BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin knows how old the Chinese gymnasts are.

calendar   Wednesday - December 21, 2011

Well, I was hoping…?

Just checked out an old 90’s favorite show, Tim Allen’s ‘Home Improvement’. What I really love about the show is that he can make serious problems seem so insignificant and humorous. Take this scene from the pilot episode:

Just a rhetorical question: do women come in two speeds? Reversible? If so, where can I get one? grin


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 12/21/2011 at 01:52 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-StuffTelevision •  
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calendar   Saturday - October 22, 2011

Time Filler

Ok, I’m about done in at this point. I’ve got 75% of the concrete out and the room all cleaned up. My hands are pretty sore from wielding the rock hammer and chisel all afternoon. More of it tomorrow, and the next day, and maybe some Tuesday or Wednesday, but this isn’t that big or involved a project so it should go pretty quick. Nothing much to go wrong (crosses fingers).

Took a little time to veg out in front of the TV. Since we’ve caught up with all of our shows, and it seems to be one of those rerun weeks with no new episodes of our faves, we sat and pulled up the new series Pan Am. I guess it’s jumping on the Early 60’s Bandwagon that Mad Men is driving, but with a bit smaller dose of reality and much more girlie drama. It’s cute, and a bit of fun, but I’m not sure if it’s going to *ahem* take off. For whatever reason, ABC is billing it as a Christina Ricci vehicle, though she’s just one member of the cast and doesn’t seem to get more time on camera than anyone else. The show is set in 1963, yet hardly anyone is seen smoking. But you do get to see all those old cars, old clothing styles, and CGI renderings of those old jetliners. Mostly 707s, but I think I saw a 727 in an airport scene. The pilots actually have to fly the planes too; no computer driven everything, so we’ve had one nearly sideways landing in the rain that came out alright but earned the pilot a black eye. Hey, it’s the early 60’s, so let your fists do your talking, then go out for a scotch.

You can tell it’s the long-ago past: airport security is non-existent. Embassy security is non-existent. Heck, in one episode JFK is giving his “I am a jelly donut” speech in Berlin, and one plucky stew who really wants to meet him (Ricci) runs across the airport tarmac at night to Air Force One and gets right to the base of the stairs before anyone stops her. With her Cuban cigars no less. He got the cigars, she got a wave, and she didn’t get tasered or shot at all!

So far it’s pretty people flying planes with little stopovers all around the world, but there are several plot lines. Our young and dashing Captain gets flack from the older generation of WWII vet pilots, but his heart was broken by the mysterious Bridget Pierce, a stewardess that just suddenly disappeared. That’s because she was secretly a CIA courier who screwed up, and they canned her. Or so we are lead to believe. Our co-pilot has a dark past; a former test pilot who got tossed from the Navy, but with a rich daddy in the military industrial world who got him the airline job. Ricci’s character Maggie is the purser, kind of the lady in charge onboard, but at home she lives in some Beat Generation co-ed flophouse. It’s 1963, M’kay, so the Beats aren’t out Occupying anything, or even having a Protest or a Love-In. They’re trying to change the world by writing college theses quoting Marx and Engels. Not much bo in these bohemians. Then there’s the hot redhead, the sorta Gina Davis looking character Kate Cameron (actress Kelli Garner), who has always been the rebel child of rich parents and is going her own way through life. She’s also been recruited to be the next bag lady for the CIA now that Bridget is absent, but almost screws up every assignment. Almost. Under her wing is her high society little sister Laura, who ran away from her own wedding to go out and live life to the fullest. Guess marrying Mr. Handsome and his family fortune was just too sticky, so she and sis do a Thelma and Louise at the wedding and the next thing we know, little sis has the blue uniform too. Big sis is having a hard time letting her little sibling spread her wings, which leads to several sisterly squabbles. Our last flying adventuress is Colette, played by Canadian actress Karine Vanasse. She’s French. She is gently adorable with her bangs and her great big eyes. She like surprises, but meeting her lover on the plane accompanied by his wife and son isn’t the kind of surprise she was thinking of. A few episodes later at the American Embassy in Berlin, the former Luftwaffe headquarters, the German ambassador compliments her on her excellent German. Thanks, she says, I was forced to learn it when I was 10. She then grabs the spotlight and sings the crowd the Deutschlandlied ("Deutschland über alles"), which is a total dis - very French - because it was the song of the Nazis and was actually sort of illegal to sing it in 1963. Well, the first verse anyway, which is what she sang. The fairly new country of West Germany had adopted the song as it’s anthem, but only the third verse. But the Nazis killed her parents, so she hates the dirty boche forever. Colette is quickly becoming my favorite character.

