Sidebars

Florida....by Bob Sanders

 

Mike Royko was easily the most entertaining and evocative columnist I've yet to read and I'd rank Jimmy Breslin second probably because I lived in Chicago for 22 years.  The Chicago wonder has been gone two weeks more than 15 years and I continue to miss his incisiveness and wit.  The wonder of it all was that he wrote his column five times a week--a staggering output.  He knew Chicago better than the back of his hand and he could spot a phony by way of uncommon insight.

Royko had a lot of targets.  Writing for first the Daily News, then the Sun-Times and, finally, the Tribune, the columnist went after the Mayors Daley, aldermen on the take, cops with more than character flaws, the Cubs when they were playing badly (and that was most of the time), Hollywood's latest darlings, and adjacent states including Indiana.

Were he still among us, I think Royko would have been absolutely captivated by Florida, that skinny Texas of extraordinary confusion.

It's difficult to know where to begin with something as curious as Florida.  There are the people past including: railway magnet Henry Flagler; the fabulous Mizner brothers who became the rogues of the 1920s Florida Land Boom and whose raffish personalities gave further understanding of the affinity New Yorkers have for Florida; Meyer Lansky, otherwise known as the "Mob's Accountant," and Hank Meyer, a public relations whiz so persuasive that he talked Second Corner weathermen into never crediting Miami Beach with temperatures higher than 89.  They do today, but Meyer is no longer among us.

Let us leap immediately into the contemporary Florida now recognized as the fraud capital of the U.S., a reputation well-established long before Bernie  ripped off so many friends and relatives in Palm Beach, easily his favorite hunting ground.  Florida led the nation last year with 130,449 complaints while also grabbing the top spot in home foreclosures and identity theft.  The Bermuda Triangle of the latter is the Miami metropolitan area where 51 percent of the state's complaints originated last year.  Way to go, Miami, whose numbers were nearly double those of the next-highest U.S. metro area.

While best known for 114 hurricanes (37 major) since 1851, dead beat Florida also has impressive credit card debt records with four cities in the top 25.

In the dumper job-wise, Florida will have to wait at least another year to realize all the magnificence inherent in a mega-casino bill pulled from consideration the other day by House sponsor Erik Fresen when it became clear passage was not possible.  Not even a statewide TV advertising campaign, in addition to glitzy architectural renderings we've come to expect from the Sunshine State, could make possible three $2 billion mega casinos in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.  Las Vegas-style gambling in South Florida can yet be a reality.  After all, like corporations, casinos are people.

As if living in Florida isn't difficult enough, The National Transportation Safety Board tells us the state is on its list of those needing the most improvement in highway safety.  The problem involves an out-of-touch legislature unwilling to pass a single distracted driving law.  While more than 70 percent of Florida voters support a ban on text messaging while driving, the legislature has been turning down safety bills since 2006 when the problem was timidly referred to as "hands free."

The concerned have statistics to back up their contention tht keeping legal outrageous driving is not acceptable.  During the first 10 months of 2011, electronic distractions led to 2,218 vehicle accidents in the state with 145 linked to texting and drivingl.  The big year for messaging bills that never made it out of committee was 2008 when in e met such a fate.  Of little help is Gov. Rick Scott, a conservative Republican (thought I'd never get there, did you?) who vetoed a bill in 2011 that would have required education about the dangers of electronic distracted driving.  What a flippant thought.

Sometimes referred to as the Persistent Vegetative State, voters not long ago passed a law making the wearing of baggy pants a criminal offense that can cost the offender up to $150 and 60 days in jail.  Ah, priorities where in Florida baggy pants are more important than electronic distraction while driving.

Oh, yes.  Did you know that Orlando, where Mickey Mouse is king, is the kiddie porn capital of this here country?  That's according to a Men's Health Magazine study based upon such factors as hard core DVD purchases, rentals, and streams.  Florida is so salacious that Las Vegas finished second with New York coming in 77th out of 100.

It may have been the butterfly ballot of 2000 that first brought our attention to Florida in terms of how corrupt and screwed up it is.  The hanging chad became one of those infamous terms forever associated with America's only stolen election although Jack Kennedy's win in 1958 is a reasonable Republican response.  The brilliant punch card design was on its way out with but 37.3% of voters using the system in 1996.  Socioeconomics determined which counties would keep punch card voting and Palm Beach County was considered disadvantaged without funds to buy voting machines.

What set up confusion in Palm Beach County was the state's 1998 gubernatorial election in which Jeb Bush beat incumbent governor Lawton Chiles.  Had George W. Bush's brother lost in Florida, Gore would have won in 2000 because of a first position on the ballot.  The 1996 election found Republican Bob Dole second on the ballot because Chiles was in office so Dole got all the ruined ballots.  With Jeb Bush Governor, Gore got second place on the ballot and lost the election.  It was those error-prone folks in Palm Beach County who determined the election along with a lot of help from the U.S. Supreme Court.  Proof that Bush was unfairly awarded the Presidency is every one of Pat Buchanan's 3,407 Palm Beach County votes.  The total represented 19.6% of votes cast, a highly suspect number since the Reform Party candidate pulled but 5.4% of the total in 1996.  There were 336 registered Reform Party members in 2000.  Once Bush was in office, he made certain that the lede paragraph of his obituary will make mention of his war criminality rather than the flukiness of the 2000 election.

Speaking of criminals, there's a burgeoning number of Floridians who will steal anything not nailed down.  Among them is a guy who concentrates on ripping off large amounts of medical equipment.  His specialty: heart monitors unhooked from their owners.

Floridians are often challenged by a lack of awareness as evidenced by the flight trainer who didn't find it unusual shortly before 9/11 when he was told by a cash-paying aviation "student" to forget about landing instructions and "just teach me to fly it around."

Key West, where weirdness might peak, is worth mentioning if only because of the German doctor who fell in love with a young tuberculosis patient.  She eventually died and he tried to restore her to life after stealing her from her tomb.  In a plot twist Tim Burton probably wouldn't touch, the doctor had sexual relations with her corpse quite possibly proving, once again, that a good bedside manner can go a long way.

Let's make it encore, Key West, where in 1984 the entire police department was declared an illegal enterprise under the RICO laws--usually used to shut down mobsters.  One witness testified to delivering bags of coke to city hall on a regular basis.

Of much more recent vintage has been the Trayvon Martin shooting by George Zimmerman in which Florida's short-sighted stand your ground law is being questioned now by even the fools in government who came up with such an un-civilized law.  It's always interesting to learn what adjoining states are doing and, to little surprise, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama have similar laws.  Yahoo states do as Yahoo states are.

A town with an innate ability to insult a celebrity is Lauderhill that once invited actor James Earl Jones to speak at a Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration and receive a plaque to commemorate the occasion.  Everything went according to plan until the presentation of the plaque.  It was inscribed to James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated King.

Enormously funny author Carl Hiassen has kicked the state around while living in South Florida.  It was during a Steve Kroft interview on "60 Minutes" that Hiassen revealed a lot of his plot developments are based upon actual people including the heroine of Skinny Dip who was flung off the stern of a cruise ship, only to be saved by a floating bale of marijuana.  Other characters include a professional wheelchair thief, a school board candidate whose legal residence was a tool shed, and a U.S. attorney who bit a stripper during a table dance.  Oh, and let's not forget a South Florida mayor who tried to employ city hall workers to kill her husband.

One of the verities of Florida, sometimes referred to as "America's Penis," is the vast number of retirees living in places like The Villages whose TV advertising budget is probably exceeded only by that of Super PAC Restore Our Future.  The Villages residents, as might be expected, resort to print advertising including the following under the heading: Long Term Commitment: Recent widow who has just burned fourth husband, and am looking for someone to round out a six-unit plot.  Dizziness, fainting, shortness of breath not a problem.  It would appear it's possible to have a sense of humor in the Alligator State despite living conditions on the challenging side.

Adding to Florida's uniqueness is the topography.  The lowest high point of any state is Britton Hill at 345 ft.  To no one's surprise, there are theorists fully convinced a great day is coming when a really significant tsunami will do what Floridians have been unable to do thus far: put the state out of its misery.

And, as the saying goes, there's much, much more not touched upon in this sally including the continuing role of Miami's Little Havana in our Cuban policy and the laugh-out-loud rewriting of Senator Marco Rubio's family history; the unusual death 10 years ago of a Joe Scarborough ("Morning Joe") employee in Walton Beach; the odd case of Terry Schiavo kept alive for six years in a vegetative state for political purposes; and Jeb Bush's request for an Orlando court-appointed guardian for the fetus of a mentally disabled rape victim.  He was refused.

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Fourth Corner Mayberry....by Bob Sanders

Readers of this space know of my intense perturbation regarding the media's "selling" of Bellingham, the Fourth Corner community I call home.  The remarkable amount of publicity suggesting people move here has become a very real problem.

My thinking is not original.  I first heard such observations from a San Juan Island neighbor, author Ernie Gann, who refused to tell the media where he lived.  The adventure novelist (The High and the Mighty among his triumphs) was convinced the less the rest of the world knew about the island, the better off islanders would be.

It was nearly three years ago that I began undertaking efforts to debunk Bellingham utilizing a campaign that would paint for public consumption a joyless picture of the city.  In my role as the Picasso of PR, that pursuance has included changing our current unofficial motto, "City of Subdued Excitement," to something a bit more pretentious like "City of Sublimely Subdued Subjective Excitement," or even "Tony Soprano's Kinda Town."

Just why 'hamsters are lethargic, indifferent and depressed was examined a couple of years ago by way of an interview with Dr. I.B. Spacey.  It was Spacey, Bellingham's world-renowned master of medical world stuff and all-around smart ass, who targeted vitamin D deficiency as the community's dirty little secret.  Spacey's pioneering efforts produced the intriguing information that more than 90 percent of blood tests here reveal deplorable vitamin D deficiencies.  Interestingly enough, the vitamin D story is now on the back burner because of superior opportunities to inform about the real Bellingham.

Chances are pretty good you don't know that whooping cough in Whatcom County has reached epidemic proportions and is on pace to soon number 3,000 cases.  The county ranks fifth in the state and is first among the 10 largest with populations of more than 150,000.  The reason for Whatcom/Bellingham's record is the increased rejection of the pertussis vaccine.  The past 12 years have seen the rejection figure double so spread the word that there are an awful lot of stupid 'hamsters you wouldn't want living next door to you should a move here be considered.

