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All You Need Is Time

The London Telegraph has a story of a moment in Beatles history that's been untold until this week. It was the Summer Of Love, and the Fab Four were in an Abbey Road studio, hooked up to a worldwide satellite TV broadcast, performing "All You Need Is Love." In the US, it was seen on PBS stations. In the UK, it was on the BBC.

What you may not know is that the show included artists and performers from 14 countries, each chosen to represent their homeland: Pablo Picasso from Spain, Maria Callas from Greece, etc. The Beatles were the entry for England, and that did not go down well with some viewers.

In letters sent to the BBC -- revealed this week for the first time in response to a Freedom of Information request -- British viewers complained, "We did not do ourselves justice" and "Have we nothing better to offer? Surely this isn't the image of what we are like. What a dreadful impression they must have given the rest of the world" and "We flaunted The Beatles as the highlight of British culture, no wonder we have lost our image in the eyes of the world."

John, Paul, George, and Ringo were never told of the negative feedback. In fact, manager Brian Epstein was told by the BBC that the audience loved it.

That may have been true -- that the vast majority of the audience enjoyed their performance -- but there were then, just as there are today, a group of people who just weren't going to like anything "these kids" did. It may be difficult to believe, 43 years after Beatlemania came ashore, that anyone could view the band that way, but there were plenty of people on both sides of the ocean who felt threatened by changing tastes in pop culture encroaching on their safe world of entertainment. They were appalled by rock and roll, sure it was a horrible but passing fad, and determined to diss it whenever exposed to it.

Now, of course, the generation that grew up loving The Beatles has, in many cases, grown up to have adopted the same curmudgeonly attitude towards the musical favorites of the current younger generation: "Oh, these kids today, with their hair, and their music, and their clothes!"

Four decades ago, that meant rock and roll, hair to the shoulders, and pants that were too tight. Now, it means hip hop, hair that's different colors, and pants so loose they hang off the butt.

The real pressure will be on the next generation to come up with musical tastes, hairstyles, and fashion choices that offend their parents. All you need is....time.

Federal Fat

Just days ago, I wrote about the uselessness of Kellogg's announcement that, to help fight the child obesity "epidemic," they would make their cereals healthier -- an effort I believe will have no effect on the eating habits and size of American children. Now, a report says federal programs, at a cost of over a billion dollars each year, do not convince kids to eat more nutritiously, either. The Associated Press reviewed scientific studies of 57 programs targeting nutrition education, and found that 93% of them failed. Only four showed any success in changing the way kids eat.

One program gave free fruits and vegetables to fifth-graders, but the longer the program continued, the less they ate. Why? They didn't like the taste. Another program rewarded kids who ate fruits and vegetables, but guess what happened when the rewards stopped? So did the consumption of fruits and vegetables. Their eating habits hadn't been changed at all.

Have none of the people behind these programs ever been a child? Do none of them have children?

What's ironic here is that, while kids aren't changing their eating habits, those intent on affecting behavior still refuse to change their own -- they'll continue to throw good money after bad.

That money, of course, is really your tax dollars in action. And you were going to spend it in the produce aisle this weekend, weren't you?

Intestinal Fortitude

Lots of reaction to my comments on KMOX yesterday about Abbey Taylor, the 6-year-old girl in Minnesota who had her small intestines sucked out by the drain in a wading pool.

I said that the golf course where the accident took place shouldn't hide behind their lawyers and deny that they'd done anything wrong. Instead, they should get ahead of the story, apologize to Abbey and her parents for this horrific accident, and promise to help pay her medical bills for a long time.

I understand about fiduciary responsibilities, and getting the insurance company's liability people involved, and all the rest. But we're talking about a little girl who, through no fault of her own, started out playing in the water and ended up with a lifetime of colostomy bags and intravenous feeding.

I felt the same way last month after Kaitlyn Lassiter lost both her feet when the cable snapped on that Six Flags ride in Kentucky. If you're the CEO of that company, you shouldn't wait for the lawyers and paper-pushers to vett what you're going to say. You immediately issue a statement offering your sympathy to the girl and her family, promise other Six Flags customers that you'll conduct a full safety investigation (of not just that ride, but every ride in every one of your parks), and you offer to pay all of Kaitlyn's medical expenses related to the accident forever.

