All posts by Ron Olsen

Biden, Blog, Media, Politics

Hush Money, Hannibal Lecter And Designer Coffee

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What a pleasure it was to turn on “Morning Joe” today to hear Joe and Mika, talking about something other than Donald and Stormy Daniels. It was jaw-dropping, really, hearing them talk with a senior editor from the New York Times, about “How McHaters Lost The Culture War.” I don’t really care all that much, as I gave up on McDonald’s years ago, back when the square burgers at Wendy’s seemed like health food, but it was at least interesting and it was something other than Donald J. Trump.

It was then equally refreshing (caffeine loaded pun intended) to hear Mika, express her opinion that Starbucks has lost its way. She held off for a full year in offering an opinion she said, but now feels that their coffee has changed and that it tastes terrible. It tastes “burned” she said. They also got into Starbucks new drinks, which sound more like a caffeinated ice cream parlor than a haute cuisine coffee bar.

I don’t frequent Starbucks anymore, as I switched to decaf some years ago and Starbucks never seemed to have any decaf brewed. I always had to wait to get a “half-caff,” and I got tired of waiting. Anyway, weren’t they offering those fluffy coffee drinks with lots of whipped cream and syrup decades ago? Is this really something new? Or was the article they were discussing written and then edited by someone without the advantage of being in possession of having any perspective? If you don’t know the history of a topic, you should probably seek out someone who does before going to press?

Granted, the menus at McDonald’s and Starbucks aren’t likely to kick off World War III or change the outcome of the upcoming election, but that’s precisely why I needed to hear it. Hearing something , anything, other than the Donald and Stormy hush money show was exactly what I needed. I wouldn’t be surprised if others feel the same. It’s like we’ve done this before and enough is enough. I’m just tired of it.

Personally, I think they should have just skipped Stormy Daniels II, and moved on with the other three criminal indictments against DJT. I think there are three others? I’m having a hard time keeping it all sorted out and I have to wonder if they filed the hush money case because they thought the other three would be delayed until after the election, and they wanted to get Trump’s sexcapades and creative funding issues back in the press before America goes to the polls.

Please know that I don’t like Trump. I’m not crazy about Joe Biden, either, but Joe isn’t crazy and Trump, apparently is. If you haven’t already done so, read Mary Trump’s book, “How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man.” You owe it to yourself and the country.

The fact that DJT is talking about the fictional character Hannibal Lecter, from the “Silence of the Lambs” movies as if he actually existed, should be enough to make anyone question the man’s mental acuity. When Ronald Reagan, talked about “Rambo,” we all knew that Reagan knew that he was talking about a movie character. With DJT, it’s difficult to know what he thinks when it comes to separating reality from fiction. He seems to think they’re interchangeable, like using a magic marker on a map will actually alter the path of a hurricane. And if it doesn’t, maybe we can just nuke the thing before it hits the Florida coast?

Just as I was starting to feel good about Joe and Mika again, they proved themselves to be true to the MSNBC marketing machine and went back to the trial, which caused me to pick up the remote and switch over to Reuters TV to get some actual news, offered in various lengths from 5 to 30 minutes.

I’ve been watching the Reuters TV 15-minute show lately. Feels about right. Similar to the way I used to feel after watching Cronkite at 6:30. After spending some time with Uncle Walter, I knew what I needed to know. It was a diet of actual news. A well-rounded and intellectually nutritious diet as opposed to being stuffed with iced moca lattes topped by a mountain of whipped cream at the local coffee bar.

A sugar rush can be fun, but depending upon it over the long haul could prove to be fatal.

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The New “New Journalism”

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Hunter S. Thompson

Not that long ago Hunter S. Thompson was heralded by some in the business for his approach to “New Journalism.” Some, thought Thompson’s exaggerated approach to presenting current events came closer to the truth than did the mainstream media.

It occurred to me just recently that John Oliver and Jon Stewart are now doing something similar, although not through the use of hyperbole. Stewart and Oliver, are simply telling the truth.

Are we at a point where “New Journalism” has been taken to the next level simply by presenting factual information with some humor thrown in? What does that say about the job being done by the mainstream? Is our current state of affairs so shot through with insanity and chaos (fear and loathing) that simply presenting who, what, when, where and why, makes it sound as though America 2024 is one big funny farm? A train wreck about to happen? Oh, I’m sorry. “Who, what, when, where and why” aren’t really being done anymore, are they?

