Lest anyone think that Republican lawmakers in Congress don't understand the difficulty of setting up a healthcare program and that computer problems not only will happen, but they have nothing to do with the underlying law itself, please be fair and consider some of these well-meaning thoughts on that reality.
There is a point to all this. For instance, Joe Barton (R-TX) understands well. He said -- “This is a huge undertaking and there are going to be glitches. My goal is the same as yours: Get rid of the glitches. The committee will work closely to get problems noticed and solved.” Or these other Republicans. “Any time something is new, there is going to be some glitches. All of us, when our children were new, well, we knew as parents we didn’t exactly know everything we were doing and we had a foul-up or two, but we persevered and our children turned out well. No matter what one does in life, when it is something new in learning the ropes of it, it is going to take a little adjustment.” -- Tim Murphy (R-PA) "I hope it doesn’t take us that long to get this right and I don’t believe that it will. And I do believe that fundamentally it is a good plan.” -- Michael Burgess (R-TX) I should mention that none of these Republicans were talking about the Affordable Care Act from President Barack Obama. Of course. No, they were referring to all the technical glitches that first occurred with the Medicare Plan D prescription drug benefit proposed by the George Bush Administration in 2005. (Quotes courtesy of Politics USA.) Those technical glitches for a big national health program from George Bush were okay. These tech glitches for a big national health program from Barack Obama, not so much. You figure out why the difference. I'm tapped out. At least we now know what the Hypocritic Oath is.
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Though I'm back in Los Angeles, I still periodically think about that joyous play I saw at the wonderful Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois, outside of Chicago, The Old Man and the Old Moon. The other day, I waxed enthusiastically here about it. As I said, it was a hugely creative, whimsical and charming -- and terrific-- show. I came across two other very good videos which, while little description or video will likely do the evening justice, complement each other very well and both give a good sense of the show. This first video shows how they do one of the fun shadow puppetry segments in the show -- a whale and group of sharks attacking a ship on the high seas. And this follow-up video is an extended sequence on board that ship, which demonstrates how some of this high seas puppetry actually fits into the show -- along with the use of songs and clever staging. The two teams may be playing sloppy baseball, but the World Series has been immensely entertaining. If only Fox's coverage matched that level.
Fox Sports always loves to cover the stands almost as much it seems at times as the action on the field. Repeatedly going to family members, but often just basic fans sitting nervously, pulling the camera away from the very reason the audience has actually tuned in. And when they have one of their "sideline" interviews with a player in the dugout, rather than play the audio over the picture of what's on the field, they'll keep camera on the player just standing there with a headset on chatting away -- meanwhile there are real ballplayers on the field. And alas, it came to bite them last night, and the audience is the one that got pummeled. In the ninth inning, with two men out, a runner on first, and the potential tying run at the plate in the person of the terrific Carlos Beltran...Fox was showing something in the stands and missed the pick-off at first that ended the game! They only showed the end result of people leaping and cheering, and had to show the actual pick-off in after-the-fact replay. One of the more incredible endings to a World Series game in history -- the first time ever that a World Series game ended on a pick-off…and they missed it. Meandering their camera idiotically in the stands. Also, as I've long noted, I am not a fan of Tim McCarver. I won't go into all the many reasons, but the short version is his egotistical sense of brilliance and wit, and making sure you grasp what he's saying by repeating and repeating and repeating what he has said, repeatedly. And repeatedly. And repeatedly. And so it was in the ninth inning that after St. Louis got a man on first base and put a pinch runner in, McCarver stared ranting the rest of the inning about why in the world did Boston have its first baseman holding the runner on first, when it didn’t matter. On and on, he went. It made no sense, he kept crying out. The runner doesn't mean anything. But they're holding him on. So, there's a big hole on the right side of the infield -- because they're holding him on. Why? Why, he kept asking. Well, yes, in most ways it didn’t make sense. (And didn't make make sense the first time he said, as much as the sixth time.) Except that obviously it turned out that Boston actually did know what it was doing, when they had a pick-off play, caught the runner and ended the game. It’s one thing for Tim McCarver to be wrong about something that was not unreasonable for him to have pointed out (to be clear, he was right to say it was an odd strategy) – but to say it SO endlessly, which is bad enough, and then after going on and on about it and not acknowledge, “Ohhhh, so that was why they were holding him on, they must have done some scouting and were looking for something” borders on the cowardly. At best, it's bad broadcasting. But I'm leaning toward the craven. After all, a friend of mine told me that he later heard McCarver on the MLB Network being interviewed, and he commented on how admitting his errors was one thing he took pride in. Honestly, I've rarely heard Tim McCarver admit his errors. Though to be fair, I've often heard him take pride in most everything out of his mouth... Back in Los Angeles, but what an odd return trip. It began with a taxi pickup at 7 AM, and 15 seconds into the ride, my Lithuanian cabbie tells me he can tell everything about a passenger just by the person’s “Hello.” All I can think is that I hope I made a good impression. It’s a good thing though that he can make this determination from hearing others so quickly, because until I arrived at the airport he spent the next 20 minutes talking.