In other words, you act like a human being who cares, not like some bureaucrat worried about the corporation's bottom line. Worse, in too many of these stories, you end up in court fighting the family with a team of lawyers, all to save a couple of million dollars which, in the end, won't bankrupt you, but will make their lives a little better.

It's not like there's an epidemic of intestine-sucking going on in America's pools -- there have been an average of 10 incidents a year since 1990 -- but, if there's any upside to this, there's the hope that other pool owners will hear Abbey's story and check the suction on their drains to prevent a similar accident hurting another kid.

And that someone in the management of that golf course in Minnesota hasn't had their heart sucked out.

Cereal Killers

I was raised in an apartment where we ate Cheerios, Special K, and Alpha-Bits for breakfast. We were allowed to sprinkle a little bit of sugar on the cereal for taste, but Mom wouldn't buy us the really sugary cereals.

One morning, I went over to my friend Mark's apartment. I'd already had my breakfast, but they were just sitting down to theirs. Mark and his brothers were eating Frosted Flakes, and his mother offered me some. Not wanting to be rude, and still a little bit hungry, I happily accepted and dug into the bowl of glucose-enhanced delight.

Oh my god!! It was the best thing I'd ever tasted. I could feel my teeth rotting in my mouth as I chewed, but I didn't care. This was the kid equivalent of crack.

Later, when we were away from the table, I asked Mark if he ate Frosted Flakes every morning. He answered that they had all sorts of cereals, and named several that were also full of that sugary goodness. I was incredibly jealous.

I hatched a plan to convince my mother to buy some Frosted Flakes. Unfortunately, I was about 7 years old, so the only argument I could formulate was "but Mark's mother lets him have them all the time!" Remarkably, this didn't win my mother over. Despite my repeated attempts (i.e. whining and throwing a tantrum), she wouldn't give in. The power of parenting.

Fast forward to this week, when that power became moot.

Kellogg's buckled under to the Food Police and announced that they would start making their cereals more nutritious and change the way they market their products to kids. It's to stave off a lawsuit by a couple of pressure groups who blame the company (and others) for making kids fat.

Of course it's Kellogg's fault! These kids must see the commercials for Cocoa Krispies, gather up their allowance money and go to the supermarket themselves, where they prowl the cereal aisle to find the ones with the most sugar and highest caloric content. Then they sneak them home and hide them, secretly munching away on their sweet treats when mom and dad aren't looking.

Or, maybe it's the parents of America who are buying this stuff for their kids, because of a national aversion to using the word "no." That, combined with a lack of exercise (forget about playing outside -- how many schools allow running at recess anymore, or have gym class everyday?) is why we have fat kids.

The Food Police don't dare blame the parents. It must be the big, bad cereal company that's liable. How dare they make something tasty that people enjoy eating? On top of that, they're forcing kids to watch television and be exposed to those horrendous advertising messages!

So let's invert the equation. Take every commercial for Cocoa Puffs and replace it with an ad for broccoli, complete with an endorsement by Shrek and Spider-Man. Would that make America's kids healthier? Funny, I don't recall a lot of my friends eating spinach just because of Popeye.

Where in all of this are the adults who might like a bowl of Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops? Don't their tastebuds matter? Or are we doomed to a future of Bran Flakes and Mueslix?

No, our future will more likely be filled with a spoonful of sugar, which we'll sprinkle over the newly reformulated versions of the cereals we used to like.

How To Have A Happy Father's Day

On behalf of all dads, I'm going to share a secret that men have kept for centuries.

We appreciate it. We really do. We know you want to do something special for us on Father's Day.

So, you and the kids are planning to get up early Sunday morning and sneak into the kitchen to make us a big breakfast, with all of our favorites. Then you'll load it onto a tray, bring it into the bedroom, gently wake us up, and present the food to us.

We'll love the smiles on the kids' faces as they hop into the bed with us, singing "Happy Father's Day, Daddy!!!" and handing us cards they drew themselves. It'll be a very nice family moment. There's only one problem.

The whole time you're presenting this nice celebration, we really have to go to the bathroom.

