Welcome to Beautiful Prague!

I’ve been here a week now – the transition from the metro New York area to a small, Central European country 20 years out of Communism a little rough around the edges as usual.

It’s not that I don’t know the country and Prague, its architecturally legendary capital - well. I’ve been working summers here for 4 years now – and my husband and I have spent vacations here with an adopted Czech family since 1990.
But every time I think I have it down flat – this living in a foreign land – the country calls my bluff.

The transit unions were supposed to hold a huge general strike last Monday. They want to stop the social system reforms that are necessary here as well as in Greece and Spain. The unions would shut down Prague and other Czech cities, halt all trains, blockade major highways and roads. Wait– I forgot. That last part – the blockade – would be courtesy of the miners’ union. I’m not sure what they have to do with running the trams and buses and trains – but hey ---let’s all pile on.

Everyone, including me, was in a panic. How would we get to work on Monday.

My boss said – quite seriously – you might want to bike. Well, OK, that’s fine for full time Praguers. But I’m working here just 2 months. I haven’t GOT a bike. Or a car. Well, then, people said, call a taxi. But again – what about the huge traffic jams which were predicted? Walk? I don’t think so. I’m maybe 7 miles as the crow flies from work. And not even crows can fly in a straight line through Prague’s meandering streets.

As it turned out –the government pulled a fast one on the unions. It went to court. And on Saturday, the Prague Municipal Court ruled the strike would be illegal because the unions didn’t give the required 3 business days notice. They could strike but they’d be liable for all the financial damages the court could assess. Kind of like New York’s Taylor Law which forbids public employee strikes.

So the unions reassessed, called off the strike, and announced it Monday for Thursday. Quite legal now. And it did indeed shut down much of the city and to a lesser extent, parts of the country. The trains didn’t run. The Metro was closed for the first time ever. But officials managed to get the basic tram system running – slowly. And there were some city buses and some private buses contracted for the day.
The unions held a medium-sized rally and march through the city to the government’s offices. By New York standards – everyone was extremely well behaved.

People who had to get to work, did. I saw a lot more cars speeding down our street at 7AM. And lots and lots of bikes. Even a taxi or two.

But the anticipated traffic jams never developed. In fact – all over the city and the highways that feed into it – it was like a holiday. No trucks, almost no cars. A lot of Praguers just took a 4 day weekend. No wonder they mostly supported the unions!

And then there is the matter of my package.

You see, on my flight to Prague I didn’t want my checked bag to be overweight again. Delta has some pretty stiff fees if you so much as go one pound over the limit. Which keeps getting lower every year.

So before I left, I mailed a small, 4 and a half pound box of vitamins and supplements from myself in the US, to myself here in Prague. I figured the package would arrive around the time I did. And that it did. Arrived at the customs office of the Czech Post Office that is. And there is stayed with thousands of other packages. All held up by a new regulation which came into effect in April, which requires every foreign package to go to this customs office first – so the postal employees can determine if you will be required to pay for the privilege of collecting your package.

Technically, if the contents are valued at less than 22 euros, you don’t have to pay any duty. The Czechs – desperate for money to cut the huge budget deficit below 3% - lowered that valuation from 75 euros – which was already pretty low. And technically, if a package is sent from another European Union country, it’s supposed to sail right through and get delivered in a timely fashion.

Ha!

The notice of my package’s whereabouts which was supposed to be sent to me never arrived. And a week after the US Post Office traced it to the Czech customs office, I traced it as well on the Czech Post Office website. At least they have an English option!

So today I got up early, took all my tracking printouts and US customs declarations – and took a bus, a metro and a tram to Prague 5, the section of the city where this customs post office is located. I managed to find the right floor, reading directions in my very limited Czech. And I lucked out. A very nice postal employee who spoke more English than I do Czech helped me out. And an hour and three additional office visits later, I had my stamped declaration and I could stand in a very long line to collect my package.

But this is the Czech Republic. It wasn’t that easy.

Most of the people in the line were Czechs. Very angry and loud Czechs by the time they got to the final window and discovered the payoff for their wasted morning.

You see, the nice man in the first office explained to me, Czechs are buying all this stuff over the internet instead of in the proper Czech stores which charge them the country’s 20% value added tax. You know – we talk about using it in the US also. It’s like a sales tax on steroids. And over here in Europe where some countries have VATs as high as 24%, the money collected underpins the extensive social safety net. Which is now becoming a lot less extensive, even as the VAT keeps rising. Thus – Thursday’s transit union strike.

The Czech government thinks Czechs are cheating. They think the online stores - like Amazon for example – are in cahoots with the Czech buyers, valuing packages low so their customers can escape paying any duties which might be imposed.

So everyone who buys anything over the internet now has to jump through hoops to get it, and then pay up as well. And what about me – who mailed vitamins already bought and paid for in the US to myself here in Prague? Well, sorry. But I have to pay up too. 96 crowns to get my own vitamins. That’s around $6 dollars. About what I would pay in VAT taxes on the (purposely low) valuation I put on my package.

When in Prague… do as – well you know the rest.

James Tate and the Happy Ending

James Tate, the senior from Shelton, Connecticut, is going to his prom after all.

That's the lede -- as we often spell it in the newsroom.

But this is more than just a happy ending for a Connecicut teenager.

One of the reasons many of us love working as local news reporters is the ability to take one person's story and tell it to the world. The world can then make up its own mind about good or bad, fair or unfair, right or wrong.

But even if it's a story that speaks for itself -- it needs a platform. That's us -- News at 6, or 10 or 11. Radio. Blogs, websites, Facebook, apps. Even the Grey Lady. That's The New York Times for those of you who think Facebook and Twitter are the media of record.

So all of us with our platforms -- we huffed and we puffed and we blew the house down.

And why is James Tate going to his senior prom? Without saying she was right or wrong, Shelton's headmaster said the "international" pressure was too distracting. Getting in the way of what a high school is supposed to do. As in teach.

