Excellent answer from the comedian Richard Belzer, when asked by Tavis Smiley ” is everybody creative ” Richard says ” yes, everybody is creative to some point it just takes someone, or something to influence the creative in us all “. I like that answer to a much asked question. Oh, and Tavis Smiley is also on PBS usually just before Charlie Rose.

As often as possible I will watch a Charlie Rose interview on pbs and his table which is a famous as his guests. This week was no exception, Tim Burton had a seat at the table. It is always so interesting to watch creative minds articulate their ideas.  Tim Burton discussed his past movies and Johnny Depp, while promoting his new book of his cartoons and characters used in his creative process.  This is excellent insight to another creative mind. All the past interviews are available online.

US public broadcaster PBS has unveiled an ambitious new multi-platform rebrand package, which includes over 600 elements inviting viewers to “Be More”. In development since last year, the campaign expresses the vibrancy of today’s PBS, whose content is delivered through a growing number of platforms.

From television to video streaming and beyond, PBS “gives people opportunities they may not otherwise have to explore the worlds of science, nature, history, drama, performance, how-to and more – making this public service media enterprise even more relevant and captivating than ever.”

“The new package expresses what people love best about PBS – that our shows invite everyone, from every walk of life, to explore new ideas, discover new worlds and to broaden their horizons, in other words, to be more.” explains Lesli Rotenberg, SVP, PBS Brand Management and Promotion.

John Ruppenthal, Senior Creative Director for PBS adds “It was a challenge to find a way to embody and bring to life what makes PBS unique, yet this new package does just that.” The strategic direction for the new package was developed by PBS’ Brand Management team, the creative was executed by New York based Eyeball.

The television shows mentioned in the previous blog are all great tools for gaining a better understanding of the real estate game. Following are some of Buildium’s additional honorable mentions.

• No frills, no acting, no drama … just some nice old-fashioned real estate rehab. This Old House is a time-tested staple of real estate television.
• Learn how to transform your property into a revenue producer with HGTV’s Income Property.
• Maybe a little different than your average rental, Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing follows high-end real estate brokers as they try to move property in Southern California. Due to the economy, recent episodes have even showcased some high-end rentals.
• Don’t make the same mistakes as these Property Virgins on HGTV; learn from their house hunting lessons.
• Here is yet another fun show where investors take a piece of real estate, smash it up, and create a masterpiece.  Flip This House on A&E is the perfect Saturday morning pick-me-up.

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Follow the frontline link to watch the “just released” documentary about Neda Agha-Soltan- a young woman killed during the June 20th, 2009 protests in Tehran. She is now an international symbol of the struggle for Iranian freedom.

To watch the Frontline documentary: CLICK HERE

Neda Agha- Soltan moments before her death

These three men represent what I consider the journalistic ideal. What else do they have in common? They are no longer reporting. Well, sort of. As you know, Walter Kronkite passed away in July, after a lifetime of diligent reporting and being voted “the most trusted man in America”.

Carl Kasell, the voice behind Morning Edition on NPR News since its inception in 1979, has stated that he will no longer be reporting as of December 30th, 2009. Kasell will, however, continue announcing for the NPR news quiz Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

Bill Moyers was the White House Press Secretary during the LBJ Administration, and went on to have a lengthy career with National Public Radio, as well as smaller stints on CBS and NBC. Since 2007, Moyers has hosted Bill Moyers Journal, discussing some of the most important and least-covered stories of the day with experts from multiple perspectives. I personally haven’t missed an episode of the Journal since its inception, and to me Bill Moyers represents the perfect journalist, one whose concern is uncovering the truth for the American people. Moyers is an outspoken critic of the American media, whose focus in recent years has shifted more and more to ratings and profits. Moyers is one of the few journalists who realises what “balance” truly is:

“The journalist’s job is not to achieve some mythical state of equilibrium between two opposing opinions out of some misshapen respect—sometimes, alas, reverence—for the prevailing consensus among the powers-that-be. The journalist’s job is to seek out and offer the public the best thinking on an issue, event, or story.”

Moyers has stated that he will no longer be producing the Journal as of April 30, 2010, and as of yet he does not have plans for another show. Let’s all hope that changes, for the good of America. Seriously, this man should be president.

