By Robert Garcia

Wow. I haven’t watched MSNBC or FOX or CNN for awhile and I haven’t really visited the Andrew Sullivan or Real Politics web sites much since the last election so I was stunned to see the swill that passes for political discourse here in the large news void that is July and August.

So conservative activist Andrew Breitbart posts an edited video tape of a black Agriculture department official saying something allegedly racist about a white farmer who then goes on CNN to say that, actually, she saved his farm and she’s really great and then the whole video tape gets released and the same Obama administration that fired her last week now wants to rehire her because it turns out her remarks were taken out of context and meanwhile conservative icon Glen Beck sides with the allegedly reverse-racist USDA official and comes down on the White House for firing her in the first place, while the NAACP, which called for her resignation a few days ago, now also wants her back.

Did you follow that?

And then there’s the Journolist flap in which it appears left-wing journalists using an e-mail listserv conspired to alter news coverage and counter conservative attacks based on race during the Presidential election cycle and some of the reporters involved in the effort get fired and then all the e-mails come out and it turns out most of the journalists on the listserv didn’t even participate in the discussions but independent-thinking blogger Andrew Sullivan joins forces with Sarah Palin to denounce the apparent liberal conspiracy.

Did you get that?

Meantime, everybody’s favorite affable broadcast news Uncle, Bob Schieffer, gets blasted by Fox News’ Megyn Kelly for failing to ask the Attorney General of the United States on CBS’ Face the Nation why the Justice department dropped a case of alleged voter intimidation against the New Black Panthers that was apparently a huge story on Fox and poor Bob Scheiffer goes on CNN to say he would have asked about it except he was on vacation the week before and hadn’t even heard of this latest political brushfire which the Fox News lady says he purposely ignored because either he didn’t think the story was important or Eric Holder demanded he not be asked about it.

Did you follow that?

And a major Tea Party organizer gets disowned by fellow Tea Partiers for blogging an offensive post he claims was just a joke in which he allegedly “satirically” recreated a conversation between a black person and Abraham Lincoln saying they want to be slaves again because they’re not up to being responsible American citizens and all this comes the day after the NAACP criticized racist elements of the Tea Party which the fired USDA lady says is the real reason why they called for her resignation in the first place to sort of even things up and show they’re fair and balanced.

Did you catch all that?

Excuse me, but I’m going back to watching baseball and American’s Funniest Videos because I’m having trouble understanding the nuances of the new American political landscape. I get the distinct sense people are really angry about one thing or another and they’re all giving me a royal headache.

--------

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedalife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

The Boss is dead. George Steinbrenner; controversial, outspoken, occasionally ethically-challenged, but inarguably, one of the most successful owners in the history of sports has passed away on All-Star day. For the record, his legacy includes 11 American League pennants and 7 World Series championships.

From the family’s statement:

He was a visionary and a giant in the world of sports. He took a great but struggling franchise and turned it into a champion again.

That, he did, though, sometimes, I have to say, he was infuriating. His decision to get rid of Reggie Jackson the year after he hit those legendary three World Series homers lost me as a Yankees fan. I’ve never really been loyal to any one baseball team ever since having spread my loyalties around to the Baltimore Orioles, the Atlanta Braves, the Yankees again and now the Washington Nationals.

Goodbye, George. You were hated by most baseball fans across America but mostly because you revived the evil empire and brought the Yankees 7 more rings. More importantly, in the end, you were beloved by New York fans and the Yankees players. I am sure, besides your family, that’s all that ever really mattered.

I heard a great saying the other day. I hope I get to heaven a half hour before the devil knows I’m dead. Not knowing the particulars, I’m just going to assume Bob Sheppard is making a special announcement at the pearly gates any moment now.

------
Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: Garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

It doesn’t sound like too difficult a job being a stadium announcer. You talk into the public address microphone, proclaim someone is coming up to the plate, say their number, their name and the number once more. But when you do it for half a century, the venue is Yankee Stadium, and you pull off this simple task with such grace and style- you are Bob Sheppard.

“Mr. Sheppard,” as most ballplayers called him, died Sunday at the age of 99. He started this job April 17, 1951, announcing, among others, the presence of a rookie taking his place in Centerfield for the first time, a young kid from Oklahoma named Mickey Mantle. The game against the Red Sox that day included both Dimaggio brothers, Dom for Boston and Joe for the Yankees. And a sharp-eyed left fielder, the greatest pure hitter of all time, Ted Williams.

There was nothing modern, showy or overtly spectacular in the way Bob Sheppard did his job. He had a deep voice that delivered words in a deliberate cadence with perfect articulation and diction.

More importantly, it mattered not whether you were in the Yankee pinstripes or in the uniform of the visiting team, when it was your turn to bat and Mr. Sheppard announced your name, it was your moment in the big leagues- the confirmation that the voice you heard as a kid decades before was now validating your sweat and toil in all those creaky dusty minor league ballparks and confirming your presence in “the Show.” Mickey Mantle said he always got goose bumps when he heard Sheppard announce him. And when Mantle told him this one day, Sheppard is reported to have responded back, “Mickey, so did I.”