So it’s a cute little show, with plenty of eye candy. They’re all good looking, though Ricci isn’t my type. I thought at first that the actress playing Laura was Jamie Pressly, but it’s not. That role went to Australian actress Margot Robbie, who looks like a younger improved version. Yeah, as if Jamie Pressly is old, or in need of any improvement. Not. But Robbie is stunning ...

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Margot Robbie plays Laura Cameron



Whether Pan Am turns into a high altitude soap opera or a Cold War spy drama, or a lose-the-corporate-required-girdles-and-high-heels proto-feminsta show, or a leading-edge-of-the-sexual-revolution show, remains to be seen. So far both pilots, a newspaperman, and a drunk passenger have all hit on the ladies, and all have been rebuffed to one extent or another. One even got stabbed a little with a cooking utensil. Although the pilot may have scored with Colette. He was really drunk and can’t remember anything other than his clumsy dancing, and she’ll only say that they had a nice moment. She is French you know, and they were in Paris.

In the meantime, it’s not hard to watch.


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Karine Vanasse as Colette Valois

No, not hard to watch at all.


Pan Am has been reviewed all over the place, because TV writers need to make a living too. Is it retro, is it just a costume drama, is it sexist, is it this or that? Pining for a lost Golden Era of Innocence? Read all you want. Or just look at the pictures of the pretty people. Pan Am airs Sunday nights.
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1223538944/nm3053338
http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/arts/television/pan-am-takes-off-on-abc-review.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/flights-of-fancy-a-new-tv-series-celebrates-the-swinging-sixties-era-of-pan-am-stewardesses-2362571.html
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/pan-am-ich-bin-ein-berliner-deutschland-ber-alles
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Entertainment/20110919/karine-vanasse-pan-am-110919/


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/22/2011 at 10:08 PM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Tuesday - October 18, 2011

Rice and Beans

If you have the HBO channel, I hope you’re watching the Boardwalk Empire series. It’s a fantastic show about political corruption and the rise of gangsterism, set in Atlantic City at the beginning of Prohibition. As a period piece and a costume drama it’s visually amazing; the cloths, the cars, and the architecture are phenomenal. The storylines are just as impressive, as alliances change and the characters all try to get ahead in what was a very rough world. If you’re new to the show and you can’t find the first season’s episodes On Demand, I’d suggest getting the DVDs and watching, because the characters are quite detailed and quite subtle in many ways. It’s a breakout role for actor Steve Buscemi, cast as city treasurer Nucky Thompson. With executive producer Martin Scorsese it’s as good a series as any that HBO has ever done, and that’s saying a lot. Ok, it has some lefty slant, what on television doesn’t? The corrupt politicians are all Republicans, as were the real life people the story was based on. That doesn’t make much difference overall. If you have HBO now is the time to get on board the Empire Express, because things are about to explode and it will be one heck of a ride this season.

“I’ve been craving me some Hoppin’ John since the moon were blue.”

While Nucky runs the show in the main part of the city, over in darktown his counterpart is Albert “Chalky” White. Superbly played by Michael Kenneth Williams, Chalky is one tough hombre who came up the hard way, but he also has his insecurities and shortcomings, and is more than a bit haunted by his past, growing up dirt poor in the deep south and suffering the racism of the era. Having found success and a modest fortune through his semi-criminal activities and his many connections to the community, at home Chalky is merely Albert. He has married far above his station to a “high yellow” woman, and she’s raising the children to be part of her high class world. Chalky doesn’t fit in there with his “field hand” background, and it angers him that his wife and children seem to patronize his “lowness” while living well off of the money he brings home. In last week’s episode, Chalky spent a week in jail. His wife visited, and brought Albert a copy of Great Expectations to read to help pass the time behind bars. Chalky is illiterate. Diss!

This week’s episode had the White family inviting his daughter’s beau over for dinner so they could meet him. Having had a bit too much to drink after a bad day when the whole world was against him, at dinner Albert is cranky that the fine meal with all the trimmings doesn’t include the bowl of Hoppin’ John he was hoping for. This is some subtle stuff going on. The frission within the black community between those of varying complexion - Chalky is very dark, and his wife and children very light; “passin”, or almost “bein” white folks, and certainly acting like them - was an issue then even more than it’s an issue now, and it is almost never even alluded to on TV or in film. About the only time I ever saw or heard anything that dealt with it directly (other than one or two lines concerning field hands vs house labor in Gone With The Wind) was an art house film Gullah biopic called Daughters of the Dust from two decades ago. But those attitudes are probably still with us today, which could partially explain why such light toned black singers and actresses are held up as beauty icons, while the MSM’s push to get people to believe that Michelle Obama is the new Jackie Kennedy seems so false. I think that’s a healing effort attempt by the media; she’s very dark and she’s built like a field hand. I can’t see anything wrong with expanding the concept of beauty, especially if it mitigates a lot of preconceptions that mistakenly associate attractiveness with paleness. I just think the media could have found a better female icon. Fox New’s Harris Faulkner, the actress Jasika Nicole who plays Agent Astrid Farnsworth on the TV show Fringe, or even Lenora Crichlow who plays the adorable ghost Annie on the BBC import Being Human are all really attractive. Who am I kidding? All three of them are cuter than hell. I guess they’re just not black enough. So we can expect the media to push Herman Cain as the new tall dark and handsome? Not on your life. Politics trumps color every time. No matter how dark Cain is, he will soon have his Negro Card revoked.

