1083 Vigilante Bike Lanes
This is in Dallas, not known as the Berkeley of the south. That said, the city is painting bike lanes for the three known eco-friendly Texans and some others who neither drive cars or trucks nor ride horses. And it’s not doing it fast enough for some.
So someone among that “some” is painting his own. That’s right... taking the law into his own hands. Carrying a concealed weapon is okay in Dallas. But what about carrying a concealed paint can and brush. (That probably gets a bit messy after the first 100 yards or so.)
It’s a cute protest against the slowness and maybe it will put some bike lanes in places where none were planned. And it’s a great idea for all of us. Even if you don’t have a bike, there are things you can do as a vigilante to make your life easier.
How about a “No Parking” sign for the curb in front of your house? Or a “Stop” sign at the corner where the town won’t install one without three years of hearings, a budget addendum and well directed political contributions?
You don’t even have to paint the signs yourself. You can purchase real ones -- or realish ones on an internet auction site the name of which we will not disclose, but it starts with the letter “e” and ends with the letter “y.”
And unlike those primitives in Texas, your handiwork won’t be sloppy and uneven. It’ll look downright official because chances are it was uprooted from corner somewhere by some kid who stored it in his garage ten years ago, has fled the nest and what are mom and dad going to do with the thing.
They did something like this in New York some years ago. People would go out to their cars and before pulling out of the parking space, place a fake fire hydrant on the sidewalk. That space was usually still vacant when the motorist returned. So he’d re-park, put the fake hydrant in the trunk and repeat as needed.
One problem: when there’s an actual fire, and the hydrant is fake and the firemen try to use it and it doesn’t work, that can annoy them. And it can cost lives and cause property damage. No biggie. And fire hydrants are available on that same website, though most of the real ones are too heavy to ship and you have to go to backwaters in places like New Jersey and Massachusetts or back dustbowls in places like Oklahoma to get one.
Need a little extra money? You can put your own coin telephone up on your outside wall. Collect the quarters people put in and don’t get back when the phone doesn’t work. Of course, pay phones are pretty close to obsolete. But under the right circumstances, this can at least generate enough quarters for the parking meters in town.
Hey! How about fake parking meters? Oldies are also available at the auction site.
You could install them on your whole block. Cash in, bigtime.
Meantime, the bike lanes of Dallas are growing every day, making the city safe for those three people who use them.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
1082 Gassed
1082 Gassed
Five years ago, this space saluted the gas company for its forthright billing practices. And they’re still doing that and doing it well. But something has changed.
The sneaky, snarky gas bags are looking for a megabucks rate increase. And they have adopted the standard method of all utilities in announcing it. Said method: First, never call a rate increase a rate increase. It’s a rate “change.” Second, never just come out and say the amount you’re asking for. Instead, fill a page with fine print that’s so confusing no one will actually read it -- even with a magnifying glass.
Third: start with the total revenue you’re requesting, in this case $77.3 million a year. Granny down the street will have a coronary. “I don’t have $77.3 million. What am I going to do!?” Out goes the 5x8 card on which this stuff is squeezed.
Most of the rest of us will realize this is a proposed figure and that the Public Utility Commission will never approve it as is, and that the 77 million is spread over a jillion individual and business customers.
Fourth: prominently display irrelevant truths as in “Rates for an industrial customer using 5365 therms of gas per month would increase from $3,206.43 to $3,540 per month or 10.43 percent.”
What’s a therm? How many do we use now?
Don’t be fooled by that 10 and a half percent. That’s for bulk users. The rate for a “commercial” customer is going up almost 14%. The proposed rate increase for a residential customer is almost 24 percent. We residents, if we use 73 therms a month will be asked to paid 83 bucks instead of 67.
Wait a minute! Aren’t prices for natural gas at a historic low? Isn’t this area frac city where they have gas to burn? Couldn’t we sink our own well in the back yard and not pay anything?
The company’s stock has been trading at a fairly steady rate all year. It’s stopping meter reading in favor of radio signals, so there’s a smaller payroll at least in that department.
What’s with a 23 or 24% rate increase? Well, winter’s coming. But don’t worry, if you’re a hardship case, you can call the company’s toll free beg line at which time they’ll probably offer you some kind of bogus “budget plan,”
You can also complain to the Public Utility Commission, those fine public servants who are paid under $50,000 a year but have villas in Spain and on the French Riviera. They’ll be glad to listen to you, too.