The challenges of life in Bellingham in addition to the major vitamin deficiency and whooping cough, have been reduced in priority by the Hammer the 'hamsters Committee devoted to reducing our population.  The HHC has chosen to inundate the world's media with information about the community's immature leadership during recent years.  In the committee's sights are: the firing of the city's parks & recreation director for failure to properly reconfigure a golf course pond; the sliding past an asleep-at-the-switch City Council of a hidden camera scheme that led to the mayor's re-election defeat; and the thoroughly bizarre story of two Port Commissioners (there are three) who forced the resignation of the Executive Director in what recalled the Machiavellian maneuvers intrinsic to many of the plot twists of television's "Mayberry RFD."

The firing late in 2010 of veteran and highly-regarded Parks & Recreation Director Paul Leuthold had unusual beginnings.  Upkeep of Padden Lake Golf Course is the city's responsibility and it was mayor Dan Pike who, while checking out the course, made a critical comment to Leuthold about a pond located between the 13th and 15th fairways.  It needed work alternately described as silt removal or drainage and Leuthold, aware of the importance of cost-saving, put friend/city engineer Mark Handzlik to work.  Handzlik, a golfer, was "paid" with free golf.  It was win win for the city.  According to Handzlik, both his boss and the city manager knew of the arrangement.

Suddenly, everything went Mayberry and got either Gooberized or Gomerized to death depending upon one's point of view.  Charges of conflict of interest, violating policies on moonlighting, using city computers, and being on the city's clock while working on the project were bruited about.  The mayor, normally placid (some say right out of "Murder She Wrote") turned nasty levying a sentence that hardly fit the "crime." Result: Leuthold and Handzlik were fired.  As things turned out, the firings were a factor leading to Pike's re-election failure last November.

Another factor was the hidden cameras fiasco, additional proof that you simply stay away from Bellingham unless you want to experience fools gladly as they attempt to myopically claim Subdued City as the Santa Barbara of the North.

It was mayor Pike who signed a contract with something called ATS that would have placed red-light cameras at four intersections in addition to speed snappers in two school zones.  The signing followed a Council closed-to-the-public 6-1 vote that approved the deal.  Earlier, the Council had voted unanimously to encourage public expression.  Subdued City rose up in a wrath most righteous, got an initiative on last November's ballot and there went the traffic cameras.  Pike was defeated, but wait a minute.  The state Supreme Court ruled the initiative against the cameras was invalid.

There was, of course, money involved and Bellingham's plan was to write at least two traffic tickets per location per day to equal a yearly cost of  $28,500 per camera.  Those tickets were to cost $124 at the intersections and $250 at the school zones.  This was in stark contrast to Mukilteo's approach to matters.  Mukilteo, for the geographically-deprived, is halfway to Seattle and set costs at $20 while enabling the public to vote.

The slumbering City Council in March of this year voted to pay ATS $100,000 by June 1 to end all the foolishness.  There is a chilling history of money spent here on surveys, advanced planning documents and architectural renderings plus the disheartening waste of time offered in the name of public good by committees and public commentary.

Another story to pass along to friends and relatives considering a move to Subdued City is a real classic involving the Port of Bellingham whose inability to get things done is legendary.  Turf warfare is what a lot of it is all about and savage infighting has characterized the Port Commission's inability to work with the City Council whose shortcomings are hardly breaking news.

For something like 18 months, Charlie Sheldon worked effectively as Port of Bellingham Executive Director having been hired by Commissioners who couldn't come up with a choice during a first round of interviews.  Sheldon, with an excellent record in a similar position in Seattle, eventually was chosen and did work that pleased everyone including Commissioner Scott Walker who eventually changed his mind.  Meanwhile, former Commissioners, ex-mayors and others of political bent came to believe Sheldon was the real deal.  That is everyone but Walker.

On March 30, the three port commissioners held an executive meeting.  It was closed to the public with only invited staff and counsel also in attendance to discuss "personnel."  The discussion was about Sheldon with Walker unable to convince fellow commissioner Jim Jorgensen to ask for Sheldon's resignation.  According to witnesses, Walker would not elaborate on his disappointment with Sheldon.

It was at this point that an illegal weekend meeting between Walker and Jorgensen was held.  Jorgensen eventually caved and Sheldon was forced to resign.  Walker and Jorgensen had engaged in a "serial meeting" in which two commissioners talked through an intermediary from the Port staff.  It was a violation of the Open Meetings Act of Washington State.

In one of those journalistic embarrassments underlining the Bellingham Herald's lack of responsibility to its readers, the reporter who normally covers the Port for the paper was out of town.  No one stepped in for him and the paper was beaten for two days by John Servais who publishes the on-line Northwest Citizen.  Originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Servais was the principal force behind The Independent, now defunct.  Servais, highly sensitive about such matters as inept leadership and lazy journalism, has called for a public response.  One option is to recall Walker and elect a replacement this fall.  The other is to expand the commission to five members, a move that would produce better Port decisions and lessen the possibility of further outrages.  An open to the public Port meeting, at which a problem-solving expansion can be accomplished, will be held Monday (May 14).  No one is holding their breath.

One month after Sheldon left office, Walker's indignation was finally explained by something called the Pacific Maritime Online.  Sheldon had taken a busines trip to the Caribbean and Walker was miffed for his not informing the board.  According to many, Walker's idea of travel exotica might involve a visit to nearby Marietta whose resemblance to Dismal Seepage of "Vic & Sade" is striking.

At this writing, 'hamsters can affix their names to a petition calling for an expansion of Port commissioners from three to five.  Needed are 6,915 valid signatures, a number that amounts to 10 percent of last November's voters.

No way do you want to move to Bellingham.  No way, that is, unless you yearn for a real life version of "Mayberry RFD."

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Waiting for Gojoe....by Bob Sanders

Timing, as the saying goes, is everything and that undoubtedly explains my recent series of failures to find Joe Scarborough on his "Morning Joe" television show.

Slotted on MSNBC beginning at 3 a.m. (PCT), the three-hour program is my Plan A when I find a return to sleep challenging.  Searching for Scarborough has been something like "Waiting for Godot," Samuel Beckett's absurdest play in which nothing happens while the main characters anticipate the arrival of Godot who never appears.  Let's call my Joe no show "Waiting for Gojoe."

The interruptions of my sleep were occurring about every fifth night or so.  Scarborough simply wasn't showing up whenever I flipped on "Morning Joe" and there were a number of possible reasons.  Had the former Florida U.S. Congressman returned to hometown Pensacola preparatory to running for public office?  Never in memory has any former politician shown greater evidence of a longing for, in his case, those good old days featuring Newt Gingrich as House Speaker and his Contract With  America--proudly signed by Scarborough.  What a contrast with today; yesterday's Contractors, who screwed things up, have been replaced by today's Tea Party leaving in the dust such forever pols like Scarborough whose evidence of GOP loyalty consists largely of trumpeting the triumphs of Ronald Reagan.

There were other possibilities for Scarborough's absences including a resumption of talks with CNN or CBS regarding a move away from MSNBC.  The original rumors came last year on the heels of "Morning Joe" executive producer Chris Licht's leaving NBC to take over the always foundering "Morning Show."  Self-serving like most rumors of its kind, they coincided with contract negotiations involving the major "Morning Joe" hosts.

Those devilish contracts nearly ended Joe and Mike Brzezinski's show about a year after it began in 2007 when Mika learned Joe was making 14 times her salary.  There were a number of factors involved including Joe's positioning as producer plus Mika's having joined NBC after being fired from CBS.  A then recent book published by her with the title, Knowing Your Value, was a bit awkward and she successfully battled for a re-worked contract after producer Joe, the guy who underpaid her, casually gave her one of his paychecks.  Joe, obviously, didn't want to lose Mika.

Another plausibility for Joe's no show might involve that very odd intern death back in Walton Beach, not far from Pensacola.  Had the cops finally come up with some answers to questions about Lori Klausutus' mysterious death 11 years ago?  Klausutus, 28, a Scarborough employee, was found in the congressman's office early one morning.  The shoddiness of Florida police work was no better then than the current Trayvon Martin shooting death in Sanford.  The cops all too quickly determined that Klausutus, a long-distance runner in outstanding condition, had fainted striking her head twice on a desk.  The cause of death, heart arrhythmia, was determined by a discredited medical examiner apparently incapable of wondering how a head could strike a desk twice.

Scarborough, scornful of the media these days, back then also was publisher of the Redneck Riviera's Independent Sun and he quickly resigned his ties to the newspaper and his seat in Congress.  The man people now refer to as "Morning Joe" had initiated divorce proceedings two years earlier from a wife of 13 years.

A much more likely reason for Scarborough's disappearing act would be occasional guest appearances by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mika's father and national security adviser during the Carter administration.  Do not invite Zbigniew and Scarborough to the same party.  The latter plays smart ass to a man who treats the show's host much as an un-wanted son-in-law.  Their relationship peaked late in 2008 when Brzezinski called him "stunningly superficial" for his assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Brzezinski's umbrage was very reminiscent of Jack Paar's Alexander king, maybe the best TV guest ever.

"Morning Joe," close to celebrating its fifth anniversary, has strange origins even for television and began with Brzezinski doing a news segment from beautiful downtown Secaucus, New Jersey for Scarborough, then hosting a failing "Scarborough Country" program from Florida.  Informed by friends that Mika had used mocking tones about "Scarborough Country" during her feed to the show, Joe was intrigued, looked her up and, as they say, it was just a matter of time.  That time came when Don Imus, host of "Imus in the Morning" and the prior occupant of the "Morning Joe" time slot, was fired for making insensitive remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team.  We can measure the true power of a broadcast personality on the basis of whether or not they get fired for serious indiscretions.  Imus was gone quickly for what was paltry compared to Rush Limbaugh's recent disgraceful series of rants leveled at a female law student.

Keith Olbermann, who left MSNBC last year for the Current Channel, continues to suggest that Scarborough's sharp elbows are being thrown all over NBC as he challenges credentials of guests on shows other than his own, now augmented by a talk pack of nearly 30. 