But the story of one romantic kid - which captivated the media and everyone else - is all about teaching.

Teaching us again - us reporters - why we're here in the first place. (The idealistic part about telling someone's story).

Teaching school officials (who should have known) about the power of social media -- and how the mainstream media are now interwoven with Facebook and Twitter.

And perhaps teaching James Tate and his fellow teenagers that there are consequences to every action -- even if all you wanted to do was ask a girl to the prom.

James Tate and the Shelton High School Prom

All anyone in this part of the country can talk about is a romantic kid from Shelton, Connecticut named James Tate -- who has been banned from his high school’s senior prom.

And what terrible thing did this teenager do? He and friends taped some big block cardboard letters up on the school’s outside wall – at 1AM – asking a girl to be his date to the prom. “HMU – Tate” said the signature. In a more elegant age he might have said call me. But this is 2011—so he said HMU. As in “hit me up”. Which, when I was going to my senior prom, was all about lending someone some money. As in “I’ll hit Dad up for the money for the prom tickets”.

OK – back to 2011. The girl said yes. But the high school’s headmaster Beth Smith said no. Seems she wasn’t amused. Nor did she think – like 99 percent of us – that this was a most creative way to ask someone to the senior prom. No – the headmaster thought that James Tate had been trespassing, being that it was 1AM and such, and by trespassing, had broken school rules. So she suspended Tate for one day.

If that had been all she did, I wouldn’t be writing about this because it probably wouldn’t have become the story of the moment on Twitter and Facebook – not to mention the mainstream media. No, it seems there are school policies at Shelton High. And, she said, school policy is that if you get suspended – you don’t go to your senior prom. Period the end.

But it’s NOT the end. James Tate has made network television appearances. Shelton’s Mayor thinks maybe the headmaster should revisit her decision. I’m writing about it along with hundreds of other reporters and bloggers. Not to mention all the tweets and comments and Facebook support page “likes”.

Some people think maybe we are all a little bats to make such an issue out of what is really just a school disciplinary matter.

But really, that’s not the point. At least not to me.

First of all, one’s senior prom is an event to be remembered for a lifetime. The right to those memories shouldn’t be cancelled for something that harmed no one. There was no violence. No one was bullied on Facebook or anywhere else. Tate didn’t flunk his finals. He’s going on to college.

And if I had a business which could use such a guy – I’d hire him in a minute!

It seems to me what America needs most these days is creativity and some derring-do. People who can come up with new ideas, new ways of doing things. And yet link them to the old ways so that all of us who aren’t 18 aren’t frightened off by those ideas. Well – finding a creative way to ask a girl to a prom is probably as old as proms themselves. We can all identify. And at a time when Tate could have used any number of digital, new media ways to reach his target – he chose one everyone could appreciate. Except of course Shelton High’s headmaster.

Come on Beth Smith. Give the guy a break. Bend your rules. Let him do the community service he’s volunteered to do. Cut off a lock of his hair maybe.

But reward his creativity – don’t stifle it.

Or maybe just reward a romantic deed in an age that is more about Lady Gaga than Rhett Butler.

And James Tate – when you graduate from Syracuse University – if you need a reference for that first real job – HMU. You know where I live. On Facebook.

It's a Wonderful Town

I haven’t spent much time in Manhattan lately.

Not by choice; it’s still the most magical place in the world to me – even if the Times Square neon – er-- video is somewhat over-the-top these days.

Actually it’s a good thing Mayor Bloomberg forced that pedestrian zone down our throats; Times Square was an accident waiting to happen. I remember trying to drive down Broadway at dusk ---so mesmerized by the video displays I hardly noticed the cars and pedestrians in the gridlock around me.

OK. So there I was yesterday -- running from meeting to meeting – and wondering if all those construction jobs lost when the housing bubble burst had somehow migrated to Manhattan. Recessionary construction slowdown? Are you kidding? There must be some kind of building going up on virtually every corner. And remember “dig we must for a growing New York”? Well so does Con Ed. It’s still digging. Everywhere.

So the traffic is as bad as ever. Maybe worse. Why am I not surprised?

And maybe it’s because I haven’t been rushing around in awhile – but is there ANYONE on ANY street who’s paying attention to ANYTHING?? New Yorkers have always been famously self-absorbed – gazes narrowed to block out the “other”. But this is getting ridiculous. It’s not just the hordes talking to themselves anymore (sorry, I mean talking into those little hanging mics connected to their cellphones). Now they’re texting, watching videos on their iPhones, you name it. Sure I brush by people occasionally when I’m weaving in and out of sidewalk crowds. I usually murmur – “sorry.” Or “excuse me”. It’s kind of automatic. But not with the texting hordes. They aren’t even aware their backpacks or shopping bags sideswiped anyone. They’re not aware of ANYTHING! And if it’s annoying on the sidewalks -- try driving in midtown. People don’t even look before they wander off the curb into the traffic. Talk about being in your own world! The problem is --- I’m sharing your world – whether or not you want me to!

Could someone please send all these people a text message – to look – before they leap? Er… walk?

Thank you.

Getting Real: Wisconsin, Washington and Fixing America

It’s very hard to sit here outside the closed circle of America’s political posturers – elected, appointed and self-appointed – and not go ballistic.

We need to stop being Republicans and Democrats and Tea Partiers and Liberals -- and start rethinking everything. We need to look at what works in other countries and in some of our states. And just as important – what DOESN’T work. We have to change. Fast.

And ideologues need not apply.

The total US debt is moving toward 15 and a half TRILLION dollars. PIMCO’s Bill Gross has dumped all the treasuries he held in his benchmark Total Return Fund

So yes – the GOP is right. We DO have to pull back. But cutting all the funding for public broadcasting won’t help.

On the state level, according to State Budget Solutions, unfunded pension obligations now exceed 1 trillion dollars. The Congressional Budget Office projects Social Security will run dry by 2037. Medicare costs for everyone – recipients and taxpayers - are out of control.

