Dale Connelly Composted, in High Definition

It ain’t over until the Fat Lady sings. She sang yesterday. About Dale Connelly.

After 34 years, with Minnesota Public Radio. Dale Connelly will be leaving KNOW, 91.1 FM. The last day was June 4th. Friday. On Radio Heartland. On digital radio. Where ever that is. And re-broadcasted on “Radio Heartland” on Saturday evening. On KNOW, 91.1 FM.

And so it goes, MPR announced Wednesday. With the ax. In the conservatory.

It was on December 12, 2008. When “The Morning Show” on Minnesota Public Radio was first chopped up. The end had come to an institutions that I had loved, as part of the routine. Even then there there had been rioting in Greece. There seemed to be a question about how moral every day life would become. Without “The Morning Show.”

“The Morning Show” was not exactly canceled by MPR, upon Tom Keith’s retirement. Tom Keith was the sound-effects guy for “A Prairie Home Companion.” Connelly was to continue with an online version. To try to still affect the morning sound. With his soft quiet style. Or so the plan. Not quite put out to pasture. To the quiet pasture.

“The Morning Show” started 41 years and 6 months ago. This was where Garrison Keillor got his start, and moved on. That was the end, unless you had high definition radio. “Radio Heartland” was the morphing of “The Morning Show.” High definition radio. Some kind of recycling proposal. On the internet. Where the Prairie Home met the euphemistic pasture. Wherever that could be found. High definition radio had never had been picked up by sports bars.

The morning kindness. Dale Connelly and Tom Keith (with a stage name of Jim Ed Poole) had blended music and personality, before new fangled coffee companies ever thought of blending. When a good share of Minesotans only knew Mrs. Olson’s Folger’s coffee.

Dealing with change. Dale Connelly, “part of the fabric of what built MPR,” had not quite been put out to pasture. He was composted, with all the other coffee grounds. Minnesota Public Radio’s own private stash. Digitally removed, in less than 18 months. In the view of MPR, with the “cash for clunkers” program, it now was really over for Connelly’s 1976 gig. It was hard finding the old parts, on the internet highway.

It was now the end. The announcement touched on the aim for a sustainability which was not achieved. Though high definition radio would play on. With “Radio Heartland” producer, Mike Pengra, picking the music. Valerie Arganbright, senior director for MPR membership, wrote the announcement. “While we’ll be able to continue providing the wonderful music that you expect from Radio Heartland, we have cancelled Dale Connelly’s weekday morning show.”

So as the music heard on MPR’s Radio Heartland plays on, this would be the end Dale’s involvement with Radio Heartland. His own sustainability had not been achieved.

And so it goes. MPR announced Wednesday the end. The green movement in the new paradigm of public radio. The Current. With the ax. In the conservatory. After their most recently completed fund-drive. Perhaps a part of their own version of going green. While promoting composting and sustainability, in Minnesota. After acquiring that radio station in Northfield, but not being able to sustain the familiar on-air voices. More rioting was expected in Greece.

The Spill-over

That oil rig, Deepwater Horizon. And the oil spill. These gigantic mobile oil rigs. Was the story just a replay of September 2008, and TARP money? When it had reached the point where only the oil industry knew how to address the problem of the leak. The gigantic leak. A lot like that bailout put together by Henry Paulson? Or so we were told. A leak that was threatening to destroy the way of life of the coastline from Louisiana to Maine.

What was the scale of the problem? This all sounded to be the same story as the Troubled Asset Relief Program. And there would be government’s maximum exposure, like there was to financial institutions. As we still were calculating the cost of worldwide rescue of banks. Because in the New World Order, governments everywhere thought they had created the world. And leaders used television to convince the rest of us of the Truth. Showing up at every disaster. To show us who was in charge. Then having those CEOs appear to testify at a Senate Panel. Like the CEO of BP. Served up at the Senate grille. And then he was back home.

British Petroleum. A private company that all too soon could vanish, the way Arthur Anderson had. For not doing their job to professional expectations. And the people were left with mess. With a lot of former Senators, who had not been doing their job, watching from afar.