I seem to keep reverting to the way things were. It’s the wishful thinking of an elderly journalist, I guess. Except for Jon Stewart and John Oliver, who have enough grit to “tell it like it is.” Perhaps young people are turning to them for news and information because that’s precisely what they do?

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The O.J Simpson Trial – A Story With Legs We Thought Would Never Stop Running

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After more than 30 years of covering news in Los Angeles, I must tell you that L.A., is an industry town, and entertainment is the industry. To expect local journos to ignore that is unrealistic. Naive, even. And I was there when one of the biggest stories of all time was breaking. The O.J. Trial, that is. Or, if you prefer, “trials.” But his celebrity was just one part of it. There was so much more and it demanded unprecedented coverage.

We knew at the time that what we were doing, wall to wall non-stop coverage with a regular panel of expert pundits, was something new. I don’t think anybody realized that what we had started would be a trend on 7/24 cable channels for decades to come.

It may be difficult to believe, but at the time, only two outlets, Court TV and KTLA-TV, were carrying the pre-trial hearing(s) and then the trial wall to wall.

KTLA, was on cable and satellite systems across the country. Eventually Sky TV picked us up and we were on the air in Europe. And we did it without smartphones. I think I eventually got a fax at my desk in the courthouse. No laptop though, and I’m still not sure how I did what I did without the aid of a computer. It probably helped that we were breaking news minute by minute so there was no need to go online for additional information. It was coming from us. We were the news.

By the time the second trial started, the civil case in Santa Monica, I had finally gotten my hands on a laptop with wireless capability. My wife has compared it to being in an era that was transitioning from the horse and buggy to the automobile. I think she’s right. In fact, what we went through transitioning to computers might have been a little harder. And then The National Enquirer, starting beating us all. That, was never supposed to happen.

I doubt any of us realized that including breaking news from certain tabloids in our reporting was breaking new ground for giving the tabloids credibility they had never had. Thing is, we had to make a choice. The Tabloids were doing factual, valid stories that mattered. And they were paying for the information, something we mainstream journos would not do. Nevertheless, we ignored them at our own peril, which could mean missing a huge new part of the story. So some of us went along for the ride. Remember those photos of Simpson sitting at a shoeshine stand up in Canada wearing size 12 Bruno Maglis? KTLA, was the first tv outlet to get those photos. We got them from the Enquirer, because I was buddies with their reporter covering the trial in Santa Monica. I hadn’t paid anybody for information, I was just doing what I had to, to advance the story. And I trusted the reporter for the Enquirer. I can’t say if that would be the case today.

As for Simpson’s “slow speed pursuit” starting the trend of tv stations covering meaningless pursuits for years to come. Well, that’s true. That’s exactly what happened. However, to the best of my knowledge, it was a fever that lasted for a number of years and has since petered out? I can’t be sure, as I left SoCal in 2015, but I seem to recall fewer pursuits were being covered as the years went by. Here in the Baltimore area, only one of our four local tv stations even has a helicopter. The problem in L.A., was that the stations that carried the pursuits got huge numbers while tv stations that ignored them were crushed in the ratings race.

In retrospect, after 30 years, and as someone who was among the first journos to arrive at the murder scene and was then in the slow-speed pursuit and then covered both trials to the point of mental and physical exhaustion, it’s all true. The O.J. trials, perhaps the criminal trial most of all, changed everything, and not all for the better.

That said, I feel I have nothing to apologize for. We had a tiger by the tail. It was a story that never should have happened and was never going to end. Captain America, one of the greatest NFL running backs of all time, a nationally known good-guy movie star, had been charged with taking a knife and slaughtering two people, one of them his beautiful ex-wife, in one of the toniest neighborhoods of Los Angeles. And drugs may have been involved. And the City was just recovering from the Rodney King riots And Johnnie Cochran, a real pit bull in a courtroom, had put the LAPD on trial.

There was a joke running through the press room that O.J. Simpson, was “The guiltiest man ever to be framed.” That might be close to the truth.

We were captured by an irresistible force. Use any metaphor you want. We did the best we could and it was a privilege to be there and to call those people covering “The Trial of the Century” my colleagues and friends. It was monumental. Fallout, was inevitable. I have no regrets.