Gas companies are used to dealing in thin air. So what do you expect?
Oh... by the way, here’s the post from June of 2007. It’s funnier than this one.
Shrapnel:
--The vice presidential debate was more informative than the first presidential debate, but less telling. Neither Biden nor Ryan was (a) asleep or (b) acting like a 14 year old hormonal teenager, which summarized Obama/Romney. From which we can conclude that Biden has lovely teeth and Ryan has a nice shade of blue eyes -- which kind of looked like they were about to spin.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Five years ago, this space saluted the gas company for its forthright billing practices. And they’re still doing that and doing it well. But something has changed.
The sneaky, snarky gas bags are looking for a megabucks rate increase. And they have adopted the standard method of all utilities in announcing it. Said method: First, never call a rate increase a rate increase. It’s a rate “change.” Second, never just come out and say the amount you’re asking for. Instead, fill a page with fine print that’s so confusing no one will actually read it -- even with a magnifying glass.
Third: start with the total revenue you’re requesting, in this case $77.3 million a year. Granny down the street will have a coronary. “I don’t have $77.3 million. What am I going to do!?” Out goes the 5x8 card on which this stuff is squeezed.
Most of the rest of us will realize this is a proposed figure and that the Public Utility Commission will never approve it as is, and that the 77 million is spread over a jillion individual and business customers.
Fourth: prominently display irrelevant truths as in “Rates for an industrial customer using 5365 therms of gas per month would increase from $3,206.43 to $3,540 per month or 10.43 percent.”
What’s a therm? How many do we use now?
Don’t be fooled by that 10 and a half percent. That’s for bulk users. The rate for a “commercial” customer is going up almost 14%. The proposed rate increase for a residential customer is almost 24 percent. We residents, if we use 73 therms a month will be asked to paid 83 bucks instead of 67.
Wait a minute! Aren’t prices for natural gas at a historic low? Isn’t this area frac city where they have gas to burn? Couldn’t we sink our own well in the back yard and not pay anything?
The company’s stock has been trading at a fairly steady rate all year. It’s stopping meter reading in favor of radio signals, so there’s a smaller payroll at least in that department.
What’s with a 23 or 24% rate increase? Well, winter’s coming. But don’t worry, if you’re a hardship case, you can call the company’s toll free beg line at which time they’ll probably offer you some kind of bogus “budget plan,”
You can also complain to the Public Utility Commission, those fine public servants who are paid under $50,000 a year but have villas in Spain and on the French Riviera. They’ll be glad to listen to you, too.
Gas companies are used to dealing in thin air. So what do you expect?
Oh... by the way, here’s the post from June of 2007. It’s funnier than this one.
Shrapnel:
--The vice presidential debate was more informative than the first presidential debate, but less telling. Neither Biden nor Ryan was (a) asleep or (b) acting like a 14 year old hormonal teenager, which summarized Obama/Romney. From which we can conclude that Biden has lovely teeth and Ryan has a nice shade of blue eyes -- which kind of looked like they were about to spin.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
1081 Dr. George
1081 Dr. George
There are too many obituaries in this space these days, but here’s another one. George R. Caso, Jr., 87, of Merrick, New York.
This is a bit late because word of his death last April was as low key as he was as a man and as a healer.
Talk about your old-time, small town doctor! Talk about a life dedicated to the wellness of patients. Talk about a man you couldn’t rattle when you came into that tiny, dark, crowded waiting room in his home office with a case of “dread... this” or the “bleeding... that.”
He was the son of Italian immigrants, owners of a grocery store when Merrick and the next hamlet east, Bellmore, really WERE small towns, not crowded, bustling and well-to-do suburbs. From that small beginning came children who were big in politics and medicine. And the current generations have carried on that tradition. A dentist, a doctor, a social worker, a lawyer.
Dr. George was not a big man, but to his patients and to his community he was a giant. Fatherly, gentle, available... but bring a book. For awhile, he tried to see patients by appointment. But his desire to serve overcame that flaw. So you brought a book for the wait or you committed the outdated and dog-eared magazines to memory. And magazines were much bigger in those days.
This guy worked more hours than there are hours. When the office closed for the day, or before it opened, he made house calls and hospital rounds. When you called in the middle of the night and got the answering service, you could hear him pick up the phone and listen in.
When there was a fire and need for a doctor, he was the guy.