It's not our fault, it's simply biology. Ask any man. When we wake up in the morning, the first thing we have to do is pee. Doesn't matter how old we are, or how happy we are to see you -- nature calls.

So, now you know that the look of joy on our faces is genuine, but it's mixed with a certain level of discomfort. Armed with that knowledge, I ask a favor on behalf of every member of the human male species: please come in and give us a few minutes' warning. Tip us off that the "surprise" is coming, thus giving us an opportunity to run into the bathroom, take care of business, then jump back under the covers and pretend to be asleep in time for the kids to bring in breakfast. We'll still put on the whole "wow, what a nice surprise!" act, and everyone will be happy -- and a lot more comfortable.

Do this for us, and we'll make it up to you next Mother's Day. Maybe we'll even remember to make reservations for a nice brunch at a nice restaurant instead of having those last-minute kid-recipe pancakes again.

Happy Father's Day!

Putting the F in FCC

The FCC issued two disturbing proclamations this week that should bother anyone who believes in freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin issued a press release condemning the decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturning the comission's rulings over fleeting use of profanity, which Aaron Barnhart and I discussed yesterday.

In that release, the commish uses the f-bomb and s-word over half a dozen times -- more than I ever have on this site, or anywhere else in print. Funny that he finds those words so indecent when broadcast on the public airwaves that the government must step in, but not so indecent that they should be left out of an official government document (isn't that public paper, Kevin?). Oh, I guess children don't read FCC press releases, so he can use whatever language he wants.

Note how Martin repeatedly refers to the "New York court." That's right-wing code for "liberal, Northeastern, probably Jewish." It's a cheap and deplorable phrase used to pander to other conservative extremists, especially those in the special-interest pressure groups that Martin constantly kowtows to. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals is not a state or city court. It is a federal court, one level below the US Supreme Court.

Martin also uses this press release as an opportunity to promote the idea of a la carte pricing for cable and satellite, claiming that "permitting parents to have more choice in the channels they receive may prove to be the best solution to content concerns." False! The content that Martin and his cabal have tried to regulate was on broadcast channels that would still go into those homes, regardless of whether they were paid for in a bundle or a la carte. Letting people decide whether to subscribe to HBO or HGTV would have no impact on Bono dropping a fleeting F-bomb during an awards telecast on NBC. Martin should also look into a new Forrester Research study regarding a la carte pricing.

Meanwhile, another FCC commissioner, Michael Copps, wrote a New York Times op-ed this week insisting that, when deciding whether to grant renewal of broadcast licenses, the commission should consider whether the license owner "served the public interest." That's not the same as offering programming that "interests the public." As with so many in government, he's sure that he knows what's in your best interest better than you do, so he wants to force-feed you programming you're not going to watch.

Here are some of the points Copps wants considered, in italics, with my response following:

Did the station show programs on local civic affairs (apart from the nightly news), or set aside airtime for local community groups? While those groups may be doing good work, there's surely no audience for this kind of programming, which is why it's so often relegated to the less-viewed and less-listened-to dayparts, such as early Sunday morning. Would the commission force stations to air these programs in primetime? Listeners and viewers would tune out in droves. How is that in the public interest?

Did it broadcast political conventions, and local as well as national candidate debates? Political conventions are a moot point these days, with the nominees decided long before during the primary process. The four-day events are nothing more than political grandstanding put on by each party, offering nothing of any news value except for an occasional important speech (e.g. Obama's coming out party in 2004).

Did it devote at least five minutes each night to covering politics in the month before an election?
Most of that coverage is now of the horse-race variety, telling us who's ahead in the polls and what slick campaign line a candidate has repeated for the umpteenth time. Does Copps seriously think there isn't enough coverage of national campaigns? The problem is there's too much of it, starting 18 months before a presidential election, when no one but the most hardcore is paying attention. Would a station have to cover local candidates and issues ad nauseum, and if so, down to what level?

These are decisions to be made in newsrooms, by people who are in the business of providing television to a mass market, not by some political appointees sitting high and mighty in their offices at the FCC. We now have a wide variety of media that offer anyone who wants more information the opportunity to discover anything they like about any kind of candidate. Telling broadcasters that the renewal of their license is dependent on their coverage of the electoral process is a misuse of the commission's own public trust.