What was it about men and woman running for public office who never read the job description. Where the job description of public service, was supposed to involve looking out for the public. To bring order. Was the cause of panic and bank runs, the people who quit serving the real public? The real people.

I wanted the real world back. I wanted a president who did not sound like a plaintiff attorney making his opening argument in a products liability lawsuit. Addressing fault. While no one addressed the real damage. All these legislative lawyers who could not get a handle on the damages. I wanted a president who did not sound like a defense attorney making his closing argument, trying to limit the amount of the damage award. With all the men and women who oversaw the watchdogs in the federal government overseeing the oil industry -like the Coast Guard. Real watchdogs already in place. But leaders who needed oil money and bank moneys to get elected. To finance the commercials on television. On networks like NBC or cable TV, like my own cable company Comcast.

Versus. Owned by Comcast, with an an NHL deal, also giving Comcast part ownership of a U.S. version of NHL Network. And then there was Fox Sports. Now with 25% ownership of the Colorado Rockies. With speculation in Texas, that Fox Sports wanted to buy a share of the Texas Rangers. The team owned by creditors. In relation to troubled assets. A team which George Bush operated after he left the oil industry. Before turning to politics. How much credibility was there with all these team partners broadcasting baseball games? How much truth was left any more. In baseball? In television? In government, after the elections? Did you watch the Olympic broadcast from Beijing? How truthful was networks news on NBC about the happenings in China?

In a world with pretend banks, there was all this pretending by elected officials. By the incumbents. On television. With their votes on pretend dollars for those pretend banks that all needed rescue. To keep those bubble inflated.

And so the elections in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana. After Massachusetts elections. It was the morning after, once again, when the hot air was gone. For a while. With Democrats and Republicans unable to continue to meet the needs of customer base. Both retail and commercial. With watchdog working like Maytag repairmen? On the old commercial.

The “gang” problem had come to a neighborhood near you. When only the oil industry knew how to address the problem of the leak, and government just keep letting British Petroleum attempt to fix the problem. The gangs were in charge.

There was this ongoing failure by the government to address the U.S. financial system, in banks and in oil. With a system of government, financed by lobbyists, Congress and presidents, Republicans and Democrats, let financial institutions concoct a fix to the problem that in their greed they created? And those salaries paid to the CEOs, so far above the real working people.

In a world with street smarts, you learned eventually of all the deceit. In a world of pretend banks, no one who owned a home with a mortgage would escape the “pretend” world, with late charges and fees for late payment to the voters who had somehow been forced to save banking institutions. No one has been searching for individual wrong-doers in a world of institutional wrong dealing. When too much of their media holdings like the old brothel down the street, 100 years ago. Now with franchises everywhere.

The results of the elections last night were a lot like the investigation of Tom Petters, commented by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Marti yesterday. “”We didn’t know who were wearing the white hats and who were wearing the black hats.

Apparently government officials are having a hard time distinguishing the hat colors. About 180 Gwinnett County employees in suburban Atlanta are being asked to return thousands of dollars the county says they were overpaid 16 years ago. And to recover $76 million in over-payments, Hennepin County District Judge Janet Poston’s ordered 563 beneficiaries of a firefighter fund to repay an average of about $43,000, while 860 retired police officers or their survivors were to repay an average of $60,000 to the city.

The spills. The urgency that went with spills. And overpayment by government. Of tax dollars. Those feelings of abandonment. When no one -NO ONE- was watching out for my interests. Seeing beyond the illusions. Into the waters around the Deepwater Horizon and the after-affects of an oil spill. Government might figure it out in 16 years. Unless voters try to implement some other way to clean all of this up. How long did it take to move these gigantic mobile oil rigs?

C-span

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is underway.

