The Bawdy Cloister

Juju News

It's hard to believe that it's been five years since Dan Rather left his CBS Evening News broadcast and I pitched Juju Chang to replace him.  We may have lost that battle, but we finally won the war!  This morning, ABC announced that Juju will now be news anchor on Good Morning America!

But that's not all.  Buried in a meme I posted way back in 2005, I wrote one thing that I'd do if I had a LOT of money would be to ensure midgets had ample screen time on news programs.  My friends at ABC must have finally stumbled across this little gem of advice and named George Stephanopoulos anchor of GMA!

Well done ABC!

Hey You Guys!!!

Morgan Freeman gave us quite a scare last week wrecking his car.  But he's out of the hospital now and his prognosis is good, and if you're anything like me, you heaved a massive sigh of relief.  You might recall that we here at the Bawdy Cloister awarded Mr. Freeman the first annual American Larrikin Award back in 2006 for his role as Easy Reader on The Electric Company.  After receiving our award, interest in Easy Reader spiked dramatically-- his performance can now be viewed on YouTube:

We just wanted to give a shout out to our favorite teacher and send our hopes for a full and swift recovery.

Oh, and by the way, The Electric Company is coming back!  It'll start airing on PBS Kids in January 2009.  Now, usually, I don't do this but uh....Go head' on and break 'em off wit a lil' preview of the remix:

Take the Stripes Off of Texas... It's Obama's

You might recall Texas held its primary last March and awarded Hilldog 65 delegates and Obama 61.  Media outlets quickly declared Hilldog the winner of Texas despite the fact that only 126 of the state's 193 delegates were awarded that night.  It seems that early on folks forgot that there were another 67 delegates yet to be selected through the caucus process... and the earliest polls indicated that Obama was doing well among Texas' caucus participants.  Nonetheless, many national media outlets declared the state for Hillary which, in part, added to her momentum and gave her reason to continue her campaign. 

In the days following the Texas primary, a number of news agencies recognized the fact that Hilldog didn't necessarily have Texas in the bag, but that the caucus results weren't going to be finalized until June.  Rather than return Texas to "Undecided" they created primary maps with stripes over Texas.  Just take a look at this one from NPR.  Unbelievably, a number of maps are still painted in solid for Hilldog (ex. ABC, CBS and FOX.) This latter group is simply ignoring 67 delegates!  To put that in perspective, 27 states* have less than 67 delegates each.

Well, the Texas Democrats held their state convention this weekend, and shortly before Hilldog announced she was dropping out officially, the Texas caucus results were finalized.  What was the result?  29 to Hilldog and 38 to Obama; add that to the primary results from March and Obama wins 99 to 94!

Credit: Off the Grid

That's what we call the Texas Two-Step.

So now I'm calling on all you media pundits out there to update your maps.  Obamanos!

*27 States with less than 67 delegates-- State/# of Delegates:
NH/30, NV/33, SC/54, AL/60, AK/18, AR/47, CT/60, DE/23, ID/23, KS/41, NM/38, ND/21, OK/47, UT/29, LA/66, NE/31, ME/34, HI/29, RI/32, VT/23, WY/18, MS/40, WV/39. KY/60, OR/65, MT/24 and SD/23

Post Script:  I'm still on sabbatical but am finding small pockets of free time to blog, so you might check in weekly.  Will be back full-time in August.

Rowdy's Week in Review

ITEM!

The past three weeks have absolutely sucked.  Mrs. T has been fighting off the flu resulting in her pushing back scheduled business trips.  I've been trying to juggle my schedule around hers and it's been a nightmare.  I finally knocked out what I needed to do out of town now, so the pressure's finally off.  Mrs. T is rebounding as well. 

ITEM!

My maternal grandmother died back in 1991.  This Wednesday we lost the last of her siblings, my Aunt J.  There were five siblings in that generation.  My grandma, Aunt R and Uncle J were beer drinkers, my Aunt L drank water, but Aunt J drank Scotch.  Aunt J was pretty feisty.  Reports from Indiana tell me she was flicking people the bird right up to the very end.  She was a stalwart Republican and we butted heads constantly over politics.  Not a birthday card or Christmas card went by without us scribbling a political jab to the other.  For example, during the '04 Election I sent Aunt J this scandalous shot of herself:

This really pushed her buttons and she was on the phone immediately giving me an earful.