Once, a patient was sitting on the examining table with blood pressure in the stratosphere. “Hmmm,” said the doc “that’s a bit high, probably should take something for that.” “A bit high?” It was so near stroke city you could smell the flames of Hell.
Patient: So how’s your pressure, doc?
Doc: Oh, I don’t ever take my own pressure. Wouldn’t dare.
It’s not easy being calm.
His office desk was piled high with medical journals older than the magazines in the waiting room.
Patient: That pile grows higher every time I see it. I’ll bet the ones on the bottom have the latest developments on the use of medicinal leeches.
Doc: No, I finally got to that one last month. Next, I’m going for the diathermy machine catalog.
Don’t get the idea this guy wasn’t up on the latest. It was a standing joke between us as were wisecracks about the treatment room refrigerator, one of those relics with the motor on top. “It works just fine,” he said, “but I’m thinking about getting one that defrosts automatically.”
All of Dr. George’s patients were saddened when he retired, even though his successor was his daughter, Gina. And what an education she had! Not just med school. Every doctor has to have that. What she learned from her dad, you can’t get in a classroom or a hospital.
And what we all lost this past April was a link to an era of care and caring once common and expected, replaced by voracious insurance companies, statistics and strangleholds on patient and doctor alike.
Shrapnel:
--So Sandusky drew a sentence of 30-to-60 years which under Pennsylvania law means he won't be eligible for parole until he's 98 years old. The guy continues to remorselessly profess his innocence and pledges an appeal. But regardless of the results, the damage is done... to his victims, his charity, his community and to his deer in the headlights former employer, Penn State University.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© 2012
There are too many obituaries in this space these days, but here’s another one. George R. Caso, Jr., 87, of Merrick, New York.
This is a bit late because word of his death last April was as low key as he was as a man and as a healer.
Talk about your old-time, small town doctor! Talk about a life dedicated to the wellness of patients. Talk about a man you couldn’t rattle when you came into that tiny, dark, crowded waiting room in his home office with a case of “dread... this” or the “bleeding... that.”
He was the son of Italian immigrants, owners of a grocery store when Merrick and the next hamlet east, Bellmore, really WERE small towns, not crowded, bustling and well-to-do suburbs. From that small beginning came children who were big in politics and medicine. And the current generations have carried on that tradition. A dentist, a doctor, a social worker, a lawyer.
Dr. George was not a big man, but to his patients and to his community he was a giant. Fatherly, gentle, available... but bring a book. For awhile, he tried to see patients by appointment. But his desire to serve overcame that flaw. So you brought a book for the wait or you committed the outdated and dog-eared magazines to memory. And magazines were much bigger in those days.
This guy worked more hours than there are hours. When the office closed for the day, or before it opened, he made house calls and hospital rounds. When you called in the middle of the night and got the answering service, you could hear him pick up the phone and listen in.
When there was a fire and need for a doctor, he was the guy.
Once, a patient was sitting on the examining table with blood pressure in the stratosphere. “Hmmm,” said the doc “that’s a bit high, probably should take something for that.” “A bit high?” It was so near stroke city you could smell the flames of Hell.
Patient: So how’s your pressure, doc?
Doc: Oh, I don’t ever take my own pressure. Wouldn’t dare.
It’s not easy being calm.
His office desk was piled high with medical journals older than the magazines in the waiting room.
Patient: That pile grows higher every time I see it. I’ll bet the ones on the bottom have the latest developments on the use of medicinal leeches.
Doc: No, I finally got to that one last month. Next, I’m going for the diathermy machine catalog.
Don’t get the idea this guy wasn’t up on the latest. It was a standing joke between us as were wisecracks about the treatment room refrigerator, one of those relics with the motor on top. “It works just fine,” he said, “but I’m thinking about getting one that defrosts automatically.”
All of Dr. George’s patients were saddened when he retired, even though his successor was his daughter, Gina. And what an education she had! Not just med school. Every doctor has to have that. What she learned from her dad, you can’t get in a classroom or a hospital.
And what we all lost this past April was a link to an era of care and caring once common and expected, replaced by voracious insurance companies, statistics and strangleholds on patient and doctor alike.
Shrapnel:
--So Sandusky drew a sentence of 30-to-60 years which under Pennsylvania law means he won't be eligible for parole until he's 98 years old. The guy continues to remorselessly profess his innocence and pledges an appeal. But regardless of the results, the damage is done... to his victims, his charity, his community and to his deer in the headlights former employer, Penn State University.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© 2012
Monday, October 08, 2012
1080 The Case that Will Not Die
1080 The Case that Will Not Die
You gotta give this guy some credit for persistence.