I don’t know how I’ll feel once Kasell and Moyers are off the air; I certainly felt sick when Kronkite died. It really sucks having the wise older folks you trust no longer supplying you with vetted and insightful information. Who are we supposed to trust now?

• J.P. Morgan: U.S. Dollar Carry Trade a ‘Half Truth’
• US shoppers wait for sales
• As Black Friday Looms, Will Consumers Show Up?
• Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?
• Closed-end fund discounts explained
• Thai Capital Fund Announces Third Quarter Earnings
• Round-Up of Holiday Spending Surveys, Reports
• Most global banks are still unsafe, warns S&P
• Newspaper circulation may be worse than it looks
• Russian central bank cuts interest rates to record low
• Time to Prick the Ag Commodities Bubble
• Mayors Sound Alarm Over Drop in City Revenues
• Consumer Spending in U.S. Rises More Than Forecast
• Debunking carry-trade denial
• UK GDP revised…
• More bid rumours in the UK utility sector

After a tense day of frantic last-minute exhortations to friends and allies the world over, the voting at Reel13.org has closed, and “Be Like a Duck” has emerged victorious!  It will be broadcast on Channel Thirteen this Saturday night at 11 PM, following An Affair to Remember.

I had a lot of fun today watching the “Be Like a Duck” cause be taken up enthusiastically by my Facebook friends and e-mail contacts.  At close of voting, we had garnered 710 votes, a nice ways ahead of our closest competitor’s 645; however, that outcome was far from certain (we were behind this morning), and it took a real grass-roots effort to put us over the top.  It truly was heart-warming to see my friends and family (and their friends and family) rally around the “Duck” banner.

It’s also worth noting that the vote totals for all three films were way beyond anything seen on Reel13 in the two weeks prior.  Last week, “Spirits” won without even breaking 100!  Nothing like a little competition to get the pulse racing …

Our thanks to all those who voted.  Be sure to tune in Saturday night!

Posted by Keith

If you ever wondered about dreams, or why you sleep walk, or probably sleep talk, this documentary is definitely for you!

Coming to PBS Nov. 24, 2009. What are dreams and why do we have them? NOVA joins leading dream researchers as they embark on a variety of neurological and psychological experiments to investigate the world of sleep and dreams. http://www.pbs.org/nova/dreams/

As Lena and forensicfanatic have kindly pointed out, I can’t properly navigate the online TV listings and was therefore a week off as far as what I said was airing this Thursday.

There will be no new episodes of network shows on Thursday night.

HOWEVER,

There are still good things to watch. FOX will be airing Night At The Museum from 8pm to 10pm. NBC will be airing its NBC’s People of the Year at 9pm. And if you get KBTC (which is a local PBS station), I definitely suggest you check out The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes episodes that will be running from 8pm to midnight.

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? Yes; it’s moved, and it’s now 2 streets down from wanky liberal street.

In case you weren’t aware, some time in the past few years Sesame Street became, essentially, a left-wing propaganda vehicle.

Letter to PBS:

Sirs;

I take exception to the recent politicization of Sesame Street.

Apparently due to concerns over childhood obesity, the cookie monster doesn’t just eat cookies anymore. He eats veggies, and says cookies are a “sometimes” food. I think children will find this extremely confusing. It will even subtly indoctrinate them into the hypocrisy of our times – call something by a more attractive name, to shove something unpalatable down people’s throats. It’s a bit like politics, really. Shouldn’t he really be called the “Veggie Monster,” or even “Vegan Monster”? Perhaps not the latter – he looks too healthy to be a vegan.

C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me!

Further, I am reliably informed that the release of Seasons 1 and 2 of Sesame Street on DVD were accompanied by a parental warning(!):

“These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

I was led to believe that Sesame Street was a Children’s educational program. Therefore, I must strongly object to PBS trafficking in adults-only programming. Being a public station, certain moral standards are required, as I’m sure you will agree.

However, PBS, surely your work is not yet done?

For example, Bert and Ernie should be out protesting to have their “domestic partnership” recognized by the federal government (isn’t it time for them to come out of the closet? Does PBS hate gay people?)

Since Mr Snuffleupagus is such an endangered species, shouldn’t he be captured by the Department of the Environment and his DNA saved for posterity, while scientists perform unpleasant experiments on him (think E.T.)?