It was Reggie Jackson who anointed Bob Sheppard the “Voice of God.” But it was God, in fact, who often heard the voice of Bob Sheppard. From a wonderful article by Ronald Blum of the Associated Press:

He often read at Mass, and was subsequently greeted by parishioners noting he sounded exactly like the announcer at Yankee Stadium.

"I am," he would reply.

----

Sheppard, while proud of his work with the Yankees, also was known for his speaking as a church lector. He taught priests how to give sermons.

"I electrified the seminary by saying seven minutes is long enough on a Sunday morning. Seven minutes. But I don't think they listened to me," he told The Associated Press in 2006. "The best-known speech in American history is the Gettysburg Address, and it's about four minutes long. Isn't that something?"

Elegance in simplicity. It’s one of my favorite phrases and reminders in life. Bob Sheppard epitomizes the notion.

The AP’s Blum sums it up nicely, and simply:

Babe Ruth gave Yankee Stadium its nickname, but Sheppard gave the ballpark its voice.

-------

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialfe.com
Twitter: Garciamedalife

It was the most riveting hour of live national television since Geraldo Rivera breathlessly described the opening of Al Capone’s vault 24 years ago.

Instead of dirt and an empty glass bottle, we got Lebron James talking in the third person about all the talent he brought to Cleveland for 7 years before telling us he was now going to bring all that talent to Miami, where everybody thought he would go in the first place.

It was a stilted and awkward setting at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of America in Connecticut as he sat down before a silent audience of, uh, boys and girls with an ESPN reporter who tried his best to drag out the painful proceedings by asking about a dozen inane questions before finally getting around to the BIG ONE.

By the end of the show, it was clear Lebron’s ego had left the following in its wake: One very happy American city, five other cities shrugging their shoulders and one really pissed off Cleveland, Ohio where his uniform was burned in effigy and the owner released a statement calling Lebron selfish, heartless, callous and cowardly.

As for the Lebron James brand- I suppose he could have damaged it more by, say, bringing guns into a locker room, but he did not help himself a lot. He had always touted himself as the kind of player that would not thump his chest and taunt opponents after a slam dunk. This was an hour of boring chest-thumping that has won him the enmity of at least six NBA cities where he is sure to be booed and reviled in the coming season.

One thing I think we can breathe easy about is that this strange, uncomfortable, melding of sports, entertainment and news is not likely to be repeated. It was horrendous, anti-climatic television likely to be parodied and mocked for decades to come. I can’t imagine why any major broadcast company would ever want to repeat such a mind-numbingly vapid proceeding.

-----

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: Garciamedialife

I seem to be drawn to unseemly spectacles so, yes, I will tune in at 9 pm to watch the Lebron James/ESPN one-hour special on his decision about what city he will choose to go make a zillion dollars with.

Seven years in the NBA and the guy hasn’t even been to the finals. This looks to me to be the move of a great big ego wrapped in a charity (The Boy’s and Girl’s clubs of America) to escalate the brand of one Lebron James.

And am I being too prissy or traditional or something to be slightly uncomfortable with the relationship here between Lebron and ESPN? I heard this morning on NPR that Lebron has been allowed to choose all but one of the sponsors of the show and also has had a hand in choosing who will interview him following the announcement.

I know this is a sports/entertainment story. But isn’t it also a news story? Aren’t reporters and commentators and hosts at ESPN sort of in the news business?

To be honest, I love ESPN. I love their programming and I like them as a business. They’re cocky and brash and creative and entertaining. If I was in one of their executive suites today as an ESPN employee (and I know more than one of their executives), I’d probably be high-fiving and fist-pumping with the rest of them because it’s a hell of a broadcast coup.

But I don’t work for ESPN and I can see the forest for the trees and the active merging of a media company’s business interests with an athlete’s business interests seems…like uncomfortable new ground.

What happens when an NBA star who has actually won a championship goes on the free agent market- like Kobe Bryant? Will he be able to cut a deal with all the major broadcast networks for a simultaneous announcement not unlike a Presidential news conference? Will ESPN start bidding for the announcement TV rights of other famous free agent athletes?

But even as I watch uncomfortably, I will, nonetheless, still be watching. My guess is that ESPN will welcome my viewership tonight regardless of my ethical sensitivities.

-----

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

Oh Ma Ga. I cannot believe I’m writing about Lindsay Lohan. Then again, it’s not every day a spoiled brat with a gigantic sense of entitlement and self-importance gets their due.

Seven times she failed to show up for an alcohol education class she had been mandated to attend due to not one, but two DUI convictions. The excuses were many. Stolen passport while attending the Cannes Film festival and was stranded in France. Flight problems in North Carolina. The death of an Uncle (she didn’t attend the funeral).

Prosecutors were not amused. As Danette Meyers put it, "Once, maybe, you'd have an excuse. Twice, an oversight. Three times, still haven't caught her attention. . . . Seven times, the court is irrelevant to her."

Meyers asked for Ms. Lohan to serve 30 days in the clinker. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel begged to differ. She went for three times that; 90 days in the slammer. Plus another 90 in rehab. So much for the best defense lawyers money can buy.

This is not just about a screwed-up, substance-abusing, egotistical actress. This is about somebody who gets wasted and then thinks it’s cool to drive a 2-ton automobile. On May 26, 2007, Lindsay Lohan drove a Mercedes-Benz into a hedge along Sunset Boulevard. Next time, who knows, maybe it’s a child instead of a hedge.