I regret that I couldn't get to Indiana for her funeral today.  But I want folks to know that in lieu of flowers I sent a contribution in her memory to the Republican National Committee.  I wouldn't have done that for anyone else.  But I just know that this evening she's strolling the golden sands of some heavenly seashore hand-in-hand with Ronald Reagan-- and that makes me feel good.

ITEM!

Speaking of politics, David "Biafra" Shuster was back on the air tonight after MSNBC suspended him for his role in Pimp-gate.  Of course, Bill "Freaky Falafel" O'Reilly never left the air after his lynching comments about Michelle Obama.  I think this perfectly demonstrates the problems that come with subjectively sanctioning folks for the content of their speech.  Note that both the Shuster and O'Reilly comments were metaphorical.  I've already discussed my take on "pimping" in my previous post, let me throw in a word about "lynching."

If you look up the word "lynch" in the dictionary chances are it'll define the word in terms of vigilante justice/punishment without due process, usually referring to hanging and often by a mob.  The definition is race-neutral.  People use the term frequently without intentionally implying race.  Problems arise though when listeners unintentionally infer race.  Of course when the speaker is white and the subject is black sparks can fly.  O'Reilly's comment was careless and insensitive, but we can't just assume he intended to use the word fully loaded with racial implication.  We have to be reasonable.  Speakers should try to be sensitive.  But before blowing a gasket, listeners must consider the context and tone of a statement and ensure that they're not reading more into it than what the speaker intends.  Moreover, the ultimate sin in my book is when people intentionally infer the worst from a clearly benign statement in order to smear the speaker or gain sympathy for themself.  Such tactics are an affront to reason and folks who utilize them ought to be lynched.

Get Your Grain On!

Mrs. T and I were watching the season finale of America's Most Smartest Model last night when a commercial for My Word Coach aired.  Mrs. T's eyes lit up.  English is her second language and she's been in a learning slump the last couple of years.  The Word Coach caught her attention as something easy and fun she could do on the side.  I tucked her reaction into my memory thinking Word Coach might make a nice little Christmas gift.

Then just this morning on National Public Radio I listened to a story about the website FreeRice.com .  It's a free vocabulary building website based on a program designed by a guy to help his son's performance on the SAT.  Turns out it's become hugely popular not just among high school students, but also folks studying English as a second language.  Moreover, with every word you answer correctly, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the UN's World Food Programme.

When I got to work this morning I logged on to check it out.  It's pretty neat, albeit humbling.  The site ranks your vocabulary level on a scale from 1-50.  Your level fluctuates as you hit or miss.  It remembers your highest level reached and your current level.  I played for a few minutes and decided to play until I earned 1,000 grains of rice.  I figured at that point I could share my score with others so we could compare.  It's a lot of fun, only problem now is that I'm back to square one for Mrs. T's Christmas present.

So without further ado, my current vocab level at 1,000 grains of rice was 39 with a highest level of 42.  Play for yourself at FreeRice.com and let me know how you fared.

Algorithm March: With Ninjas!

You might recall last summer I wrote about how the Acolyte is addicted to a Japanese kid's show called Inai Inai Baa!  Well, he still is, and these days he's copying a lot more of the dances.  We record it every morning and watch it in the evening as part of our standard post-dinner, pre-bath ritual.

The thing is, the show starts at 10:15 in the morning, and because of the screwy way a lot of the TV Japan shows are listed in the directory, we're forced to set the recording timer at 10:00.  At first I thought it was a pain having to fast-forward through 15 minutes worth of Non-Inai Inai Baa! programming to get to the show.  But a few weeks back I realized that the show just before Inai Inai is actually pretty entertaining.

It's called Pythagoras Switch and it targets slightly older kids.  One of my favorite sequences in the show is called the Algorithm March.  I was thrilled yesterday when I discovered that it had been posted on YouTube.  Trust me, you'll want to check this out:

The march has many different versions, it's not ninjas all the time.  It's been shot with a crew of firemen, a soccer team and all sorts of other characters.

It appears I'm not the only one who appreciates the march either....