There is an odd chemistry, not yet fully realized, that exists between Mika and Joe.  The fractious relationship of "The Odd Couple" has been suggested more than once although it seems to this viewer that whatever magic exists is much more reminiscent of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn although Trace rarely did the kind of off-putting body language now so seemingly intrinsic to the Scarborough persona.  Arms across the chest, Scarborough seems committed to sweaters and other casual attire to set himself off from the guests, regular and otherwise, who bring to the table far too much about politics--particularly the strange people who have been attempting to unseat President Obama.  Third host Willie Geist seems to be on board mostly to keep beady-eyed Joe from running roughshod over Mika.

Of late, the political pickings have been so sparse that clothing worn by regulars and guests has been seized upon as slim and obvious subject matter.  Three hours a day is a long, long time.  Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and clearly a sartorial dandy, was a bit put out recently by show regular Mike Barnicle whose clothes might best be described as the kind of go-to-hell casual worn by far too many men in Bellingham, Washington, a serious candidate for dress down capitol of this country.  I know about these things because I live there. 

With my sleeping habits much improved during very recent days, I have managed to note that Pat Buchanan is no longer a "Morning Joe" regular.  Pat, who has managed to maintain guest status on the decibel impressive "The McLaughlin Group," recently dashed off a book in which he finally put in writing what he has been saying for many years: he's an out and out racist.  Good luck with the book, Pat.

Other people have come, gone and, in one case, come back.  The comebacker is Mark Halperin who got cut from the talk team last year when he called the President a dick.  To be perfectly accurate, the quote was "sort of a dick the other day."  Poor Obama gets blamed for everything: gas prices, wars, being a Muslim (according to one poll, 52 percent of Mississippi residents believe so), a questionable birth certificate (45 percent of Republicans are birthers), and, probably, bad asshood for putting a hex on second-seeded University of Missouri by picking the Tigers to be one of March Madness' final four.  Missou was knocked off in the first round by 15th seed Norfolk State.

The dick caller returned to "Morning Joe" after a month's banishment and everything, as my dad used to say, is copacetic.  A Time senior political analyst, Halperin is co-author of Game Change with fellow "Morning Joe" regular John Heilemann.  It's an inside look at what went wrong when John McCain and others decided to put Sarah Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket.  Made into a feature length film, it is currently playing on HBO.

In truth, Halprin should have received a stiffer sentence than a month's dismissal not so much for disparaging the President but for being so inaccurate with political predictions.  Among his gaffes: insisting that both Palin and fellow lightweight Donald Trump were serious GOP ontenders; suggesting that McCain's mid-campaign week's return to Washington "won the week" for the Arizona Senator, and just about any crystal balling found in his (2006) book, The Way to Win.  Co-author John Harris, co-founder of Politico, has to share the blame for that turkey.

Halperin's castigation that morning of the President created a momentary pall upon the show's usual cocktail party atmosphere (Starbucks served, of course) with Scarborough expressing agitation that a new producer was unable to activate a seven-second delay.  Such are the vicissitudes of broadcasting when a producer can't punch the right button.

The essence of "Morning Joe," clubby yet rife with the distinct possibility of someone walking in off the street to take exception to Scarborrough's brand of conservatism heavy with wish for the halcyon days of Reaganism, may very well be on the right track.  The challenge is that the rigors of doing it three hours a day for five days a week may wind up boring the hell out of viewers but that would have happened by now.  "Morning Joe," with less than half the audience of the hardly scintillating "Fox & Friends," continues to stay ahead of CNN in the time slot.  Certainly, the casual roundtable banter is a welcome contrast to the all too traditional panel stuff seen in short segments on "Meet the Press," "This Week," "Fox News Sunday" and "Face the Nation," soon to expand to 60 minutes.

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Sarah Revisited....by Bob Sanders

 

Anyone who thought Sarah Palin was simply going to disappear from public consciousness has been convinced otherwise by two cable films during recent days.

The first, "Game Change," debuted this past weekend on HBO and it must have been tempting to those responsible for creating the film's trailers to borrow from the marketing maneuvers of Jack Nicholson's 1980 "The Shining."  Yes, Sarah is back.

Perverse pleasures admitted, this viewer has missed Palin and it may very well be due to the obvious contrasts she offers to the rag tag collection of politicians who for far too long have flailed away at nailing down the Republican Party's presidential nomination.  Mitt Romney, challenged by Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul, simply can't make the sale to a party base moved to the right somewhere in the general vicinity of Attila the Hun.  All this, of course, has come after semi-final rounds during which we were introduced to the strange campaigns of Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, and poor Jon Huntsman, he of the nice-guy-what-am-I-doing- here? persona.  Never in the past 100 years of the election process has the American public been confronted by such a collection of boring possibilities.  Never has the other party been given such a leg up while 20 debates put audiences to sleep.

Palin's remarkable selection as John McCain's running mate is the focal point of "Game Change."  The film is based upon the best-seller by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.  Palin, as played by Julianne Moore, initially is drawn as a sympathetic character decidedly over-matched as McCain's advisers determine she is a logical choice as the Arizona Senator's running mate.  Moore's portrayal of Palin invites comparisons to the wickedly funny Tina Fey impressions on "Saturday Night Live."  As good as Fey's you-betcha takes were of Palin, Moore's provide much greater insight as we experience her strengths (connecting with crowds) to her weaknesses (foreign affairs about which she knows next to nothing).  It is through Moore 's nuanced performance that we see the many Palins: fragile, sullen, magnetic, and vain.  The pit bull mom may not have much upstairs but she appears to have a vast collection of hockey jerseys.

Woody Harrelson, as campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, gives another outstanding performance as he moves from enthusiasm for Palin to a realization that five days were simply not enough time to vet the Alaska governor.  Ed Harris is splendid while offering a compassionate portrayal of McCain.  Harris and Harrelson, both compiling impressive bodies of work, have become two of our very best film actors.

What is particularly intriguing about "Game Change" are the sympathetic roles played by the advisers who, much like race horse bettors given a sure thing in a four-horse race, are aghast as their filly stumbles out of the gate and at all the turns.  Often with media backgrounds, advisers in a political story are people in the shadows, rarely gaining audience rapport or even interest.  Senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, played by Sarah Pauley, bears the brunt of Palin mistakes and malice; Schmidt's "explanation to Palin about the why of not allowing her to give a concession speech is a classic.

Something quite different in Palinology may be observed in "The Undefeated," like "Game Change," inspired by a book.  Going Rogue, "written" by the then jobless governor having fled Juneau, was Palin's explanation of how things happened.  The bad show business people, led by Bill Maher and Matt Damon, are introduced.  The best line is that of ex-New York mayor Ed Koch who, in describing Palin as "plucky, perky," then adds, "and she scares the hell out of me."

First viewed last July, the documentary comes off as an infomercial rather inexpertly cut on somebody's dinner table.  The guilty are director/writer Stephen K. Bannon and the late Andrew Breitbart whose producer credits are augmented by appearance snippets enabling the audience to better understand Palin's brilliance.  He is joined by conservative talk show host Mark Levin and others as the banal product unwinds providing explanation of the box office failure following theatrical release.  It is currently playing on the ReelzChannel as what can only be regarded as a curiosity piece.

One of the reasons for it being a curiosity is its frantic pace and helter-skelter use of very low grade digital video of a lesser quality than YouTube.  Be assured that when the bad guys are offered up as depraved contrasts to the self-appointed mama grizzly, you can count on either stock footage of good old boys in a smoke-filled room or an incessantly brooding film score.  The feel of much of the material is that it is a collection of out takes clipped from promotional film shot for "Sarah Palin's Alaska" whose run on The Learning Channel mercifully has been completed.  There are always re-runs for the Palin-addicted.

Another of the oddities of Bannon's love letter to Palin is the paltry amount of time spent on the presidential election although her considerable triumph, an acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, gets a lot and it's Sarah at her best, by golly.  John McCain is barely recognized.  Hardly a master of subtlety, Bannon tells us that government is wasteful, then gives us three shots of money swirling down a toilet.

We never see Palin inThe Rogue: Searching for Sarah Palin, Joe McGinniss's wickedly amusing and sometimes frightening six months spent living next door to the remarkable woman who threatened to become a heartbeat from the Presidency.  McGinniss is not new to Alaska having researched the critically acclaimed Going to Extremes  there in 1977.  McGinniss does make it clear that, in his opinion, the Palinized Wasilla and much of Alaska is full of people thoroughly fed up with Palin.

In an unusual bit of good fortune, McGinniss, having determined that Alaska's most famous resident was worth a book, was offered a rental next door to Palin.  The mere beating of such odds strongly suggests Palin has a lot of enemies in Alaska in general and Wasilla in particular.  In investigative journalist fashion much more Confidential  than New Yorker, McGinniss gives us Sarah: having a fling with an NBA basketball player; doing drugs back when with First Dude Todd; coming up with easily doubted stories about the birth of son Trig suggesting she is not his mother; and as being committed to religious control of government in spite of not being sufficiently devout.  Oh, yes, the Palin family in all its dysfunctional glory is on board and, as described by McGinniss, not pretty.

She may be guilty of all his charges but McGinniss weakens his case with a disconcerting bitchy quality to his reportage and there are far too many stories told by "a friend," "one resident," and "a former resident."

On the other hand, if only one-quarter of McGinniss's stories can weather a scrutiny closer than the author's he said, she said conclusions, then Sarah Palin is, indeed, one of our major oddities worthy of the Koch quote about scaring the hell out of us.

McGinniss strikes just the right note with his last two paragraphs: What should never have been more than a freaky sideshow performed on a carnival midway was transformed by John McCain's desperation into what many still seem to see as the greatest show on earth.

Actually, it's long past time to strike the tent.

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Newton Minow & The Supremes

 

It was while working for TV Guide in 1957 that I learned some multi-tasking, long before the term was invented, that enabled me to do a particularly good job then and later on for my employer.  My acquisition was in an unlikely place, Dothan, Alabama, and provided additional insight into the inner-workings of small-town television. 

I had been moved to Atlanta from St. Louis in the late winter of that year.  Atlanta was a production center where editions of the magazine were produced for Georgia, North and South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama.  My first day on the job was a bit unusual and involved a breakfast to herald the acquisition of MGM films by WSB, a station whose call letters stood for Welcome South, Brother.  Aware that the breakfast was to begin in 10 minutes, I dashed out of my office to find what I thought was a cab parked by the curb.  Leaping into the vehicle, I realized the driver was a cop who saw the humor in what had happened.  "Where do you want to go?" he asked.  "WSB," I answered and we were off.