California defense attorney Mark Geragos says this is a case of a celebrity getting reverse preferential treatment- more time in jail because she’s famous. He argues prison time is not what’s needed here, rehab is.

Ok. She got her 90 days of rehab. The other 90 have nothing to do with her mental health. It’s for ours. Makes us feel like there is a sense of justice out there and no matter how pretty or rich or famous you are- no one is above the law. It goes for Presidents and it goes for actresses too.

-------

Robert blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

Announcing his retirement via twitter by saying he was going to “hang up his suspenders” this fall, the end of an era is finally at hand. Though it wasn’t pretty at the end as over 40% of his audience pretty much disappeared (actually, they died), he leaves a considerable legacy and a tremendous body of work.

I blogged a piece back in April entitled "Who exactly is watching Larry King?” in which using government morbidity statistics, I found the following uncanny correlation:

Could it be – and I swear to you I am not exaggerating here- that his audience is dying? Literally keeling over? I mean 2.4 million Americans die every year. In his key 65-74 demographic, about 400,000 people can be expected to lose their lives on an annual basis. Since last year, King has lost about 570,000 viewers.

But all that doesn’t really have as much to do with Larry himself as it does with the folks at CNN who stubbornly refused to put his show to rest. I suppose it would be hard to blame them considering Larry held that cable network up for decades, raking in hundreds of millions in revenues.

The “debate” he moderated via his show between Vice President Al Gore and Ross Perot in January of 1993 remains the single most watched program in cable history. The list of celebs, politicians, luminaries and victims of scandal who have graced his set reads like a who’s who list of the 20th century.

Larry, the TV guy

My own connection with Larry dates back to the mid 1990’s when I came to CNN to run their radio network. Westwood One’s radio simulcast of Larry’s TV show hit my revenue line and the graph of his radio revenues was an upside down hockey stick; not good. Working with my buddies at Westwood we tried and tried in vain to get Larry to remember that his contract still included this radio simulcast and that maybe he could cut down on the visual references.

The big highlight in that regard was the night during the OJ Simpson murder trial when Larry had a polygraph expert on to determine the veracity of the testimony of Detective Mark Fuhrman. It was an entire hour of looking at spikes and valleys on polygraph charts featuring such scintillating phrases as, “Wow, look at the spike there, you think that means he was lying?” This made for tremendously underwhelming radio, to say the least. The Westwood folks did their best to replace those shows with more radio-friendly evergreens but it was ultimately a losing battle. It was almost as if Larry was purposely leaving the radio part of his life behind with every “watch this clip,” he uttered on his TV show.

I remember this very issue escalated into a knock-down-drag-out between me and Wendy Walker Whitworth, Larry's long-time Executive Producer. The venerable, then Senior CNN Vice President, Gail Evans, intervened to bring peace to the family. The issue was quickly resolved. Larry got his way and I gave up getting him to acknowledge he still had a radio audience.

Larry, the Radio guy

He did great radio. That’s how he got the TV gig, remember? It helps explain the large radio microphone on his desk. Larry’s overnight show on the Mutual Radio network was really good. I’ll always remember the night John Lennon was shot. I was doing morning-drive newscasts then for a local Washington radio station so I always listened to Larry’s radio show on the way in to work. The program that morning was complete and poignant and totally did justice to the importance of that moment in our lives- I’ll never forget it.

As a TV talk show host, Larry was often ridiculed for throwing softball questions at his guests. I always thought that criticism was unfair. He never pretended to be Edward R. Murrow (Murrow actually did his share of soft celebrity interviews in his time). Larry asked the questions your average folks sitting on the couch watching the show would ask. I would argue that was his appeal in the first place. He was the “everyman” of interviewers.

Thank you Larry

There will be many tributes to Larry King in the weeks ahead and he richly deserves all the kudos he gets for becoming an American icon and mastering his particular style of interviewing. He became a part of our national consciousness. We should be grateful to CNN and to Larry for finally figuring out that his exit was necessary and inevitable. And we should be grateful to Larry for gracing our living rooms for so many years- back when people still watched live TV in their living rooms.

-------

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

They don’t have to win another game. They have already captured our hearts.

Did you see trading stop on the floor of the New York stock exchange as traders hugged one another? What was the reaction in your office? In mine, the joy was palpable. High-fives and hugs everywhere as Landon Donovan kicked that rebound into the net in the 91st minute to beat Algeria 1-0 to take the U.S. into the round of 16 in the World Cup.

We are not supposed to care about soccer. But this is not just about a game. Having watched the match again last night, this time on Univision, the Spanish-speaking announcers hit the nail on the head. Noting the American team’s remarkable comeback from a 2-0 deficit against Slovenia in the previous game, the Univision play-by-play team could only talk about what closers the Americans are.

Here’s the rough translation as soon as the final whistle signaled the conclusion of Wednesday’s miracle in South Africa:

The United States, everyone’s team! The United States, the team of the stars and stripes! The United States keeps writing history in the world of futbol! If you are capable of dreaming it you’re capable of achieving it. More than ever the U.S. has shown what you can do when you lead with your heart...when your heart tells you yes while your mind and events seem to say no… in the 91st minute we were witness not just to Donovan’s goal…today we have seen a goal of faith, a goal of hope…we are reminded of the final stanza of the American national anthem…the home of the brave!