According to a Bloomberg piece by Hugh Son, the Federal Reserve of New York, under the leadership of Timothy Geithner, told AIG to withhold documents and delay disclosures of details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails over a five month span starting in November 2008 between the company and its regulator show. The New York Fed took over negotiations between AIG and the banks in November 2008 as losses on contracts tied to subprime home loans threatened to swamp AIGr weeks after its taxpayer-funded rescue. The New York Fed ordered the crippled AIG not to negotiate for discounts in settling the credit derivative swaps, crossing out the reference to discussion of a discount of up to $13 billion that tax payers funded, according to the e-mails. AIG excluded the language when an SEC filing was made public on December 24, 2008. This was a backdoor bailout of Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen banks which were owed $62.1 billion of the credit derivatives. The regulator decided that Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen banks would be fully repaid. At the time, Geithner “was recused from working on issues involving specific companies, including AIG.” In a separate statement, a spokesperson said that Geithner, after his nomination for Treasury secretary on Nov. 24, 2008, “began to insulate himself weeks earlier in anticipation of his nomination.”

It is hoped that Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is as affective as congressional oversight after the Mitchell Report was released for Major League Baseball. This bipartisan commission has been given a critical non-partisan mission. In the cultural atmosphere of Washington, with its campus as a political utopia. With a week or two of producing in video and interactive content creation for C-Span, the media division for both Democrats and Republicans, funded by your cable television payments.

Because what is said to the new media does have a huge impact on reputations and on careers. Or to Congress. In the new cultural atmosphere where everyone has an agent. Even Bob Costas is represented by IMG, when television journalist used the same system as your professional athlete. IMG also represents Tiger Woods through Mark Steinberg, Senior Vice President and Global Managing Director of Golf. IMG which owns half of Ari Fleischer’s company. Fleischer, the former White House press secretary who operates Ari Fleischer Sports Communications.

In the cultural atmosphere, IMG is the global leader in event management and talent representation. “Our media division is one of the world’s top independent producers of sports and entertainment television across multiple genres and is an emerging leader in video and interactive content creation for broadband and mobile platforms.”

In the cultural span of c-span, of sports, of television, of entertainment. With all of its sponsors.

And the Winner Is…………

There has been a dearth of engineering and math majors pouring forth from universities over the past generation, as evident by the number of news article championing various compact disc, books, movies, as the best of the decade. It was the start of the No Child Left Behind generation.

It still takes 365 days to celebrate an anniversary. And the anniversaries are not numerically counted until the second one. Ten years make up a decade, and from my count I thought we had one more year to go!

Newspapers all over the country this week have written of news stories, movies of, books of, compact discs of the decade.

Those Numbers Concerning Sexting

An Associated Press-MTV poll has found more than a quarter of young people have been involved in some form of sexting — sharing by cell phone or online sexually explicit photos, videos and chat — despite the sometimes grim consequences involving conviction in some states for those who do it, with lifelong registration as a sex offender.

This news story comes this week as I heard Rick Steves do a travel show on public television. He said that the most compelling moment of his piece was when an Iranian woman crossed the street to tell him that she did not want her daughter to grow up to be like Britney Spears. That, Steeves said, was the universal human conflict in the secular world. It was the same conflict which defined American politics.

It was 12 months ago that I wrote this piece. Read it again in light of todays’ Associated Press-MTV poll about sexting.

In the age of abundance, with an abundance of ideas, in the ongoing age of ideology, comes a story about a survey by the Minneapolis-based Search Institute –an organization that foster in “all sectors of society a healthy development and thriving among children and adolescents” –of a group of young people who are “spiritual,” who are not at all religious. A newly released Search Institute survey of 6,853 young people ages 12 to 25 indicates that 55 percent of the respondents are spiritual, not at all religious. Miriam Cameron, a University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing professor, said the results confirm what she has observed in her classes. Nearly one-third of these young people said they don’t trust organized religion.

“Spirituality is bigger than religion,” said co-director of the institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, Peter Benson. “One of the things we have to focus now is disentangling spiritual development from religious development.” According to the website, Dr. Benson became Search Institute’s president in 1985. Prior to 1978, he was chair of the psychology department and chair of the program in human development and social relations at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. He hold a Masters in the psychology of religion from Yale University. In an age of ideology, I wonder the reason it is, the basis that Yale offers a Master’s program in the psychology of religion, so that years later we can get these survey results. It sounds like Dr. Benson’s focus is funding his own program, and creating a need along the way, with the help of corporate sponsors.