I pay taxes just like most everyone else. So here’s what I think.

On the state level, I agree there need to be changes to public union medical and pension plans. But we don’t have to let Republicans destroy public unions (and the few private ones that are left). We all know the real reason for the Wisconsin collective bargaining farce.

That said -- remember most federal government workers don’t have collective bargaining – but most of us would be thrilled with their benefits. The benefit packages for public employees were originally created to make up for lower than private sector salaries. Well that’s long gone

So it’s time for states and union leaders to sit down and reason together. Look at salaries in both private and public sectors. Look at benefits. Average it all out. Relatively few taxpayers who aren’t working for government still have traditional pensions. And we pay a huge part of our own health insurance and medical costs. It may not be particularly civilized. But it’s reality.

It would be very, very unfair to cut pensions and raise medical costs unduly for workers who have already retired or who are within 5 years of retiring. They can’t recoup.

So let’s start with a cutoff age. Say 50. Everyone younger – including state and federal workers – should have to wait until at least 68 before collecting pensions, Social Security and Medicare. Maybe even 70 since we’re all, supposedly, living so much longer. Unless you’re medically unable to work. Now this doesn’t mean you’d HAVE to work until you hit 68. It just means you couldn’t collect any public retirement money till then. If you’ve saved enough to tide you over --- well just as always, you can “retire” whenever you can afford to. We also, however, need to strengthen our age discrimination laws and enforcement if we want people to work longer. Age discrimination is very hard to prove now and in the name of saving money companies routinely lay off the highest paid people. Who are often the oldest people.

We need to change completely how we pay for medical procedures and drugs under Medicare. Right now the government pays per item. Which encourages doctors who don’t think Medicare pays them enough to do every unnecessary test and procedure they can think of. Even during routine physicals. And patients are often prescribed expensive drugs because it’s quicker and easier than counseling them to change the behavior or lifestyle that’s causing the problem. Moreover we must, must, MUST get all medical records into digital form. Online so any doctor can see any patient’s total history. Because Medicare allows patients to choose their doctors and see as many as they wish, costs are often ratcheted up when someone goes from doctor to doctor until she gets the drug or procedure she wants. Regardless of necessity.

I’m no economist but logic suggests that just raising the age to get pensions and Medicare coverage - as well as reforming the way Medicare is structured - would probably keep the system solvent through at least another generation’s retirement. If not beyond.

If we’re going to ask or require Americans to finance more of their own retirement -- we also need to change the way money flows through the stock, options, and bond markets. High frequency and general electronic trading in huge blocks has made it very difficult for the small, retail investor - no matter how smart -- to do well in the market. You have to be on it every minute and still the block traders will set up their servers right next to those of the NYSE (for example) where their computer-programmed flash trades will overwhelm any individual trade you might try to make. Which leaves average Americans with just one choice beyond low-paying CD’s: put all your money in the hands of big fund managers. Many of them the same people who bought into the derivatives bubble which caused the financial crisis. Thank you – but no.

So if this crop of legislators and leaders and government agency managers won’t drop the posturing -- let’s have a giant recall election (kind of like a country-wide tag sale) and replace them all with pragmatists. Who will look at what DOES work and what CAN work and forget about which party comes up with the idea.

In other words – they’ll get real.

The King's Speech

No I am not writing another rave review about the film which is leading the pack with 12 Oscar nominations – although I – like so many others – loved what I consider a great psychological-historical drama.

But it is worth noting that King George VI made his speech to his nation – and the rest of the World War 2 players - in English. Not French. Not German – although it was certainly meant for Hitler and the German nation as much as his own. Not Spanish, not Italian, not Dutch. English.

So what’s the point?

The United Kingdom – like the United States – does not have an official language. But unofficially – for all important speeches, documents, legal papers etc – the language is English. Despite the ethnic variety of the British population these days --- 96% - according to Wikipedia – claim to speak English well or very well.

Americans as we all know came – and still come -- from everywhere. All kinds of ethnic groups, all kinds of languages. But the language of the British King at the time of the US Revolution was English. And American English – as a distinct dialect separate from British English – has become the lingua franca of the developed world.

Except here. In the US.

All through our history, people came to America speaking their native languages. And as fast as they could –they learned English. Oh perhaps not the King’s English. But enough to get around and read the Daily News – New York’s mostly picture tabloid. Not that there weren’t stores and newspapers and churches for immigrants where they could enjoy a little bit of “home”. But the idea wasn’t to preserve “home” – after all they had come to America for a better life. And so they and their children rapidly integrated into the melting pot.

That doesn’t seem to be happening the same way today. We have large pockets of immigrants who never learn English, never melt into the pot.

And what reminded me of that was an article in an industry magazine called TV Technology which listed some of what the FCC laid on Comcast before its 4-1 approval of the NBCUniversal acquisition. The requirement that stood out was “more Spanish language programming”.

NBC already owns a Spanish language network – Telemundo – with its own network of broadcast stations. In fact there is so much Spanish language media in the US that an immigrant who lives and works in – say – New York City’s Washington Heights can get by comfortably without learning a word of English.

It may not be P-C to say this but no nation can survive without a shared language and a body of shared customs and knowledge. I spend a lot of time in the Czech Republic and have been trying to learn the language for years. It’s a difficult language and I know just enough to get around. But you can bet that if I moved there permanently – instead of just for a few summer months – I would be in school until I could read, write and speak at least everyday Czech. In fact if I wanted to become a permanent resident – and get the equivalent of our “green card” to work there – I’d HAVE to learn the language well enough to pass a written test. I think it’s a great idea. It IS, after all, The CZECH Republic. Not the English Republic.

We don’t need MORE Spanish language media. Or Chinese or Russian or Korean media. We need more emphasis on learning English. And the easiest way to do that is from TV, music, film and the like. It’s how many people in other countries learn English. It’s one way I try to learn Czech – watching children’s TV shows or reading the news crawl on the 24 hour Czech language news channel – dictionary and grammar book at hand.