Never underestimate the hyperbole and emotion of Univision. But they got it right. This is all about heart; the U.S. squad’s heart and our hearts. They had me at Goooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!

------

Robert Garcia blogs at http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

My father-in-law, after watching a World Cup game said Saturday, “I think there’s something wrong with my TV. There’s a constant static.” No, Ned, do not adjust your set. Those are the vuvuzela trumpets.

I assume it’s constant because out of a crowd of 100,000- any given 20,000 people have not run out of breath and are blowing their little hearts out. Then when they tire, the next set of 20,000 people take over.

It has not yet sent me over the edge yet but others are beginning to crack. John Leicester with the Associated Press has pretty much lost it.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) The constant drone of cheap and tuneless plastic horns is killing the atmosphere at the World Cup. Where are the loud choruses of "Oooohhsss" from enthralled crowds when a shot scorches just wide of the goalpost? And the sharp communal intake of breath, the shrill "Aaahhhhss," when a goalkeeper makes an acrobatic, match-winning save? Or the humorous/moving/offensive football chants and songs? Mostly, they're being drowned out by the unrelenting water-torture beehive hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm of South African vuvuzela trumpets. Damn them. They are stripping World Cup 2010 of football's aural artistry.

The good news for South Africans is that these vuvuzela trumpets generally sell for a dollar but for the World Cup are going for $15. Clearly, someone’s getting rich here, but that’s ok; a lot of South Africans need this extra cash.

As for Mr. Leicester, upon further review, his entire article seems to reveal an intimate knowledge of British soccer, leading me to believe some of his frustration may be due to that 1-1 tie between England and the United States Saturday. Frustrating for the English, that is. Can't be fun to watch your goalie turn an easy save into a goal for the opposing team, making a fool of himself like that before hundreds of millions of viewers across the planet. I suppose if my team had blown it that badly, stuff like never-ending, head-splitting, droning trumpets might very well add to the level of general irritation.

But they're not going anywhere- those trumpets. They will keep on blowing. It is not our TV’s that need to be adjusted. It’s we who must adjust. It’s the South African way. If it gets really bad for you, get in the lotus position, clear your mind, let the drone take you into another state of mind and gently chant "ommmmmmm."

------------------
Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: Garciamedialife

“Bastard.” “Son of a bitch.” Just some of the words Brazilian referees are learning this week as they prepare to handle the U.S-England World Cup match Saturday afternoon. Not that they’re planning on using these words- but they need to recognize them as they are spoken, or yelled, as the case may be- to them.

Refs hand out yellow cards for obscene words or gestures during play and it would appear their current vocabulary of foul language is limited to Portuguese. For some reason that has not been explained, FIFA, the organizing body for the World Cup, says referees are not required to learn obscenities in languages other than English.

All teams have been appropriately warned and representatives from the U.S. and British squads swear up and down that they don’t intend to use any such words.

If they do, I would recommend the players brush up on their Chinese curse words. I imagine that would leave the Brazilian refs puzzled, confused and uncertain but will still afford the ability to unleash considerable emotion in a cathartic manner that does not risk the dreaded yellow card.

-----

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: Garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

An economic analyst for JP Morgan Bank by the name of Michael Feroli, has released an analysis that concludes that unemployment benefits are causing more and longer unemployment.

JP Morgan Bank is the actual inventor of the “credit derivative.” Through its own greed, incompetence and arrogance, this particular institution played a significant role in creating the credit crisis that helped send America into its worst recession in 70 years. For them to imply that eliminating jobless benefits would be good for the country- is beyond the pale. Oh, but there’s so much more that is outrageous- about this theory, how it was reached, about what it implies.

Outrage #1

Go ahead, Michael Feroli, please share your great economic wisdom with us:

Jobless benefits have the potential to increase the unemployment rate through two channels. First, by softening the blow of losing a job, they allow unemployed persons to become more selective in what job offer they accept, thereby raising the average duration of unemployment and increasing the unemployment rate.

Oh, yes, the economy is creating so many employment opportunities that people are in a position to be “selective?” What planet is this wanker living on? There are several hundred, in some cases, several thousand, applicants per job opening. JP Morgan’s resident economic genius apparently thinks it’s the other way around and that there are hundreds of job offers for every unemployed person.

Outrage #2

Let’s now go to the other leg of his hypothesis:

Second, they [jobless benefits] may encourage people who would otherwise drop out of the labor force to be counted as jobseekers and therefore in the labor force.

In his breathlessly illogical construct, Mr. Feroli is saying that because in order to receive jobless bennies you have to show you are looking for work, you are counted as a member of the job force and that makes the nation’s official unemployment rate higher. Note to Feroli: If you drop out of the labor force you are still jobless. It’s just that you’re now considered a “discouraged” worker and are no longer counted in the official unemployment statistic. But you are still without income and banks, like the institution you work for, are still foreclosing on your home.

So on one hand he says jobless benefits cause people to be “selective” and not take jobs, yet, by looking for work at all, they are contributing to a higher unemployment rate. There is no way to win with this guy.