In the winter of 1970, someone or someones sneaked into an officer’s house at Ft. Bragg, NC and stabbed dead Collette McDonald and her two daughters, Kimberly, age 5 and Kristen, age two. The husband and father, Jeffrey McDonald, a Green Beret and medical doctor was wounded, though not terribly.
Even though this happened in North Carolina, this was big news on Long Island and in the New York metropolitan area because Dr. McDonald was a native of Queens and a resident of Patchogue. This ongoing story now is longer than any of us in the reporting trade were old when it started.
A lot of people thought he did it and that his wounds were self inflicted. He said he didn’t do it. His father-in-law, Alfred Kassab, said he didn’t do it. The military court system says he didn’t do it. The local prosecutor said he did.
It’s nearly impossible to count the number of trials and subsidiary court actions through which this case has gone. Kassab later joined the “he did it” side of things. Joe McGinniss started to write a book expecting to clear McDonald, but instead it put the author and his book and the film made from it, “Fatal Vision” into the “he did it” column.
Now, here comes inmate McDonald again. This time, with supposedly newly discovered evidence -- DNA -- evidence that a stretch of the imagination could mean that the band of hippies and the woman in the funny hat whom McDonald blames for the attacks, actually exist... something a lot of people find hard to believe so far.
Author McGinniss, writing in the New York Times, figures the current re-boot will go on through 2018 at which time, Young Doctor McD will be in his mid 70s.
Everyone is prison was wrongly convicted. Just ask them. Few, though, have taken their cases on a journey this long.
Shrapnel:
--The infamous abuser of small boys, Jerry Sandusky is scheduled for sentencing tomorrow (10/9/12,) and everyone with an opinion seems to think whatever the number of years handed down, it’ll be long enough so he never gets out alive. Like Jeffrey McDonald whose murder case has been active for over 40 years, you can count on as many appeals as Sandusky can muster, and probably with the same result. None.
--Received a nice letter from the term life insurance company that says “thanks for being our customer for ages and ages, but since you’re now the age you are, the policy has expired so thanks for all those premium payments.” It’s nice to be on their list of good guys. “Hey... we’re in luck... this policy holder outlived the term and 50 years of payments go directly to our bottom line.”
--Another letter recently arrived in the mailbox of one Laverne Dobbinson of Canarsie, Brooklyn, demanding payment of $710 for damages her son Tamon, 27, caused to a police car. The damage, a busted fender, took place when the car struck the young man and put him in the hospital, in a coma, and where he later died. Lawyers for the city called it a mistake, but only after Ms. Dobbinson hired lawyers of her own and the story hit the papers.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
You gotta give this guy some credit for persistence.
In the winter of 1970, someone or someones sneaked into an officer’s house at Ft. Bragg, NC and stabbed dead Collette McDonald and her two daughters, Kimberly, age 5 and Kristen, age two. The husband and father, Jeffrey McDonald, a Green Beret and medical doctor was wounded, though not terribly.
Even though this happened in North Carolina, this was big news on Long Island and in the New York metropolitan area because Dr. McDonald was a native of Queens and a resident of Patchogue. This ongoing story now is longer than any of us in the reporting trade were old when it started.
A lot of people thought he did it and that his wounds were self inflicted. He said he didn’t do it. His father-in-law, Alfred Kassab, said he didn’t do it. The military court system says he didn’t do it. The local prosecutor said he did.
It’s nearly impossible to count the number of trials and subsidiary court actions through which this case has gone. Kassab later joined the “he did it” side of things. Joe McGinniss started to write a book expecting to clear McDonald, but instead it put the author and his book and the film made from it, “Fatal Vision” into the “he did it” column.
Now, here comes inmate McDonald again. This time, with supposedly newly discovered evidence -- DNA -- evidence that a stretch of the imagination could mean that the band of hippies and the woman in the funny hat whom McDonald blames for the attacks, actually exist... something a lot of people find hard to believe so far.
Author McGinniss, writing in the New York Times, figures the current re-boot will go on through 2018 at which time, Young Doctor McD will be in his mid 70s.
Everyone is prison was wrongly convicted. Just ask them. Few, though, have taken their cases on a journey this long.