If you are never forced out of your comfort zone, you never learn and grow. And a country where virtually every automated 800 number is answered “press 1 for Spanish” is not forcing a large and growing segment of our population to move forward.

What has become a de facto two language policy doesn’t do anyone any favors. It’s not the way to nation-build. And it’s not the way to grab onto the American dream. Which is – after all – why every immigrant came here in the first place.

LinkedIn Is Not Twitter

For me – social media began with LinkedIn. I joined it years ago – because it made sense. If you free lance or have your own production company as I do (both), networking virtually beyond your immediate circle of colleagues and contacts makes excellent sense. Especially if you hate networking the old fashioned way as much as I do. And if you are ultimately as bad at it as I am.

Have I ever gotten a job outright from LinkedIn? I don’t think so. But I don’t think that’s the idea – even though I’ve never fully milked the network’s potential. I’ve learned ways to solve problems from others in my profession. I’ve been able to mine my network and even those of my connections for ideas or expertise. And perhaps most important – I’ve stayed alive professionally during times of extreme drought. And anyone who’s ever sat at home desperately looking for work -- feeling totally invisible – knows what that’s all about.

But something has happened to the LinkedIn I’ve known all these years. It’s beginning to look a lot like Twitter. And Facebook. Each of which has its own purpose. Something users –perhaps addled from all that facetime online –seem to be forgetting.

Instead of seeing professional or educational updates when I check my network, I see tweets. And retweets. Sometimes about where my connection is vacationing (OK if it’s upscale enough it might qualify as a “status” update). Sometimes it’s a shortened link to a news story someone likes. But didn’t personally produce, write, shoot or report. The whole purpose of LinkedIn is being lost in a maze of nothingness.

I too write about nothing – although certainly not as stylishly as Seinfeld did. I LIKE writing about nothing sometimes. But that’s what my Facebook page is for. Where my friends hang out. Where we can get together and throw comments back and forth and feel like a little community – if only on some server someplace. I want LinkedIn reserved for work and education – so there’s someplace in this virtual world of sharing and liking and commenting and loss of individuality – where I can shut the office door, turn off the texts and chats – and just - well – network professionally. Sort of what LinkedIn advertises. Ya know?

Since I’m a journalist --- I use all media for journalistic purpose. I tweet and retweet information and stories on Twitter – which links to my Facebook page. I search the lists I’ve constructed on Twitter for good leads. I follow people who do the same thing I do.

Do I occasionally post something self serving to LinkedIn, which is then processed to Twitter and ends up on my Facebook page? Of course. I'm going to post this. Ultimately – if you’re a news person – everything is useable, everyone you know a possible source. (Yes, even your grandmother sometimes.) And in this incredibly competitive, 24/7 newsroom of a world --- if you don’t promote yourself all the time, you’ll be run over and buried under a heap of social software – by someone who does.

So please – give me my LinkedIn back. Keep your story links and shopping sprees and Starbucks double lattes for the other social media. I’ll even join you there. We’ll do lunch. Virtually.
Just NOT on LinkedIn.

Whither Dental Insurance?

Good Grief Charlie Brown! I had oral surgery today – but that isn’t the news. The procedure is fairly common and with anesthesia – painless. I couldn’t face sitting with my mouth open for an hour while a surgeon performed micro-surgery on my uncooperative, failed-root-canal-tooth. Anesthesia didn’t change the mouth open part (and people who know me will probably say I never shut it anyhow). But I didn’t have to know what was going on or hear it. If dental surgery can ever be considered “comfortable” – this was it.

Until I had to pay for it.

I have some dental insurance in my plan. It pays only, however, for preventive measures – like teeth cleaning and necessary xrays before getting a tooth filled. It doesn’t pay for the filling. Or the crown. Or the oral surgery.

So as I was sitting in the recovery room holding ice to my gauze-stuffed cheek – the moment of truth arrived. My credit card (or more accurately my husband’s because I couldn’t get mine out with just one available hand; the other, you’ll remember, was holding the ice pak) was taken and the receipt returned.

$2100. And that didn’t included the $350 or so for the initial consultation and the panoramic xray needed to be sure my remaining 2 wisdom teeth - never to be touched without major jaw surgery – weren’t affected. The nice lady at Guardian said oh yes –that panoramic xray would have been eligible for the 75% reimbursement. Except that the plan only allows for one set of full-mouth xrays every 5 years. And I had a set back in ’09. Every 5 years???? Whose mouth stays the same for 5 years?????

Back to the $2100. It could have been $400 less if I had opted to stay awake and totally panicked for the surgery. I figured I could live without a few things for myself at Macy’s when I start my Christmas shopping. I needed that IV drip!!!

What do people do who need emergency dental procedures – and who aren’t as lucky as I am? Who simply don’t have that money? Maybe pay it off over 2 years? I didn’t see anything in the surgeon’s office about installment plans.

Why isn’t dentistry in general simply included with our regular health insurance plans? After all – you can get pretty sick and cost the health care system a pretty big chuck of change from a tooth or gum infection. In fact a bad tooth left untreated can do more than make you sick. It can kill you. Not having your teeth – or for that matter your eyes – tied into your regular health insurance makes absolutely no sense at all.

Until you talk to your dentist.

I asked mine and his answer was that the various dental associations –which ostensibly represent their members – don’t want the hassle of dealing with a broken insurance system. One that will cost each dentist additional time and money. Dentists would have to hire full time insurance clerks – the way physicians do. One of the reason group practices are so common. So the dentists deal with maybe one half-baked dental insurer --- which most of their patients don’t use even if they are lucky enough to have separate dental insurance. And they charge the rates they wish to charge without all the red tape medical doctors must deal with --- not the least of which involves Medicare and Medicaid.

So -- no pressure from dentists and oral surgeons to be included in the health insurance system. Or maybe pressure applied by their lobbyists in the other direction. As in “don’t you dare, Congressman so and so, to include us in that new health insurance law”.