I’m quite surprised that Oscar the Grouch doesn’t already have a prescription for Prozax, Xanax, or some other lethal combination of psychotropic drugs. Otherwise, won’t he turn into a mass murderer and shoot everyone on Sesame Street? Isn’t that what we’ve been led to believe by legions of school therapists and drug companies, as well as the media? Furthermore, his name is decidedly discriminatory – shouldn’t he be called “Oscar the Emotionally Challlenged”?

If you really intend to impart educational lessons to today’s children through this program, we are in for a dire future. We’re going to end up with a race full of community organizers. But perhaps that’s what you want. And while the legions of college “graduates” in 10 years are let loose upon this world, and contribute absolutely nothing to society, where will we be? Who will actually produce something worthwhile? The rest of us, I suppose, who weren’t indoctrinated into this PC nonsense as children.

Thanks a lot, PBS.

Sincerely,

An Outraged Taxpayer

Clight

Evolution was a 2001 eight-hour miniseries from PBS that sought to increase the public understanding of science by traveling the world examining evolutionary science. The project aimed to encapsulate the impact of the theory on society and culture; while the final episode entitled What About God? addressed the impact on religion. Below is part one of episode one, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.

From YouTube:

Interweaving key moments of drama in Darwin’s life with current research, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” explores why his theory of evolution might matter even more today than it did in his own time.

Aaron Brown has two jobs. By day he’s a mild mannered journalism professor at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School in downtown Phoenix. By night (or at least, by summer) he jets all over the world from Mozambique to Jordan for his PBS series “Wide Angle.”

OK, so maybe a slightly exaggerated version of the truth. Regardless, this evening he combined the two and spoke to a mostly student group about journalism, interviews, and broadcasting from abroad. He emphasized the importance of finding compelling characters to tell the story, and gave tip like to use silence for drawing out “the most honest thing” from your interview. “if you’ve spent time with me, you’ll know I think television enters through your stomach and works its way to your brain,” said Brown, adding that for his stories he needs “a visceral reaction.”

This can be tricky when working overseas, because along with the expenses and tight scheduling, it’s difficult to do all the same pre-reporting that’s possible on your home turf, Brown said. The pressure is higher, too, because “you know you may not get a second chance at something” whether it’s filming or recording. In response to student questions about the changing media world, Brown said “the best way you can make yourself valuable is to learn something.” Reporters should “go find good stories, go find good characters – if you want to worry, worry about that – the rest can take care of itself – but you all need to be better at that, finding good material.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not unbiased when it comes to Brown. One of the odd ways in which my parents influenced me is by mentioning, frequently, the people they appreciate. I heard very often how they’d watch Brown in their Seattle days. It’s been some time and changes since then. I never expected that someone I grew up hearing about this way would be someone I’d actually seen in person let alone pass in the hallway on a regular basis, and it leaves me a little more tongue tied than it’s cool to admit. Yet one of the things I’m growing to appreciate about journalism and reporters is that so far, all the ones I’ve met are more than willing to sit down and talk about what they do. Brown is no exception to that precedent, and once again, I felt I learned a lot.

Thanks to The East Valley Tribune for the picture above.

Apropos of what we’ll be discussing for much of next week, this episode of PBS’ Nature series discusses the relationship between humans and our classic domesticated pets – cats and dogs. Through expert interviews, a visit to a Humane Society shelter, and owner-bios reminiscent of the famous couple scenes from When Harry Met Sally, the show seeks to explain – or at least explore – the bonds between pets and their humans.

It’s easy to get indignant about humans domestication of certain animals – we’re asserting our dominance! we’re pretending we rule the globe! we’re stripping them of their natural wild natures! – it’s also important to remember that we evolved alongside our domesticated animals, both pet and pastoral, and through this coevolution we all have become different creatures. Marc Bekoff, a former Guggenheim fellow and Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Boulder who is interviewed extensively in the episode, explains that these bonds of coevolution are strengthened by the presence of mirror neurons in both humans and common pets – that is, dogs and cats. Mirror neurons are what enable us to feel the emotions of another creature, be they of our species or another. As Bekoff puts it, they are “the neural basis for empathy…[required] for the formulation and maintenance of social bonds.” In other words, that prize human emotion – the one that leads to self-awareness, to social structure, to emotional relationships – is, in fact, not human at all.