When it comes to broadcast regulation, the government's sole responsibility should be to make sure that the technical rules (staying on frequency and within power specifications and coverage areas) are adhered to -- nothing else.

Hands off the content!

Radio Delay

My friend Mark Evanier in Los Angeles asked on his blog today why Dodgers games on the radio are now out of sync with the live event:

Is it being done intentionally to discourage people from listening to Vin Scully on the radio while they watch the game at the stadium or on TV? I can't imagine why Vin Scully would need to be broadcast on a delay, nor can I fathom why anyone would care if you listened to him this way. Can anyone clear this up for me?

A reader named Dave Sikula wrote to Mark and explained that the game (and all other live programming) is on delay because radio owners are afraid a prohibited word will be accidentally aired and they'll be fined by the FCC.

That's true, but it's not the complete answer. There's also the technical matter of broadcasting in HD.

Although the technology hasn't really caught on with consumers, most AM & FM stations in the major markets now have an HD signal, and the digital processing inherent in transmitting that signal creates an extra delay of just over 8 seconds. So, even if there were no content-control delay, you still wouldn't be hearing Vin Scully's call of the Dodgers game in real time. And when you hear the top of the hour tone on my KMOX afternoon show just before the hourly CBS Radio newscast, the combination of the two delays puts that tone some 14 seconds after the true top of the hour.

However, there's one positive side effect of the HD signal for those of us doing the shows with airborne traffic reports. Before, when we were only using the content-control delay (the one with the "dump" button that we very rarely had to use), we couldn't go to Captain Rodger Brand and John Larrabee -- the guys who do our traffic reports from a helicopter and a plane -- without coming out of delay. They were monitoring the over-the-air signal, and if we kept them in delay, they'd hear their own voices coming back at them several seconds later and likely spiral out of the sky and into the Earth. To avoid that nasty scenario, I had to pause each time while we dumped out of delay, then introduced them, had them do the reports, and then we'd start building up the delay again during a commercial break so it was there when I went back to taking phone calls or whatever.

Now here's the benefit of the HD signal -- even on AM, it comes with a sideband signal that we use to send them a pre-delay audio feed directly from the studio, which we couldn't do before, and which they hear through an HD receiver. That way, we never have to dump out of delay and they still get to hear everything we're doing in the studio as it happens. Considering we do "traffic and weather together every ten minutes" in the last two hours of my show, that's a dozen times a day we no longer have to worry about going in and out of delay. On the other hand, it means that when they describe an accident they've just spotted on Highway 40, you won't know about it until 14 seconds later.

Note that there is an even longer delay when you listen to my show live via KMOX.com, because that digital processing of the streaming audio takes even more time.

Interestingly, many people with Dish Network or Direct TV were already out of the loop when it came to watching games on TV with the sound down so they could hear their favorite radio play-by-play guy describe the action. There's a delay inherent in the signals bouncing to and from the TV satellites that would add a couple of seconds, too. Radio broadcasts are almost all done via ISDN phone lines, which move the audio much more quickly. So, for instance, during a Rams game, you could hear Steven Jackson go off-tackle and gain four yards, and just as the whistle blew at the end of the play, you'd see the play start on TV.

One other quick story. When I did mornings at WYNY/New York in the mid-80s with Rick Harris (no relation), NBC had never had a morning show that took listener calls on the FM station, and they were scared to death someone would say something wrong. Thus, we were prohibited from taking those calls live until they installed a delay unit. Rather than ordering a new stereo unit from Eventide, their engineers borrowed two mono units from our AM sister station WNBC, wired them in (one for the left channel, one for the right), and told us to go ahead and try it.

The next morning, when we began the show at 5:30am, we punched in the delay system and went about our normal morning silliness. In less than a minute, every hotline number on the phone bank was ringing like crazy. We were still talking on the air, listening to ourselves in pre-delay and thus didn't know what was wrong, but it had to be something major, so we went to a commercial break quickly.

Off the air, Rick answered one hotline and I answered another, to find the chief engineer and the program director both yelling at us to dump out of delay immediately. It turned out that the two mono units weren't slaved together, and their delay wasn't in sync. None of the engineers had considered this possibility, and they hadn't tested it on the air until that moment.