Outrage #3

Damien Hoffman, at Wall St. Cheat Sheet, pokes great big, gigantic holes in Feroli’s twisted theory. The biggest one being- if you made $1,000 a week when you were employed, how is making $400 a week in jobless benefits any kind of incentive to not find work?

There are many macro forces which have caused one of the worst recessions this century. Therefore, I don’t buy the overly simplistic conclusion that unemployment benefit extensions are the cause of longer than average unemployment. I think the busted credit bubble played a major role.

In the entire report, there was not one mention of how much money people receive on unemployment. More importantly, there is no metric showing unemployment income compared with former income. There is also no metric showing unemployment income compared with personal/household expenses.

As of February 2009, the average weekly unemployment check in the U.S. was $293. How many people do you know who can manage on less than $300 a week? How about living in Manhattan on $405 a week? If you’ve ever visited, you know that’s a joke.

I’m not sure if Michael Feroli at JPMorgan has been at his desk for over 100 hours a week, but he needs to get out more.

Thank you, Damien Hoffman, you’re my new hero.

Outrage #4

Do you realize how many people have been laid off by JP Morgan Bank? Since November of 2008, more than 17,000. I know many of them because I met them at a career transition service called BDM back when I was unemployed just a few short months ago.

In Feroli’s intellectual masturbation exercise, he is talking about his own laid off co-workers. Apparently, he doesn’t understand how close he’s come to being laid off himself. And, frankly, after seeing the quality of his analytical work, I would not lay him off. I would fire him for cause and he therefore would be denied unemployment benefits which should be just fine with him, because according to his theory, that would help the nation’s overall unemployment situation.

Because he would not be receiving jobless benefits, by his own conclusions, this would motivate him to try and find work faster.

Summing Up the Outrages

♦ JP Morgan Bank is paying a man to research and publish analysis about statistics that have nothing to do with real people, their real lives and the real pressures they face.

♦ He then insults those people by insinuating they’re turning down jobs because they’re happy with their big fat unemployment checks.

♦ He insinuates that without jobless benefits they would be so insecure with the prospect of destitution and homelessness that it would motivate them to get work quicker.

♦ The man getting paid to write this drivel, works for the very banking institution that helped cause the recession by inventing the “credit derivative;” that would be the one that would foreclose on the homes of the jobless and put them on the streets.

How do you sleep at night, Michael Feroli?

-------

Robert Garcia blogs at http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

It's going to be an interesting couple of days as we watch how a bill becomes law in the United States Senate. Despite all the signing hoopla over the past 24 hours, the fact remains that the Senate must pass the exact language the House approved earlier this week. If a single amendment is added it has to go back to the House again for another vote.

So Republican Senators trying to scuttle the measure any way possible are proposing amendment after amendment to put their Democratic colleagues in excruciatingly uncomfortable positions. The most interesting such amendment has been offered by Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn. According to Congressional Quarterly, his amendment would "prohibit insurance coverage for erectile dysfunction drugs for convicted child molestors, rapists and other sex offenders."

I don't know if it actually happens this way, but in my mind, I picture a late night pizza-fueled session with clever legislative aides thinking of ways to embarrass the opposition party. Under such a scenario, can you imagine the laughter in the room when the idea gets blurted out- "Hey..let's make them vote in favor of Viagra for pedophiles!!!!" Many high-fives, giggles and snorting laughter all around. "Gives a new meaning to the phrase, 'soft on crime!'" More hilarity and fist-bumps. "Hey, pass me a pepperoni slice!"

There are less eyebrow-raising amendments also being offered. John McCain is honing in all the sweetheart deals that made it into the legislation in order to coax a few more wavering Democratic votes. An amendment is being introduced to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in federal health programs; another one from Team Coburn.

The Dems will likely, dutifully turned down everyone of these, along the way creating great fodder for the campaign commercials you'll be seeing this fall ahead of the mid-term elections. Cut to the grainy, dark footage of Senator X with sinister music in the background. "Did you know Senator X voted against a ban to give Viagra to sex offenders?" "Did you know Senator Y voted against cutting fraud, waste and abuse in health care programs?"

I will tell you right now I would expect the same to happen if the shoe were on the other foot and it was Dems in a position to scuttle GOP legislation. It's the nature of our system and of politics. If you find it a little unseemly at times, I would suggest looking the other way because its not going to stop anytime soon. And nobody is going to hang a sign on top of the Capitol building saying- "Don't Look- Sausage-making in Progress."

----

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

It is a bi-partisan failing. Liberals do it. Conservatives do it. And it’s not effective. Making villains of politicians or policy, like health care, is a dead-end strategy.

I distinctly recall the attempts to make Ronald Reagan into some kind of dangerous, evil figure. He was an out-of-control cowboy. A B-movie actor whose claim to fame was making a film called Bedtime for Bonzo. He was an intellectual lightweight. Except that in the Presidential debates and in his news conferences, he actually looked rather affable, optimistic, and while no policy genius, certainly in command enough of his facts. His presence, his charm, his sheer skills as a politician, belied the epithets. He ousted an incumbent President then racked up one of the largest electoral majorities in American history when he ran for re-election.