But I digress. Back on Boardwalk, Albert is having his fine family dinner, but inside him Chalky wants some soul food, 45 years before “soul food” existed as such or had any cultural respect. And there ain’t no damn Hoppin’ John to be had. His passin’ family won’t be serving no field nigga slave food. This is never said out loud, but the message is loud and clear with just a few glances from his wife and kids. Pretty subtle.

What is it? “Hoppin’ John” is a patois corruption of “pois de pigeons” (pigeon peas). pwah-d -pijahnz becomes poppin johns becomes hoppin’ john. Black-eyed peas and rice with a little hot pepper thrown in, slow cooked and flavored with some leftover smoked fatty pork. Tasty, filling, and dirt cheap, it’s a side dish that’s a meal all by itself, made better by tossing in herbs, celery, and some field greens if you’ve got any.
You can find recipes for it online, but the best recipes are the traditional ones that take hours to stew. Start with a pound of dried beans and soak them overnight. Use a real ham hock instead of a ham steak. Cook up a big mess of bacon and don’t throw out the fat; add it to the collards along with a ham bone while they boil. Forget the fancy herbs and spices; a stalk of celery and a few sprigs of fresh thyme are enough. Just don’t forget the hot sauce when you serve it.

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/18/2011 at 12:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Fine-DiningTelevision •  
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calendar   Monday - August 29, 2011

comedy with suicide bombers to air close to 9/11

This won’t be the first time this clip has been posted here, and there are a lot more at YT. Just enter FOUR LIONS and away ya go.

The BBC will be airing a series of programs on 9/11 and the aftermath as the article will make clear. Starting with a comedy about bumbling would be terrorists.

Now then, this shows all signs of being a very funny movie. I haven’t seen a clip that wasn’t.

I think the Brits are masters at slapstick comedy.  You’d have to go back to silent film in America with Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton to find anything close.
It isn’t that Hollywood can’t and hasn’t produced some great stuff.  But somehow, for reasons I can’t explain, the Brits seem to shine in this field. I guess I’ve been exposed over years to enough to make the comparison. 
I have just managed to get myself way off the topic I intended.
Which is, I think the timing of this show sucks.  Pardon the expression but, take a look.


Channel 4 to show suicide bombing comedy Four Lions to mark tenth anniversary of September 11

By PAUL REVOIR

Channel 4 is to spark outrage by airing a controversial comedy film about Muslim suicide bombers as part a season of programmes to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

In a move set to shock TV viewers, the broadcaster is to show Four Lions, the 2010 film by Brass Eye comedian Chris Morris, just days before the memorials take place for the terrorist outrages in New York.

Insiders at the Channel 4 have revealed that Morris was looking to create even more controversy by trying to air the film on the actual day of the anniversary, but bosses at the channel have resisted this.

READ MORE HERE, including the usual anti-American comments at the end of the article.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 08/29/2011 at 05:39 AM   
Filed Under: • TelevisionUK •  
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calendar   Tuesday - May 10, 2011

Life Under My Rock

Top Gear is a television show? Doh!! I never knew. I’ve only seen the columns online.

We don’t subscribe to BBC America, but the cable company has recently expanded their On Demand feature, so I can get the top 3 dozen shows from that network that way, without paying for another channel. Ha!

Jeremy Clarkson is the man. Love how he treats the fwench; talking about a racy version of a Citroen that will be built in a limited edition of 1000, he says that’s because they’re all a bunch of idle communists. Marvelous.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/10/2011 at 11:53 AM   
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calendar   Sunday - January 02, 2011

just how utterly thick and stupid is the american tv audience? tv execs think pretty thick …

And to see under comments in the Mail, an American going along with that makes me see red.
Or, are the execs right after all and I’m just in denial? 