Most students pay tuition to listen, read, and study what the experts have to say. Except those on scholarship. “We’re not paying enough attention to what our kids are saying,” Gene Roehlkepartain, co-director of the institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence said. “We need to listen more and talk less.” Yeah, Gene Roehlkepartain. Buy you kid another Ipod. You were not supposed to worship your kids, Gene. Why are kids, ages 12 to 25, being asked this nonsense? Your kids might not like taking physics or calculus either. These are the years you are supposed to have passed on a tradition that they had to learn. My 30-month old niece does not like to eat vegetables. Or potatoes. She has to anyway. Yeah Gene! How can we disentangle God and His history, from religious development, from spiritual development? Can we hold class outside?

Nearly one-third of these young people said they don’t trust organized religion. Do they provide locks at their church? What did they lose? Was it another kid or organized religion that stole their cellphone? What else did they not trust? Were any other questions ever asked?

If you ever were looking for an arsonist, you started focusing on 3 factors: Motive. Opportunity. Accelerants. Search Institute mission statement is collaborating with partners (foundations, corporations, schools, communities, faith-based organizations, and other systems) to broaden and deepen commitments, capacity, and effectiveness in fostering healthy development and thriving among children and adolescents.
In this case the Search Institute, Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence who funded the study, hopes to profit from their own survey, based upon their website. This was not exactly the Gallup Poll, where surveyors had disinterest. Search Institute would seem to aim at a secular society, to add to the divison between religions, serving “all sectors of society, including K–12 and higher education, faith communities, youth-serving organizations, social-service organizations, families, businesses, and the public sector.”

According to the news article, “The disconnect between spirituality and religion” was clear in the comments from young people. Drawing a line between spirituality and religion, University of Minnesota senior David Horn said, spirituality ‘doesn’t make distinctions, and religion is all about making distinctions.’” It sounds like the issue once again is relativism. Religion was providing an absolute moral authority. Distinguishing right from wrong. And this did not seem fair.

Or maybe the young, educated in secular schools without any religious training, are ignorant about specific belief, and the history of a belief. Even by the time they get to college and are thought to be the best and the brightest. Serving “all sectors of society,” the survey either shows the need in society for more teaching of theology and philosophy, or the need to encourage ignorance. Most Doctors of Divinity spend time actually studying theology and philosophy before they are allowed to teach and preach.

Speaking as the daughter of a minister, Miriam Cameron said she doesn’t think religions needs to feel threatened by the growth of spirituality. “Not at all. Many of my students equate religion with dogma and spirituality with harmony. Spirituality works well with most religions. The only ones it doesn’t work with are the angry people who say that everyone else’s image of God is wrong. … The spiritual view of God is much more inclusive.” Dr. Cameron’s viewpoint seems to include an American culture bias and fails to see the dimension of spirituality that is fueling the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. From my reading, Islamic dogma was not responsible for the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, as one example. Dr. Cameron seemingly does not believe there can be anger among those of the New Age “spiritual,” not religious. Dissecting her comment, she mixes apples with people and oranges, when she begins to discuss angry people in the midst of th discussion of spirituality and religions.

Few religious professionals would equate dogma with theology.

One of the things I came away with studying history, was that the human condition remains unchanged. Two hundred years ago there were slaves in this country. Actually in a lot of places. A lot of people never really asked the “why” question. My conclusion is that the basic human condition involves a degree of laziness. There were slaves because landowners were lazy. That laziness, to one degree or another, was still around.

“If that’s the way they really feel,” said the director of youth ministry for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Terry Dittmer, said, “it means that we have some serious questions that we need to ask ourselves.” It is the Missouri synod’s fault? Or maybe Mr. Ditmer is looking for a new response in the growing secular world.

Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill for or die for, and no religion too. Mr. Lennon, I don’t have to imagine much any more.