The tirades against George W. Bush were truly venomous. He was a murderer, a buffoon, a fascist. And a two-term President. So was Bill Clinton who took more slings and arrows than George Custer. In the 2008 Presidential campaign, when his opponents tried to paint Barack Obama as a socialist and a possibly non-American interloper, just as in the Reagan example, his non-threatening demeanor just didn’t jive with the extreme rhetoric. All these four guys did was win election after election because no one could possibly live down to the nasty caricatures made of them.

A similar fate may well await the American public’s initial perception of the health care reform bill. “Armageddon,” was the phrase some Republican lawmakers were using after passage. Last time I checked- that’s a reference to the end of the world. Then there were the death panels; images conjured of faceless bureaucrats deciding to kill off Grandma in favor of saving younger lives.

Well, a health care reform bill has passed and there is a high probability it will not be the end of the world. Six months from now, Grandma will not have gone before even one death panel.

I’m not saying the bill’s perfect, effective, or the right or wrong thing to do; in fact, there are both liberals and conservatives who think the legislation is deeply flawed- that it goes too far or not far enough. To be honest, I don’t know what the hell is in it besides tax breaks for small business, tax hikes for those making over 200K a year, keeping your kid on your insurance until they’re 26, banning denial of coverage for children with pre-existing conditions and making all Americans get health insurance or face the equivalent of fines.

But it’s not the end of the world. Life will go on. You’ll get your mail. You’ll watch TV. You’ll go out with your friends and go to your neighbor’s barbeques. Some people may begin to wonder what all the fuss was about. That wouldn’t be because it’s a good bill necessarily. It would be because in the game of setting expectations, health care reform was demonized beyond all reasonable proportion and didn’t actually turn out to be the end of the Republic.

-----

Robert Garcia blogs at- http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: Garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

If it were a battlefield, the carnage would have been frightful. Georgetown, Kansas, Villanova, Wisconsin; the giants crumbling right and left while the likes of St. Mary’s, Cornell and Northern Iowa prove why March Madness is so rich and unpredictable. And poor Maryland. What a brave comeback against Michigan State and what an excruciating last second defeat.

So from a distance, here march the survivors toward work on Monday morning, with casts and slings and dinged body armor and bloody, torn and bullet-riddled bracket sheets. Kansas alone wiped out half the participants of most office pools.

At one point Sunday I had slipped from 1st to 11th. But alas, a 2nd round upset pick of Xavier and my belief in the professionalism of Coach K and the Duke Blue Devils has me back in a three-way tie for first. The number that matters now is potential points left. I have the third highest potential and the folks with more are 8th and 24th, so I’m feeling good about my chances.

My future rests with Ohio State, Syracuse, Duke, Baylor, and West Virginia. And here’s what I discovered about high-fallutin’ Pythagorean-based prediction analyses. They work. There are at least six games I would have lost had I not turned to psychopathic bracketologists.

I’ll take my 33-15 record and live on to fight another day.

As for those second-chance pools CBS Sports.com is offering up where you get to start all over with the Sweet 16; I have both my hands up making “L’s” with my fingers. There’s no crying in baseball and there are no second chances in the Bracketology wars.

----

Robert Garcia blogs atL http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

Let me see, I could write about 1) politically tone-deaf Democrats conniving their way to a health care victory vs. hysterical Republicans who think Dems are God-less socialists for scheduling a vote on the Christian Sabbath or, 2) the 1st round of March Madness.

Can you believe what happened to Georgetown? For the office-pool community it’s not that bad because everybody got that one wrong. Just depends on how far you had the Hoyas going. I had them beating Tennessee but losing to Ohio State so I’m only slightly bloodied. Plus in a pool with a lot of Hoya fans, local emotions have been my ally. Emotions are good for romance and screaming matches between political parties, but not so good if you want to win the office pool.

Marquette was a tough one, but again, most folks missed that one too. And Texas made me scream at the TV each time they missed 4 of their final 6 free-throws to do the old choke against Wake Forest.

But all in all- I’m leading the office pool with a 12-4 1st round record. I owe it all to the system I adopted from a certain, unnamed ingenius bracketology freak. Three of the five 1st round upsets have come through and the other two play Friday.

So in review:

#9 Northern Iowa over UNLV- Check
#9 FSU over Gonzaga- Friday
#10 St.Mary’s over Richmond- Check
#11 Old Dominion over Notre Dame- Check
#12 Utah State over Texas A&M – Friday

Great first round. Seven of the games decided by 3 points or less. Three of those by one point. Huge upsets.

Productivity levels in American offices Friday: Critically Low.

---------
Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

March Madness is upon us, people! It’s off to the races and the biggest annual time-suck since you last filled out your own tax forms. I don’t know how much productivity is lost in the American workplace and really, I don’t care. This is important stuff.

Every year, I come up with some new fangled, bizzaro formula for predicting the winners. I am, actually, a total spreadsheet nerd and I can spend hours on this stuff analyzing and sorting. I have had mixed success. I’m usually in the top 5 in my office pools.

I almost perished from a bitter, awful, horrendous and deeply sad disappointment in 2008. I had picked Memphis to win it all. Nobody ever thought friggin’ Memphis would win the National Championship. And there they were- beating Kansas by 9 points with 2 minutes to play. I had this. I could taste the $400 pot. Regrettably, the Memphis boys had a significant weakness. Free throws. Coming down the stretch, they couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. I had not factored in their horrific FT%. Aaaauuurgh. I know the Memphis players and the larger Memphis community were crushed. But so was I. Big-time.