The cop then drove me to what turned out to be WAGA-TV, the CBS affiliate.  Apologizing for confusing the two stations (perhaps I spoke a strange dialect?), he took me to WSB.  "What an interesting introduction to what I'm sure is a wonderful city," was my Chamber of Commerce comment made to a curbside Norman Shavin, then radio-tv columnist for the Atlanta Journal.  He used the quote in his next day's column.

Having a unique responsibility for coverage areas of many stations, I took an early-on drive through Alabama where I was astonished to find a dirt road in the very heart of Birmingham.  To get to the Florida panhandle, I had to go through Dothan where I learned from the promotion manager of the town's only station that the magazine was getting 50 and 60 spots a week in trade for a half-page advertisement.  Many were in prime time.  Offering proof of performance by showing me station logs, he threw in a comment about "an FCC ruling that any citizen, upon request, must be shown a log."

I never forgot that one realizing I could not only view the accuracy of our programming but, also, the positioning of our trade-out-spots. While stations in markets like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles traded on a dollar-for-dollar basis, it was the Dothans, Topekas, and Chattanoogas where enthusiasm for the magazine often was based upon the answer to a question I was prone to ask station managers and promoters: "Would you rather have a newspaper or a TV Guide in the hands of a viewer seeking program information?"  Because TV Guide was pre-eminent in providing program details, the answer to the question went a long way in the magazine's success.  All it took was a handshake.

Venturing further south to Panama City, I checked the station's logs and learned things that would have raised the ire of the FCC.  In those days, you could not have three commercial spots in a row.  A way around the rule was to drop a station promo spot among the paid-for ones and I was surprised such obvious subterfuge was ignored there.  The log showed popular shows like "Tennessee Ernie Ford" often were resumed in progress--sometimes missing more than two minutes during which commercials ran.

While it's unlikely Newton Minow was ever aware of the specific guile practiced by the Panama City channel, it is true that the former FCC chairman included the spirit of such shenanigans in his charge that the TV industry was a "vast wasteland."  That was on May 9, 1961, four years after my trip to Dothan.  Minow had been appointed recently to his position by President John F. Kennedy and his words shook up TV like no one before or since.

The Minow comment got mixed reviews.  Many regarded his attack before the National Association of Broadcasters long overdue as criticism of excessive violence and frivolity while others thought it elitist hammering of programs enjoyed by viewers who believed the criticism as private enterprise interference by government.  Sound familiar?

Others unhappy with Minow's observations included (not surprisingly) Ayn Rand and Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of "Gilligan's Island."  Schwartz, who died last year at 94, offered a retort in the form of Gilligan's ill-fated ship, the S.S. Minnow.  The ship was used in  pre-program dramatic effect to explain how the seven survivors wound up on the island.  Minow never got specific about what constituted "wasteland" but "Gilligan" had come more than close and the FCC chairman took the jab in stride.

Over the years, I've had the good fortune to chat with Minow while working for WTTW, Chicago's public television station.  A Chicagoan, he was instrumental in getting the station on the air and in eventually hiring a long-needed professional general manager, Bill McCarter.  I also spoke with him shortly before retiring from the Chicago Tribune in 1988.  Although Minow's "vast wasteland" speech is his strongest connection to the public, he is responsible for fostering two initiatives that dramatically changed American TV.  His All-Channels Received Act of 1961 mandated UHF reception for all television receivers thus creating the number of stations that included PBS throughout the country.  He is a past president of the Carnegie Corporation, the original funder of "Sesame Street."  Still active at 86 and holder of many honors, Minow is the Walter Annenberg professor emeritus at Northwestern University.

Minow believes his most important contribution was successfully urging Congress to pass legislation making possible communications satellites.  It was Minow who told Kennedy: "communications satellites will be much more important than sending man into space, because they will send ideas into space.  Ideas last longer than men."

Writing late last year in Politico while taking exception to the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United permitting unlimited expenditures of union and corporate money in politics, Minow called attention to a law that has been on the books for more than 75 years.  Minow, who continues his law practice, suggests in his article, written with former general counsel of the FCC Henry Geller, that Section 317 of the 1934 Communications Act is the means of discovery and consistent with Justice Louis Brandeis's philosophy that "sunlight is the best disinfectant." 

One of Minoe's complaint examples involves Terry Branstad who ran for the Iowa Republican gubernatorial nomination last year.  Roughly $370,000 worth of TV commercials accused him of being a "liberal" while purchased by "Iowans for Responsible Government."  Not revealed was that the ads were created and paid for by the Democratic Governors Association.  In addition, something like $450,000 commercial time was bought by "Concerned Taxpayers of America" who turned out to be the "Ending Spending Fund" underwritten by one donor who sponsored more than $1 million in campaign ads.

According to the authors, "the long-standing FCC regulation requires an announcement to fully and fairly disclose the true identity of the person or persons...or other entity by whom or on whose behalf such payment is made.  It provides that when a person or entity acts on behalf of another, and this fact is is known or could be known by the station exercising reasonable diligence, the name of the real sponsor must be announced."

Minow and Geller continue: "Broadcast and cable stations are required to determine the true identity of the sponsoring entity or entities and announce that name.  Most important, when viewers and listeners hear an ad that used a front group with a meaningless name--"Americans for a Better Tomorrow"--they should ask the station, with a copy to the FCC, to use reasonable diligence to disclose the real person or entity that put up the money.

"If the station fails to do so, there can be resort to the FCC or, if necessary, the courts.

"The Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United permitted unlimited expenditures of union and corporate money in politics.  'But the court did not rule that these expenditures should be secret.  It ruled, prompt disclosures of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable.  This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."

Cornerstone of American television policy, the Communications Act has driven conservatives crazy for 77 years and that must have been the case two years ago with narrow-minded members of the Supreme Court whose search for loopholes and re-interpretations resulted in a terrifying decision whose short-sightedness has resulted in the current election mockery as a handful of Republican sugar daddies determine the Republican Party presidential nominee.

Imagine.  The solution to a remarkably outrageous Supreme Court decision that provides increased opportunity to buy elections, has been on the books on 77 years.  Thank you, Newton Minow.  The transparancy law appears to be the same one--certainly it has symmetrical spirit--as that referenced by that Dothan, Alabama station promotion manager so many years ago.

It's time to write some letters and knock on some doors.

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Significant Saps of the Year....by Bob Sanders

 

There can be little denial that this corner's Significant Saps of 2011 are a unique and highly impressive collection of lamebrains as this country continues its steep dumbing down slide.  This year's grand grouping admittedly is weighted by crazed politicians attempting to gain the Republican Party nomination for the Presidency.  Better days are ahead when the GOP ninnies are filtered down to a not so precious few shortly into the new year giving hope for a much more balanced assemblage of the bizarre next year.  Let us count the ways in which they have distinguished themselves while entertaining us this year.  

Worth noting is Sarah Palin's largely subdued performance while failing to achieve the kind of sap stardom of past years.  Palin is to be commended for staying away from commentary about such subjects as Russia, turkeys and death panels while concentrating on self-promotion, something for which she has enormous energy as she sells books and does phoners with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.  Alas, there was no further enrichment of Webster's dictionary by her, a somewhat disappointing development.

It was, however, a past year's blunder that came back to haunt Palin when Rep. Gabriella Giffords was shot in Tucson.  It was on a SarahPAC map that Palin had placed a target over Giffords' congressional district, an act that many blamed for the shooting that took six lives.  Palin, therefore, is a member tried and true of this year's team.  Charlie Sheen is not.  He's simply a creep.

If Palin is a turkey, then former Rep. Anthony Weiner is, well, a weiner.  As we learn to live with and understand the quick communications that dominate our lives, we continue to make mistakes and Weiner made a big one when he sent a crotch shot to a young admirer out there in Twitterland.  First Weiner claimed his twitter account was hacked, then resigned when the photo suddenly appeared on the web.

So much has been written about and captured on TV about the GOP contenders that words seem inadequate to describe each candidate's faltering attempts to connect with a confused public.  Of the candidates, only Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann have stayed on message.  What has been reduced to a seven-ring circus defies analysis as attack ads mount in intensity with Newt Gingrich's "high road" showing signs of abandonment.  Newtie's in trouble (it couldn't happen to a nicer guy) with an inclination to augment answers to questions.  Such add ons can be devastating as he smugly proves what we already know: he's the best debater of the bunch.  One is reminded of the Hitler story in which The Fuhrer is deep in a Berlin bunker being bombed by both Russian and U.S. armies.  In a particularly impressive rage, Hitler shouts: "O.K.  No more Mr. Nice Guy."  As this is written, Newtie has begun to fight back.

The social conservatives can't handle Romney's Mormon faith nor does Newtie's marital baggage inspire hosannas.  Ron Paul, who may very well win Iowa, is over the cliff on half the debatable subjects while the rest have simply not gained reasonable traction.  Rick Perry does a great impression of George W. Bush while Huntsman's great hope is New Hampshire which he needs to win.  As a Jewish friend once observed: "It's such a puzzlement."

The biggest GOP laughs were provided by Herman Cain whose salesmanship on behalf of pizza and restaurants proved to be poor preparation for the rough and tumble of politics.  Offering public pronouncements of little sense, Cain provided memorable moments heavy on the kind of jive associated with The Kingfish of "Amos & Andy" fame.  Cain's campaign disintegrated when a number of women stepped forward to reveal the pizza man had fast hands in the back seats of cars; one revealed an affair of 13 years.

Also prominent in the Sex Sweepstakes was Arnold Schwarzenneger whose marriage to Maria Shriver was terminated with the discovery of a love child conceived with a housekeeper of some 20 years.  Now 14, the former governor's son began getting strange looks from Arnold and Maria's friends who decided he looks more like the ex-body builder than the other four kids.

We finally got rid of Nevada Senator John Ensign in April and it took a while.  It was in 2009 that Ensign, who had called on President Clinton to resign because of adulterous conduct with Monica Lewinsky, admitted doing the same thing with the wife of an employee.  Ensign's parents paid off the mistress with a total of $96,000 in eight tidy payments of $12,000, a figure that complied with tax rules governing gifts.  Followers of the current GOP Presidential nominating process probably were spared an even great degree of TV attack ads when Ensign's infidelity was revealed.  Amid much speculation that he would run, a June Iowa trip was planned, then called off.  Some "kids" move in with their parents, other maneuver them into mistress payoffs.