The Center for Spiritual Development concluded its report with a suggestion that the place to start is with conversations, asking young people open-ended questions such as, “What is most important in your life?” and “What does being spiritual mean to you?” I actually would start with the basics. Like asking about God before asking what spiritual meant. Like asking about the Greatest Commandment. Do you know God? Do you want to know God? Do you want to make an academic commitment to study God? You might have to buy a book and actually spend some time.

In other news, according to Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute, which surveyed 29,760 students over the past year at 100 random high schools nationwide, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test. That is a lot of stealing. I wonder if this was by the same nearly one-third of the young people who said they don’t trust organized religion.

These surveys give me pause to quote a high school biology teacher: “If ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”

Perhaps those grim consequences involving conviction in some states for those do sexting, with lifelong registration as a sex offender, will call the question as to public policy that keeps some sins subject to public notice to neighbors. Where there is no registration kept on those convicted of homocide.

At the Governmental Massage Parlor

That White House state dinner for the Indian prime minister. With the guest list of Katie Couric, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, and Tareq and Michaele Salahi. Why? Speaking of caste systems, why were tax dollars feeding more than the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh? Why were 338 people in addition to Tareq and Michaele Salahi being fed? If charges are brought for theft of services against the uninvited guests, maybe an explanation can be given why taxpayers were paying to feed Katie Couric and Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty? With Washington insiders, Hollywood A-listers, campaign donors, prominent figures from the community of the guest prime minister who live in the US, and Obama friends, why were these state dinners continuing in a country without royalty? Wasn’t the last election a statement about change?

Those rubbing of shoulders with Vice President Joe Biden. The official guest list. The official shoulder rub. Governmental massages. The agency charged with protecting the US President and other high-level officials is conducting a comprehensive review of the security breach on Tuesday at the dinner in honor of the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh. About an unofficial shoulder rub. Received by Tareq and Michaele Salahi of Virginia, who crashed the White House party.

Feeding the system. The American caste system on display at White House state dinners.

Remembrance Day

On Remembrance Day, there is still a poignant remembering overseas of the cost to Europe. War had a way to bring home the present day cost of risk appetites.

Social mood. Political campaigns. Financial fate. Markets go up and they go down, even in the age of austerity, as in the age of conspicuous consumption. By understanding history, humanity has the power to change history. War, and the way we live our lives.

We live in a world that has perverted the concept of remembering people. The media had a cheap story to fill the airwaves now on each September 11th and November 11th. In Europe they still called it Remembrance Day, where the people remembered the war dead and not the military. I was in London on this day in 2000. “Flanders Field.” Armistice Day was not a promotion for the armed services or to be used by the National Guard to recruit the mostly local youth, a lot like those pro football players and their fans in town who “root for laundry,” as Jerry Seinfeld reminds his audience. The living athletes of combat. Cannon fodder. The human cannon fodder, used too often in the name of nationalism. The “National Guard” that had been perverted by public policy to become an invading army in Iraq, and maybe one day in Afghanistan? Today was supposed to be a day about the individual people lost to war, not about the uniform worn. At the end of the Great War, in 1919, because of the missing bodies to bury, the November 11th observance was introduced, with a two minute silence. Unbearable mourning continued long after a war was over. Today was supposed to be a day about peace. About real people gone.

Reusse & Company this morning. How does an interview of Major General Larry Shellito of the Minnesota National Guard relate to November 11th and Armistice Day? A day about peace!. Armistice Day was about turning swords into plowshares. November 11th in Europe was Memorial Day, not for the military industrial complex, as Dwight Eisenhower called it, but about individuals compelled to go to war in the name of government and nationalism who died in service. And the people who went, that the world would one day be a better place.

The“National Guard” that had been perverted by public policy to become an invading army in Iraq and in Afghanistan? How had it happened? The “National Guard” that had replaced the all volunteer army. And why? Since September 11, 2001, the U .S. has deployed troops in 33 countries, according to Major General Larry Shellito. Why? And about the expense of all this? Was the Department of Defense any different than that vote on health care. Which was not at all about health care but health care insurance, and paying for all of this. Without much discussion at all about the real issue of health care. How many MRI machines were needed in a community. Without a discussion of preventative medicine. Why did local kids need to be dispatched to 33 countries in the last 8 years? And where was the discussion on all of this? About the use of “The National Guard?”