Shrapnel:
--The infamous abuser of small boys, Jerry Sandusky is scheduled for sentencing tomorrow (10/9/12,) and everyone with an opinion seems to think whatever the number of years handed down, it’ll be long enough so he never gets out alive. Like Jeffrey McDonald whose murder case has been active for over 40 years, you can count on as many appeals as Sandusky can muster, and probably with the same result. None.
--Received a nice letter from the term life insurance company that says “thanks for being our customer for ages and ages, but since you’re now the age you are, the policy has expired so thanks for all those premium payments.” It’s nice to be on their list of good guys. “Hey... we’re in luck... this policy holder outlived the term and 50 years of payments go directly to our bottom line.”
--Another letter recently arrived in the mailbox of one Laverne Dobbinson of Canarsie, Brooklyn, demanding payment of $710 for damages her son Tamon, 27, caused to a police car. The damage, a busted fender, took place when the car struck the young man and put him in the hospital, in a coma, and where he later died. Lawyers for the city called it a mistake, but only after Ms. Dobbinson hired lawyers of her own and the story hit the papers.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Friday, October 05, 2012
1079 Growing and Shrinking
1079 Growing and Shrinking
This is confusing, our apparently contradictory obsessions with growing and shrinking. Crops should grow. Children should grow. Since we all now know that corporations are people -- children of the rich -- corporations should grow.
But then, there’s shrinking. Work forces should shrink, say the parents of the corporate children. And growing a corporation, the kind that really means “beer belly?” well, that’s certainly something that should shrink.
Really confusing.
Probably in the real world, growth to a point makes sense, maybe even is required for survival. But where does that stop? A ten pound pumpkin is a thing of beauty. Tasty innards great for pie filling. Lovely shell for making jack-o-lanterns. Fine mulch later on. A 150 pound pumpkin is too big to lift, too big to carve and the innards are stringy and bitter often enough.
We sweat our way through the stair steppers and Zumba dancing to shrink. We keep Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and Dr. Atkins’ food mill in business all to cause shrinkage.
You see those Buick commercials with Shaquille O’Neal? He’s 7’1”. In the ad he says he has retired from pro basketball, but he hasn’t retired from being big. Good thing the guy has money. Think of the clothing bills, the extra long beds, the heavy duty furniture that has to support a seven footer who weighs more than 300 pounds. And they probably gave him a Buick, or at least permanent-lent him one because... he can fold himself in and out of it relatively easily.
He grew, alright. Now what?
You may be thinking this bigness obsession is a guy thing. Look at the ads in your spam folder: pseudo steroids for your torso, pseudo enlargers for your... um... organs of reproduction.
Do women get the same kind of spam for breast augmentation? Probably.
What about women-run corporations? Meg Whitman, now CEO at Hewlett Packard is being gently criticized for spending a year on the job and not turning HP back into the industry-leading monster it once was.
And in Arizona, vulture capitalists who own a big chunk of Fender Guitars are making atonal noises about lack of growth in the recession even though the company already is the largest of its type. Fender’s been pretty smart about product lines and acquisitions lately. But this is the kind of pressure that leads long established companies --adult children, if you will-- into fatal mistakes. Pushes them into areas where they have no expertise... drains energy.
It’s like if your kid -- your REAL child -- is a math whiz and can’t spell to save his or her life, you’re inclined to try to improve the spelling rather than exploiting the natural math talent.
Among corporate children, it’s become growth for growth’s sake. “Growing” has become a pseudo axiom. You get too tall for anything but the NBA and the circus and what happens? It’s not an axiom. There are limits.
Apple and Google and Verizon are approaching theirs. So are Toyota and maybe Kelloggs. Then what?
It’s really REALLY confusing.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments, diets and non-steroidal dietary supplement recipes to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
This is confusing, our apparently contradictory obsessions with growing and shrinking. Crops should grow. Children should grow. Since we all now know that corporations are people -- children of the rich -- corporations should grow.
But then, there’s shrinking. Work forces should shrink, say the parents of the corporate children. And growing a corporation, the kind that really means “beer belly?” well, that’s certainly something that should shrink.
Really confusing.
Probably in the real world, growth to a point makes sense, maybe even is required for survival. But where does that stop? A ten pound pumpkin is a thing of beauty. Tasty innards great for pie filling. Lovely shell for making jack-o-lanterns. Fine mulch later on. A 150 pound pumpkin is too big to lift, too big to carve and the innards are stringy and bitter often enough.