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t point out the often elitist – or at least excessively moral – human paradigm that we, as a species, tend to impose on the rest of the planet’s animals. And it’s important to note that these animals are not human – they are close to us, but they are not, and never will be the same as us. As one of the dog owners interviewed in the opening sequence says, “they’re another tribe…and what I really love about dogs and cats is that they’re not like us.”

So watch the documentary. Though be warned, it might bring you to tears –I know it did me – the kind of hot, messy, gut-wrenching tears that we seem to save for the inevitable goodbyes to our pets.

Time-lapse video of Pearl Jam created by Jonathan H. Jackson from photographs he took every 6 seconds from 9:09AM – 11:29PM. Apparently over 10,000 images were taken of this Austin City Limits performance which was taped on October 3rd, 2009!

Watch the full performance at the Austin City Limits website. Or click here for more info, photos and video about this episode.

What if our smallest actions do matter? What if the frown we gave the clerk at Walgreen’s was the last straw of a bad day? What if we’d smiled instead? There’s a theory out there called the Butterfly Effect. It’s about a small change in an unstable system, like the weather, and how a small change can affect a big outcome. There’s a whole lot around it, the chaos theory and other things, but aren’t we, the human race, an unstable system? Hate and love lie equally in us. What if all our tiny violences, the frown, the cruel thought, the curse at someone whose driving upsets us, matter? What if our least thought is important? That would mean a responsibility almost too big to comprehend. We so small and yet our place in the scheme of things so much more than we realize…..

(This was motivated by watching the role of a wasp in a PBS Masterpiece Contemporary piece called Collision.)

The Wireless connection.

Keep twisting those knobs there guys and you’ll get there eventually or else just press play.

I have spent the day watching television just as I once did on this date in 1963.

It began with PBS “Bill Moyers Journal”, an hour-long program of Lyndon Johnson’s telephone tapes with his military and civilian advisors trying to wrestle with the complications of Vietnam.

Take out “Vietnam” from the conversations and insert Afghanistan and Iraq and you might be overhearing the conversations that are going on in Washington these past months in the lead-up to President Obama’s announcement about our course in that war.

It was chilling.  It was presented without contemporary commentary as the listener provided all the stunning parallel to make the point.

Next, were several installments of another PBS program, “American Experience” about Native Americans.  One that miraculously told the truth.  As one of the narrators in the introduction states, “what happened here was nothing short of ethnic cleansing.”

Yes.  This is the program that Ken Burns should have done rather than the National Parks.  I’m not sure there’d be an IPHONE App for this bit of American history, though.

As I began to feel glued and cemented into the chair, another American Experience program followed about the Kennedy family.  It was not the idealized hagiography that one might expect on this anniversary of JFK’s assassination, but fearless in presenting the strengths as well as the profound weaknesses of their personal as well as public behavior.

So, now, it’s time to turn it off.  I’m not in a college “smoker” room as I was in 1963, but I’m feeling a bit shaky just as I did all those years ago.

I could change the channel and watch professional football, The New England Patriots and the NY Jets pummel one another into the ground.

Somehow, history and sport all seem like the same thing to me in my shakiness.

Cocoa with marshmallow is the only option.

©Pat Coakley 2009

PHOTOGRAPHY CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Published on PBS FRONTLINE
24 November 2009

In May 1985, federal agents arrested a 47-year-old retired Navy chief warrant officer on charges that he had spent the better part of two decades spying and providing top secret U.S. documents to the Soviet Union. It was a headline story for weeks and one of the last major spy cases of the Cold War era.Details emerged that the man, John Anthony Walker, Jr., had provided codes for more than 200,000 encrypted naval messages to the KGB and organized a spy ring in what was considered by many to be one of the most damaging cases of espionage in the United States.

What caused a 10-year veteran of the U.S. Navy to become a spy? According to the FBI, Walker’s motivations were strictly financial. In 1966, he had taken out a large loan to open a bar in South Carolina, but the bar was a failure. Mounting debt and the financial pressures of having to provide for a wife and four children are what motivated him to drive four hours from his duty station in Norfolk, Va. to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. For the next 18 years, Walker provided the KGB with classified documents in exchange for a weekly salary ranging from $500 to $1,000.