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O.J. Simpson, Luke Skywalker And Me

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So O.J., is dead. After 30 years, talking about it is somewhat therapeutic, I think, so I want to thank Rick Dayton, and KDKA Radio, for letting me ramble on for a full 30 minutes yesterday. For those of us with undiagnosed Simpson Trial PTSD, writing about it will probably be beneficial as well. And so, here is a story. Every bit of it, true.

My station, KTLA-TV, was given one seat in the courtroom for the Simpson Civil Trial in Santa Monica. And what a seat it was. We were in the front row just behind the bar and only five or six feet behind O.J. Simpson and his attorneys. So if O.J. turned around, he would be looking directly at whomever was in our seat. Usually that was me, although I had to run outside to do an occasional live-shot, so there were others in the seat as well. There had to be. The rule was that you got the seat, but you would lose it, should it ever prove to be empty when court was in session. So quite literally, we had to put an ass in that seat.

Since I couldn’t always be there, in the courtroom, my producer, Jacquelin Sonderling, spent considerable time occupying our seat. And there were others. Author Dominick Dunne, had just returned from finishing his latest novel “Another City, Not My Own,” and was without a place to sit in the courtroom. I knew Nick from the Criminal Trial, and knew he would be writing about the Civil Trial as well, so I offered to let him take our seat for some of the time when I couldn’t be there. This gave both Jacquelin and myself, a break. And then there was Mark Hamill.

You probably know him as Luke Skywalker, from the Star Wars movies. He was also very much interested in the Simpson Trial. I bumped into him one day out on the courthouse lawn. It turned out that we had a friend in common. As we talked, I learned of how eager he was to get into the courtroom, even if only for a little while. I told him that might be arranged. He gave me his phone number. When the seat was going to be open, I called and Mark came to the courthouse.

And so it came to pass that on any given day, O.J. Simpson, might have turned around to see either me, my producer Jacquelin, novelist Dominick Dunne, or Luke Skywalker.

The day after Mark took the seat for the first time I was back in it myself. The reporter next to me leaned over and said, “Did you know that Luke Skywalker was in your seat yesterday?” “Of course,” I said, acting as though it was all perfectly normal.

As things turned out, Dominick mentioned me in his novel, which was totally unexpected. He has, after all, been called “The world’s most famous chronicler in the age of celebrity.” Beyond that, I’ve always wondered what Simpson thought when he turned around and saw Luke Skywalker, just a few feet away in the courtroom. It’s gotten a chuckle out of me more than once.

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From The Small World File

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Barbara Rush

Reports are out this morning about the death of actress Barbara Rush at the age of 97. Among other things, she starred in the tv series “Peyton Place.”

Rush’s obit brought back memories of a dinner Karen and I attended years ago at Disney studios in Burbank. Our friends Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, had invited us to attend as their guests. Steve’s agent, prominent Hollywood power broker Warren Cowan, was also at the table, as were DJ Rick Dees and his wife Julie.

At some point during dinner, Cowan asked me if there was anything I could do to assist his daughter, who was trying to break into television news. I told him I’d be happy to talk to her. I don’t recall any contact with Cowan’s daughter, Claudia, after that, but I do see that she is now a correspondent for Fox News. I was also interested to see that her mother was Barbara Rush.

Such a small world. My condolences go out to Claudia Cowan, and the entire family. It turns out she didn’t need my help after all.

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Chili And The Art Of Effective Communication

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It isn’t easy to find a good bowl of chili. Most of the canned stuff really sucks. Trader Joe’s had some really good canned chili, but they’ve stopped selling it. A market near us, Klein’s Shoprite, has really, really good chili. It’s part of their soup bar. I’m pretty sure they make it from scratch.

I’ve had it several times, and decided to do something I’ve never done in any supermarket. I decided to tell the people at the customer service desk just how good their store’s chili is. I was going to pay a compliment. This is where it gets a little weird.

I should have known better, right? “No good deed” and all that, but I went for it anyway. “I know you guys probably aren’t used to being complimented, but I wanted to tell you how good your chili is,” I said. The young man behind the counter just stared at me. He either couldn’t comprehend what I was saying, or he might have been in shock at being complimented. Most likely, though, he was reeling in fear at the thought of having to engage with a customer in a spoken conversation employing compound sentences. I’ve experienced this before. They can text, but they can’t talk. I think it might be problem approaching crisis proportions here in the States and maybe internationally, as well.