Rowdy's Week in Review

ITEM!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I got a book for my birthday.  It was I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon.  Just finished it... so here's my review:

Excellent.  In the three years following Zevon's death, his ex-wife (and life-long friend) conducted nearly 90 interviews with folks important in his life.  She then organized the anecdotes in chronological order inter-splicing them with her own narrative and entries from Warren's journal.  Extremely well done, with pictures throughout, corresponding to the time being discussed.  (I hate when biographies stick a zillion plates in the middle of the book.)  It was Warren's wish that she write his story.  She did one hell of a job.

Like a lot of folks my age, my introduction to Warren's music was in Junior High when Werewolves of London appeared in The Color of Money.  I went out and got his album Sentimental Hygiene and really dug it.  He'd always been on my short list of acts I'd love to see in concert, but it never happened.  A fact that I'm constantly reminded of by my Evil Little Brother who saw him sit in with Paul Schaffer's band at a Letterman taping.

Speaking of my ELB.  He was here this week and took me out to pick out a birthday present, so I grabbed two more CDs:

Warren Zevon-- another replacement for a worn out cassette.

Mutineer-- this one was new to me (though I had Bob Dylan covering the title track.)

ELB also got me a couple of books... which I'll review as I finish them.

ITEM!

Mrs. T got two tickets to Go, Diego, Go! from her office.  Box seats at the Majestic!

 

It was the Acolyte's first theatrical experience and he had a blast.  He sat focussed through the whole thing-- to my great shock and delight.  For being so good, he walked away with his first concert T-shirt.

ITEM!

The Acolyte is absolutely addicted to Guru Guru Dokkaan!  He dances to it daily.... I think he has a crush on Koto-chan (the girl in red.)  He'll start running and screaming toward the TV from across the house when he hears her voice.  Guru Guru is a regular sequence on the baby TV show Inai Inai Baa! (Peek-a-Boo!)

Action Alert

What follows is an Action Alert emailed to me from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR.)   I get action alerts sent to me all the time, but thought I'd share this one in a spirit of good will toward Michael.  (Now go see my movie, Mike.):

Filmmaker Michael Moore appeared on CNN's Situation Room on July 9 to talk about his new film Sicko—but ended up having an animated discussion with host Wolf Blitzer about a CNN "fact check" of the film that made several embarrassing errors.

The piece--dubbed a "Reality Check" by senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta--claimed that Moore "fudged the facts" when critiquing the U.S. health care system (click here to watch the clip). Gupta starts by acknowledging that the U.S. healthcare system placed 37th in the World Health Organization's rankings. The fact that Moore contrasts this with the Cuban system led Gupta to "catch" him: "But hold on. That WHO list puts Cuba's healthcare system even lower than the United States, coming in at number 39."

The fact that the U.S.'s healthcare system does about as well as a Third World island that's been under economic sanctions for the past five decades isn't much of a catch to begin with. But Cuba's WHO ranking actually appears in Moore's film. (As Moore's website pointed out, when CNN aired the relevant clip from his film, a CNN logo covered up Cuba on the list.)

Gupta's next fact check:

"Moore asserts that the American healthcare system spends $7,000 per person on health, whereas Cuba spends $25 per person. Not true, but not too far off. The United States spends $6,096 a year per person versus $229 a year in Cuba."

Actually, Moore was much closer than Gupta: according to the Department of Health & Human Services, U.S. per capita healthcare spending was projected to reach $7,092 in 2006, and $7,498 for this year.

On a July 10 debate with Moore on CNN's Larry King Live, Gupta tried to claim that these projected numbers were somehow invalid, as if the continuously rising costs of healthcare should not be taken into account when discussing healthcare expenditures. Ironically, during the same discussion, Gupta cited Medicare's looming insolvency as a reason not to support expanding the program--a financial crunch that of course is also based on projections of steadily rising healthcare costs.

What's more—Gupta's "reality check" got the film's claims wrong: Moore said Cuba spent $251 per person, not $25.

Gupta went on to claim that Sicko portrays "medical utopia elsewhere," when in fact studies show the U.S. system is better in some respects:

"The film is filled with content Canadians and Brits sitting in waiting rooms, confident care will come. In Canada, you can be waiting for a long time. A survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the United States when it came to waiting for a doctor's appointment for a medical problem."