The effect was to create an echo from the left channel to the right channel that was unlistenable. We turned the units off completely and had to do yet another show with no live phone calls. Two days later, a stereo unit arrived, the engineers put it in, and everything worked just fine -- except we had an airborne reporter then, too, which meant going in and out of delay all morning for his reports.

I was not all that surprised when NBC got out of the local radio business less than two years later.

John Edwards Feels Pretty

If John Edwards is going to get a $400 haircut from a Beverly Hills stylist, he ought to have his own theme music, provided in the video below.

The whole notion of having a "stylist" is alien to me, as it probably is to most men. I get my hair (what little there is, so go ahead and accuse me of jealousy) cut by a barber. That can be a man or a woman, but it's always a barber, and never in a "salon." As for the $400, that may be more than I spend on haircuts in an entire year, even with a generous tip.

Recently on my KMOX show, we had a discussion of the question that is inevitably asked of all presidential candidates: "Do you know how much a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread cost?" Rudy Giuliani got trapped by it last week, guessing way low, although he did know the price of a gallon of gas. For politicians who have reached the level where they're running for president, they don't know that stuff because they don't do their own shopping, and haven't for many years.

I wonder whether that question and answer are factors in how anyone votes. There are so many hot-button issues exploited on the national level, and there's very little any president can do about the price of consumer goods. Knowing the correct retail price of grocery items is a good way to meet Bob Barker, but is it a valid test for candidates?

To be honest, I'm not always sure what those things cost, because when we need milk, I go to the store and buy milk. I'm not going to shop around to find the place that has it for 6¢ less. I know we're fortunate not to have to watch every penny -- but if I don't, then Giuliani, Clinton, McCain, and Obama certainly don't.

That said, you'd think this would be one of the first things they'd learn before starting their presidential campaigns. Maybe, on the way to the big kickoff announcement, they could have a staffer run to the store and do a price check, and then memorize it for the inevitable press opportunity when the question comes up.

Of course, if the question is, "How much does a hair cut cost?" and your answer is in the triple digits, you may have an even more serious relatability problem.

Now, see how far you get into this clip before you say, "Leave the hair alone, John! It's fine!"

Movies & Missouri Values

Last year, I wrote about spending time with Aaron Eckhart and others while they were making the movie "Bill" here in St. Louis, and how the producers told me that Missouri has been used so seldom as a movie location that it leaves open myriad possibilities for future projects.

It would be nice to lure more movie productions here, but the economics of the business means they won't come unless they're given tax credits. Those are currently limited by law to $1.5 million a year, an amount so small that it gets used up very quickly, thus limiting the number of film projects that come to the state (last year, some $50 million in movie money didn't come here because the tax credits had been exhausted already).

Rep. Ed Robb agreed, and in January introduced House Bill 360, which would raise that tax credit to $10 million. Unfortunately, another legislator named Trent Skaggs threw a wrench in the whole works by offering an amendment that would limit movies eligible for those credits to those that reflect "Missouri values."

Values. The word makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It's another of those vague terms that politicians like to throw around to pander to their supporters, but which would be impossible to enforce. Who decides what "Missouri values" are? Are they the values of people in the Ozarks or in the Central West End, inner-city St. Louis or upper-class West County, multi-cultural University City or highly conservative Cape Girardeau?

Filmmaker Brent Jaimes, who has worked on many movies and videos shot in St. Louis and throughout Missouri, was on my KMOX show to explain the impact of such a "values" restriction. As he wrote to Rep. Skaggs:

Your amendment to award the tax credits only to film projects that espouse "Missouri values," that recognize the sanctity of life, that do not portray violence or sex, would essentially make the bill worthless and impossible to administer. I have no idea who would make these determinations and I don't believe your amendment offers any guidance on this issue. Any determination of what these Missouri values are or what these other terms mean would be vague, arbitrary and capricious. It would be impossible to enforce or administer and would certainly be struck down by any court. Surely you know how your amendment would effect this bill and how vague these ideas are.

It appears that your proffered amendment is only an attempt to make the General Assembly and Missouri filmmakers look like laughingstocks to the rest of the industry and the nation. At the same time, it offers you the chance to point out how those who might vote against your amendment are clearly against "Missouri values" and supporters of some unsavory life style as portrayed in current films.