Since he couldn’t comprehend my first words, I repeated everything I had said in as simple a fashion as possible. “I really like the chili this store sells. It is very good chili, and I wanted to let the store know,” I said. He just stared. “You might want to pass this along to someone? That a customer was complimenting the store’s chili?” Finally, he seemed to understand. “Oh yeah,….sure. I’ll let them know,” he said, still somewhat dazed bu seemingly coming around as I headed for the door, eager to extricate myself from another failed attempt at communicating with a young person.

I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. Complimenting, I mean. I won’t do it again. Except via email to the store’s headquarters, which they’re set up for. So much of the current retail experience seems set up to do all they can to protect their employees from being forced to think, whether it’s simple math or communicating with the spoken word. But I will keep buying their chili.

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DJT, New Media, And The Potential Death Of All We Once Held Sacred

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Would Donald J. Trump have been able to do anything politically without the 7/24 cable channels and the Internet (Social Media)? There was also the death of the Fairness Doctrine, giving rise to radical talk radio.

Goodbye Paul Harvey, hello Rush Limbaugh.

I recall DJT floating a possible candidacy back in the 80’s or 90’s, and being regarded as a joke. In the 90’s I remember covering the first O.J. trial. All the NY media were there and I remember them telling us about how they had been covering Trump for years and that the guy was a total buffoon. A spoiled rich kid, who was regarded by New Yorkers as a local clown. Look at us now.

Trump, if not completely accepted has at the very least been normalized. Even after leading an attempted coup. To me, this an indicator of just how much the media landscape has changed, mostly for the worse.

Without a professional filter provided by legit journalists, the masses are lambs to the slaughter.

What can be done without walking all over the First Amendment and who out there would have the political will to get it done? With our Democracy at stake, someone should at least be asking the question.

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Taylor Swift, The Grammys And The Big Game

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I haven’t watched the Grammys in many years, possibly because I can no longer recognize most of the artists. I now know how my grandparents probably felt when the Beatles landed. However, knowing that Joni Mitchell, somebody I can recognize, is up for an award, I decided to peruse the nominees. In doing so, I was struck by the fact that there are 94 catagories, with a Grammy being awarded for each. Seriously? Sometimes, less is more.

Following my recent decision to become a supporter of Taylor Swift, who has more political courage in her pinkie toe than any dozen MAGA fanatics, I was somewhat concerned to hear the rumor that her NFL superhero boyfriend, may be popping the question during the Superbowl halftime show. How’s that gonna work, with Taylor continuing to outshine him for years to come? Will he be able to exist in her shadow once his football magic is gone?

By my count, Taylor Swift, is up for three Grammys. Hope she wins all three. I also hope that both she and Travis have a lifetime of happiness, whether together or apart, whatever happens at the Superbowl.

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Reality – RIP

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A friend posted a bit about contemporary music on his Facebook account today, prompting me to respond, “Crank up the Auto-Tune and plug in the synthesizer. Soon nothing will be what it really is, but nobody will care so long as it turns a profit.” Or words to that effect. It’s true, I think. We’re heading for an A-I future where nothing is what it appears to be. Including actor’s faces. Something the SAG/AFTRA negotiating team understands better than most, as they try and cut a deal for their member’s futures.

For me it started with Harrison Ford. I’m a huge fan of the actor and his Ark movies, but I wasn’t sure what to think when they let it out that they would be using A-I to give him a younger appearance in the “Dial Of Destiny” film. I thought it was a good movie, and Ford’s appearance didn’t bother me in the least, because it looked like Harrison Ford, only younger. So, no big whoop, right?

But then my wife turned on “The View” and my view of the whole thing changed. They had a movie director who also acts on the show promoting a new movie in which she is starring. I think that’s what they said? Thing is, the actress on the show looked nothing like the character in the movie. I mean nothing. Two different people. Isn’t that taking things a bit too far? I wasn’t sure. Could just be me, resisting the inevitable shift to the ultimate unreality of A-I. And then I had a thought. What if the woman on The View was only directing the picture and the woman starring in the movie was a different person altogether and I was just confused? Which is the way it turned out to be. I had to check out the film’s cast on IMDB to be sure. My thinking was all messed up, thinking the director was also the star. When she isn’t. But theoretically, she could be, because A-I would make that possible. Wouldn’t it?