No one asked why. Elections have been spun to be one long drone of an argument between two sides. The two sides that had long ago quit communicating, in a world that was unable to find much in the way of meaning. If you thought that television and radio were sounding boards on the issues of the day, then your moderators had become nothing more than game show hosts.

In a current world without conscription, in a world of voluntary service, somehow the message was getting across about the glamor of swords. And now a word from the sponsors.

I am not sure why Major General Larry Shellito of the Minnesota National Guard was invited on Armistice Day of all days to be a guest. On morning radio, on Reusse and Company. I did not listen long to the remainder of the show. I don’t think there was a discussion of what happened when you take the young and place their lives in peril, in places where they are seen as the enemy. In some of the 33 places. Thirty-three places. Invading armies? An invitation to the major general as a guest by the same guy who wrote today on his blog:

“Pro football players were merely mercenaries moving through a city for the purpose of collecting a large paycheck. There would be replaced by a different group of mercenaries in a few years, and the foolish fans would cheer for them for no reason other than the appearance of their jerseys.” So wrote Pat Reusse today.

In the civilian world, leadership has to be re-earned in each generation. By sons who followed fathers and grandfathers. In attempts to try to see the future through the past. My grandfather won a purple heart in World War I. He paid a price for his medal every day for the rest of his life. It was more than what combat had done to his hearing. The life expectancy of those Woodrow Wilsons was always so much shorter than the soldier.

“Be careful when you break horses that you don’t break their spirit too.”

If sons and daughters took the time to try to understand history, humanity had the power to change history. In Minnesota, people spent more time contemplating the NFL than they did the deployment since September 11, 2001 of U .S. troops in 33 countries. We thought more about the people there than we about the dollars it had also cost for them to be there. And not many folks were asking why. Or why this was done under the auspices of “The National Guard.”

There was a cost to all of this. In a world of voluntary and involuntary thrift, with personal savings and public policy focused on taxing. In a world where voluntary service could fast become involuntary, as government officials induced borrowing rather than pay now these out of pocket expense. The single greatest risk as the equilibrium between asset classes remains a seismic shift in currency markets. What was this defense policy doing to the U.S. dollar? When a currency holds a nation together, and “the economy — perhaps society at large — assumes more, not less, risk as a function of the path of our attempted fix,” writes Todd Harrison. A Congressman from Tennessee cited Albert Einstein’s belief, in a joint hearing chaired by Senator Kent Konrad from North Dakota, that the greatest power on earth was not atomic energy but compound interest, in this case as a threat to the future of America.

Counting the cost. On Remembrance Day, there is a perversion to discuss the engines of financing as much as there is to discuss the success of recruitment as Major General Larry Shellito of the Minnesota National Guard was asked. In a nation that just no longer discussed war.

On Remembrance Day, there is still a poignant remembering overseas of the cost of war. It is seen in the streets of London. In America, Armistice Day was politicized, used as a photo opportunity by politicians hoping to remain an elected official for an entire career, and calling it Veterans’ Day. It was not longer remembered to commemorate the War To End All Wars. About the real people gone. Except in a Europe, which continues to manifest the loss of one generation, of its best and brightest. Watching the scenes this week at the Brandenburg Gate, and seeing the difference in the caliber of leaders 4 generations later, wondering if Europe had ever recovered from void of the War to End All War. Counting the cost.

It must have seemed really heroic to fight in The War To End All Wars.

Blog Networking in Real-time

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48 Hours

Hush money.

The Telegraph had the news of David Letterman’s revelation that he had sexual relationships with female employees of his show. Letterman said after his monologue last night on the air that he had received a demand by an alleged extortionist, according to CBS an employee of “48 Hours,” to either pay $2 million or risk his relationships being made public.

Letterman’s own production company according to the Los Angeles Times, does have a sexual harassment policy in place which does not prohibit sexual relationships between managers and employees, said a spokesman for Worldwide Pants.

