In His Own Words

“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” — President Obama to ABC News’ Diane Sawyer.

We’ll see.

(h/t Daily Caller)

Conan the Maligned: A Followup

Conan O’Brien hates cynicism.

For the record, it’s my least favorite quality, it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen.

The former Tonight Show host, on his final broadcast Friday night, thanked his supporters for turning a “sad situation joyous and inspirational.

O’Brien’s last show was a reminder that, though his tenure lasted less than a normal human pregnancy, dignity is more important to a person than anything. Or should be. And Coco left with his dignity intact.

He could have ripped NBC to shreds for throwing him under the bus. He could have lashed out against Jay Leno, who reportedly did very little to stop the bleeding. But in the end, Conan O’Brien thanked the network for being his home for over two decades.

In short, Conan took the high road. There aren’t many cars following.

Conan the Maligned

NBC does not like Conan O’Brien.

The lithe Tonight Show host is poised to leave his late-night perch, ceding it to the man he replaced last year: Jay Leno. Imagine taking over your father’s successful business, only to sell it back to him because of a few dismal quarters. So the ratings haven’t been great. Have you watched NBC primetime?

O’Brien is quirky. Leno isn’t. But he’s safe. And that’s what NBC wants.

Leno has long been the peacock network’s whipping boy, especially with the complicated handling of Johnny Carson’s retirement from the program in the early nineties. Viewers and critics were skeptical that Leno could successfully handle hosting duties, especially since it was clear to everyone David Letterman was the man Carson wanted to succeed him. Funny how history repeats itself.

I’m a big fan of Conan, but not of Leno. Conan appeals to my generation; Leno appeals to the few generations preceding mine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

New Year, Same Crap

2010 arrived with all the pomp and circumstance of a pep rally at a school for the deaf. We flipped onto ABC at a couple minutes to midnight, only to silently groan watching Dick Clark fumble his way through the end-of-year countdown. A stroke might have robbed him of his verbal dignity, but it’s just not a New Year without his ageless face, dammit.

I don’t want to appear as cruel or uncaring, but Dick should seriously contemplate retirement. He’ll never full recover, no matter how long it’s been. Allow us to remember him in all his youthful splendor, not as an aging relic on the brink of the end. Most of us can only hope to maintain the same professional gumption as he after an almost-debilitating illness, but a spade must be called a spade. Even if it leaves with with Ryan Seacrest, man’s version of animal feces smeared all over television. Go away, hack.

2010 brings us another year closer to the end of the world. If you’re a Mayan, that is. I’m greatly looking forward to New Year’s Eve, 2013. Perhaps we’ll watch the motion picture 2012 and have a hearty chuckle. Hilarious. Unintentional comedy will always trump scripted humor. Just looked at anything on E!

The new year is Barack Obama’s second in his 4-year stint as President of the United States. Since departing from broadcast journalism, I haven’t kept up as much with politics as I probably should. Rather, I assume everything Keith Olbermann says about him is as if God himself approves. Has he been shot at yet? Surely someone lost a bet.

At the end of 2009, Charles Gibson retired from ABC News, leaving Diane Sawyer as anchor of a news broadcast that will always belong to Peter Jennings. That makes two post-menopausal women anchoring national news broadcasts. Are we happy now, NOW?

Overseas, 2010 began where 2009 ended: with two endless wars waging. For what purpose do we remain in Afghanistan and Iraq? Glory? Freedom? Liberty? Or the macabre? My money is on the latter.

If you ended 2009 in the red, it was a good year. If you ended on some street corner wearing ragged clothes, it wasn’t. Unless that’s how the year began. Then congratulations on maintaining the status quo. But you probably aren’t reading this.

Much will happen in this first year of a new decade. I’m looking forward to sitting ringside, patiently waiting to neglect this blog while making snarky remarks to myself.

Because I’m misunderstood. Just like last year.

Merry Christmas

It’s Christmastime, wherever you go. Radio stations are playing Gene Autry and Burl Ives. Markets are decorated in the holiday spirit. People are cheerful, except those on unemployment lines.

And so, Merry Christmas!

It’s Shit, Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes looks like the worst piece of cimematic crap to come down the Hollywood pike in a long time.

At least, since the last piece of crap.

Robert Downey, Jr. stars as literature’s greatest detective and plays him as a fool. Rather, he turns Holmes into a bumbling ass.

And this is really only based on the hideous previews.

Confessions of a Terrible Proofreader

I have a confession to me: I am miserable at proofreading my work. I always have been. It’s probably not going to stop.

It’s not because I don’t care about what I’ve written. Quite the reverse. Its root cause is laziness. Pure and simple laziness. Who wants to go back and read what they have just written? Since I’m so hard on myself, I’d just end up rewriting what I had already finished writing. Which means I’d accomplish nothing. Garbage would pile up. Laundry would never be washed. Stubble would never be shaved. Teeth will decay; I will stink.

When I do proofread, I don’t always catch errors. Not because I’m infallible (I’m not), or because there aren’t any errors (there are), but because I don’t always see my errors. It’s weird. The second I spot something grammatically obtuse, I’ll cry uncle. Improper semicolon use? A horror. Bad syntax? You may as well cut my eyeballs out and feed them to a dog.

But when it’s my own mistake, I miss it. I don’t know why.

Another confession: seldom do I know the “right” way to end an entry. An open-ended question? Humorous observation? Oh, wait… I know…

A sentence fragment.

NPR: On the Hunt for Roadside Bombs in Afghanistan

You’ve probably heard about these in the news. IEDs — improvised explosive devices — have been responsible for killing many a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.

On my way home from work yesterday, I listened to a fascinating story on NPR’s All Things Considered: manually exploding the deadly devices one at a time.

It’s worth a read and a listen. And it proves that journalism still exists, in noncommercial form.

Declaration of Influenza

“The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities.” (source: CNN.com)

A statement from President Obama today, as swine flu has been declared a national emergency. Because we won the war on terror, I guess.

In the same article, the Center for Disease Control said H1N1 has made its way to 46 states. It must have amassed an impressive amount of frequent-flyer miles. Too bad everyone on board would face an immediate quarantine.

The media loves a story like this. It has everything: clumsy government leaders, a silent-but-deadly threat, sick people. Sick people make great fodder for television news stories. Think back to any news telecast you’ve seen. Let’s use obesity as an example. In a story about obesity, you will see gratuitous shots of fat torsos and backsides. These people always fail to notice the camera stalking them. Maybe because there’s no ham sandwich being offered. How rude.

Such is the case of swine flu. Innumerable shots of sicky people in clinics, sickly people on line, sickly people hanging out with other sickly people, and sickly people being sickly. It’s gold.

Here’s to H1N1, America’s latest pandemic. It’s getting around more than Ryan Seacrest at a gay bar.

“Seacrest out,” indeed.

Random Musings

I’m not disciplined enough as a writer to concentrate on a specific topic. Thus, what follows are quick thoughts. Most likely there’s no linear connection between anything.

* It’s far too early for snow. But it’s also nice waking up to (until you have to dig out your motor vehicle).

* There’s nothing on television between Friday and Sunday nights

* The media went into a frenzy when the Dow Jones reached 10,000 the other day. Is the recession over? No.

* I would probably never send my son up in the air, in a crudely-designed balloon. Unless money or coffee is being offered.

* My hearing is slowly worsening.

* Jon Meacham is a remarkably good writer.

* Anytime I see a picture of Jon Gosselin, I throw up a little in my mouth.

Nothing profound.