I’ts easy to be confused when confronted by what seems to be the unlimited potential of A-I to alter our reality. Who needs actors when you’ve got computer generated images that look and sound like the real thing?

While I was pondering these hi-tech issues I received an audio track from a friend on my iphone. He had butt-dialed me from the bathroom. The audio was him clearing his throat and then flushing the toilet. After I stopped laughing I sent it back to him with a note that in the future he might want to stop taking his phone in the bathroom. So much safer. And yet, since nothing is what it seems to be anymore, I’m not sure any of it really matters. Soon, nothing will be as it seems, and we’ll all be clueless. Sucking up all the altered audio and video the professional influencers, propagandists and marketers send us and following wherever it leads, blindly comfortable in our arrogant self-assuredness that we’ve got it all figured out.

This brave new hi-tech world we’re entering into is clearly littered with pitfalls. But then, maybe not. It’s all so confusing. If only we had something less prone to organic failure to take the reigns and tell us what to do? How to live our lives? Wouldn’t that make more sense?

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The World At War

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The U.S. conducts air strikes on Iranian positions inside Syria after Iranian forces strike U.S. military installations inside Iraq. The BBC reports that according to the Pentagon, 16 attacks by the Iranians based in Syria, have injured at least 20 Americans. At the UN, Iran warns the U.S. will not be spared.

Israel, continues strikes on Gaza, apparently preparatory to a full ground offensive. Not that far away, an Egyptian resort town has reportedly been hit by a missile strike.

Pundits argue that it’s possible to support Israel’s right to self-defense, while, at the same time, supporting aid to Gaza. They also talk about the links between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran and that Lebanon, is about to get dragged into the conflict.

Russia, an ally of Syria, is reportedly sacrificing soldiers as fighting continues in Ukraine. One report puts the number at 25-hundred in six days. The report claims the Russians are shooting their own soldiers, if they refuse to fight.

The AP reports that over the South China Sea, a Chinese fighter came within ten feet of a U.S. B-52 bomber.

When does it all tip over into qualifying as a world war?

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Real News – It’s Still Out There

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It bothers me that there is an assumption among some that the New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times are no longer reliable sources for news and information. I think they are trying harder to stay in business, but that does not mean that they are no longer reliable.

Much or all of this presumption that the mainstream media is no longer reliable is coming from the MAGA side, which is the real source of “fake news.” Consequently, I am not inclined to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I recently subscribed to the Washington Post, and think they are doing a terrific job. Beyond our still great national papers, I rely upon the BBC, France24 and sometimes, Reuters streaming service, although they still need some help transitioning from print into broadcast. I also think NPR has one of the best websites out there. The Guardian, is also a great paper, due in no small part to the fact that it is owned by a foundation and is beyond the influence of advertisers. Also, many won’t want to hear it, but Al Jazeera does a great job covering conflicts in the Middle East, probably due to the fact that what they are reporting on is happening in their own back yard. Nevertheless, they continue to be vilified by some because they aren’t owned and controlled by traditional western media.

I also subscribe to my hometown newspaper, The Paynesville Press, in Paynesville, Minnesota. It has always been, and continues to be, a family owned and dependable source for news and information about the small town where I grew up.

My feeling is that there are still plenty of sources for legit news and information. The real problem is a public that has no idea who and where they are. As for Twitter, I canceled my account when Musk bought the company.

Social networking is a very real threat to Democracy, as is the absence of any ethical or principled behavior by some broadcasters, with a considerable amount of nonsense on streaming video. I don’t pretend to know how it can be adequately controlled without gutting the First Amendment. However, it should be obvious that the traditional filter provided by professional journalists is a necessary mechanism to protect an unsuspecting public, many of whom will believe almost anything, provided it supports their personal bias.

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A Confluence Of Events

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I experienced an interesting nexus of sorts today. That is to say a crossing of two paths. A connection. A confluence of events.

It was one of those moments when you let your mind go blank. The thoughts that happen to pop into your consciousness are strictly random, coming from God knows where.

That was the case, as I stood in our front doorway, gazing out upon the driveway. I was thinking, for reasons I cannot explain, about a practice in Tibetan Buddhism, whereby the bodies of dead monks are placed out on an open field where birds can freely feed upon their carcasses. It may seem barbaric to some, but the practice is done out of respect for the natural order of things. Why let the protein contained in the monk’s bodies rot away somewhere or be incinerated, when it can be recycled back into nature by giving it to the birds?

That’s what was in my mind, as I gazed upon a small bug crawling across the driveway. At that exact moment, at the precise nexus, a cardinal swooped in and without touching the ground, grabbed the bug in its beak and flew away.

And there it is, my nexus for the day. Probably means nothing at all.

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Way To Go, Joe

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Since I slammed Biden and the Dems for turning a blind eye to sky high grocery prices, I suppose I should also congratulate them for getting 5 Americans freed from Iranian prisons. Anybody who has a problem in giving Iran back its own money to cut the deal, should imagine what it’s like to have a loved one held captive overseas for years one end, with no end in sight.

Biden is also creating a new Office for Gun Violence Prevention. Good for him. Good for his administration. After decades of talk somebody is finally doing something. More than 25-thousand Americans have died from gun violence so far this year in a country that refuses to outlaw assault weapons. Weapons with no purpose other than ending human life.

While all that was going on one major poll shows Trump’s support growing among Black and Latino voters. Apparently they have no memory of what happened during the Trump Administration? There was an attempted coup, remember? Remember who it was encouraging the mob to march over to the Capitol to try and overthrow the Republic? This was the same Donald J. Trump, who said there were “very fine people on both sides,” following neo-Nazis and other white nationalists, marching through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Joe And The Dems Need A Reality Check

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High grocery prices may be the Republican Party’s best friend right now. I have no idea how middle-income Americans are able to feed their families. A whole lot of Wonder Bread and spaghetti with watered-down ketchup for sauce, apparently. If they can afford to put gas in the car to drive to the market.

The situation with the Republican Party is seriously comedic, or it should be. A handful of separatist lunatics are controlling the entire House of Representatives, as just one vote from a MAGA Republican, can boot Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair. So the Speaker, third in line to the Presidency, must bend to the will of a few MAGA nutjobs, as they continue to support a candidate facing not one, not two, not three, but four criminal indictments. Topping it off, Vladimir Putin, is now voicing his support for DJT, as he spews condemnation of our democratic system.

Imagine that, Vladimir Putin, international terrorist and pariah, thinks we have a bad system. A man who leads a country people are exiting in droves with almost nobody wanting to get back in. When was the last time Russia, had a border crossing problem, with somebody trying to get in as opposed to getting out?

Then there’s Tommy Tuberville, a former football coach who lives in Florida but represents Alabama in the U.S. Senate, where he and he alone, is stopping our military from appointing new leadership to make a statement about abortion. He needs to get out of politics and go back to football. If a team will have him. Football is checkers. American politics is three-dimensional chess. Tuberville, is in over his head and our military readiness is being damaged in the process.

The Republicans are weakening our military and crippling the House with a threatened government shutdown, while they support a man who lead an attempted coup against the United States while cozying up to Putin and the Russians, who want nothing short of our destruction. It would be a massive comedy of Republican errors, were it not for the fact that millions upon millions of average Americans can’t afford groceries and gas, while the Democratic Party, continues to act like everything is just fine. If you listen to the President we’re more than fine, we’re great. Well, not really. Not everybody. And Mr. Biden’s position is that we have the strongest economy in the world? Maybe he needs some new advisors? Maybe a trip to the market to do a little shopping on a fixed income budget?

It’s way too easy for gougers to hide behind claims of the war in Ukraine disrupting international supply chains while our elected leaders look the other way. World food prices hit record highs in 2022, but the price of almost everything at your local market shot up, not just food and products impacted by international markets.

It’s so easy for those reaping huge rewards to argue that those of us without degrees in economics can’t begin to understand the implications of international trade, how the price of grain in the Middle East, impacts the cost of a jar of pickles or a pound of sugar in Omaha. There are credible charges that the gouging goes beyond the supermarkets, which have already hit record high prices, and into the military.

As for the impact of Covid, surely its impact on supply chains has had more than enough time to level out? Should we really be expected to pay $10 for one Covid test kit that costs pennies to produce?