After making a living off as a comic over Monica Lewinsky and Eliot Spitzer jokes, Letterman put the spin that the real story was about extortion, and the “threat” to him over his “creepy behavior.” According to Nick Allen of the The Telegraph.co.uk, during the CBS “Late Show with David Letterman,” Letterman revealed earlier that day he appeared before a grand jury about an alleged extortion attempt connected to his sexual liasons with women who worked for him which would clearly involve issues of sexual harassment in his admitted “creepy stuff…relationships.”

The Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, with a perceived timing orchestrated by Worldwide Pants, held a press conference within 14 hours to announce the specifics, revealing charges brought against CBS News producer Robert “Joe” Halderman.

Worldwide Pants. Caught without their pants on. “We have a written policy in our employee manual that covers harassment. It is circulated to every employee every year. Dave is not in violation of our policy and no one has ever raised a complaint against him.” So said the statement. Letterman’s own production company. Letterman did not believe in sexual harassment? He was an agnostic when it came to sexual harassment? What about the people who did not get the promotions that his staffers got in the Worldwide Pants world?

Thursday CBS said the “48 Hours” employee charged with attempted grand larceny was suspended from his job. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau in a press conference revealed the charges against CBS News producer Robert “Joe”Halderman. Mr. Halderman has not gotten the same public forum to address the world that Letterman was given about his alleged wrong doing. There also was no word on how CBS was dealing with the issues of sexual harassment, if corporate policy was violated. What a time for those human resource staffers. Apparently CBS feels extortion from an entertainment star was a worse offense than sexual harassment of female staffers, or the collateral damage of sexual harassment.

Fox News New York has reported that according to a search warrant, Robert “Joe” Halderman’s girlfriend Stephanie Birkitt was one of the women that Letterman slept with. According to Fox News New York, Ms. Birkitt is Letterman’s former assistant. Fox News New York has reported that the search warrant states the package Halderman sent Letterman contained copies of parts of Stephanie Birkitt’s diary and correspondence.

Entertainment Tonight showed later featured appearances of Stephanie Birkitt over the years on “Late Show with David Letterman” from venues like the Winter Olympics.

Letterman was quoted on his show as saying: “I was worried for myself. I was worried for my family. I felt menaced by this. And I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done.

According to Nick Allen of the The Telegraph.co.uk, “The creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show.”

Letterman described how three weeks ago he had got in his car early in the morning, found a letter within a package saying: “I know that you do some terrible, terrible things and that I can prove you do some terrible things.” The package contained the proof, Letterman said. He called his lawyer to set up a meeting with the alleged extortionist, with two subsequent meetings, the last one resulting in the delivery of the fake check. Robert “Joe” Halderman allegedly had threatened to write a screenplay and a book about him unless Halderman was given money.

According to Nick Allen, Letterman admitted on Late Night Show Thursday night to having “had sex with women who work with me on this show. My response to that is yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Yes, it would. Especially for the women.”

According to Nick Allen of the The Telegraph.co.uk, after telling all to his audience Letterman lightened the mood. “I know what you’re saying. I’ll be darned – Dave had sex.”

So it was about hush money? The bizarre experience? The audience had scattered laughter throughout the confession.

Yeah. On with the show.

“It’s been a very bizarre experience. I felt like I needed to protect these people. I need to protect my family. I need to protect myself. Hope to protect my job.”

The bizarre experience! For the audience. An inappropriate place to make the revelation, by a host with an inappropriate sensibility about himself. A repeat offender. Someone who had to be making overtures. But on with the show. Before we gave it all too much thought. One-liners.

It might be a while before the president is going to be booking an appearance again.

Maybe Bill Clinton will show up next week to offer some support. Or guest Host Elliot Spitzer? What a time for those staffers trying to line up guests for next week.

The age of television. Performance enhancement egos and salaries. When the era of Rocky the Squirrel of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota was replaced by the era of Vigara sponsorship.

Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice

The summer of 2009. In Red Cloud Nebraska. This summer there was a bunch of students from New York University who were putting on a play. Paper Plane Theatre Company, a New York City based troupe of artists, presented a production of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice to Red Cloud. Who exactly were these guys?