As a result, I paid $2100 out of my own pocket today. And considered myself among the lucky ones.

I Have Seen the Future at the NY Times

I have seen the future at the New York Times. And it’s not pretty for those of us who love real newspapers.

Now I’m no Luddite; I Tweet and Facebook like all you other addicts. I truly love my iPhone 4 and I read the Times as well as many other digital news sites via their very convenient apps. But there are times when nothing but the real thing will do.

Although it’s somewhat thinner these days – the Sunday Times is still the benchmark all other news outlets must match. I remember lining up at the nearest Manhattan newsstand waiting for 9PM on Saturday nights. That’s when the Sunday paper hit the stands – and you could take it home and sit on the floor with a glass of wine (and perhaps a boyfriend) and discover the weekend world. It was pure indulgence. That mess around you of sections read – or skimmed and kept for later – was a ritual I shared with all my friends and most of my fellow workers. It defined Saturday night in the city – when as often as not you read the Times first, and then headed to a midnight showing of a film – or down to some tiny cellar restaurant in Chinatown for the real deal.

And the future? It’s called Times Reader 2.0. Not, apparently, a totally new offering but now powered by Adobe Air. Bottom line, with 2.0 you can download the entire day’s edition of the NY Times to your laptop in – well – in a Flash. And take it with you to read whenever. Essentially what you can do on the regular website –but without the need for an internet connection –unless you want to keep your “paper” updated.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger said flat out there will be no more printed version of the paper at some time in the future? He didn’t say when, but with advertising and readership continuing to fall, that time is probably sooner rather than later. Times Reader 2.0 is free for two weeks – and then you’ll need a subscription – priced cheaply for now at $4.62 a week.

I’m gonna miss those Saturday nights in the city even more when newsprint becomes extinct. Something to look at in a museum. Under glass. Remember how it feels, folks. Especially when you’re eating that greasy New York hot dog with one hand and holding that nicely absorbent newspaper with the other. Try doing that with your laptop’s touchpad. Or – Heaven forefend – your iPhone.

The Record Industry Deserves to Die

The recording industry deserves to die a long and miserable death. Not because of its long-standing talent policies. I don’t have a garage band. Not because of copyright issues. I don’t share my music indiscriminately over the internet. Not even because recordings cost too much. I am probably one of iTunes’ best customers and also have an active Amazon.com account.

No – the recording industry deserves to die because it is so paranoid about someone “stealing” a track or an album that when someone does buy a CD ---it simply can’t be opened! Or to put it another way --- “It’s the packaging, stupid!”

Now as I already said – I can download with the best of them; my iPhone’s iPod is expanding exponentially. But when I’m driving long distances – I still like to slip a CD into the player. My Mini Cooper has a fantastic sound system.

Except – I can’t.

A new CD arrived in the mail a few days ago – and without thinking I wrestled it out of its seemingly steel-clad Amazon cardboard mailer (another column perhaps?) and put it in the car. Without removing the cellophane from the CD album cover itself.

What was I thinking? Or NOT thinking?

Of course I couldn’t open the CD. Couldn't play it when I wanted to. Had to bring it back to the house and spend 10 minutes with a knife trying to get the cellophane off first – and then the really impossible seal that covers one side of the plastic cover-- keeping the CD intact from the prying fingers of the person who legitimately bought the damn thing and legitimately expects to play it.

Why, I asked myself for the 100th time, would anyone want to buy a packaged CD when you can download one in a couple of minutes for less money – and enjoy it immediately???

As far as I’m concerned the record companies killed themselves with impenetrable packaging. They took all the joy out of buying a recording you can actually hold in your hands. Their way of doing business is as dead as the Dodo. And despite my collection of 78’s, 45’s, LP’s, tapes and CD’s (don’t bother Merv Block; I know but they just don’t look right without the apostrophe) I’m ready to give up on the hard stuff.

As I said earlier – the record industry deserves to die and I hope the merchandising wizards are interred wrapped in their own preposterous packaging.

Boomers Looking for Work

Would someone like to explain to me how people in their 50’s -- who used to be considered at the peak of their earning curve – are going to make it through their (excuse me for throwing up) “golden years”?

All I ever read and hear about is how the imminent retirement of the baby boom generation is going to bankrupt social security and the nation. Hey guys – where have you been? Most boomers didn’t have the savings to retire before the recession. Remember all that talk about needing to work into your 70’s? Now – even with the improvement in the stock market since the recession ended –it may take 10 years or more for a 401K to get back just to where it was in 2007, when the financial crisis began. And even if you actually have some cash stashed away in income-producing savings – that income has been reduced to virtually nothing as interest rates have fallen.

So today I glance at the front page of the New York Times and there it is. What so many people know already. People over 50 have been losing their jobs in droves – and aren’t likely to find new ones anytime soon.

A few of the facts quoted in the article – which you can link to from my title: an April Gallup poll found more than a third of people who haven’t yet retired plan to keep working beyond age 65. It was just 12 percent in 1995. Now look at this figure from the Labor Department: if you’re 55 or older and unemployed – it takes an average of more than 39 weeks to find a job. That’s the most of any age group – including the 20’s somethings who would presumably cost employers a lot less in wages and benefits and be more technologically skilled. And we’re just talking averages. Many older people have been collecting long term unemployment benefits for as long as 99 weeks.

So here’s my question to all you political types who seem interested in nothing but getting elected or re-elected in November. Are you ready to deal with an army of homeless 50 and 60 somethings?

Many boomers have tried hard to update their skills – often taking out loans to do so. So what will you tell them to do with those new skills – if no one will hire them? There isn’t much of a demand for writing software in homeless shelters.

It’s not such a tragedy in your 20’s and 30’s when you have to scrounge for work. I certainly had to. But I and my friends were always sure we’d make it up later – when we were older and experienced and thus more valuable to an employer. Hah! Now an entire generation is teetering on the scrap heap of life.

As I said earlier – excuse me while I throw up.