This is a grossly misleading characterization of the Commonwealth Fund's survey; instead of stressing that the study found that the United States did better than one country with universal care in terms of waiting time, Gupta could more relevantly have focused on the fact that four out of five of the universal healthcare countries studied (including Britain) outperformed the U.S. on the very measure that he singled out to show that you don't find "medical utopia elsewhere."

It's worth noting that the study that Gupta cited placed the U.S. as the worst overall of all the healthcare system studied, placing it last or next to last in all but one of eight criteria, while spending almost twice as much per capita as the next most expensive system. Gupta's example was a clear case of cherry-picking--selecting only the data that fits your argument--something he accused Moore of doing.

When Moore confronted CNN's Blitzer about the inaccuracies in their "reality check" segment, he responded: "Well, if we get that confirmed, obviously, we'll correct the record." And CNN did correct one thing—Gupta acknowledged his error about Cuba's per capita spending ($25 versus $251). On CNN's Newsroom (7/10/07), Gupta seemed taken aback by the whole thing, saying, "Yesterday there was a lot said by Michael, quite frankly, lots of numbers thrown around, and it can get admittedly somewhat confusing."

He did not apologize for criticizing Moore for using current healthcare figures rather than outdated ones, or for implying that Moore concealed Cuba's healthcare ranking, or for misleading viewers about the findings of the survey on waiting times. "We're comfortable with what we presented," Gupta said, aside from misrepresenting what Moore reported about Cuban healthcare costs by a factor of 10, which Gupta attributed to "an error of transcribing the number down incorrectly."

"As a journalist and a doctor the facts are extremely important to me," Gupta claimed. That priority is not at all evident from his report on Sicko, which instead suggested that his chief goal was discrediting Moore's film. In pursuit of that mission he ended up making more serious factual errors than any he actually found in Moore's film. Gupta's failure to retract the other falsehoods, beyond his "transcribing" error, suggests that facts are actually of little importance to him compared to maintaining the pretense that he is an expert and that activist/journalists like Moore are not to be trusted.

The tendency for mainstream journalists to resist criticism is not surprising. Gupta's CNN colleague Kyra Phillips perhaps said it best when she referred to the second part of Moore's interview with Blitzer: "You can tune in to the Situation Room at 4:00 Eastern for a little more unedited Moore interview, if you can stomach it."

The implication couldn't be clearer: If we make false claims about your work, it's downright rude of you to say something about it.


ACTION: Contact CNN's Situation Room and demand that they correct the other mistakes in Gupta's "fact check" on Michael Moore's film.

CONTACT:

CNN

Situation Room
situationroom@cnn.com

Comment page:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?65

CNN President
Jonathan Klein
Phone: (404) 827-1500

For more background, go to:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article_10017.php

Freezer Burn

My work doesn't take me into big cities too often.  But I found myself in downtown Dallas a couple of weeks ago on a business errand.  I cruised the streets in the morning looking for a central parking space.  There weren't any.  So I ended up parking several blocks north of where I needed to be and resigned myself to walking... a lot.  I love large urban centers in the spring.  But wandering about the wind-swept shadows of skyscrapers in mid-winter is no picnic.  Hands shoved deep in my coat pockets, I put some hustle in my stride to get me to where I needed to be.  Fortunately, most of the buildings I needed to visit were located on the same block.  That's most of the buildings.

My luck ran out at the District Clerks office.  They told me they no longer kept certain records I was looking for; but they're kept in a repository at the public library.  "How do I get there?" I asked.  "Head east down Commerce Street until you lose three extremities from frost-bite, then hang a right."

So off I went.  Marching at a steady clip, leaning forward to beat the wind, my breath freezing on my beard.  After several blocks, I saw the flashing lights of a police car ahead.  I kept moving closer and closer, and saw a crowd gathered on the street.  Great, a pedestrian traffic jam.

As I approached, I saw the police car was behind a traffic barrier.  And the side of the car read "Chicago Police Department."  What?  My brain was freezing, but I still had all my digits.  Behind the police car were three stretch limos bearing what looked like the Presidential seal.  And then there were several dozen people waving signs reading, "Vote for Seymour" or something similar.  All of this was going on in front of the Hotel Adolphus.  Only after I started moving through a crowd of onlookers did I notice a camera crew.  I wasn't going crazy after all.