Speaking of politicians, another former Illinois governor made it to prison this year.  In a move both criminal and highly gutsy, Rod Blagojovich attempted to sell Barack Obama's old Senate seat.  Amid seriously bad hair displays, Blago, as we have come to know him, was recently sentenced to 14 years on felony corruption charges.  Those knowledgeable about the sentencing of Illinois governors for criminality believe Blago should not have attempted to become a public personality of wide recognition while a judge determined how much time he should serve.  By appearing on such shows as Donald Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice," displaying a propensity for endless TV interviews, and achieving stardom on a TV commercial for Wonderful Pistachios, Blago gained notoriety just this side of the Kardashians that may have added a year or two to his sentence.

Speaking of Trump, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that The Donald needs a new gig as he seeks whatever it is he is seeking.  Further public recognition is what it appears to be mostly about; rumors, largely floated by him, continue to suggest he wants to be President.  There was a period during the year when Trump seemingly was determined to be a king maker over food.  The Trump Primary first found The Donald meeting over pizza with a self-invited Palin.  Other candidates sought Trump's imprimatur with Paul and Huntsman declining.  Disappointed with the many TV debates, The Donald decided to hold his own, then had to back off when all but Gingrich declined.  

Far from the political arena except for Iowa caucusers (that one's a Palin leftover) was Jesse Dimmick of Shawnee County, Kansas who made the mistake of kidnapping newlyweds a couple of years ago.  Dimmick was a murder fugitive at the time with the cops in pursuit when he burst into the home of Jared and Lindsey Rowley.

That was shortly after the cops chased the stolen van Dimmick was driving onto the front yard of the Rowleys, married some seven days.  A confrontation followed, a cop shot Dimmick in the back and the fugitive was sentenced to 10 years and 11 months.  The past two years in the pokey gave Dimmick time to thnk about life's vagaries and what happened when he broke into a home.  Late in October, Dimmick filed a lawsuit of $235,000 against the Rowleys for his pain and suffering.

Then, there's the story about the drunken Santa Claus at the recent Mavericks-Heat game in Dallas.  Santa, gin and tonic in hand, was confrontational with Heat star LeBron James, maybe the most disliked NBA player--particularly in Cleveland where he once played. 

"What do you want from Santa?" questioned jolly Santa as James got set at the foul line. 

"How about a ring?" added Santa in reference to James's having been preeminent as the Heat folded in the finals against the Mavericks.  James made the free throw and scored 37 points as the Heat won.

While the dunce cap in business hss been worn by many--Coca Cola, Ford's Edsel and Enron come to mind--Netflix achieved high honors this year for losing what probably will total two million subscribers.  With the motion picture industry in the doldrums largely due to ticket prices running from $8 to $13 a ticket, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings thought it might be a good time to raise prices.  What ensued was a disastrous financial drama that included a stock tumble from $304 to a recent $71.  The preparing of loyal customers for a price change was not considered and the price hike was as sudden as a roadside bomb.  There was no PR campaign explaining a marketing strategy down the road and Netflix pulled the business blunder of the year.  It was the kind of decision suggesting Reed's qualification for politics.

What Jon Corzine did this year may very well have been both stupid and criminal.  While most of us can revisit poor financial decisions by examining our checkbooks, Corzine managed to lose $1.2 billion and he made it look easy.  A former U.S. Senator, ex-Governor of New Jersey, and former head honcho of Goldman Sachs of Too Big to Fail fame, Corzine proved a remarkably poor gambler when he bet $11.5 billion on a horse named European Debt.  Now gone are bankrupt company MF Global, the billion dollars and change and a reputation that was looking a bit tarnished before he decided Wall Street offers more excitement than Las Vegas.  Oh, yes.  The money of customers and former workers as yet to be found.  How do you jmisplace that kind of money?

One might be inclined to feel sorry for Rupert Murdoch if it weren't for the man's dreadful record as a media impresario and social climber whose leech-like use of people like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher reflects how he gains power in the UK.  Murdoch's media empire hacked the telephones of celebrities, the royal family and public citizens with the past year the worst yet for the Australian.  His hacking included the phone of a child murder victim.  The investigation of Murdoch is taking place in the UK and in this country (his U.S. holdings include Fox News) with the FBI heavily involved.

By all means, let's not forget Kim Jong-Il who had the decency to take leave of us as starving North Koreans shed tears.  Maybe the tears were real.  After all, the supreme leader was a fashion icon of enormous impact, he invented the hamburger and, yes, shot a round of golf 38 strokes under par while making, you're going to have a hard time with this, 11 holes-in-one.  You could, as Casey Stengel once put it, look it up.  Better yet, check out the bodyguards who were present and attested to Kimmy's feat (there were no pars on his card) and bear in mind it was his first round of golf.  Measuring 7,700 yards, the Pyongyang Golf Course is not some tricked up, short track whose 19th hole that momentous day likely served the divine one his Cognac obsession, Hennessy, whose homeland cost of $630 a bottle amounts to just $270 less than a North Korean family's average annual income.  Hennessy, the corporation is in deep mourning since Kimmy used to spend around $800,000 a year on his favorite booze making him Hennessy's biggest customer.

While Christmas gives us the kind of bemusement that comes with those (hopefully) one-page literary round-ups of familial triumph sandwiched by a card of holiday tidings, the subject of accompanying pictures of poor taste are recalled.  Going away winner this time around is Jorge Santini, mayor of San Juan, who reminds us that politicians are at least a little goofy just about everywhere.  Jorge really outdid all others picture-wise when he posed his family huddling around not a manger scene but one depicting a taxidermied killing.  As a leopard sinks its teeth into a fear-stricken antelope, a little girl smiles sassily.  That's not all.  The caption suggests "the hunt scene was chosen to embody the mayor's holiday spirits over a few other creepy options--including an unconvincing penguin figure staring into a young man's ear in a frosty wonderland a giant bird swooping over the Mayor's head as a black bear poses nearby."  Perhaps something got lost in the translation.

Understandably, political rivals have made their own interpretations suggesting the picture is an understated warning to Santini's opponents in an upcoming election.  This, as we know, wouldn't be the first time a politician has used family as an election furtherance.  The mayor, meanwhile, insists the picture was a promotion for the San Juan Wildlife Museum.

Finally, there's a community of saps who live in State College, Pennsylvania.  We know not how many they number but for a minimum of 10 years (we're not yet sure how long this outrage went on), the townsfolk managed to know nothing about child molester Jerry Sandusky.  The disgusting story tells us a lot about the power of a university (or a corporation) in a small, relatively isolated town and how people, somehow, can become incapable of doing the right thing.

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Bonhomie Bob Cromie....by Bob Sanders

It was while taking the #15 WTA bus to downtown Bellingham the other day that I began thinking about my good fortune to have known Bob Cromie.  Perhaps it was the book I was reading during the ride that reminded me of him.  A classic among journalists, Robert J. Casey's Such  Interesting People is a highly perceptive look at Chicago reporters, writers and editors who, among other things, inspired Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur to write The Front Page.

Cromie, who left us at 90 with six months and change left before the Millennium, was a carry-over from Casey's era.  His book, published in 1943, did not goose me into the field of journalism; rather, it was reportorial efforts on The Heun Gazette, a for-laughs-only publication passed around study halls by restless students at Lakewood High School located in a suburb immediately west of Cleveland, Ohio.  More later about The Gazette, editor Dick Heun and our decidedly bizarre approach to journalism as we created our versions of the first pages of history.

Cromie may be recalled as the host of a nationally syndicated radio show about books plus two TV programs, "Cromie Circle" on Chicago's WGN and "Book Beat," home based at WTTW, the city's public TV channel that fed the shows to PBS stations.  His broadcast triumphs were an adjunct to four decades of reportorial excellence.  He loved words and the people who used them--particularly those who called attention to social injustice, an attitude that characterized every aspect of his work and life.

Successful journalists owe their reputations to many things.  Some dig deeper for stories than their counterparts.  Others, not as persevering, may place greater emphasis on originality while some make effective use of contacts calling upon rolodexes both real and of the mind.  Cromie is the only journalist I ever met who was thoroughly noble and it showed in the way people responded to him.  I never heard him swear and that includes time on the golf course where people are very inclined to do so.

In a business where excessive drinking, more than any other shortcoming, has probably ended more careers, Cromie (to my knowledge) never took a drink.  Whether this was a lifelong consistency or a resolve preceded by a battle with demon rum I know not.  He often sat at John Fischetti's First Amendment celebratory table at Riccardo, joining in and providing hilarity while not imbibing.  Fischetti, a Pulitzer winner for editorial cartooning, was my best friend first at the  Chicago Daily News, then at Sun-Times after the Daily News was folded by Marshall Field V.

Like many outstanding journalists, Cromie was a messy desk person although he was on the neat side compared to sports writer/columnist Bill Gleason of the Sun-Times.  I once made reference to something he had written nine years earlier prompting Gleason to dive into a filing system everyone called Mt. Gleason.  Groping for a moment or two with Herman Cain-like proficiency, he extracted a published piece plus paper-clipped notes and proclaimed: "You mean this?"   

The messy desk possibly continues to be a matter of pride to some contemporary journalists.  I once took wife Janet on a tour of the Chicago Tribune editorial floor during which she met such print paragons as columnist Eric Zorn, critic Gene Siskal (then thumbs-upping it at the movies with TV co-host Roger Ebert) and cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, a three-time Pulitzer winner.  It was in the newsroom that we came upon a remarkable example of clutter whose magnitude suggested it had to have been detritus of an Oklahoma tornado decidedly off course.

"Whose office is this?" asked Jan.

"It's Casey Bukro's,"  I replied knowing what was coming next.

"What does he do?" was the anticipated question.

"Why, he's the Environmental Editor" I giggled in return.  Bukro, responsible for environmental entries, nearly won a Pulitzer for his "Save Our Lake" series.

Born in Detroit and educated at Oberlin College, Cromie joined the Tribunein 1936 and was the newspaper's war correspondent for four years.  Wherever World War II battles raged, whether in Europe or the Pacific, Cromie was there to report--often with a local angle.  His modus operandi nearly always was kicked off by asking if there were any soldiers or Marines from Chicago or Illinois.  Tribune readers had the war "personalized" for them and Cromie was masterful.