Remembering John Henning

John Henning died in July. I saw the notice on line then -- but I was in Prague, loaded with work. No time for anything except a shocked "oh no!".

But tonight I was leafing through the latest AFTRA Magazine - which mercifully still comes in print form so you can actually "leaf" through it as you eat dinner. (iPhone screens don't take kindly to greasy fingerprints). I saw the tribute to John -- and I wanted to add my own. It is never too late for memories.

John Henning was a towering presence on the TV news scene in Boston - where for many years he was both an anchor and a top political reporter. For decades everyone in Boston knew his name. He was everything someone famous should be. Personable, smart, knowledgeable and - oh yes - an old fashioned gentleman and all around good guy.

For years I just watched him on my mother's old TV. But then one day - I became a network correspondent. Covering presidential political campaigns. Since TV stations were flush with cash in those days, local news departments usually sent their crack political reporter and a crew to travel with each of the candidates during the last crazy week before the November election.

So one day there he was with his crew -- spending a day with us -- the "veterans" who had been on the campaign trail for months. His station was affiliated with my network. He asked me to fill him in. I - who had worshipfully watched this man for years in my hometown - was now helping him! OMG!

We met one more time. I was "parachuted" into Boston for a story and had to get up to speed fast. There was John Henning -- with all the information I could possibly want.

When a network news star dies -- it makes headlines everywhere. But when John Henning died this summer at age 73 - from leukemia - it was only a big story in Boston - where he was still working as an analyst for WBZ.

Too bad the whole country didn't know about it. Because in a media world where true newspeople are becoming an endangered species -- John Henning leaves a big hole. As much for his decency as for his news acumen.

The Boston Local of AFTRA has established a broadcast scholarship in his name.

September 11 2010

Nine years ago I walked up the two steps to the "bridge" at Channel 9 (WWOR) and looked somberly at the assignment editor. "Everything's changed," I said. "Life will never be the same."

We both knew I was right.

Nearly 3000 people died in the coordinated attacks on that bright September day. More than 1100 of them are still not identified. Imagine. Your husband, son, wife, daughter, mother, father, sister, brother --- to stay only in the nuclear family - went off to work as usual that day and simply never came home. Obliterated. Pulverized. Disappearing into thin air. Not even enough remaining for his or her DNA to be tested.

It's almost impossible to think about it. And as a reporter I tried hard --then and now - to maintain the emotional detachment that allows me to do my job. But when you are NOT being a reporter but simply being a human being --- the awful truth rushes in and overwhelms you. I had never seen war, never been a war correspondent, never experienced any major attack on my home or anyone else's. Until that day in 2001.

So here we are nine years later. Two misbegotten wars later. Many, many more people dead on all sides from terrorist attacks, battles, corruption, outsourcing and stupid mistakes in countries we are not - so far at least - leaving in better shape than we found them.

What would we be saying today if we had gone only after Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen? If we had not left the hunt to untrustworthy "others" but had used our own forces to blast through the caves where we tracked him? If we had followed every convoluted path until we found him? If every effort had been concentrated on wiping out Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan and wherever we could find its cells. No more. And no less.

But trying to rewrite history is a useless endeavor. What's done is done; you cannot take it back. Nine years later we are still the victims of our own ignorance and panic. With so-called Christians threatening to burn the Qur'an. And make us all victims yet again.

But even within that reality -- we must move on.

And so finally buildings are rising at the World Trade Center site. 16 of 400 or so trees are already planted on the ground which by next year should be a full-fledged memorial. The much-delayed and much-discussed "Freedom Tower" is now quite visible above ground -- now sensibly named simply One World Trade Center. The two square holes marking the outlines of the original towers are lined with black granite tiles. By next year they will be reflecting pools.

Yes everything is different. It will never be the same again. But of course that would be true even if the terror attacks had never occurred. Maybe there would have been something else. Or not. You can't blame the housing bubble and the resulting financial crisis and Great Recession on September 11th. And for those caught in the rubble of those implosions - the world is certainly a different place.

So let's move on. For change, as we now know, is the only constant.

R.I.P. ABC News?

The story broke Monday night --the one about David Westin resigning as head of ABC News. On Wednesday -- in the New York Times article linked to this post's title -- former CBS News President Andrew Heyward suggested one approach post Westin: re-invent ABC News as nothing but a video file sharing social network. As Heyward put it: "(it's) a real opportunity to not be beholden to the traditions of television news...."

Excuse me Mr. Heyward???? I've spent a day thinking about what you said. And since when do the "traditions" of TV news -- many virtually invented by your former network's own Edward R. Murrow--belong in the dumpster of history? Innovate, yes. We've always been about innovation. Grow and even mutate some. Fine. No one wants to watch or, for that matter, work in a profession that's encased in an iceberg. But dump all the great traditions of broadcast news? Isn't that exactly the problem right now?

Sure, it's wonderful to have a story so powerful that it's shared among all sorts of viewers. But what everyone who sees the network and local station news divisions simply as a profit center seems to forget is this little thing called democracy. You know -- the form of government we're supposed to have here and have so zealously exported to much of the rest of the world? Like Iran, Afghanistan, the formerly Communist countries?

How's this for an innovative idea: news divisions which are not run as profit centers. News divisions which are simply the best sources of necessary information they can be, using the best production values they can find. Call it a full circle; Bill Paley, Mr. Heyward, was proud to let the entertainment arm of CBS make the money. He could boast about his great news division. And not force it to earn a penny. Don't you think perhaps our rudderless nation could use another Walter Cronkite? And remember -- he was Managing Editor of The CBS Evening News first, anchor second.

Without a free and intelligent press there can't be much democracy. People need to know things they may not voluntarily click on and share. That used to be the role of the newspapers' front page and the networks' evening newscasts. Was it and is it elitist to "edit" news so that even in headline form -- people are force-fed at least some of the important information they need to make reasonable decisions about their own lives and the future of their state and country?