We sweat our way through the stair steppers and Zumba dancing to shrink. We keep Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and Dr. Atkins’ food mill in business all to cause shrinkage.
You see those Buick commercials with Shaquille O’Neal? He’s 7’1”. In the ad he says he has retired from pro basketball, but he hasn’t retired from being big. Good thing the guy has money. Think of the clothing bills, the extra long beds, the heavy duty furniture that has to support a seven footer who weighs more than 300 pounds. And they probably gave him a Buick, or at least permanent-lent him one because... he can fold himself in and out of it relatively easily.
He grew, alright. Now what?
You may be thinking this bigness obsession is a guy thing. Look at the ads in your spam folder: pseudo steroids for your torso, pseudo enlargers for your... um... organs of reproduction.
Do women get the same kind of spam for breast augmentation? Probably.
What about women-run corporations? Meg Whitman, now CEO at Hewlett Packard is being gently criticized for spending a year on the job and not turning HP back into the industry-leading monster it once was.
And in Arizona, vulture capitalists who own a big chunk of Fender Guitars are making atonal noises about lack of growth in the recession even though the company already is the largest of its type. Fender’s been pretty smart about product lines and acquisitions lately. But this is the kind of pressure that leads long established companies --adult children, if you will-- into fatal mistakes. Pushes them into areas where they have no expertise... drains energy.
It’s like if your kid -- your REAL child -- is a math whiz and can’t spell to save his or her life, you’re inclined to try to improve the spelling rather than exploiting the natural math talent.
Among corporate children, it’s become growth for growth’s sake. “Growing” has become a pseudo axiom. You get too tall for anything but the NBA and the circus and what happens? It’s not an axiom. There are limits.
Apple and Google and Verizon are approaching theirs. So are Toyota and maybe Kelloggs. Then what?
It’s really REALLY confusing.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments, diets and non-steroidal dietary supplement recipes to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
1078 The Golden Age of Radio?
1078 The Golden Age of Radio?
A recent post on the New York Radio History Board marks what the author calls the end of the "golden age" of radio. He was right that it was an important date in the history of the medium, but really, there was no golden age... or there were several, if not many.
There may have been a “golden age” of radio drama and that may have ended September 30, 1962 when some of the last remaining broadcasts stopped. But radio keeps having golden ages.
In the really early days of commercial broadcasting, say 1920 to 1930 or so, radio was the new kid on the block. A novelty. Programming was experimental. The competition was live theater, live vaudeville and the primitive phonograph recordings of the day. The record player challenged much of the home made music of the era. Radio challenged the record player (to a draw.) And by the end of World War II, television challenged radio forcing it to change.
Who is to say that the live band shows and then the disc jockeys didn’t constitute a golden age of their own. Or that the advent of rock and then top 40 in the late 50s to the early 70s weren’t another “golden age?”
Who is to say when FM came into its own, that wasn’t a golden age?
When you listen to the old time dramas through 21st century ears, you’re apt to say “what gold?” Many of the soap operas and the westerns and the comedy programs and the mysteries now sound stilted and distant. Do we want to observe a “golden age of stiff and pompous?” Sure, why not. But it’s only one among the many.
Radio’s obituary has been written since the late 1940s. And while it’s on life support now, it’s not dead yet. As a young and a middle aged medium, radio was an uneasy polygamous marriage among large corporations, small entrepreneurs, and an often overzealous Federal Communications Commission.
Now it’s a more traditional marriage of large corporations and independents, largely fleas on the hide of the not terribly healthy elephant. And the FCC might as well be dead for all the enforcing it does of its dumbed down diluted regulations.
New competition from low rent television channels and the internet are again raising radio’s obituary. Traditional competitors are equally weakened: newspapers and traditional TV. Think about this: 50 years from now, we may be thinking of “Morning Express with Robin Meade,” “Sins & Secrets,” Nancy Grace and “Operation Repo” as the golden age of television.
Stabs at foolish technology helped hobble radio: all that money sunk into bad ideas like AM stereo, FM quadraphonic, and now HD. Syndicators have taken over the programming role of networks. AM has been conquered by the right wing talkers and FM has been taken over by the somnambulating “public” stations and the monotonous noise, whining, squealing, hip hopping and twanging that now passes for music.