Spending time and money on a production. Then came the critics. People like Frank Rich. Who exactly were these guys?

Critics. And art. And politics. In the summer of 2009.

Community organizers. Who exactly were these guys?

The summer of 2009. The health care reform debated. So was the debate about health care reform or reform how health care would be paid? These pro-choice Democrats who all agreed politics did not belong in the bedroom were now suggesting they belonged in the bed when a loved one was dying?

Those Tea Parties. Who exactly were these people that showed up at town hall meetings. The ones that the community organizer seemed to be promoting. There was a certain irony in all of this. Compared to the Boston Tea Party which was a lot more than a discussion. Compared to community organizers. So thiution?s was an overhaul or a revolution?

Budgets. Spending time and money on a production. Now having to pay attention to the money. Like in Red Cloud, Nebraska. Those art critics neverr paid much attention to the accounting of the cost of a production.

Some of the accounting involved no health care benefits for the illegals. If some kind of bloodless health care bill was going to get through Congress. Yet to me, there was a real sense of irony that these same Tea Party advocates do not question fighting a war, 2 wars, across the sea. There seemed little accounting to the purpose of it all. Taxed incomes to fight wars overseas, seemingly to export democratic values, yet not extending some basic ideals to people within borders on other life and death issues..

Health care according o the elected president in campaign 2008 was a basic human right. Yet so few humans ever had had this basic human right in human history. Anywhere.

The search for identity, when the leader, as an organizer, did not know what to do after he was organized. Community organizers to much beholden to others, without quite knowing his own self. In an era when the foundation of American ideals were shaken. By his predecessor.

Immigrants. Illegals. Critics and art. And politics. In the summer of 2009. When immigration, abortion, bailouts, and accounting departments all came together. In health care reform. With deadlines.

Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. With no intermission.

A whimsical retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus, Eurydice is the story of two lovers who strive to love each other as much as they love their ideas. Told from Eurydice’s point of view, this myth becomes real as it tracks the bittersweet passage from father to husband. From boardwalks to the Underworld, wedding receptions to houses made of string, high-rise apartments to the River of Forgetfulness, the profound humanity and sensory spectacle of Eurydice promises to carry us to new worlds. It is quite a show.

The critics seemed to have gone a bit soft, because one of the organizers was one of Nebraska’s own. A lot like Frank Rich in the summer of 2009. About promises to carry us to new worlds. Without a concern for the accounting department.

In the Wake of the Aquino Death

Cory Aquino died this week.

There had been a revolution in the Philippines after her husband who was the opposition leader had been killed.

In 1972, Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. No one knew how long it might last. Marcos effectively exiled and deported Benito Aquino, probably the most popular politician in the country. In 1983, following a kidney transplant, with access to the president curtailed by physical health issues, Imelda Marcos and Chief of Staff General Fabian Ver limited access to the president. Imelda Marcos was said to have flown to New York in May 1983 to convey that Benito Aquino would never again set foot on Philippine soil. There was total chaos as no one knew what was happening, and how the Filipinos might regain control of their country.

Benito Aquino swore to return and, in August 1983 he did, amidst the medical and political crisis. Aquino was assassinated on the tarmac of the airport as his plane landed, by one of the aircraft guards. The guard then committed suicide. Though it was widely believed that Imelda Marcos pursued the elimination of the opposition leader, the chief of staff Ver was tried for the assassination and received a not guilty verdict. The day of the verdict, Cory Aquino announced her candidacy for president, as the EDSA ‘People Power’ revolution removed the Marcos dictatorship and restored democracy in the Philippines in 1986.

The majority of the young people in the Philippines today immediately give an adjective of their Congress men and women. Corrupt is the adjective. Filipino history provides the basis for these feelings, for what occurred bother before Cory Aqunino’s election and history subsequent to her time in office.

The strength of a democracy is judged by the safety extended to journalists pursuing their stories. Th Philippines ranks next to Russia with pursuit of justice when either an opposition leader or a journalist is killed.