If Disney decides ABC News is nothing but a profit center with no higher calling, then it could, indeed, become nothing but a video news service. Just a feed like that all networks send out to their affiliate stations. A bunch of stories in no particular order -- ready for local producers to use if needed.

Enter Paris Hilton. Exit truth, freedom, democracy, intelligence. Not laughing.

The Silly Season

I am listening as I write this to President Obama giving a campaign speech in Parma, Ohio. Talking about the America he believes in. The America which allowed both him and Michelle to rise from their humble beginnings to become rich lawyers and ultimately, the First Family.

But this isn’t 2008. And he isn’t a candidate. Trouble is his Democratic party – and all the Congressmen and one third of the Senators and a bunch of Governors – ARE candidates. And the Republicans are tasting blood. And a huge victory.

The latest polls show a huge dissatisfaction with the current administration. President Obama’s approval ratings are in the 45-46% range. Two thirds of those asked think the country is heading in the wrong direction.

Going political at this point may be too little too late for the President and his party. Mr. Obama has been so busy since he took office trying to bring Republicans and Democrats together (an admirable concept) that perhaps he hasn’t really looked at America recently. We’re a country so dangerously polarized in all ways – politics, religion, social issues and yes – wealth – that it would take news that a huge meteorite was about to hit Toledo to pull Americans out of their funk. It would HAVE to be Toledo. If it were heading toward Washington – or even New York City --- I think it would still be business as usual around the Fox News Network’s TV hearth.

Now -- we have these Bush tax cuts --- which will expire at the end of this year. AFTER the midterm election. President Obama and the most liberal Democrats are determined to let them expire on the richest Americans making over $250,000 a year. Problem is --- if those tax cuts just expire --- they will expire for the middle class as well. And everyone but the very poor will be hit with higher Federal taxes.

Standard economic theory says you don’t raise taxes during a recession. So there have been ideas floated by some economists to extend the tax cut for – say – a year. Or keep it alive –but just for the middle class.

Ah – but that could help the Democrats in November. So even if the Republicans think it’s a good idea ---- don’t look for any cooperation of any kind from them.

Tyler Mathisen said it best on CNBC’s Power Lunch today. I’m paraphrasing but as he put it – the Senate Republicans will block anything the Democrats propose before the election – or in the lame duck session after it. Which means – pure and simple - a tax increase for the middle class. Tyler is an honest, intelligent reporter. He’s also human. His frustration spoke for all thinking Americans.

This political gridlock in Washington benefits no one – except maybe a few politicians. And it hits exactly the folks who are most fearful about their jobs if they have them or least able to get new jobs if they don’t. Exactly the folks who have pulled back on spending recently. Exactly the folks who desperately want to see solutions from their government – whether Republican or Democratic – which can give us all back the America we believe in.

Summer in the City

Summer in the city this year happens to be in Prague – in the Czech Republic. Where I’ve spent most of the last 2 summers as well.

And in Prague there is this quaint custom left over from communism. It’s called cleaning the hot water pipes. Bottom line – we don’t have hot water –NONE – in our apartment for this entire week.

A little background. My husband and I bought a brand new apartment 5 years ago in a family-oriented neighborhood about 25 minutes by tram from downtown. It’s a place we cheerfully call the Queens of Prague. But like most of the city – the bigger apartment buildings like ours get their hot water and heat through pipes from a central plant. Similar to the Con Edison steam heat and hot water that is so much a part of Manhattan life. Unlike Con Ed, however, Prague water officials insist that every summer, they have to shut down the entire hot water system, section by section, so the pipes can be cleaned. Now it’s only for a week. 20 years ago when we first came to this country – it was more like 2 to 3 weeks. While the company’s engineers, we figured, headed en masse for their chalupy (farm houses) in the country.

Funny this holdover from Communism. In those days ordinary people did not question anything the authorities decreed. Well, they would say in public, of course they have to clean the pipes. Privately – when friends were sure no one they couldn’t trust was watching – there would be knowing winks and shrugs. “But what can we do,” they would say. And heat water for their sponge baths. Except they probably HAD no sponges in consumer product-challenged communist Prague.

Today Praguers aren’t much different. They still say “But what can we do” every time something occurs that Americans would insist on changing or fixing. It never seems to occur to them that other cities (like New York) have the same kind of centralized hot water – and still get to use it in its well-heated form all summer long.

Ah yes. But this is Prague. Just 20 years removed from the soul-shriveling fears of totalitarianism. Much has changed; capitalism booms and Czechs own their own apartments and houses. Women are as Euro-stylish as their counterparts in Rome and Paris. Most Czechs have traveled well outside the old Communist bloc and have seen – and to a great extent copied – how the other half lives.

But they still throw up their hands and intone “what can we do???” when the annual summer pipe cleaning arrives.

I hope my deodorant holds out.

Flooding in New Jersey

I’ve been walking this week as I usually do in the early mornings. Walking the streets of the neat little Levittown-type “starter” homes built behind my gym in the 1950’s and 60’s -- as farm-land was gobbled up by developers. Walking – and trying not to cry.

In case you haven’t been paying attention – we had a huge rain and wind storm last weekend in the NYC metro area. Trees came down on power lines, cars and homes. And rivers came up. And up and up and up until the flooding in northern and central New Jersey equaled or even surpassed the modern benchmark – the April 1984 floods.

I covered that 1984 flood – as a local TV reporter for WWOR. And I’ve covered the subsequent major floods as I moved around the TV dial. The same streets and homes are always flooded. Some owners always need evacuation by boat and talking to them is always sad. You wonder why they go back flood after flood. Until you realize many of them have nowhere else to go. Buyout money has been available for years now in some flood plain areas – but even at market value it’s seldom enough to buy another house or even condo in the same general area. And towns don't push; they'd rather have wet ratables than untaxable parks.

By the time I started walking around the Village (as it’s called) this week, the water had mostly receded. And people had already piled their lives at the curbstone to be taken away by the town’s efficient bulk pickup trucks. Lovely velvet couches. Wooden cabinets. Multiple sections of rolled up, soggy rugs. Child-sized tables and chairs. And their toys. So many toys. Would there be money to replace them?