There has been a truly wonderful program aired recently and coming to American TV, probably on PBS, called Downton Abbey. It a period costume drama and I can understand there will be many who just aren’t interested in that sort of thing. That doesn’t mean they are thick or dull or stupid. It’s a simple matter of personal interests.  And the wife and I have always been interested in programs like that.  Downton Abbey is very much like Upstairs/Downstairs which aired some 30 years ago.  They have just released a new version of that btw. And it’s a funny thing, I wasn’t a huge fan of that old show.

If I have one complaint with Downton Abbey, it’s brief, but for me, stomach churning scene of two queers in an embrace. It could have been hinted at or strongly implied without the clinch.  It wasn’t done to shock anyone. Not these days. It was simply acknowledgment of the acceptance of how normal that is nowadays.
But other then that scene, it is a brilliant show and well acted. 

Well friends, it wasn’t my intent to promote a TV program or try and play critic. Seems it worked its way in due to my frustration with TV executives who wrongly I think, believe an American audience just won’t understand. Or as they put it ....

“American TV executives fear its intricate plot will baffle U.S. viewers”

Well it didn’t baffle this American and I’m no rocket scientist.
What it boils down to is that those guys hold the American audience in such low esteem, that they will cut the show and commit artistic vandalism cos we’re really too thick to understand the finer points and intricacy will baffle us.  Unless of course they guide and lead us and think for us.
It just pisses me off and I’m glad I’m here and can see it as it was meant to be seen and as it was written.

So now you folks in the USA know what the powers that be in TV land really think of us.
No wonder I keep hearing about the shows produced for the lowest intellect.  They don’t think anyone else in great enough numbers is out there and worthwhile.

Naturally when the news is out there are ALWAYS the anti American comments and the over used phrase, Only in America.
Like everyone here is of faultless taste and a member of mensa. Yeah. Right.


Downton downsized… by two hours because American TV executives fear its intricate plot will baffle U.S. viewers

By Chris Hastings

* Eight-hour ITV series slashed to six for the States
* Inheritance story­line simplified for Americans

Its intricately detailed plot and sumptuous production values, with lingering shots of the magnificent stately home, made Downton Abbey the TV hit of last year.

Unsurprisingly, the lavish period drama has now been snapped up by an American network - although it seems the beautifully nuanced portrait of pre-First World War upper-class life could prove just a little too complex for the trans­atlantic audience.

For in the land of the notoriously short attention span, TV executives have taken a knife to the artfully crafted series, slashing its running time and simplifying the plotline for fear viewers will be left baffled

Rebecca Eaton, an executive producer for the PBS network - which will be airing it from next week - admits that American audiences demand a ‘different speed’ to their shows.

As a result, Downton, which ran for eight hours on ITV, has been slashed to six for the States, while the story­line about the inheritance of the Abbey has been downplayed

And that is a damn shame too because it’s really very interesting. It’s even mind boggling to think that once, what they’re talking about was par for the course and unremarkable. But it’s history damn it. It actually happened that way. Why shouldn’t Americans who haven’t heard or read about it, be exposed and educated about it. Besides, wouldn’t you think that anyone who liked watching this kind of thing to begin with, isn’t in any hurry.

The show’s ten million British viewers will be well aware that much of the drama revolves around challenges to the ‘entail’ - the legal device which determines how the estate should be divided up - after Lord Grantham’s heirs perish on the Titanic.

But Ms Eaton said: ‘We thought there might be too many references to the entail and they have been cut. It is not a concept people in the US are very familiar with.’

However, that did not seem to faze British viewers, who would have been similarly unaware of the term before watching the series.

PBS also believes its audiences will need an American to outline the key themes of the show.

So before the first episode, actress Laura Linney will explain the inheritance principle.

Let me explain: Actress Laura Linney will help U.S. viewers by explaining the inheritance principle - central to the plot - before the first show.

She will also inform viewers that the idea of a wealthy American heiress such as the fictional Cora, Countess of Grantham coming to the rescue of a hard-up aristocratic British family is rooted in fact.

On ITV, the series, which starred Dame Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern, ran with advertisements, while PBS - the Public Broadcasting Service - is free of commercials.

MORE HERE

Funny thing about how things work here. We don’t have a TV but were able to watch the first two episodes commercial free with the ITV iplayer.
But something weird happened or a setting or ...??? I don’t know. But we’re no longer able to get anything on that network now, although we can if we want, see BBC. I don’t understand it.  We’re gonna buy the DVD set later on and watch the whole thing on puter.

Hey guys, for those of you who are interested in this kind of thing, you can get the free player from ITV. If rejected cos ur out of the UK, then download a program (free) which bypasses the restriction and makes the systems here think this is where you are. It’s worth it.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 01/02/2011 at 05:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Thursday - June 24, 2010

Futurama Reborn

Two new episodes of Futurama on Comedy Central tonight, starting at 10. This follows 2 hours of old episodes of the show starting at 8.