Cromie was with the Marines when Guadalcanal was invaded and he put in a lot of miles traveling with Gen. George Patten including coverage of the Battle of the Bulge.  Like Ernie Pyle, he wrote stories about average guys turned into everyday heroes.  Typical of his work was an October 12, 1943 report telling of a raid on Rabaul located, as the dateline proclaimed, SOMEWHERE IN NEW GUINEA.  The writing is rich, spare and aimed at a readership whose heightened interest in the war is in direct contrast to today's indifference.

"As we taxied on the runway," continued Cromie, "I moved into the bomb bay and stood between rows of 1,000 pound bombs.  We had plenty of respect for the 1,000 pounders--Staff Sgt. Fred C. Whitney, 22, Independence, Mo., Staff Sgt. John G. Shaffer of Logan, W. VA, and I.  We didn't return to our comfortable posts in the waist until Bond (Lt. John E. Bond 24 of Scarsdale, N.Y.) had plenty of time to get his plane on an even keel.  Other heavy bombers were all around us.  I could count more than 50 at one time.  We gradually got into formation and headed for Rabaul, soon running into heavy fog which hid the wingtips and sent tiny drops of water running on the windows.  Then into the sun once more.  The morning was all blue and gold and blinding white.  I went forward and stood behind the pilot's seat.  Tech Sgt. H. V. Milarski of 3800 Diversey boulevard, Chicago, was working on the radio.  As he smoked a cigarette he looked as bored as if riding down State street in a street car.  Tech Sgt. Joseph A. Gosseaux, 23, of Grindstone, Pa., the engineer, was busy writing down the names of the personnel.  He did this with ease from long practice, even to putting down each man's serial number from memory--some numbers containing eight digits." 

Cromie's war journalism is something we don't get today because of the military's control explicit in embedding reporters resulting in spoon fed versions far short of what we should be getting.  For that we can thank President George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney (then Defense Secretary) and other members of the administration who conducted an assault on constitutional freedoms during Operation Desert Storm.  Without question, a strangely passive press also was at fault.

I have two particularly fond memories of Cromie.  One involved attending services for Fischetti who died two weeks after I left Field Enterprises (owner of the Sun-Times).  There were people critical of my leaving for the Tribune but Fischetti was highly supportive during two months of my maneuverings with the marketing and editorial departments of the Boul Mich monolith.

Cromie's eulogy for Fischetti was perfect.  In the company of all who loved the guy, Cromie offered a parting line that recalled a legion of mid-day fun: "I think it's entirely possible that John Fischetti invented the long lunch."

My other indelible memory of the journalist was the result of a question I asked him following a taping of "The Cromie Circle" at WGN.  Of all the authors he had interviewed, with which one would he prefer to spend a lot of time?  Cromie mentioned several but the stickout he decided was Ernest K. Gann.  Gann's many lives were spent as a theatrical manager, film director, painter, writer, pilot and seaman.  Both he and Cromie were man's men for whom laughter was an important ingredient of living.  "He is truly one hell of a guy," was the way he put it.

"'ll tell you something interesting about Gann," observed Cromie.  "His was the only interview I ever conducted in which the subject would not tell me where he lived.  I asked him why and Gann replied: "If I tell you, you'll ask me what it's like and I'll tell you how wonderful it is.  Members of your audience will then get interested in the place and they'll buy property and build homes and the place won't be the same.  That's why."

Our conversation took place in 1985 shortly before Cromie retired.  When more than four years later Jan and I moved to San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest, we discovered that one of its better-know residents was Gann, author of 25 novels about aviation and the sea.  Among the best known: Fate is the Hunter, The High and the Mighty and Blaze of Noon. 

We met Ernie and spunky wife Dodie (an inductee into the National Ski Hall of Fame, she captained the 1948 Olympics team) at a party a couple of weeks after our January, 1990 arrival in Friday Harbor.  He recalled the conversation with Cromie and thought our meeting indicative of pronounced prescience on Cromie's part.  Among the many joys of our island life were the sensational views offered from our home including the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and much of Ernie and Dodie's 760-acre Red Mill Farm in the San Juan Valley below.

The farm and its assured future gave further evidence of Ganns' staunch attitude regarding the heaven on earth he had referenced in his conversation with Cromie.  Shortly after donating a conservation easement to the San Juan Preservation Trust thus denying development, Gann told me: "We have to do something to save this land, not only for our children but for ourselves.  People need to stop thinking of money all the time, or the land won't be here." 

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Polls Raise Cain....by Bob Sanders

 

Excuse me, but have we once again become distracted?

The reference is to the Herman Cain contretemps that started out as another one of those "revelations" planted with an online media outlet.  Knowledgeable observers remain of a mind that one of Cain's rivals in the race to represent the Republican Party in the 2012 Presidential election did the planting.  Suggestions that the Democrats are responsible make no sense.  The race is for Mitt Romney to lose and the Dems would much rather be confronted by Cain in the finals for all the obvious reasons.  Cain, meanwhile, is in impressive denial with the specter of at least four women pooling their experiences on TV chilling in terms of a Cain survival.

It was an odd week of peculiar verbalizing by the rag tag collection of those seeking the GOP nomination aided and abetted by not always helpful associates.  Michelle Bachmann suggested Mount Rushmore recognition for James Garfield who barely had time to check out the rose garden during six months in office.  Then, there was money decider Karl Rove, further distancing himself from the Tea Party by suggesting that celebrity attorney Gloria Allred (Sharon Bialek's mouthpiece) "lends credibility" to sexual harassment accusations leveled at Cain.  Let us not forget big-hearted Rick Santorum who became a rare early bird to not call for Penn State's Joe Paterno's resignation just hours before the old coach was told to clean out his locker.  We certainly can't pass over Ron Paul who once again suggested scuttling the minimum wage nor can we forget a quote, actually a resurrection of a quote, about Newt Gingrich that was first reported a year ago.  We have word from ex-wife Marianne Gingrich who quoted "Newtie" staffers as saying: "He's a sociopath, but he's our sociopath."

Perhaps the biggest gaffe of the campaign was made Wednesday night when Rick Perry, straight from a highly animated appearance in New Hampshire where he gave further evidence that he does a magnificent impression of George W. Bush, couldn't come up with a third department he would eliminate should he make it to the White House.  This guy is so goofy "Saturday Night Live" has zeroed in on his stumbling.

Somehow, and hardly a surprise, the far right wing commentators (identifications are hardly necessary these days), responded to the Cain matter by blaming it all on the "liberal press."  Were Machiavelli around today, he would not be impressed by the lack of subtlety.

Lost in all the ululation was the Cain story's most important factor.  Given 10 days advance warning by Politico.com, Cain handled things with such withering dithering that his guilt or innocence regarding old sexual harassment complaints simply don't matter.  Cain bungled a series of challenges while changing his stories to meet the developing charges finally implying race is at the root of it all when pointed in that direction by the usual hate radio suspects.  The bottom line is that Cain has proved what most people had already figured during his inept campaign; he is not capable of the Presidency although better than most of the candidates.  It seems logical that had Bill Clinton been given 10 days to come up with a superior legalistic use of words, we would have heard something more impressive than a parsing of the word "is."

Cain's run for the Republican nomination has underlined how stunningly short of leadership we are in this country.  The message is clear when a candidate like Cain can gain significant traction with Republican Party primary voters by running as a Beltway outsider who once ran a pizza company and the National Restaurant Association.  His undeniable connection is based upon the well-earned eight percent approval rating currently accorded the 535 clowns who represent us in Washington.  How in the world has there not been a call for Joe, the Plumber to haul us out of this mess?

What we have been getting out of Cain has advanced from puzzlement over the words "settlement" and "agreement" to what sounds strangely like lines from old "Amos & Andy" radio shows with Cain doing a very effective George "Kingfish" Stevens including the kind of upscale speech expected from a representative of the business world.  Those of sufficient memory may recall the Kingfish as a fraudulent observer whose misadventures often involved "The Knights of the Mystic Sea."  Kingish nemesis was Madam Queen and we seem to be gathering a burgeoning cast of featured females more than capable of raising Cain's hackles.  Who knows where the road will lead us but I have the damnable feeling that we're going to hear more about the inner-workings of the hospitality-prone National Restaurant Association than we really deserve.  We may yet see those women on "The View" with the go-getting Barbara Walters, a highly proficient getter of the "get," in fine feminine fettle.

This action distraction in politics, characterized by a deadly seriousness and determined reluctance during shallow TV debates to discuss a lot of highly important subjects, wasn't always so.  Back in the days when Richard Nixon was running for Congress against Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, the future President was done in for the first time by prankster Dick Tuck, then a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  It was an absent-minded professor who made possible Tuck's stunt by asking him to promote a campus appearance by Nixon whose campaign against Douglas remains one of the dirtiest ever.  As advance man, Tuck rented a big auditorium, invited very few people, then gave a long-winded speech to introduce Nixon.  As Nixon moved to the microphone, Tuck asked him to speak about the International Monetary Fund.  When Nixon finished, the candidate asked Tuck his name, then told him: "Dick Tuck, you've made your last advance."  It wasn't.

Tuck quickly became Nixon's avenger with his famous prank, "the Chinatown Caper," a particular winner.  Running for Governor of California in 1962, Nixon pulled into Los Angeles Chinatown where a backdrop of children held "welcome" signs in English and Chinese.  When Nixon spoke, a community elder whispered that one of the signs in Chinese said: "What about the Hughes loan?"  The reference was to an unsecured $205,000 loan that Howard Hughes provided Nixon's brother, Donald.  On camera, Nixon grabbed a sign and ripped it up.  Later, Tuck learned that the Chinese characters actually spelled out: "What about the huge loan?" 

So distinctive was Tuck's mischief-making that arch-conservative William F. Buckley singled him out as a master political prankster.  "You see," wrote Buckley, "Dick Tuck has been an employee of Democrats for many years, and his running assignment is to embarrass Republicans by any means.  He specializes in glorious improvisations which are no doubt more damaging to Republicans than any conversation the Watergaters might have tapped from the telephone of Lawrence O'Brien."