Dem leaders need to be wary of turning their backs on consumer prices that are crushing average Americans, while the UAW appears poised to join SAG/AFTRA, the Writer’s Guild and custodial workers on the picket line.

The Writer’s Guild and then SAG/AFTRA were among the first to recognize that working people have reached an economic tipping point. A realization that Russia, isn’t the only country with a giant gap between its oligarchs and average working people, a gap that will surely grow with advancing AI and the ever-increasing march of automation threatening to make us all obsolete.

As in 2016, this upcoming election is the Democrats to lose. Some, apparently, think that’s not even remotely possible. Could be the same bunch that thought it would be a slam-dunk for Hillary in 2016.

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A View From The Pasture

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I’m reading about the “Tik Toc Generation.” What’s that? Is that even a thing? Did I misspell it correctly?

Feeling very much left in the dust. I don’t even have a smartwatch, but feel as though I should get one to signify that I am not completely irrelevant. I can’t imagine what’s going through young people’s minds with regard to anything, much less whether they give a damn about anything other than climate change which they apparently worry about a great deal. As they should. I see a former colleague has written a book, or perhaps I should say another book, about the early days of tv news in Los Angeles. Does anybody care?

I’m a guy who has multiple Emmys, a wall covered with various other awards from multiple organizations, including a Peabody, as I happened to have been with KTLA when George Holliday called CNN – only to be put on hold – so he called us and asked if we wanted his video of the cops beating the hell of some guy in Lake View Terrace. Just days later, a 15 year-old black girl, Latahsa Harlens, was shot and killed by a convenience store owner in South Central in a dispute over a $2 bottle of OJ. Not that any of this matters, but these and other factors did eventually contribute to causing the Los Angeles riots. I covered all of it.

At varying times, I also chased OJ up the 405 freeway in a news van and flew around South Dakota in a converted DC-3 with George McGovern, as he campaigned to get his senate seat back. I also got the very first and exclusive interview with John Z. DeLorean, following his acquittal on a charge of cocaine trafficking. Don’t remember John Z? Think “Back to the Future,” with Michael Fox.

I’m the guy who broke the story about the mammoth Casmalia toxic waste dump. A 252-acre superfund site that made the 17-acre Stringfellow site look like a kiddie pool. I was also one of the first journalists to arrive at the Bundy murder scene in Brentwood, I may have been the first reporter, in fact, when the bodies had yet to be covered and a river of blood flowed down the walkway. Carl Stein, a photog for CBS, was there before us.

There’s much more, like the invention of ENG and live news coverage in the mid-70’s, when we switched from film to tape, as well as the very first wall-to-wall live trial coverage featuring legal experts. You can blame us, broadcasters of my place in time, for what’s currently being done on MSNBC and CNN. We invented all that stuff for the Simpson trials. I was being called a “legal analyst” at the time, even though I never spent a day in law school.

There was also the “synergy” thing, when my boss, the Tribune Company, bought the Los Angeles Times, or specifically, the Times Mirror Company, which owned the newspaper. The price, as I recall, was something north of $6 billion. They came to me and wanted to know if I would be the go-between for KTLA-TV and the newspaper in an attempt to get those of us on the tv side working in some kind of partnership with the print journalists at the paper – most of whom hated those of us on the broadcast side. And so, I took a desk at the Los Angeles Times, and became one of the very first of only a handful of journalists to try and make cross-platform journalism or so-called “synergy,” work. I eventually got it done, although the effort put me in Cedars-Sinai, with a heart attack.

I have more than 40 years in the news biz and have offered my services as a speaker to two institutions of higher learning here in Maryland. Neither, favored me with a response. They used to at least send out a form letter. Now, you get nothing. This is all very interesting to me, in that UCLA asked me twice to teach an extension course back in the days when I was covering Simpson, and had no time to do anything else. Just goes to show, I guess, that when you’re hot you’re hot, and when you’re not, you’re out in the pasture flinging cow pies baked hard by the sun.

Thank you for listening, or reading, actually, not that specificity matters much any more. Not in this era of click-bait creativity and doing whatever gets you by with the least effort and highest degree of cost-effectiveness. Not that long ago, I actually thought the emphasis on hair and makeup was a problem.

(Originally published in the “Back Focus” group on Facebook)