The New York message poster is said to be a man of good will and intelligence and probably is. But “Our Gal Sunday,” “Art Linkletter’s House Party,” “The Shadow,” and “Amos ‘n’ Andy” haven’t stood the test of time.
This may be the Golden Age of radio’s Golden years. Or maybe it was fools’ gold all along.
Shrapnel:
--Even if you didn’t know his name, you knew radio-tv-film-broadway actor Mason Adams’ work as Lou Grant’s TV boss and from the Smucker’s jams and preserves commercials. When he died in 2005 at the age of 86, Smucker’s lost its voice but now has found someone who shares some of Adams’ distinctive delivery for their spots. So, is that a tribute, or an insult?
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011
A recent post on the New York Radio History Board marks what the author calls the end of the "golden age" of radio. He was right that it was an important date in the history of the medium, but really, there was no golden age... or there were several, if not many.
There may have been a “golden age” of radio drama and that may have ended September 30, 1962 when some of the last remaining broadcasts stopped. But radio keeps having golden ages.
In the really early days of commercial broadcasting, say 1920 to 1930 or so, radio was the new kid on the block. A novelty. Programming was experimental. The competition was live theater, live vaudeville and the primitive phonograph recordings of the day. The record player challenged much of the home made music of the era. Radio challenged the record player (to a draw.) And by the end of World War II, television challenged radio forcing it to change.
Who is to say that the live band shows and then the disc jockeys didn’t constitute a golden age of their own. Or that the advent of rock and then top 40 in the late 50s to the early 70s weren’t another “golden age?”
Who is to say when FM came into its own, that wasn’t a golden age?
When you listen to the old time dramas through 21st century ears, you’re apt to say “what gold?” Many of the soap operas and the westerns and the comedy programs and the mysteries now sound stilted and distant. Do we want to observe a “golden age of stiff and pompous?” Sure, why not. But it’s only one among the many.
Radio’s obituary has been written since the late 1940s. And while it’s on life support now, it’s not dead yet. As a young and a middle aged medium, radio was an uneasy polygamous marriage among large corporations, small entrepreneurs, and an often overzealous Federal Communications Commission.
Now it’s a more traditional marriage of large corporations and independents, largely fleas on the hide of the not terribly healthy elephant. And the FCC might as well be dead for all the enforcing it does of its dumbed down diluted regulations.
New competition from low rent television channels and the internet are again raising radio’s obituary. Traditional competitors are equally weakened: newspapers and traditional TV. Think about this: 50 years from now, we may be thinking of “Morning Express with Robin Meade,” “Sins & Secrets,” Nancy Grace and “Operation Repo” as the golden age of television.
Stabs at foolish technology helped hobble radio: all that money sunk into bad ideas like AM stereo, FM quadraphonic, and now HD. Syndicators have taken over the programming role of networks. AM has been conquered by the right wing talkers and FM has been taken over by the somnambulating “public” stations and the monotonous noise, whining, squealing, hip hopping and twanging that now passes for music.
The New York message poster is said to be a man of good will and intelligence and probably is. But “Our Gal Sunday,” “Art Linkletter’s House Party,” “The Shadow,” and “Amos ‘n’ Andy” haven’t stood the test of time.
This may be the Golden Age of radio’s Golden years. Or maybe it was fools’ gold all along.
Shrapnel:
--Even if you didn’t know his name, you knew radio-tv-film-broadway actor Mason Adams’ work as Lou Grant’s TV boss and from the Smucker’s jams and preserves commercials. When he died in 2005 at the age of 86, Smucker’s lost its voice but now has found someone who shares some of Adams’ distinctive delivery for their spots. So, is that a tribute, or an insult?
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011
Monday, October 01, 2012
1077 Here's Your 2013 Medicare Guide
1077 Here’s Your 2013 Medicare Guide!
Who writes the stuff you get from Medicare and Blue Cross, anyway? They make the annual open enrollment period seem like a party, a cornucopia of new improved-ness or improved newness. Tens of thousands of words, which if you read them will
(a) put you into a hypnotic-meditative state
(b) give you simultaneous palpitations along with your alpha and delta waves.
(c ) confuse you
(d) leave you not knowing what the changes for the coming year will amount to.
Except for the price. Both sources will tell you what you pay now and what you will pay as of the first of the year. Transparency. There’s nothing like it.