Twenty-four years later, the case highlights the reason why the Department of Defense continues to fight to protect its military personnel from accumulating unmanageable debt.

Matters of National Security

“When you’re entrusting an individual with classified information, any sort of weakness that can be exploited by our adversaries to try and garner that information, like finances, is a factor that needs to be considered,” Air Force Lt. Col. David Silverman, commander of the 21st Force Support Squadron, told FRONTLINE.

In 2008, the Navy reported that financial issues accounted for roughly 80 percent of security clearance revocations and denials — approximately 1,500 sailors out of 330,000 active-duty Navy personnel. Cpt. Mark Patton, chief of staff for the Navy Installations Command, told FRONTLINE that security clearance revocations seriously impact a unit’s mission readiness. When one service member is unable to deploy because he or she cannot obtain a security clearance, he explained, the military is often forced to deploy another service member sooner than expected or extend a deployment in order to fill that void. “Any time the nation is at war, any issue that affects your operational readiness and prevents a service member from carrying out his duties and responsibilities is a significant issue,” Patton said.

A 2005 study commissioned by the Department of Defense showed that the U.S. military, excluding the Army, revoked 2,654 clearances that year due to financial problems, up from 284 in 2002, the year before the invasion of Iraq. During that four-year period, more than 6,300 troops from the Navy, Air Force and Marines lost their clearances because of financial troubles. (Figures were not available for the Army, the largest branch of the military.)

Retired Navy commander David Julian, the director of personal finance for the Defense Department, told FRONTLINE that financial problems could affect a service member’s performance during missions. “If we’ve got a service member who’s deployed, potentially in harm’s way, they’ve got to be thinking about the important tasks at hand,” Julian said. “They can’t be thinking about their personal finances at home.”

Money Management Skills

Like most Americans in their late teens or early 20s, new recruits have received little financial education before entering the military. Members of the armed forces earn more money during a deployment — from hazard pay, tax-free income and separation pay — and military financial counselors from bases across the country report that many of these troops return home with little understanding on how to manage it, often finding themselves in financial danger.

Since 1994, the military has mandated financial literacy programs for troops. “Long before the current economic crisis, DoD has valued the financial education of service members and family members, [and] provided them access to resources and programs,” Julian said. “When the current economic crisis hit, we were able to fall back on those controls we already had in place to help our service members be financially ready.”

Betty Geren, who oversees financial education for soldiers and families at Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the 101st Airborne Division, said her department provides mandatory financial education for all first-term soldiers. Staff also provide one-on-one counseling, pull CarFax and credit reports, and assess if a soldier qualifies for a low-interest or no-interest loan. Through a debt liquidation program, the department can also negotiate lower monthly payments and interest rates for a soldier in severe financial trouble. “I think we’re better educating them when they first get here,” said Geren, who has taught financial education for more than 15 years. “And I see more soldiers coming in to be proactive about their finances.”

The Military Lending Act and Other Provisions

Congress has also played a part in protecting the financial security of the nation’s forces. When senior military officials recognized that one of the biggest obstacles to the financial security of its troops was the proliferation of payday lenders — small short-term loan centers that come with extraordinary high interest rates — which popped up near bases in the last decade, Congress took action.

In 2007, lawmakers passed the Military Lending Act, which put an interest rate cap of 36 percent on loans made to service members and their dependents. It requires lenders to disclose the terms of the loan information in writing with a clear description of the payment obligations, the annual percentage rate and fees associated with the loan. The act also prohibits lenders from rolling over debt from one loan to another and from using a personal check or vehicle title as collateral for the loan. Since the act was implemented, it has effectively banned payday lenders from capitalizing on a service member’s debt.

The Military Lending Act is not the only provision in place to assist members of the armed forces, Julian said. Since the Civil War, the government has passed several laws designed to protect the rights and property of service members at war. A 1940 bill included a provision that caps all interest rates on debt accrued prior to active duty service at 6 percent. The bill’s protections were expanded further in 2003, when it was renamed the Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act.

Even with established educational and support programs, Julian said the next step is to expand and improve the financial services for military personnel. “If we can get our service members to understand the right way to do things financially and have the awareness of the programs that are out there,” he said, “then that’ll help solve 90 percent of the problem.”

Watch the accompanying PBS FRONTLINE story that aired on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, for which I was the associate producer.