His last point resonates. I can already hear the negative campaign commercials claiming that "John Jenkins voted against Missouri values; John Jenkins is bad for Missouri" -- when John Jenkins was truly voting for freedom, for the Bill of Rights, for keeping political posturing out of free speech decisions, for telling lawmakers that censorship is bad.

Politicians like Skaggs don't give Missourians enough credit to make their own entertainment choices. I'd bet you that Skaggs doesn't even go to the movies -- he's like those people who don't have a television but want to tell you what you should be allowed to watch.

I have asked Brent to keep me posted on any progress the bill makes, and whether other Missouri legislators will stand against Skaggs. I'll post any future updates here.

Listen.

High-Speed Trains

In May, 1986, my wife and I were in Vancouver for the World's Fair. One of the top attractions was a Japanese mag-lev train, which uses electro-magnets to hover over the rails.

The line to get on for a demonstration ride was too long, so we did some other things for a couple of hours and then stopped for lunch. We sat at a table next to a chain link fence without looking to see what was on the other side. A few minutes later, I heard a "whoosh" behind me. When I turned to see what it was, I saw one of the mag-lev trains racing past. There were none of the normal train-on-track sounds, just the soft whoosh of air displacement as the train passed. I thought, "that's a technology that has a great future, and I can't wait until it comes to the United States."

Here we are more than two decades later, and that technology hasn't taken hold here, but in Japan, the bullet train moves people quietly, at high speeds, throughout the country. Meanwhile, in France, their version of the bullet train -- which does ride on rails, rather than above them -- just broke a speed record by going 357mph. And China is investing heavily in high-speed rail, with thousands of miles of tracks under construction.

So, why hasn't the US jumped onboard? It would take a massive investment in infrastructure, of course, and would have to overcome tremendous pressure and opposition from the airline industry and others. But I'd like to see us undertake a national commitment to high-speed rail, similar to the interstate highway system a half-century ago.

With customer complaints about airline travel rising every week, and concerns about gas prices and fuel consumption making headlines every day and changing America's travel habits, now might be the time. Other reasons:

• Less vulnerable to terrorism. It's awfully hard to take down a skyscraper with a train. True, they're vulnerable to the kind of attack we saw in Madrid a couple of years ago, but so are Amtrak trains currently, and we haven't had to ramp up security to ridiculous airport-like levels for that. Imagine being able to travel quickly between US cities without having to remove your shoes for a TSA screener.
• Train travel is more comfortable, with more leg room, and more room to get up and walk around. Listeners who have been on the Japanese bullet train tell me that you don't even feel any vibration or tilting during the trip -- one guy said he didn't even notice a ripple in the glass of wine he had with lunch. Others who have traveled on the French TGV report a much more comfortable ride than on any commercial flight.
• With average speeds of 180mph on long hauls -- trips of over an hour -- you could travel from St. Louis to Chicago or Kansas City in about 90 minutes. Take an Amtrak train today and the ride takes 5-6 hours, no better than you'd do in your own car. That's why so few people ride the rails now, because it doesn't save time.
• Unlike air travel, the train can go from downtown to downtown, a big plus for business travelers who have to waste time getting to and from the airport at each end.
• Eminent domain would have to be used to create the right-of-way for the new track that would have to be laid. But better to use it for this than for the $1.1 billion boondoggle that kicked families out of their homes in Bridgeton (MO) to make way for a new Lambert Airport runway that no flights land on! Why do we need new track? Because the current rail system is set up to facilitate freight transport, making passenger travel a secondary priority. We'd have to eliminate those waits on side tracks while a freight train rolls through. We'd also have to eliminate all those grade-level crossings, to make the ride as secure and simple as possible.

For political support, we'll appeal to Democrats' environmental sensibilities. For Republicans, we'll appeal to their patriotism, telling them there's no reason to be behind the dreaded French in anything (we could even call our high-speed rail The Freedom Train!). For both of them, we'll talk about creating jobs and new technologies, rather than relying on decades-old methods of getting from place to place.

In the 21st century, Americans want everything to be quicker -- here's one more way to make that happen.

Thoughts?