Futurama has been brought back from the dead almost 7 years after it was canceled, and being brought back from the dead is exactly what the first episode is about.

It may not be your cup of tea ... though I can’t see why not if you like The Simpsons ... but at least it’s something new on the tube tonight, instead of the endless summer repeats.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/24/2010 at 03:25 PM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Monday - May 24, 2010

nothing much yet, still LOST

Not working today, but not much drive to search the news yet.

I’m still reeling over last night’s LOST finale. Trying to untangle the time lines in my head. Attempting to figure out if either reality was the reality, or if it was both. And was there a third one, finally ... because the people who flew off on Ajira Air went back to where? They could not have flown off to continue their lives in the alternate reality. Or maybe they just flew off into the sunset and ceased existing, once they were over the event horizon.

The Claire/Charlie awakening was only surpassed by the Sawyer/Juliette one, which was epic. I’m smelling Emmys here, or whatever TV-land awards apply for Best Scene. And in the end, the long end, the new protector was Hurley, which we all realized was going to happen about 5 episodes ago. But I never expected his #2 to be who it turned out to be ... not because of who it was, but because of who it was: a non-evil, non-manipulative Ben Linus, who didn’t drink the magic water, who wasn’t out for personal power and domination.

You can’t accept the simplistic solution for the series that everyone was dead the whole time and that this show was a record of their time in purgatory. Yeah, that works at a simple physical level ( as if purgatory is bound by physical laws ) because no one survives falling out an airplane going 500mph half a mile up in the air, but throws away the depth of the entire series. No, I’ll take the magical island as real, and Daniel Faraday’s math as accurate ... which means Juliette did set off the bomb which created the alt reality, a universe whose walls were thin at times and allowed certain people to suddenly taste and remember an entire life spent in another universe and what that all meant ... and the show ended in a final, different flash forward into yet another alt universe. One completely outside of time, one that served as a final doorway.

On the other hand, last week we learned that alternate timeline corrupt cop Ana Lucia “isn’t ready yet”. To come into the light. And if that isn’t a dead giveaway (Ok, pun intended that time) that the alt world was a pleasant bit of Muzak for souls on Hold, then I don’t know what was. So the questions are answered, but they aren’t really. Or they only generate more questions.

I predict that Amazon is going to sell a whole lot of DVDs for this series. It’s reason enough to go out and get an HD TV and a Blue-Ray player. In light of the ending (no pun intended) the entire series needs rewatching. While taking notes.

I think it may all come down to what you are willing to believe. As Miles said in his last line, “I don’t believe in much, but I do believe in duct tape.” It’s hard to beat that.

Namaste.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/24/2010 at 09:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Friday - January 22, 2010

Today, A Very Special Episode

5pm ET: Glen Beck on Mao, Stalin, Hitler and the roots of socialism



Revolutionary Holocaust airs Friday, January 22 at 5p ET on the Fox News Channel…

A groundbreaking hour long special where Glenn Beck takes us back in time to examine the roots of socialism and communism and the evil that followed. We all know about the horrors of the holocaust where the pure evil Hitler inspired claimed the lives of millions of innocent people. But most do not know about the millions upon millions of lives lost in a different genocide of the Ukrainian people under the Stalin regime. This special also takes a look behind the iconic fashion symbol of Che Guevara showing that the myth doesn’t tell the story of the man who was a blood thirsty killer.

This isn’t your typical Glen Beck show. He’s worked with 9 experts on genocide and totalitarianism to put this show together. Details on those folks at his web page.

If I can figure out how to program the DVR now that we no longer have analog cable, I’ll tape it for my wife to watch later.

http://glenbeck.com/


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Millena wants you to watch Glen Beck today



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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 01/22/2010 at 02:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Monday - October 05, 2009

BBC wins bid to keep star salaries under wraps (and it only cost us £200,000)

The big deal about this bit of business, is that the BBC is publicly funded.  For those who don’t know, people here pay a yearly TV license and they do try and collect using whatever means necessary.  So why shouldn’t the salaries be made public?

Thankfully, just last week we gave away the perfectly good (for now) TV set as anything I want to see is not shown on television. The set belonged to the wife’s mom who didn’t even use it the final two yrs of her life.  It just stood there in her room, silent. Truth to tell, we don’t miss TV and haven’t watched but one program in five years here.  Thank heaven for You Tube.

Even if we hadn’t given the set away, I’d have fought tooth and nail and refused to pay as others have.  Use my money to help pay millions a year to ONE foul mouthed,rude and crude individual? (pictured) Not bloody likely!

