Hawaii Five-0, Season Eight

I don’t watch the show, but there was a big foofaraw this past summer when two of the show’s four main characters, Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, both quit after a salary dispute. They each wanted to be paid what Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan were paid, and CBS’s final offer to Kim and …

Continue reading ‘Hawaii Five-0, Season Eight’ »

The end of the film

I was in the Navy in Japan relaying messages to ships off the coast of Vietnam from December 1972 through November 1974, just as America was desperately trying to get out of that war. Watching the final episode of Burns & Novick’s film tonight surely didn’t make me feel very good about the promises we …

Continue reading ‘The end of the film’ »

The NCAA & the FBI

Not to diminish the assistant coaches named yesterday in this FB investigation of NCAA basketball bribery and corruption at some of its member schools, but if Louisville really does fire its 2-time NCAA Champion coach Rick Pitino he will be the biggest scalp the FBI’s gotten without even naming him yet. I’m inclined to think …

Continue reading ‘The NCAA & the FBI’ »

Vietnam, the music

The music to this documentary is a soundtrack of my life, which isn’t all that surprising, since the film starts in 1962, about when I began listening to AM radio. Here’s the playlist for tonight’s episode seven: Here are playlists for the previous six episodes. There’s a 27-song soundtrack album available at iTunes or Amazon.

What drives this?

How is it that a political party has become so hateful and perhaps insane that it is perfectly willing to threaten the lives of 10% of the entire population of the country solely because a hated Democratic President (who happened to be black) instituted a health care program for that country? Read some of the …

Continue reading ‘What drives this?’ »

The Vietnam War on PBS

If you haven’t been watching this, you should be. It’s wonderfully good and it’s not pulling any punches about American misconceptions while at the same time explaining the politicians’ and the generals’ thinking. If you’re my age you recognize a lot of the music playing in the background or during interludes. The film and cinematography …

Continue reading ‘The Vietnam War on PBS’ »

To the phones again!

Next week the Senate Republicans will put forth an abomination called the Graham-Cassidy bill, which intends to repeal the Affordable Care Act and eliminate health care for millions of Americans. Oh, its sponsors would deny that hotly, but it’s nonetheless true. In reality, Graham-Cassidy is the opposite of moderate. It contains, in exaggerated and almost …

Continue reading ‘To the phones again!’ »

Harp, harp, harp

I know it. I know I’ve said enough about the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and their suffering from Irma’s effects. But man alive, our news media stinks sometimes. On the Evening News from both CBS and NBC their reporters in the Florida Keys repeated the same phrase: “Here, where Irma made its first …

Continue reading ‘Harp, harp, harp’ »