To be fair, he was pretty interesting, and a nice guy. He loves reading, especially philosophy. I told him about Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, and he handed me a notepad to write the information down. Was it a new book, he asked? No, it was probably written in the 1930s, I said. “I go to the library then today to get it. They will have it, right?” At the moment, he’s reading Mario Puzo. His name is Ari, and he said he used to be in the Lithuanian Army Secret Service. Who am I to doubt it. That’s not being facetious, just truly who knows? He’s very upbeat, and that comes from his reading of philosophy that teaches him that we celebrate birth, and should celebrate death. We should live each day like it could be our last. We never plan our funerals, but he’s planned his. He’s told his wife that if he died before her, he wants to be cremated, and she should take his ashes to the ocean on either coast. She should also take a couple of bottles of champagne and take it to the beach. There, whenever anyone comes by, she should offer them a glass and make a toast. “My mother tell me that every day you should make at least one person happy.” Then he turned his head to the back seat, “Two, better.” And then he told me about picking up a passenger last week at the nearby hospital. The passenger was helped into the cab by an employee, who happened to mention it was her birthday. After dropping the passenger off at her home, Ari went to buy a rose and a box of chocolate, and then drove back to the hospital. The employee was elsewhere in the building, so he just dropped it all off with a couple of greeters in the lobby. “’Don’t you want to stay to see how happy she’ll be?’ they ask me. But I say I know how happy she’ll be, it make her day, I don’t have to see her face.” Later, a fellow cabbie mentioned to him about having to pick up one of Ari’s “regulars.” He didn’t know what the guy meant, he didn’t have any regulars, just what the company sent him. Then he saw the address, it was the hospital and they’d request “Cab 6, that’s my cab. I know what happened. She wanted me to come, so she could thank me. That made me so happy, knowing how happy she was.” He told a lot of other tales. A lot. Hey, as I said, he talked for 20 minutes. He’d only been to Los Angeles once, eight years ago, but he wants to go back. He stayed in Santa Monica, near an International House of Pancakes. He never gets lost, but the only place he ever got lost was in L.A. It was so confusing, no sense of what’s north or south. He also said that if his first pick-up of the day was a woman, he knew the rest of the day would be bad. “Three women in a row, forget whole week, I might as well tell my boss I stay at home.” Today, he’d had two men for his first fares, so things were going in the right direction. I didn’t ask him what caused his theory. He seemed pretty adamant about it, so I left it be. As we reached O’Hare, I mentioned that in the book, Exodus, by Leon Uris, about the founding of the nation of Israel, the main character was named Ari. And when they made the movie, he was played by Paul Newman. “I like Paul Newman,” this Ari beamed. “I get his sauces and food all the time. Tonight I rent the movie.” He got a good tip. The TSA experience was itself odd. Surprisingly polite considering, though nothing like the joyous experience I had at TSA at LAX on my way over. I plan my arrival well-ahead of time, taking almost everything out of my pockets before leaving, even removing my belt that early, and stuffing everything in a compartment of my attaché. I wear loafers for easy removal, even jam my jacket into my carry-on. It’s just a breeze going through TSA, and I don’t get remotely concerned when going through checking, if they stop me because for some reason something showed up on the scanner. I know I’m not bringing in anything, and what might show up as odd is perhaps because I’m bringing back some frozen Chicago deep dish pizza. Today, I breezed through the scanner – when it beeped. I couldn’t imagine why. I checked all my pickets, empty. No belt. Nothing should have beeped. But they pulled me over. The guard then pulled off one of my carry-ons to test it – why just one, I don’t know. She took several swabs off it – and when she tested them, they beeped, too. So, another guard call called over to give me a full pat-down. Again, I knew I wasn’t bringing anything along inappropriate, but unlike packing something, I had no idea if I’d rubbed up against something bad that was setting off signals. I asked what could set off the machines, and he said they were very sensitive, and something such-and-such might get a response. But I knew that none of that pertained to me. He was very polite in the pat-down, explaining how careful he was going to be – when I kept saying, “Fine, not a problem,” he sheepishly shrugged and said, “I have to say all this.” Happily, the results came back negative, and neither me nor my bag are a threat to national security. Other than hitting some air pockets as we began our descent, and the bottom falling out a couple times, making it feel like a flume ride at Disneyland, the flight went fine. A friend picked me up at the airport, and happily didn’t ask for any ID. And now, here I am. Largely unpacked, and waiting for tonight’s World Series game. I don’t expect anything more strange to happen on my end, but given how the first four ballgames have been, I can only imagine what oddities will happen there… Monday is Travel Day. I'll be heading back to Los Angeles from Chicago early in the morning, so no one will be around to power the generator. But thanks to the miracle of time change, I pick up two hours, so someone should be back around here in the very early afternoon.
Operators are standing by. Literally, just standing by. Alas, they won't be answering phones. But soon... Personally, I can't get enough of Bob & Ray. So, this video is a treat because it's a twofer. They're appearing as guests on an early David Letterman Show, and do two of their sketches. The first is an interview with an actor whose play closed after one night, and it's followed with a new, hapless political candidate. To me, the treat of Bob & Ray is that they're as funny whatever the medium -- TV appearances or audio sketches. For some, just audio can be flat, but given their start as radio hosts (where they're initial slogan was the above-noted, "Start your day with Bob & Ray), their work is pitch-perfect for that medium. But what's rare is that two radio hosts were able to translate their material just as wonderfully for visual performance, most especially given that it's just always two guys talking with one another. One of whom is usually somewhat out of his mind... |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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