Humor always characterized Tuck's pranks and there was never any suggestion of meanness to what became legendary efforts.  In 1868, Nixon was defeated by Pat Brown in a race best known for his "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore" comments to reporters.  Nixon's state of mind that day was believed by many to have been irrational and unbalanced; his behavior was partially attributed to Tuck having tricked Nixon twice during the campaign.  Included was the premature departure of a train from which Nixon was speaking.  Tuck modestly denies the event and such is the snow-balling effect of fame where undeserved credits are sometimes awarded.  To connoisseurs of dirty tricks, Tuck's were to politics what Frank Sinatra was to beautiful women.

One of the most fascinating moments of Tuck's career occurred in the White House during a give and take between Nixon and H.R. Haldeman.  On tape, a perplexed President makes references to disclosures by staffer Donald Segretti whose Watergate dirty tricks were deemed inferior to those of Tuck's everyday efforts.  That was in October, 1972 and there is admiration in Nixon's voice in recounting Tuck's triumphs.  "Dick Tuck did that to me," says the President.  "Let's get out what Dick Tuck did!"

It's easy to understand how a lot of people credit Tuck with an inspirational role in Watergate.  Segretti was hired by Dwight Chapin who reported directly to Haldeman.  It was during the Watergate hearings that Tuck ran into Haldeman, asked to resign the month before along with John Ehrlichman.

"You started all of this," said the former White House chief of staff.

Replied Tuck: "Yeah, but you guys ran it into the ground."

No one ever accused the Nixon White House of having a sense of humor and I think it fair to believe that Nixon and his staff didn't understand that Tuck was almost exclusively a merry prankster and a decided contrast to most of those who surrounded the President.  I was twice interviewed in 1967 by Haldeman and Ron Ziegler, both employed at the time by J. Walter Thompson Advertising in Los Angeles.  They were looking for a Ziegler replacement on the Disney account and my two sessions with them were enormously serious.  I didn't know it at the time but they had been tapped by Nixon for future White House work with Ziegler taking on a job for which he was disastrously ill-prepared: press secretary.

Tuck ran for office once and it was a failure.  That was in 1966 and his race for a newly-created California State Senate seat happened when he was late for a meeting with fellow Democrats.  By the time he arrived, his pals had chosen him.  He lost big time but his concession speech lives on: "The people have spoken...the bastards."

Two years later he joined the Robert Kennedy campaign following his candidacy announced in March, 1968.  Tuck did press relations and occasionally walked Kennedy's dog, Freckles.  Kidded by journalist friends, Tuck observed: "To you, this is just a dog, but to me it's an ambassadorship."  Tuck was walking behind Kennedy when the candidate, celebrating his California primary victory, was shot by Sirhan Sirhan.  Tuck tended to the fallen Kennedy and rode with police to the hospital where the candidate died.

Tuck also had the last laugh on Nixon when he helped give the public a better understanding of Watergate.  While the unedited transcripts were made available in August, 1980, no tape excerpts had been played on national media.  The National Archives would not allow any public access to the tapes other than being able to hear them at the Archive building.  Acquiring tapes from an undisclosed source, Tuck called an October 21 press conference in the Aspen (Colorado) Hotel's Jerome Bar.  He played excerpts for an hour, the media recorded the material, and the public acquired a better understanding of how venal and paranoid was our 37th President.

Dicktuck.com has a wealth of information about the prankster who lives in Tucson, Arizona.  Now 87 with a birthday coming up in January, Tuck has much to look back upon.  He had a lot of laughs and so have those of us who know how devastating humor can be in the political arena.  Nixon was almost forever a stranger to fun and breathed his last believing that a 1968 "Sock it to Me" appearance on "Laugh In" got him elected President.  My best guess is that he never really understood the why of it.

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Barking Dogs....by Bob Sanders

 

Like most municipalities, Bellingham has a barking dog ordinance that ranks right up there as conversational material along with some of the more exciting aspects of life here including discussions about anticipated rain, great gully washers of the past, debates about how to watch moss grow plus taking photographs of significant rainbows claimed by far too many to shame anything Kansans have ever crowed about.

Crowing is a timely word at this junction of today's report offered in response to the Bellingham Herald's story the other day about word that roosters, turkeys and peacocks are likely to wedge their way into recognition by those who enforce the barking dog ordinance.  It appears animal control officers are receiving an increasing number of complaints concerning boisterous feathered friends.

The situation is now on the docket of the City Council and, as we head into the home stretch of November elections, there is little doubt that council members and Mayor Dan Pike (he's up for re-election along with four councilmen) will be either for or against the birds.  Pike, at times a canny politician, likely will not come down on the side of winged creatures knowing that a Pike for the Birds headline might be a bit too accurate in a close City of Subdued Excitement election.  Regardless of the tacks to be taken by politicians, all will be mindful of Sarah Palin's insensitivity toward turkeys during one of those strange aint-Alaska-a-really-you-betcha'-kind-of-place-to-live moments three years ago.

We may have thought we've heard all there is to hear about New Jersey lifestyles but such is not the case in Hopeful Township, an unlikely place for roosters to be unhppy.  Their rural displeasure is due to chicken legislation enacted this past April with the announcement that all the township's roosters will be limited to 10 days worth of conjugal visits each year.  The dramatic council contemplation took three years to bring to fruition and was full of commands to randy roosters including a restriction limiting "purposes of fertilization" to no more than five days in a row.  A headline in The Times of Trenton, a newspaper much more inclined to carry news about the Real Housewives of New Jersey, positive aspects of Gov. Chris Christie's obesity and denials that Frank Sinatra was ever mob-connected, used the word poppycock, not bad for the Garden State.

Dogs that bark is a much more complex matter that not even Palin's wisdom could be of much help although she undoubtedly has thoughts probably connected in some dithering way to woofing Russian wolfhounds owned by neighbors known to fly overhead.

Perhaps some highly random dog data is worth mention.  The U.S., with over 52 million, has the highest dog population in the world; 87% of dogs curl up beside or at the feet of TV viewing owners; the all-time top grossing film ($142,992,475) is Marley and Me (2008); 15 people die each year from dog bites; and more than one million dogs thus far in this country have been primary benefactors in wills made by their owners.  Britain now has its first mobile pet blood bank.

In further examination of the barking dog, there is increasing evidence that dogs and other animals can sense and predict earthquakes and other natural disasters.  While there is no conclusive scientific evidence that a dog can sense and predict earthquakes, animal owners tell us otherwise.  The Web is loaded with stories including one from Alex who writes: "Dogs can definitely sense earthquakes that are about to occur--or feel the vibrations under the earth hours before earthquakes surface.  We have 2 earthquakes in the last 6 months where I live, and on both occasions the next door neighbors dogs and other dogs from further away were howling non-stop like crazy--they sounded like wolves that were howling all through the night and in the morning.  I thought it was freaky but didn't have a clue what was wrong with them, and then there was an earthquake, this happened once in August and once in February.  It is not a coincidence--as I have been living next to them for 3 years and they have never howled before--only those two times before the earthquakes happened.  Just before a storm hits they start running around and crying and barking--so dogs sense these things for sure."

An old journalistic saw suggests that while dog bites man is not a story, the opposite is decidedly newsworthy.  Something of a first cousin slant on things occurred not long ago in Mason, Ohio.  Police in the Cincinnati suburb charged a man with a misdemeanor for barking at a police dog.

According to Officer Bradley Walker, he heard his dog barking uncontrollably inside his patrol car while investigating a car crash outside a pub.  Making barking and hissing noises was a 25-year-old, described as appearing to be "highly intoxicated."  One wonders if the Man Barks Dog guy was doing something highly original or if he first practiced using Partners in Rhyme's one-hour classic CD, "Dogs Barking."  Originally created to provide background ambiance for radio plays, the CD ($14.95 plus $4.95 for shipping & handling) also can be used by the mean spirited to get even with neighbors without going to the trouble of buying a barking dog.

Another step backwards for canines is a recent Barking Dog Hotline that grew out of Phoenix (Arizona) City Ordinance 8-2 which classifies excessive bow-wowing as a Class One misdemeanor.

In spite of the vast number of dogs in the U.S. alone, there are very few studies on vocal communications.  Before Sophia Yin entered the barking dog scene, there were but two papers, published more than 40 years ago, plus a popular press article in the early 1990s.  It is Yin's contention, following study of her digital recordings of 4,672 barks covering three situation tests, that owners should be able to recognize the barks their dogs make in specific contexts.  I guess that's the kind of break-through conclusion that comes with 4,672 barks ringing in your ears.  It wasn't easy for Yin who converted her barks to visual displays called spectrograms, then took 60 sequential frequency (pitch) measurements and 60 sequential amplitude measurements along the length of each bark and then recorded values (still with me?) such as minimum, maximum, mean frequency, start slop, finish slope, frequency range, amplitude range, bark duration and interbark intervals for each bark.  Yin, unfortunately, does not provide a time frame for the interbark intervals but, then, nobody's perfect.   

We're so crazy about dogs in this country that there's a Dog Bark Park Inn in Cottonwood, Idaho.  The whimsical bed & breakfast features two connected rooms in a huge wooden dog.  One of the features is a toilet disguised as a fire hydrant, an accoutrement that must be confusing for visiting Fidos.

Then there's Lele of Chengdu City, China who puts his owner's money where his mouth is.  When hungry, Lele barks, then puts one yuan in his mouth and heads for neighboring shops where sausage awaits at a number of possible stops.  Lele will not let go of the money until given the sausage.

Leana Beasley owes her life to Faith, her Rottweiler with a talented nose.  When Beasley went down for what would have been the count, Faith raced to the phone, pressed speed dial and barked.  The operator understood what was going on and Beasley is with us today.

Sometimes dogs don't have to bark to save a life.  Take Buddy, an Alsatian, whose owner was susceptible to seizures because of a brain injury suffered while in the U.S. Army.  Joe Stalnaker is his name.  Joe programmed the buttons of a cell phone so that Buddy could pick up the phone with his mouth thus activating a 911 call.  It worked and Joe's life was significantly extended.

While we tend to connect dogs and Paris with what they leave behind on sidewalks, it took an American to create a Bakery for Dogs and who says we're losing our entrepreneurial spirit?  Harriett Sternstein, an award-winning pastry chef who makes very special bacon biscuits for Sophie-Marie, decided to create them for other Parisian pooches; a typical day finds her making about 300 biscuits in the shape of cats and dog bones.