The surprise is how many folks simply buckle down and give up and pay.  I guess addictions are like that and I can only assume it is an addiction as why else would so many watch what’s on offer?  No thank You.

Think of it this way.  What if you were required to pay a license (USA) for a channel hosting Howard Stern? Even if you weren’t demented enough to think he was funny or talented or whatever.  Yes, I know millions do and millions are also tasteless and possibly very sick as well. But that’s not the point.  At least in the US you aren’t forced to get a TV license to fund things you think are gross and in very poor taste. Like the fellow pictured here who thought it quite funny when he and his sidekick made public calls to a well known actor, on air, telling the old guy all about the enjoyable sex one of em had with his grand daughter.  That’s what passed for entertainment, and this guy gets paid millions a year. Well, not with any of our money.


BBC wins bid to keep star salaries and Middle East report under wraps (and it only cost us £200,000)

By Liz Thomas
Daily Mail

Big earner: Jonathan Ross earns a reported £6million a year

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The BBC has won a High Court battle to keep the salaries of its stars a secret.

The corporation spent more than £200,000 ensuring those who fund the service never know how their cash is spent.

Three years of appeals and legal wrangles mean it will not now have to disclose what it pays on-screen talent, production staff or how much money shows cost.

Mr Justice Irwin concluded that the ‘BBC has no obligation to disclose information which they hold to any significant extent for the purposes of journalism, art or literature, whether or not the information is also held for other purposes’.

Although insiders insist that details of executive pay will continue to be publicly released, the BBC could still use this ruling as a further tool to ensure it does not have to disclose the salaries of top talent.

The BBC has come under fire for the eye-watering sums it pays stars such as Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton and Chris Moyles.

Ross earns a reported £6million a year and around 40 other stars are paid more than £1million annually.

Jeremy Hunt, Tory culture spokesman, said: ‘We have long called for the BBC to open their books to the National Audit Office so licence-fee payers can be sure they are getting value for money.

‘If the BBC was more transparent about its finances then court cases like these could be avoided.’

Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘The BBC’s behaviour is shocking and incredibly disappointing.

‘Firstly, the fact that the Corporation has blown a fortune on lawyers trying to obscure the truth shows they see zero need for accountability, even when it’s rightfully required of them.

‘Secondly, the BBC should be entirely open and honest about how it spends licence-fee payers’ money. If they can’t justify the amount they are spending, they shouldn’t do it in the first place.

‘This is yet another example of the BBC being out of touch with the concerns of the people it is supposed to be entertaining, and who pay its keep.’

The case went to the High Court because the BBC consistently refused to comply with freedom of information requests from newspapers and members of the public.

The broadcaster was taken to the Information Commissioner, and the Information Tribunal, who both ruled that it should release the information.
Ruling: The BBC will not be forced to disclose an internal report on its Middle East coverage, or details of staff salaries

Ruling: The BBC will not be forced to disclose an internal report on its Middle East coverage, or details of staff salaries

But the BBC appealed to the High Court, which found previous hearings had not properly taken into account its evidence.

It also ruled that the broadcaster was exempt from sections of the Act as a public body, and therefore did not have to give out information relating to its programming in journalism, arts or literature.

A spokesman for the BBC said: ‘The BBC was entitled to decline to disclose the information on the basis that the Freedom of Information Act did not apply to it.’

SOURCE

Macker and BMEWS… I didn’t have this when originally posted but, here’s the other sick no talent turd who once worked for the BBC and was in on the sick joke I wrote about. And this bit of filth btw is doing well I understand, in the USA. GAK!

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/05/2009 at 08:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Big BusinessCelebritiesCULTURE IN DECLINEEconomicsTelevisionUK •  
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calendar   Friday - September 11, 2009

Crowder Does Olby





Ok, it’s a little funny. I don’t watch Olbermann, so I can’t say how accurate this is. But I do watch Glen Beck. My idol!

Hey, I heard John Stossel is moving to Fox News too. About time. My hope is that Fox trades Geraldo to get him. But you know what this really means? It means an even smaller Conservative voice on the major MSM networks. That’s a shame. All the Right is moving to Fox. Now, if we could just get them to start reporting the news, instead of their endless blabfests, then that would be awesomest!


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/11/2009 at 11:01 AM   
Filed Under: • HumorTelevision •  
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calendar   Thursday - September 10, 2009

Withdrawl Pangs

No wonder I feel out of it. I’ve been without TV for nearly 3 weeks now.

The first week I was packing stuff up, so I had no time or energy for watching anything.

The second week I was unpacking all that stuff, so again, no time or energy.