Last year, I correctly picked North Carolina to win the title, but my other Final 4 were off so, again, close, but no cigar.

This year, I have discovered that there are many, many people out there on the World Wide Web, smarter and nerdier than I. They have applied their mathematics degrees to the greater societal good and have used logarithms, Pythagorean theorems and good old common sense to come up with their sets of predictions. And so I have researched them thoroughly and selected the analysis I thought was the most complete and I’m going with their rankings which were made before the tournament field was set.

I will not tell you what system I am using, ok? Find your own! I will tell you this:
The system is cool and I believe, accurate enough, that it honed in on a number of 1st round upsets that include five teams seeded 9th-12th. I do have three top-seeds getting to the Final 4...but also a #4-seed. It all has the ring of truth to it. If there are alternate realities out there, I KNOW this is one of them. I am just hoping the cosmic dice select this particular reality, because, I’m telling you people, I’m feeling it this year.

Here are the 1st round upsets:

#9 Northern Iowa over UNLV
#9 FSU over Gonzaga
#10 St.Mary’s over Richmond
#11 Old Dominion over Notre Dame
#12 Utah State over Texas A&M

My Final 4: Kansas, Duke, Syracuse & Wisconsin

National Champion: Duke. Very few teams entering the tournament as the #1 seed actually win it all. But if Duke pulls it off in 2010 it will be their 3rd time. They do it approximately every ten years. Check it out.

-----

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

Well, we have just “sprung forward” and deceived ourselves once again by all agreeing that it will be one hour later today than it was yesterday. Count me as an enemy of Daylight Savings Time. Or rather time changes, in general. Keep Standard Time or Savings Time, but can we please stop trying to manipulate time and just go to one or the other and keep it there?

I don’t like losing the hour of sleep. I really, really don’t. The Monday morning after the spring time-change is hell on a lot of people. I also don’t appreciate losing an hour of anything much less sleep, much less life. This is not a trivial matter. Studies have found that seasonal changes in the circadian rhythm can be severe and last for weeks. A 2008 study found male suicide rates rose during the three weeks after the change to Savings time. Another study found heart attacks are significantly more common in the first three days after the Spring time-change.

This past weekend, I put my foot down. If time is going to mess with me, than I am going to mess with time- at least in my house. That’s why I set the clock two hours ahead on Sunday. You see, I love that time in October when we “fall” back because we all gain that extra hour of life. So to get that feeling again, I figured that if I awoke Sunday morning at 9am, Standard time and now it was actually 10am, Savings time, then by having my clocks set at 11am, there would be a point later in the week when I’ll switch to everyone else’s time and go- “Ha! I have gained an hour!”

“That’s nuts, Robert,” you may be saying to yourself. But how different is my unilateral decision to abide by a different measurement of time in my own home, than everyone else’s group decision to all fool ourselves at once outside of our homes? There are alternatives, you know. Instead of changing the clocks, why don’t people just go to work and come home an hour earlier? It’s the same as my unilateral decision to move the clocks ahead by two hours in my home. We’re all just deceiving ourselves.

I’ve never really understood the benefits of Daylight Savings Time. No one has really figured out how much energy it saves. It certainly used to mean savings when the use of incandescent light bulbs was a big deal and more daylight after work meant less use of electricity. But increasingly, our uses of power are not tied to light. We don’t use computers any less because it’s darker in the morning or lighter in the evening.

Massachusetts Democratic Congressman, Tom Markey is very, very proud about this Daylight Savings time thing. I met him once and it was all he could talk about. He’s the one responsible for going to Savings time earlier in the year and keeping it longer. In case you were wondering, matters of time are the jurisdiction the House Energy and Commerce committee, of which he is the Chairman. Here’s Markey’s reasoning:

The change in the beginning of Daylight Saving Time is just one step towards making our country more efficient in its usage of energy and conscious of our environment. Not only will Americans have more daylight at their disposal for four additional weeks in the year, but we will also see wide energy saving, less crime, fewer traffic fatalities, more recreation time and increased economic activity. Ultimately, day light saving just brings a smile to everybody’s faces.

Speak for yourself, Markey! It does not bring a smile to my face; it makes me want to wipe the smile off yours. But ok, for the sake of argument, let’s award Markey several brownie points for saving energy and reducing crime and car accidents. Then why the heck do we go back to Standard time in the Fall? It’s ok to go for 5 months wasting energy, causing more accidents and committing more crimes?

Just go permanently to Savings time and stop messing around with our clocks! As much as I truly like the guy, sometimes I wonder if what really motivates Congressman Markey is the control he has over our lives. It is rather heady stuff, if you think about it. I control the time you live by. Now, that’s power.

-------

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

We may have seen the last of Supreme Court Justices attending State of the Union speeches. As it is, they don’t allow cameras in the courtroom. And lately, they haven’t seemed disposed to wanting to share even audio arguments before the high court. How will we know they still exist?

