Cash-Strapped NPR Launches 'A Couple Things Considered'


WASHINGTON—Facing major cutbacks, National Public Radio has been forced to retool and relaunch its popular program All Things Considered as a truncated newscast that now only considers a couple, maybe three things per show.

"We'd love to consider all things, but the reality is we no longer have the resources necessary to do so," host Michele Norris said following the new show's first broadcast, in which falling gas prices and jazz legend Wynton Marsalis were considered.

"We'll still be able to mention six or seven things, gloss over four, and reference five, but we cannot afford to give every single thing our full consideration. Perhaps we were biting off more than we could chew in the first place."

A Couple Things Considered is just one of many new shows brought about by budget constraints, along with NPR's recently launched Bicycle Talk and Public Radio International's This Tri-State Area Life.

(The Onion)

Wasted In Wisconsin

"EDGERTON, Wis. — When a 15-year-old comes into Wile-e’s bar looking for a cold beer, the bartender, Mike Whaley, is happy to serve it up — as long as a parent is there to give permission.

“If they’re 15, 16, 17, it’s fine if they want to sit down and have a few beers,” said Mr. Whaley, who owns the tavern in this small town in southern Wisconsin.

While it might raise some eyebrows in most of America, it is perfectly legal in Wisconsin. Minors can drink alcohol in a bar or restaurant in Wisconsin if they are accompanied by a parent or legal guardian who gives consent. While there is no state law setting a minimum age, bartenders can use their discretion in deciding whom to serve.

When it comes to drinking, it seems, no state keeps pace with Wisconsin. This state, long famous for its breweries, has led the nation in binge drinking in every year since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began its surveys on the problem more than a decade ago. Binge drinking is defined as five drinks in a sitting for a man, four for a woman.

People in Wisconsin are more likely than anywhere else to drive drunk, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The state has among the highest incidence of drunken driving deaths in the United States."

Wow! Who knew? I always thought Wisconsin was best known for its cheese.

Let It Bleed


From David Brooks in today's New York Times:

"If Detroit gets money, then everyone would have a case. After all, are the employees of Circuit City or the newspaper industry inferior to the employees of Chrysler?

It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It’s C.E.O.’s. It’s politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.

If ever the market has rendered a just verdict, it is the one rendered on G.M. and Chrysler. These companies are not innocent victims of this crisis. To read the expert literature on these companies is to read a long litany of miscalculation. Some experts mention the management blunders, some the union contracts and the legacy costs, some the years of poor car design and some the entrenched corporate cultures.

There seems to be no one who believes the companies are viable without radical change. A federal cash infusion will not infuse wisdom into management. It will not reduce labor costs. It will not attract talented new employees. As Megan McArdle of The Atlantic wittily put it, “'Working for the Big Three magically combines vast corporate bureaucracy and job insecurity in one completely unattractive package.'”

Gibson Guitar Factory

Toward the end of my excellent tour of the Gibson Guitar factory in Memphis TN, I spotted a red double-neck electric guitar like the one Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page plays -- a six-string neck and a twelve-string neck attached to a huge solid body. It was beautiful -- sanded, freshly lacquered, and waiting for its electronics to be installed before (perhaps) being shipped off to Mr. Page in London (Seth, our tour guide, wouldn’t confirm or deny).

I asked Seth if there was a double-neck in the Gibson factory store that I could look at, and he said there was. In fact, he said, every Gibson guitar model -- acoustic and electric -- is represented and for sale in the store, and at “factory store discounts.”

I play a vintage Martin D-18 accoustic and know a little something about guitars, which is why I had been looking forward to taking the tour, but I’m not in the market for another guitar, even though I’ve always wanted to get my hands on a real electric guitar to feel what it must be like to play one. Because while “Guitar Hero” might be fun -- like karaoke -- it’s not playing guitar.

In the store after the tour, Travis (really), the sales associate, must have noticed me drooling over the double-neck and decided that this old geezer looks like he’s ripe for a sale.

“Want to try it out?” he asked. “I can plug you in right over here,” he said, pointing to some live amps.

I thought “Are you kidding? Of course I do!”

“Sure,” I said. He got a cable and plugged me in.

The first thing you notice is how heavy it is, which probably explains why Jimmy Page always looked a little hunched-over when playing it. But it is fun to play – being able to switch between six and twelve strings is really neat. I didn’t get close to understanding any of the controls or deploying any special effects, but that was okay. It was enough just to play it.

I unplugged it, and returned it to its stand.

Now that I realized I could play any guitar in the store, I was drunk with power. Travis must have seen this scenario play out in the store many times before, and knew enough to wait out the storm before making any attempt to close a sale.

So I plugged in and played a Gibson Les Paul Model guitar that Les Paul not only invented, but actually played and autographed during a recent visit to the factory. I thus had a direct connection to the creator of the electric guitar and multi-track recording. I felt like Adam in Micheangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel.