When we finally moved enough boxes to actually get at the set, and had a chair or two to sit on and watch, we had the TV on for about 5 minutes and it went PLLTrph. Fried. Smell of toasted electronics. That set has worked perfectly for 11 years. It’s a 32” CRT, and it weighs about 125 pounds. I DO NOT want to carry it downstairs and then over to the TV repair shop, but I guess I’ll have to. There is no money in the budget for a new flat screen TV; we’d need a 42” model to equal the viewing size of this one. Sure, with HDTV the picture would be so much better, but a set that size of 1080p quality is still quite expensive ($1700 for the LCD TV LG 47LH90, $1500 for their 42” version, both are top rated sets).

So pretty much no TV. And I haven’t even been given a Time Out or sent to my room!

We do have one ancient scratchy old 19” POS in the bedroom, so I’ve caught a bit of the news from time to time. But in this “moving” shuffle here, the digital adapter got misplaced, so that set only has perhaps a third of it’s possible channels running.

And between work, and trying to find some place to purchase before this tax credit thing expires, I still have no time to watch.

But hey, our place is much cleaner, and we’ve managed to throw away a bunch of crap. So good for us.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/10/2009 at 02:20 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily LifeTelevision •  
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calendar   Tuesday - July 21, 2009

BBC executive says corporation should foster ‘left-of-centre thinking.’ And Brits will pay as usual

A bit of a bru-ha this week.

First, folks (most I think) pay a license fee to the BBC which is govt. So this suggestion hasn’t gone down well with the right, what there is of it.

There are two articles of interest, one is two days old.  I didn’t think they had a great deal of interest for our American audience, or in fact anyone outside the UK.  At least not all on their own.  But there really is something to look at with the two.

A couple of days ago I read the following article.

Sarah Kennedy ‘spoken to’ by BBC for praising Enoch Powell during Radio 2 show

By Niall Firth
Last updated at 8:28 AM on 19th July 2009

Radio 2 presenter Sarah Kennedy has been chastised by the BBC for praising right-wing politician Enoch Powell during her show.

During her early-morning show on Wednesday, Kennedy, 59, described Powell as ‘the best prime minister this country never had’.

Enoch Powell was famously sacked from the shadow cabinet by Ted Heath in 1968 after his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech about the dangers of mass immigration.

A spokesman for the BBC said that the corporation had received 25 complaints by Friday and that the presenter had been ‘spoken to’ about the remark.

She said: ‘It was inappropriate for Sarah to offer an off-the-cuff political opinion and we have spoken to her and made that clear.’

DAILY MAIL

Ok, understood. Mustn’t be political and careful of off the cuff remarks. Even if they’re true. And most especially you bet, when the remark favors the right.
Mr. Powell has been gone for many years btw, and I really don’t think her remark should have brought 25 protests. Most likely from wimpy-weepy libtards and commies.

However, todays headline in the Telegraph has another story, not related directly to the one I’ve posted in the mail above.  But I find it telling anyway.
And think about this.  The TV license costs around $200 (in American terms) a year.
Oh wow. I can imagine the posts we’d get from people here at BMEWS were they made to pay for a TV license that leaned left.
Here, this is what I’m referring to.

BBC executive says corporation should foster ‘left-of-centre thinking’

A senior BBC executive has claimed that the corporation should foster “left-of-centre thinking”, leading to accusations of political bias from the Conservatives.

By Jon Swaine
Published: 7:00AM BST 21 Jul 2009

Ben Stephenson, the controller of BBC drama commissioning, said that the corporation should encourage “peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.”

According to its own royal charter, the BBC must “be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output”.

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, said: “What Ben Stephenson said was a clear breach of the BBC’s impartiality obligations.

“No journalist or editor should be following a political agenda, let alone someone as senior as a controller.”

Mr Hunt said that he had written to Mark Thompson, the BBC Director General, “asking for an immediate retraction and apology”.

Peter Whittle, the director of The New Culture Forum, a right-leaning think tank, said: “The political slant in the non-news output of the BBC is for many harder to detect but is actually far more insidious and damaging in the effect it has on our cultural drift.”

Mr Stephenson made the comments in a newspaper article in which he responded to criticism from Tony Garnett, a television producer, who accused the BBC’s drama department of changing “in ways which have coarsened both it and wider culture.”

He wrote: “If we didn’t all think differently, have different ideas of what works and what doesn’t, wouldn’t our lives, and more importantly, our TV screens be less interesting? We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.”

He later denied that he had meant the comment to have a political meaning.

“Like ‘left-field’, it is a phrase that I use with frequency when talking to the creative community to encourage them to develop and approach their ideas from a completely new perspective,” he said.