No worries. The friendly, helpful people at the toll free numbers (bring a book to read while you’re waiting for the next available whatsis) will be glad to answer your questions but can’t tell you why what is covered this year won’t be covered next.
Don’t bother asking for a supervisor. There IS no supervision. In fact there isn’t even any non-super vision. What’ll happen is they’ll get billed for something you need, and a month or two later will send you a snail mail letter that tells you why they aren’t going to pay it.
Then, there’s the 2013 Formulary. The drugs are in 16 tiers of reimbursement. The ones you need are all on the high end. But here’s that transparency again: they’ll tell you that you can try a “similar” drug that is a “first tier” generic.
Never mind that your doctor has prescribed Zapalump which zaps lumps better than the generic Sasparillafy strontium citrate. Just try the Sasparillafy strontium citrate for awhile and if that doesn’t work, they’ll put you on bicarbonate of anthracite bonafidum. If it doesn’t work, and you’re still not dead, they’ll consider your appeal to use Zapalump, $165.38 per pill and you pay 40%.
All this stuff is in huge paperback books written and edited by people who spend 40 hours a week dealing with this stuff and who expect your familiarity and understanding to be as well seasoned and fluent as their own and who have a tone similar to that of a kindergarten teacher who hates children.
Shrapnel:
--In the second paragraph, the proofreaders among you, and you know who you are, will notice that there’s (a), (b) and (c ). The space between “c” and “)”is not a typo. It is a way of making the word processing program produce a “c” in parentheses instead of automatically converting it to a ©.
--Overkill at the New York Times whose publisher emeritus, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, died a few days ago at age 86. The paper’s Sunday morning website carried the obituary as the lead story for the second consecutive day and then linked to it as the lead in the obituary, business and NY/Regions sections. Insider tributes are fine... but, really, Times readers will notice one well placed story and don’t need all those repeats “in case you missed it,” which no one did.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ® Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Who writes the stuff you get from Medicare and Blue Cross, anyway? They make the annual open enrollment period seem like a party, a cornucopia of new improved-ness or improved newness. Tens of thousands of words, which if you read them will
(a) put you into a hypnotic-meditative state
(b) give you simultaneous palpitations along with your alpha and delta waves.
(c ) confuse you
(d) leave you not knowing what the changes for the coming year will amount to.
Except for the price. Both sources will tell you what you pay now and what you will pay as of the first of the year. Transparency. There’s nothing like it.
No worries. The friendly, helpful people at the toll free numbers (bring a book to read while you’re waiting for the next available whatsis) will be glad to answer your questions but can’t tell you why what is covered this year won’t be covered next.
Don’t bother asking for a supervisor. There IS no supervision. In fact there isn’t even any non-super vision. What’ll happen is they’ll get billed for something you need, and a month or two later will send you a snail mail letter that tells you why they aren’t going to pay it.
Then, there’s the 2013 Formulary. The drugs are in 16 tiers of reimbursement. The ones you need are all on the high end. But here’s that transparency again: they’ll tell you that you can try a “similar” drug that is a “first tier” generic.
Never mind that your doctor has prescribed Zapalump which zaps lumps better than the generic Sasparillafy strontium citrate. Just try the Sasparillafy strontium citrate for awhile and if that doesn’t work, they’ll put you on bicarbonate of anthracite bonafidum. If it doesn’t work, and you’re still not dead, they’ll consider your appeal to use Zapalump, $165.38 per pill and you pay 40%.
All this stuff is in huge paperback books written and edited by people who spend 40 hours a week dealing with this stuff and who expect your familiarity and understanding to be as well seasoned and fluent as their own and who have a tone similar to that of a kindergarten teacher who hates children.
Shrapnel:
--In the second paragraph, the proofreaders among you, and you know who you are, will notice that there’s (a), (b) and (c ). The space between “c” and “)”is not a typo. It is a way of making the word processing program produce a “c” in parentheses instead of automatically converting it to a ©.
--Overkill at the New York Times whose publisher emeritus, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, died a few days ago at age 86. The paper’s Sunday morning website carried the obituary as the lead story for the second consecutive day and then linked to it as the lead in the obituary, business and NY/Regions sections. Insider tributes are fine... but, really, Times readers will notice one well placed story and don’t need all those repeats “in case you missed it,” which no one did.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ® Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
4759 The Supreme Court
C’mon, guys, we all know what you’re doing. You’re hiding behind nonsense so a black woman is not the next Associate Justice of the U.S....