I was in a hurry to get out of the cold, so I didn't think to ask what was being filmed.  I saw a FOX News van out covering the scene and figured I'd be able to look it up on the internet later.  Well, no such luck.  I couldn't find a story on their local news page or any other network's for that matter.

Anyway, the curiosity started to eat at me again this evening, so I did a little online investigating.  Turns out they're filming the Fox TV series Prison Break in the Dallas area this year.  The first season was filmed in Chicago, but they moved production to Dallas for the second season for logistical reasons.  (They could shoot urban and rural scenes more efficiently, without having to drive their crews two and half hours to escape Chicago's suburban sprawl.)

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed to learn all that fuss on the street was just for some TV drama.  I was hoping it was a big film with big names so that when it was released I could boast to my Evil Little Brother that I was there during the filming.  But no.

Instead, I got a call from ELB this weekend telling me he just got Fidget's autograph.

   

Jerk.

Rowdy's Week in Review

ITEM!

Anticipation over the big trip is rising.  Mrs. T is on the phone right now with her mom making some final preparations on that side of the pond.  This weekend we're taking the Acolyte out to get his duds for the wedding.  And next Friday we're heading over to Houston to get his passport.  Otherwise we're about as prepared as we can be.

ITEM!

I tried to convince my parents to go see Borat once it's out.  The folks never know how to take my movie recommendations.  When Mom was down here last month we watched The Motorcycle Diaries, which she liked except for the language.  Then I had her watch Waiting. That actually took physical force to get her to sit through, but I told her it was payback for introducing me to that world to begin with back in high school.

"Rowdy, I think you're old enough now to find work and finance your own fun and games."

"Yeah, but I'm 16.  Who would...."

"I saw that Burger King is hiring."

I know I probably shouldn't have subjected a preacher's wife to that film.  But I thought it might help her understand the permanent emotional scars she caused.  Still, I don't think it was as bad as my Evil Little Brother singing unedited Army cadences at Christmas dinner.  The folks convinced him to enlist at 17. 

ITEM!

Hurray for my new reader, Cherish!  Thanks for stopping by The Cloister!  I love search engine technology... bringing like-minds together... Long Live Chicken-on-a-Stick!

ITEM!

CBK asked that I recap Flavor of Love 2 now that the season is over.  I hate to admit it, but I was actually hesitating.  Ever since my posts before and after last season's finale, I've received a number of crazy hits... including one from some crack-head who thought I was Hoopz posting about "my" win!  He asked if I'd be in Atlanta any time and if so if we could hook up.  EEEWW!

But what kind of blogger would I be if I let something like that dissuade me from posting about the greatest television event of the decade?  Not a very good one.  So this one goes out to my man CBK who's doing his job making sure that I'm keepin' it real which'al....

At the start of this season, I was scared.  The contenders ranked much higher on the Skank-o-Meter than the previous bunch.

But by the end of the first show I had my favorite....

Toastee!  She earned her nickname after getting drunk the first night.  Unfortunately, she was booted out of the house prematurely after Flav learned from Nibblz that Toastee had made porn. Mrs. T and I were both sad to see her go, but got a laugh when we discovered she wore the same red stripper dress on the show that she'd worn in her Leg Scissors video.

Anyway, after Toastee was gone I couldn't find anyone else to root for.  The producers realized the series was going to rot then and there if something big didn't happen, so they pulled the age-old από μηχανής θεός ....

Flav brought back New York, last season's runner-up and recipient of Pumkin's infamous loogie...

Home viewers may not have had anyone left to cheer for, but now we had someone to rally against.  (Democrats know what I'm talking about.)

At any rate, on the eve of the final elimination I told Mrs. T that I was afraid VH1 was going to cave into the ratings.  I told her my greatest fear was that Flav would select New York and they'd create a spin-off show called I Love New York or some such.  Afterall, Flavor of Love itself is a spin-off of Strange Love, and Strange Love was a spin-off of The Surreal Life 3.  Turns out I wasn't the only one thinking this.  On their final date, New York's opponent, Deelishis asked Flav pointedly whether he was going to make his decision based on what would make good TV.

In case you missed it, here's how the final elimination went down....

So how are they doing now?  We'll just have to wait for the reunion show airing a week from Sunday.

But there's more....

My suspicions about VH1's producers were confirmed once news broke the next day that New York is getting her own show. 

YEAAH BOYEEE!