A BBC source said that executives believed that their casting of Boris Johnson, the Conservative Mayor of London, in an episode of EastEnders, proved that they did not have a left-wing bias.

Meanwhile, a report yesterday said that the licence fee should be shared with other broadcasters, because the BBC was failing to fulfill its public service remit.

The paper, by Frank Field MP and David Rees, argued that the licence fee should be put in the hands of a new independent commissioning body.

Broadcasters, including the BBC, would then pitch ideas for public service programmes to the body and be awarded funding accordingly.

BBC One, BBC Three, Radio 1 and Radio 2 should all be put up for sale, it added.

TELEGRAPH

Yeah. Left field.  But he didn’t say ‘left field.’ Did He?
BBC has no commercials and is supported by the license ppl pay.  If I ever watched TV, and honest, haven’t done that in five years and don’t miss it, I guess paying to avoid commercials isn’t a bad idea as ideas go.  But for us, there’s nothin on we want to see and so don’t watch. 


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 07/21/2009 at 08:22 AM   
Filed Under: • TelevisionUK •  
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calendar   Friday - April 17, 2009

The risk of sexual abuse, by treating the victims’ discomfort with humour. ok but,,, DISNEY????

Not supposed to be here right now but hey.  This just HAD to get itself posted.

It’s way over my head. At first I thought, oh what nonsense. Come on.  But then another thought intruded on the first.
Hang on ... I’m not a parent. How can I judge this as nonsense when I haven’t any kids?

I guess my generation was lucky as was the one before when it came to this.  We never thought in the terms expressed by this article.
Still though .... hard for me to accept. Come on.  Pinocchio? Snow White?  Robin Hood?

Is this really valid or just a few ivory tower types with time on their hands and nothing else in their collective minds?

Was Pinocchio was being ‘groomed’ by his cartoon pals?
Classic Disney cartoon films are giving children the wrong message about how to deal with “stranger danger”, psychologists have warned.

By Roger Dobson

Was Pinocchio was being ‘groomed’ by his cartoon pals?
They claim films like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Robin Hood contain scenes in which children receive “unwanted personal contact” or threatening approaches from adults, and that the victims fail to set a good example in the way they respond.
image
The study warns that the films also undermine efforts to teach children about personal safety and how to minimise the risk of sexual abuse, by treating the victims’ discomfort with humour.

In one example, the researchers found that the Pinocchio had been “groomed” by the adult characters Honest John and Gideon but that his response to the abuse resembled “victim blaming”.

The report says that some characters, like Mowgli, in the Jungle Book, and Alice, in Alice in Wonderland, are able to successfully handle to threats they face from adults, suggesting they could have a positive educational impact on children. However, it points out that they do so without telling a trusted adult.

It adds: “It is possible that viewing these scenes could influence children to believe that telling a trusted adult about a stranger’s advances is unnecessary because the film characters model successful independence.”
The research, published in the journal Child Abuse, was conducted by a team of psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists at Carleton University, in Canada.

The academics wrote that they were “surprised to find depictions of children being touched, usually by adults, contrary to the expressed desires of the child”.
They studied 47 animated feature length Disney films, released between 1937 and 2006. In ten of them, they found examples of “unwanted personal contact” or scenes which show child characters in “risky situations”.

In their analysis, six films – Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, The Sword in the Stone, and A Goofy Movie – depict children and adolescent characters experiencing unwanted personal contact.

A further four films – Snow White, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book – were found to show childlike characters in “risky situations” where strangers approach them with “hidden malevolence” and promise rewards in exchange for their compliance.

The films were reviewed several times, often using the pause and slow motion features to fully capture the content. Child characters could be human, fantastic or an anthropomorphised animal.

The child had to be under 18, and where age of the character was not specified, the researchers judged each on the basis of voice pitch, manner of speaking, stature, and behaviour.

Dr Wendy Hovdestad, the lead author, said: “The depictions of child and adolescent characters being grabbed and kissed against their will by adult characters is particularly problematic for the boy characters Wart (The Sword in the Stone), Flounder (The Little Mermaid), and Skippy (Robin Hood), because the context in the film is humorous.

“The treatment would probably be upsetting if it happened to a real child, and treating it as humorous is directly contradicting sexual safety education that teaches children that they get to decide who touches their bodies.”

The report concludes: “The findings raise questions about potential impacts on child audiences. Is the unwanted contact and risky situation content appropriate viewing for children, given efforts to teach children sexual safety?”
A Disney spokeswoman said, “As we have not studied the report we are unable to comment.”

PINOCCHIO?


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Posted by peiper   United States  on 04/17/2009 at 06:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Colleges-ProfessorsScary StuffSexTelevision •  
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