Presumably, what reporters are left at the TV and Radio networks and maybe a newspaper guy or two will actually attend oral arguments and confirm sightings of the Supremes. It could get to the point that just seeing them will be more news than the cases they’re hearing.

Well, actually, Justice Roberts did turn up this week at the University of Alabama. All this came out in a question & answer session with students there. Chief Justice Roberts called it “very troubling,” that at the last State of the Union speech, President Obama singled the justices out for criticism for their recent ruling that allowed corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want on political campaigns.

It was a rare moment, for sure. Apparently, only the third known time a President had ripped into the Supreme Court in a State of the Union speech. Justice Samuel Alito was caught on camera shaking his head at the President’s remarks and mouthing the words, "not true.”

And Justice Roberts apparently felt kind of threatened.

…there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.

Justice Roberts and I have differing views on what is “very troubling.” War is “very troubling.” Unemployment is “very troubling.” My checking account balance is “very troubling.” Being surrounded by lawmakers disagreeing with you- I don’t know- “very troubling?”

And he added:

To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we're there.

Oh my- imagine that- politics and partisanship at a State of the Union speech. How unusual. How new. How we’ve degenerated.

But-wait! What really seemed to bother the Chief Justice, if you go by the strict construction of his sentence, was that his colleagues from the court had to sit there “expressionless.” Dear High Court: Will you come back to future State of the Union Speeches if we let you bring in signs and blow-horns, bags of vegetables and rotten fruit?

But, alas, Justice Roberts is not alone. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and John Paul Stevens all share his repulsion at having to come to State of the Union speeches.

Frankly, I don’t know how I’m going to survive if they suddenly stop attending. No more “Mr. Speaker! The Justices of the Supreme Court!” No more wondering what they’re wearing under those black, flowing robes. No more of the vacant facial expressions. No more wondering if they’d be watching American Idol if they didn’t have to be at the big speech.

But what suspense next January as we all wait, dizzy with anticipation, to see if they show. I’m nodding off now just thinking about it.

----
Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

Returned to Manhattan for the weekend and found out Mayor Bloomberg and the Taxi Commission have started cracking down hard on cabbies and their cell phones. No hands-free or blue-tooth either. There’s a $200 fine for a first offense, some kind of reeducation camp for a second offense plus license suspension and permanent loss of license on a third offense.

Along the way to researching this little post, I found out there is a lot of hostility toward cabbies out there. I ran into a taxi-passenger blog in which the writer talked about how virulently horrible it is that taxi drivers talk on the phone all the time, and besides, they often “talk in a foreign language.”

I personally have never minded cabbies talking on the phone, much less hands-free. I’ve never had a near-miss in a cab or ever seen them get lost or miss my stop because they were distracted. But it is an angry public; convinced they are at death’s door when a taxi-driver is chatting on a blue-tooth. And they are encouraged to turn cabbies in. Mayor Bloomberg gives you a phone number to call on the little TV/credit-card set-up where you can also get news updates from the local TV station while you’re in the back seat. Frankly, I’d rather hear a guy talking Ethiopian to his girlfriend than have to listen to yet another local TV newscast, but, apparently, that’s just me.

I’ve had some really great conversations with cabbies through the years and have documented some of those chats on this very web site. I’ve never viewed them as antiseptic chauffeurs. They have lots of great stories and each one is like a fascinating character study. But increasingly, in New York anyway, the city seems to be trying to do everything possible to keep cabbies and passengers apart. They raised the height of the glass separating driver from passenger. They put in those god-awful TV’s in the back seats.

Ironically, if these people who hate cab drivers so much would bother talking to them- guess what? They wouldn’t be on the phone because they’d be talking to you! Oh, but then conversation is probably a deadly distraction too.

I suppose it’s a lot safer, technically, that cabbies are now supposed to be silent mutes ferrying human cargo from point A to point B. Somewhere along the way, though, it seems to me we’re losing some of our humanity.
----

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: garciamedialife

By Robert Garcia

The Radio Television Digital News Foundation held it's 20th anniversary dinner last night at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington. It honored individuals in broadcasting who fight the good fight to make the 1st Amendment to the Constitution more than just words.

The highlight for me came when CBS News Radio Vice President and dear friend, Harvey Nagler, received his award for his 40 years of service toward that end and graciously put the spotlight, not on himself, but on his brave and couragious correspondent, and also my dear friend, Cami McCormick. Cami attended the dinner, one of her first public appearances since she narrowly escaped death and survived an IED attack in Afghanistan last August.

Cami has never asked for the spotlight and I hope she won't be upset that I am writing about last night's event. As Harvey recounted the scary and awful events of last summer, he paused in his speech, and as his voice cracked with understandable emotion, said he was going to do something he never thought would have been possible. He asked Cami to stand and be recognized. As a literal, bright spotlight shone on her, Cami confidently defied the odds one more time and mustered the strength to get up from her wheelchair and stand before the whole world on her injured legs.

It was a moment I will never forget. A moment of victory for Cami, for free speech, for the courage it takes to risk life and limb to report the truth. To literally stand for the 1st Amendment.

Cami has a "bumper sticker" on her Facebook wall that reads: "You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

Your strength continues to be an inspiration to us all, Cami. We all love you so much.

----

Robert Garcia blogs at: http://garciamedialife.com
Twitter: Garciamedialife