acroyear | Dec. 31st, 2010

Dec. 31st, 2010

Sounds & Fury: What's Wrong With This Picture?:

Germany has these two national TV networks, ARD and ZDF, see. For New Year's Eve 2011, ARD will be broadcasting live a concert by the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted not by their MD Simon Rattle, but by the Dude himself, Gustavo Dudamel. ZDF has the Staatskapelle Dresden live conducted by their MD designate Christian Thielemann with soloists Renée Fleming and Christopher Maltman (with the added bonus of a taped segment with Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott taped at the dress rehearsal). Here, in the good old U.S. of A., we have not two, but three (count em!) national networks with special programming for New Year's Eve 2011: NBC, ABC, and Fox. And what will they be broadcasting live? Let's see... NBC has late-night talk show host Carson Daly live with his musical guests Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj. Fox has "television personality" Nancy O'Dell live with musical guests Travie McCoy and David Archuleta. And ABC has...wait for it!...yes! Dick Clark (amazingly still) (a)live, with his perennial New Year's Rockin' Eve, with musical guests Jennifer Hudson, Willow Smith, Ne-Yo, Avril Lavigne, Drake, Jason Derulo, La Roux, Mike Posner, Natasha Bedingfield, Far East Movement, and Train.

What's wrong with this picture?

What's that we hear you muttering? Nothing at all wrong?

Uh-huh.

That's what's wrong with this picture.

Of course, it has been "wrong" this way for decades, so I'm not sure why he's complaining now.

What to complain about is the fact that for all the glory that 500 channels was supposed to give us, NOT ONE fine arts channel has survived. Bravo, A&E, Trio, Encore. Every single one that arrived with high hopes for being an alternative to the regular schlock (in Bravo's case, they started out as a PAY channel, one worth buying), and now is either shoving the worst of the schlock, or a rather humdrum batch of repeats from other channels, or is just plain gone.

Granted, PBS is running the Vienna Philharmonic (without Julie Andrews, who had already said "no" this year over Blake's health, and now, well...), but that's only an edited version of the full concert, and while we're at it, with 15 world-class orchestras here in the states (nevermind the 260 or so others), why can they only muster up attention for the WPO? For that matter, the bulk of the concert is going to be boring Strauss Family waltzes, quite possibly THE most boring output of 19th Century music.

sigh...

I Thought Technocratic 'Centrists' Were Supposed to Be Competent: The Mayor Bloomberg Edition : Mike the Mad Biologist:

It helps, when providing services, to think that government's primary role is to provide services, as opposed to being an opportunity to make 'good government' claims. No one cares about 'good government', unless said good government isn't plowing the streets.

And the result of this emphasis on "good government" over actually providing services?

DownWithTyranny!: DWT Team Snowstorm Coverage continues: How Cutbacks Work:

I’ve lived in New York for over 30 years, and I’ve always marveled at how quickly the city government can make huge amounts of snow, as much or more than we just got, disappear from the streets; not this time.

Looking back 20 years, the city once had 15,000 sanitation workers. It now has 5000. For a city as big as New York, that 5000 is nowhere near what is required. There are, no doubt, fewer salt trucks and plows to keep the streets safely cleared. Buses and fire trucks became stuck in snow. Even the vaunted subway system suffered service interruptions and shutdowns to its above-ground lines, despite ever-rising fares. The result of all of this was a fortune in lost work hours and wages. Small businesses especially suffered.

In an era when businesses and employees have little or no margin to absorb a loss of income, the storm is not the disaster. The city’s ability to respond to the snow is the disaster, and people have died because of it.

I'll leave the tragic details out, but suffice to say, EMT teams simply couldn't get anywhere.

Krugman originally apologized for calling the performance of Bloomberg and Goldsmith a "Brownie-you're-doing-a-heck-of-a-job" moment, given that people died in New Orleans but not NYC. Well, he can unapologize for it.

I Thought Technocratic 'Centrists' Were Supposed to Be Competent: The Mayor Bloomberg Edition : Mike the Mad Biologist: