Democrats deciding to take on retailer Wal-Mart. He starts out telling us about a couple of jobs he had that paid little for the amount work he did and the other negatives that came with it. Of course he makes the tired claim:

It paid a pittance, created an immense amount of sweat and made the drinking man thirsty.
The strange thing about these jobs is that I was happy to have them at the time. They put money (and at the fast-food place, stolen pieces of fried chicken for the walk home) in my pocket.
Also, those were the jobs available.
Up against the Wal! (-Mart)

Then Madigan tries to give us an unemotional lecture on retail economics. He writes:

Work is honorable. I would love to see people make more money. I would like them to have comfortable lives, nice homes and, most of all, relief from money troubles.
Wal-Mart probably does too, so they would have more to spend.
The problem is that has nothing to do with the retail business.
The company is in a strong position in most of its locations because, I am sure, it is the only show in town for lots of people who are eager to work. It has crushed its challengers.
That spells relatively low wages.
Is that right or wrong?
The marketplace doesn’t make decisions like that. No one got rich working in a mom-and-pop corner store, either, so we should shed the notion that something noble has passed. Low-wage jobs are still what they have always been, low-wage jobs. The nation runs on these realities. Go read up on coal mining. People risked their lives for a couple of bucks a day, if they were lucky enough to get work.

Madigan is right. The desire to have people make more money and have unfettered lives has nothing to do with the system of retail business. It is just that – a system. It doesn’t control our lives, we control it. There is the human factor.

The humans who run Wal-Mart make the decision to move into a small town, undercut the local businesses in prices, and become the only game in town. That is their business plan. They manipulate the consumer and the system for their own ends.

The profits go to the owners – the shareholders. They spend money from their advertising budget to pretend they care about the community. The Wal-Marts of the world only care about the bottom line. Period.

I would have more respect for Wal-Mart if it played on a level playing field. The last time it did was back in the 1950’s when Sam and his wife Helen were “mom and pop” store owners in Arkansas and a large discount chain moved in. It seems they became rich….