Then on to a gorgeous red SG model, then to a J50 accoustic, then to the Sheryl Crow Signature Model, and on and on.

Soon it was closing time, and I wished Travis a good evening, and said I’d see him tomorrow.

I did have another chance to visit the store before we had to return home, and I got to play a couple more guitars.

And I did really did buy something – strings for my Martin, and a bunch of picks for my guitar-playing friends.

Reporting From Desolation Row...

Watching “Mad Men” reminds me that divorce carried such a powerful stigma until the late 1960s that it could disqualify someone from being elected President (see Nelson Rockefeller). And the negative social consequences of divorce on women were almost impossible to overcome.

Adultery was not far behind, although (as Mad Men demonstrates so well) it was probably no less common (at least among men) than it is now, because back then it was privately tolerated (or suffered if you were a woman).

I mention this because I recently heard some national bloviator go on about how hypocritical it was of what he called “The Right” to rail against abortion, and not against divorce and adultery.

But values really got scrambled in the 1970s – so much so that now we read about young women across all social strata thinking they need to incorporate aspects of the porn world into the way they present themselves. This is because guys, they think, spend all their free time (when not watching sports, or gaming online) watching porn, and they perceive this as the competition.

While marriage may still be their objective, there is a tacit assumption that divorce and adultery are always options for them in the “futures” market.

“The Rules” have certainly changed.

So it wasn’t surprising to read this morning that ashleymadison.com, which appears to be an eHarmony for adulterers, has begun advertising its services on mainsteam media outlets, with little or no objection.

"'The agency was drawn to advertise here [Boston]," Biderman said, because many Bay Staters were seeking out his Web site, and because Boston is “a heck of a sports town” and "male fans are a target demographic.'"

"Biderman said his agency has more than 2.7 million members - 70 percent men and 30 percent women. The average male member is in his mid- to late-30s or early 40s and has been married five to 10 years."

While the membership numbers may be suspect, and how different this may be from an "Escort Service" is certainly debatable, and the advertising rollout may still catch a lot of flack, it would appear that a mainstream market may in fact exist for this kind of service.

You don't need to lean your head out too far from Desolation Row to know which way the wind blows (sorry, Bob).

Section 60: Arlington

From the Antelope Freeway archive, in honor of Veterans Day
Yana Paskova for The New York Times
Jessica Gray, with her infant daughter, Ava, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to visit the grave of her husband, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray.

My father died in WW2 when I was about the age of the child in this photo.

While I can only begin to imagine the things this woman (whose husband died in Iraq) is feeling at this moment, I'm sure that my mother, were she still alive, and this young war widow would have bonded across the decades that separated them by age.

The HBO documentary "Section 60" (which refers to the section of Arlington National Cemetary where the Iraq and Afghanistan war dead are eligible to be buried) provides us with a rare look at the many dimensions of the human toll this current war has taken, and it reinforces how detached most of us are from the reality of that war.

I'm not a subscriber to the theory that we have to have the horrors of war thrust in our faces all the time. But I think every American should see this astonishing film, made with respect and concern for the people it depicts, and for the people who watch it.

The film is not political. While it overpowers you with sadness at times, it ultimately affirms the persistence of love, and the magnificence of the human spirit.

Has "Heroes" Jumped The Shark?

The nature of "watching television" has changed dramatically over the past few years, with the growing use of recording technologies like TiVo and digital video recorders from cable companies, and the availability of television programming on line.

And now "Heroes" has a unique problem, midway through its third season:

"That a series with the ratings of “Heroes” could be perceived as being in trouble demonstrates the upheaval in the television business. Among the group that advertisers most covet, adults 18 to 49, “Heroes” ranks eighth over all, according to Nielsen Media Research.

But that is down from sixth last year, an alarming sign because the series is among the most expensive to produce, costing more than $4 million an episode. NBC, like most television studios, has recently asked its producers to rein in costs.

One bright spot, NBC executives say, is that while only about 8.3 million viewers have watched the show during its regular time slot, nearly 2 million more record and watch it within a week, according to Nielsen. That is one of the highest rates of DVR viewership gain among all shows on television. The show also is among the most-viewed online on NBC.com and Hulu.com, the site owned by NBC Universal and the News Corporation, parent company of the Fox network.

The show might, in a sense, attract too many young viewers, those least likely to watch the series when it is broadcast and therefore more likely to skip the commercials that pay for the production."

Ya think? I'm not even on the advertisers' radar screens, and I record it and fast-forward through the commercials too.

Noel Coward's "Hay Fever"

If you read Antelope Freeway, you know that my primary choice for a night out is live music. The only real exposure I've had to regional theatre has been "Waiting For Guffman."

So when we saw the Concord Players' production of Noel Coward's 1925 play "Hay Fever" last night in Concord, we were pleasantly surprised by the highly-professional production of this witty and charming play.