Those of us whose ownership of a barker puts us in bad paper with a barkee can go in a number of directions.  First step could very well be Bark Busters which operates world-wide out of Sydney, Australia.  Managed by Sylvia Wilson and husband Danny, a Bark Busters franchise costs $71,000 if you want to get into the world of canine behavior modification ("Prince, sit up") and behavioral psychology ("dogs love their friends and bite their enemies").  The Wilson claim 500,000 woofs of approval.

Other possible solutions include dog collars that vibrate plus a spraying contrivance which, when filled with citronella, is activated by (guess what?) barking.  Any old bark will do whether it originates in the throat of a Chihuahua or a Great Dane.  Speaking of throats, there is a procedure called chordectamy which is a last ditch effort whose ballpark cost is $2,500.

I owe thanks to a gentleman named George Hammond for a charming Website story about a tired and elderly dog who would show up nearly every day around mid-afternoon.  Upon admission to Hammond's home, the dog would flop on what became his favorite spot on a hallway where he took a nap of about one hour, then left.  One day, Hammond wrote the following and affixed it to the dog's collar: "I would like to find out who the owner of this wonderful sweet dog is and ask if you are aware that almost every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap?"

The dog returned the next day with a different note attached to his collar.  "We live in a home with 6 children, 2 under the age of three and he's trying to catch up on his sleep.  Can I come with him tomorrow?"

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Journalism & What Rupert Wrought....by Bob Sanders

 

There were a number of reasons why I became a journalist.  One of the major factors was the great many films I saw in the 30s and 40s about newspapers and those who reported, wrote and edited them.  Some actors were better than others; they included Lee Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Walter Connolly, and Thomas Mitchell.  The latter had to be good since that was his job before he became an actor.  Oh, yes.  Let's not forget Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, so magnificent in His Girl Friday.

The reel-life journalists were a rough and tumble bunch seeking truth while peppering audiences with cynicism as they fought the good fight--usually against crime.  The transition from the voyeurism film offered to my real world was conditioned first by the Depression, then World War II.  Readers felt a fondness for "their" newspaper much as the baseball fan owned allegiance to the local team.  Reporters and their sometimes enemies, editors including those on the copy desk, were full of wisecracks.  They drank during and after work, appeared to be having a lot of fun, and eight-hour working days were rare.  That was then and this is, unfortunately, now.

What is now is Rupert Murdoch; journalism, already in a horrendous slump, has been delivered a thumping of no particular surprise.  The public, seemingly inured to trashy tabloid publications, the paparazzi and identity misrepresentation by members of the press, has become enormously offended by Murdoch's phone hacking practiced upon a wide range of folks running from the totally un-connected to at least one political family and, yes, even the royals.

Journalism ethics in the old days, while relatively simple, were really a display of good manners.  If a reporter was assigned to a homicide, it was imperative that a picture of the deceased be obtained for the early edition.  If the victim had been a cheer leader, so much the better had such a shot existed.  If a family member was on the scene, a request was made.  If not, a picture on a mantle might be temporarily borrowed.  Sometimes the "borrowing" was better described as "pilfering" but there were always people in photo or editorial to remind the borrower to return the picture.  Indiscretion rarely went deeper.  Back in the 50s during my employ, Cleveland Press reporter Howard "Bus" Bergen went quite a bit further when he stole papers from a judge's chambers.  Bergen  left the Press although I found a picture on line taken in 1965 that identified him as a Press employee.

Bergen, about whom the word "colorful" was not nearly descriptive enough, was the subject of a particularly unusual Big Story segment in which the reporter was given "Forty Minutes to Meet a Deadline."  Covering a killing, the Bergen radio version found the intrepid reporter absolving a man of his wife's rat poison murder.  The July 25, 1951 30-minute drama (hey, that was just 60 years ago) had many fascinating features including a cocker spaniel who helped Bergen solve the crime.  Brad Parker played the dog, Robert Sloane was the narrator and the stirring voice of Melville Ruick was heard in two roles.  Bergen's subsequent appearances in the City Room occasioned a great deal of barking.  For those interested in journalism of a non-Murdoch variety, read Gimme Rewrite, Sweetheart by John H. Tidyman.  All about Cleveland journalism, it's long on those who worked in the 60s and later.  Alas, the more vivid Press characters of the 50s including such stalwarts as Louis Seltzer, Winsor French, Byron "Shorty" Filkins, and Jack Warfel (they preceeded Tidyman's employ) are neglected.

The hoax was another deviation although considered more fun and games than anything else.  Perhaps the greatest hoaxer of them all was Sanford Jarrell who, for five days in 1924, kept a story on the front page of the New York Herald Tribune.  "Uncle Sanford," a relative by marriage previously acknowledged in this space, titillated readers about a fabulous mystery ship featuring gambling, Niagaras of Prohibition liquor and ladies of the evening who danced on tables.  Jarrell had phoned in all five days worth--mostly from a bar not far from the paper.  The hoax is largely revered today much like baseball's "spitter" to pitchers.  No one got hurt although a case can be made regarding hitter's averages.

Back when, the most basic ethical rule of journalistic thumb involved identity.  If the person at the other end of a call asked if you were a cop, the game was over and you had to identify yourself.  That also went for wandering into a police station's prosecutor's office while trying to look like a representative of the law as a prosecutor asked questions of a possible miscreant.

The relationship between cops and journalists in this country should be, and largely is, of arm's length.  Advantages are there for both, but the coziness that has characterized Murdoch's association with politicians and police in the U.K. is nothing more than an ill-concealed push for power.  The U.K.'s mature politics (short campaigns and wise spending limits) are in sharp contrast to the U.S. where a Supreme Court decision has made it even more possible to buy an election.  In the U.K., Murdoch and the rest of the press have become what George W. Bush used to proclaim himself: "The Decider."

I twice managed to miss being a Murdoch minion.  The first escape (totally inadvertent) occurred in 1968 when I went to work for Hugh Hefner having toiled 13 years for TV Guide.  It took Murdoch, a man with a voracious appetite for anything print, another 20 years but he bought Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications for $3 billion.  TV Guide, Triangle's most successful publication in 1988, had a circulation of 17.2 million.  It turned out to be a bad buy.

It was in the very late winter of 1980 that I became aware of beautification efforts being accorded what had become the Chicago Sun-Times Building.  It had been the Daily News/Sun-Times Building until owner Marshall Field V folded the Daily News much to the consternation of anyone who knew anything about journalism.  That was early in 1978 and Chicago shed a collective tear.

A first floor feature of the Sun-Times Building (it was razed in 2005 to make room for Trump International Hotel and Towers) was the production plant observed through enormous plate glass.  It may seem a bit strange these .com days, but people loved to walk those roughly 250 feet to watch presses humming while turning out the news of the day.  Suddenly, the tramped-in Chicago slush was being mopped, yet snow was still falling.  This was decidedly un-like Marshall Field, not known as a big spender.  Something was going on, the place was being prettified, and I soon became convinced it was up for sale.

Murdoch was the likely buyer and I had heard enough about him to realize I would be better off across Michigan Avenue at the Chicago Tribune. I had something like 10 years to go before retirement and I wanted to make the best of those years.  I made the move in November of that year thanks to Trib editor Max McCrohon and others and recall so vividly being bellowed about by Sun-Times  VP and Advertising/Marketing Director Chuck Fegert.  We were walking on opposite sides of an idyllic path that connected the Sun-Times to Boul Mich and the Tribune: "there he is, folks, it's the incredible Bob Sanders, a legend in his own lifetime."  Fegert, a damp luncheon pal, was then married to actress Barbara Eden and I've just made a promise to myself (and you) to write soon about how Chuck used Barbara to nail your faithful scribe with a supremely administered "gotcha" at the Shoreham Hotele in Washington, D.C.

Murdoch did buy the Sun-Times  in January, 1984 and it was columnist Mike Royko who drew a line in the sand by referring to the new owner as "The Alien."  As only Royko could phrase it, "no self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in a Murdoch paper."  An Australian by birth, Murdoch had become a U.S. citizen to qualify for U.S. ownership amidst applause from anti-immigration Reagan Administration conservatives.

Royko moved to the Tribune suggesting that Murdoch was "not interested in quality journalism.  His goal is vast power for Rupert Murdoch, political power."  It must be terribly tempting these days for the Sun-Times to re-run those Royko columns as the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal threatens to leap across the pond and torch Fox News and other News Corp. properties.

In a remarkably short time, Murdoch's lurid approach to U.K. print journalism is in tatters with 10 people arrested and two major police officers resigned while authorities wonder if the hacking of voicemails of a child murder victim and medical records of an ex-prime minister's child with cystic fibrosis is just for openers?  Oh, yes.  Murdoch's News of the World  no longer publishes and then there's that remarkably ill-timed discovery of a journalist/whistle blower's dead body.  This story simply goes on and on with no end in sight.  It is contemporary Shakespeare.

An investigation of News Corp. (or any firm, for that matter) has to get inside the culture that affects or permeates it.  It's always there--often in very large doses.  Sometimes, as in the case of Playboy, for whom I worked (1968-71), decisions probably continue to be made largely on the basis of a question: How would Hefner handle this one?

In the case of Murdoch's organization, it's difficult to imagine that a product man didn't know that his editorial staffers were doing unusually nasty and illegal things.  One can understand Murdoch not knowing everything about a printing press or the hiring practices of one of his art departments but not something as intrinsic as the product.  Murdoch, pure and simple, is an editorial man and his not knowing what was going on in that most important department makes as much sense as Hefner not knowing the vital statistics of Miss October, the one with the pumpkins.

It was fascinating to see the Murdochs testifying--particularly when the subject of "willful blindness" was introduced.  Again proclaiming ignorance as a non-lawyer,  the junior member of Team Murdoch expressed confusion over the term as though it was something as confounding as scatological Sanskrit.  What in hell could it mean other than the very obvious?  The senior Murdoch denied association with the term.

Anyone who doesn't think this is an insane world also might take into consideration the fact that Wendi, Rupert's Chinese trophy wife, threw what appeared to be a Kung Fu chop at a guy attempting to shaving cream pie her husband during testimony before Parliament.  As the Dragon Lady's athleticism was being displayed on U.S. TV, Senate Democrats were attempting to sell Obama's approach to the debt limit by pointing out that Ronald Reagan had raised it 18 times during his Presidency.

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