Considering the lack of resources available to regional theatre -- especially in the current economy -- it's a wonder that a local group can mount a production at such a high level.

The direction by Mickey Coburn, the ensemble acting, and Tracy Wall's gorgeous costumes enabled us to time-travel back to Noel Coward's wonderful vision of a unique family weekend in the English countryside in the 1920s.

It's astonishing how great dialogue, delivered by fine actors, is timeless.

It only runs through November 22 -- don't miss it if you're in the Boston area!

Visions of Johanna

Well I'll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that's not unusual
It's just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
(From "Diamonds and Rust" by Joan Baez)

We recently saw Joan Baez in concert at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston.

The concert was on the Sunday night before Election Day -- which made Election Day the day after tomorrow, which is the title of her new album and of the title track, a fine Tom Waits song that Joan performed midway through her concert.

Stephen Holden captures the essence of Joan's voice and style at this point on her journey in his review of her concert last month at Town Hall in New York:

"With many of her high notes gone, Ms. Baez’s bread and butter is now her middle range. This is the section of her voice that embodies motherhood more completely than any other folk singer does. You want to rest your head on her lap and be soothed by the sound of the cosmic lullaby emanating from within. Her comforting embrace promises shelter from the storm in a corner of the world where peace and common sense prevail."

Elsewhere on The Freeway, I've written about how much I had looked forward to this concert, and we were thrilled to see her again, especially in her Barack Obama tee shirt, from our seats in the front row. It was wonderful to re-establish the connection with her.

This cover of an overlooked Bob Dylan song (from Martin Scorcese's "No Direction Home") has become one of her signature songs, and is pretty representative of Joan today (and yes, she did goof on Dylan at the concert, too):

Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job

WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America.

In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis.

As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind.

Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

(From The Onion)

Happy Birthday, Joni!


As Jim Fusilli writes in the Wall Street Journal, "Joni Mitchell turns 65 years old on Friday. As a milestone, reaching that age doesn't mean what it once did, but any opportunity to celebrate Ms. Mitchell and her work is worth seizing."

"Gifted and fearless, she remains among the finest singer-songwriters of the rock era, a title that doesn't quite accommodate the breadth of music and the audacity of her career."

"As David Crosby told me when I called him last week, 'In a hundred years, when they ask who was the greatest songwriter of the era, it's got to be her or Dylan. I think it's her. And she's a better musician than Bob.'"

While I might disagree with David Crosby's choice of who was number one, Joni Mitchell is one of the greatest artists of her (and my) generation.

One of my most precious musical memories is having seen her Boston concert debut (with James Taylor).

I still get chills thinking about the music that night.

Au Revoir, Sarah


"NEW PARIS, Pa. — Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska was swiftly working the rope line Friday at an apple orchard in southwestern Pennsylvania when she met a supporter who brought her to an abrupt stop.

Amber Brown, 23, held a poster that read: “I have Down syndrome and I’m voting for you. I’m a fighter too!”

Seeing Ms. Brown, Ms. Palin wrapped her in a tight hug.

“I love that poster,” she said. “You’re a fighter and you’re beautiful.”

Then Ms. Palin hugged her again. Before climbing back on her campaign bus, she circled back to Ms. Brown and hugged her a third time."

No matter how you feel about her politics and her values, she is not going to go away anytime soon -- unless she chooses to do so.

Anyone with her ability to connect viscerally with so many people on a national stage would find it difficult -- if not impossible -- to walk away from all the opportunities that will come her way.

It will be most interesting to see what choices she makes about her future as a public person outside of Alaska. This excerpt from today's New York Times account of her return to Alaska contains a glimpse into what might be her future:

"Last week, after Senator Ted Stevens was convicted on federal charges that he failed to disclose gifts and free home renovations he received, Ms. Palin joined Mr. McCain and other top Republicans in calling for him to resign. Yet while Ms. Palin lost her bid for the vice presidency, Mr. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, holds a narrow lead in his bid for a seventh full term.

Asked Wednesday whether she still believed that Mr. Stevens should resign, Ms. Palin was circumspect, saying only that the people of Alaska "just spoke" on the issue at the ballot box and that "they want him as their senator." She said Mr. Stevens should decide "what happens next." (Mr. Stevens could still be forced to step down, and Ms. Palin is widely viewed as a potential candidate for his seat if he does.)"

Sour Grapes

"While Americans eagerly vote[ed] for the next president, here’s a sobering reminder: As of Tuesday, George W. Bush still has 77 days left in the White House — and he’s not wasting a minute."

As this New York Times editorial points out so well, now is no time for the press and the media to take their eyes off the ball.

Take a deep breath for a day or two, and get right back to covering the final days of the Cheney/Bush Administration.

(And what is that reflected in the Vice President's sunglasses?)