Do these often young families have flood insurance I wondered? It’s expensive and although the rivers overflow every few years or so – who expected another 100 year flood? Did those who recently bought one of these houses know they were moving into a flood plain? The homes are built on cement slabs. No basement where you may be able to discern water marks on the walls. A little new plasterboard and some paint and redecoration and voila! Who would know?

I talked to the young immigrant couple who runs the nearby deli where I buy my morning bagel and coffee. They were not familiar with our area when they took over the store – ravaged just a few years before by a previous flood and repaired. And although the river runs under the highway and comes out half a block behind the building --- no one told them before they rented the store about its history. At least 4 major floods that I can recall which typically fill the store’s basement with its electrical box and part of their kitchen with its bagel-making machinery with water. With some warning they had gotten most of their food out but they were trying to dry things out and then wash everything down with bleach. There was nothing I could do except say how sorry I was. Being people who spit in the face of adversity – the obviously devastated wife said simply, “we will come back. We have to.”

I realized today why all this is upsetting me so much –when I have seen it all so many times before. Then, I had a mic in my hand, a cameraperson next to me. I could take all those terribly sad stories and that compelling video, go to a town or county or FEMA official and say – what can you do for these people? What are YOU doing to help? It took the burden off my shoulders. We were helping too. Getting the story out. Pushing the ones with the power. Making connections. It’s what journalists do.

This week it’s just me, Ms Ordinary Person. Powerless without my crew and my platform.

Like all about me, I can only cry.

Security, NBC and Me

Sometimes I really wonder what planet I'm living on.

Today I cut through the main lobby of 30 Rock. I hadn't done that -- walking from the ice rink to the side entrance on 49th Street -- in a long time. The 49th Street entrance is opposite the bank of elevators which leads to NBC's and Channel 4's (WNBC)studios. Otherwise known -- for decades I think -- as the studio entrance. There's one on the 50th Street side as well.

So why am I telling you this? Why should you care? Because what happened next is a primer on how much our world has changed.

There was a group of maybe 20 people lined up on the short flight of stairs leading to the elevators. And a person I couldn't see addressing the group in a very loud voice. "Be sure to remove your belts before going through the metal detectors. And take out all loose change......" And on and on and on. All of it the now familiar instructions we hear and see as we go through airport security. And I mean ALL of it.

An errant thought crossed my mind. Women now know enough not to wear underwire bras when they fly because they set off the alarms. But to see a TV show? So when the alarm on the NBC metal detector goes off because you're wearing your usual underwire bra -- does someone with a TSA uniform -- errr NBC uniform -- come out of woodwork and wand you and pat you down to be sure that's all you in the underwire? Do you have to explain about breast enhancement??? And while I'm at it -- what about knee and hip replacements? The TSA folks wand, poke and pat little old ladies with metal hips unmercifully at airport security.

It would be laughable if it weren't so earnest. The very Soviet-style world we thought we overcame when we won the Cold War. We DID win it didn't we?

Come on guys. IT'S A TV SHOW. Not a jetliner loaded with fuel flying over the Atlantic. Or DisneyWorld.

I'll go along with searching purses and backpacks. Almost every building does that now. Not like a few years ago when only the state and federal courthouses did -- looking, I presume, for something logical-- like guns and knives. Hell -- DisneyWorld does it. I mean, gee. You can't be too careful around Mickey and Minnie.

But back to NBC and taking off your belt to see a TV show.
Y'know -- maybe it was all part of a reality TV show. Because it doesn't take much imagination to visualize what might happen to some members of the hip hop generation when they take off their belts. And then NBC might have another issue -- with the NYPD for indecent exposure. When those 4 sizes too big pants siting uneasily below the hip line --- now bereft of the one thing keeping them there -- fall off completely.

Maybe I should have stayed around for the "floor" show.

On (Czech) Language

It’s another day in black and white up here. Snow again turning everything –even the evergreens – to grey.

I could be studying my Czech language lessons. Or getting my income taxes in order. Or looking for work. Or even giving in to snow-bound cravings and eating Hershey dark chocolate kisses unfortunately left over from Christmas. I could be – but I’m not.

Instead I’ve been reading back articles in the Prague Monitor,
an online newspaper I get in my email box every weekday. No, not what I could be reading or maybe should be reading – important news stories like why the hapless Greek economy ruined a recent Czech government bond sale.

No – I’ve been reading about the use of language in Prague. Czech language. Standard American vs Southern American vs British English. And the merits of editing what you say for the sake of understanding.

Now I don’t even live in Prague except for a few months in the summer – and a few, scattered weeks in fall or spring. But even for those short stays, I find myself editing my English for my Czech friends – as Prague Monitor writer Emily Prucha found herself doing in her combined Czech-American family.

Prucha wrote that Americans find their brand of English – especially when spoken with regional accents and idioms (she’s from Virginia) – sometimes incomprehensible to Czechs who – if they’ve studied English formally have usually been force-fed the grammar and vocabulary of British English. So almost without conscious thought now, I will use “flat” for apartment and “lift” for elevator and try to keep my Lower East Side-influenced northeastern slang to myself.

But Prague isn’t the only place where British English is catching on. It’s happening here too. There are now many British and British-trained news reporters and analysts working in the US. Or as foreign reporters where cost-cutting media companies have closed overseas news bureaus. And many Britishisms that would actually be incorrect in American English are creeping into the everyday language. One of the most obvious: "gone missing" for when someone disappears without a trace or explanation. Young American reporters think the phrase sounds cool and sophisticated -- along with some others like "on holiday" and even occasionally "flat".

Words, after all, define us. My friends and I went through college saying “caio” to each other and thinking that simple Italian word (learned from Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren – not generations of Italian immigrants) somehow gave us a kind of world-weary European sophistication.

Not surprisingly in our much more interlaced world today – ciao is again a college favorite – along with any other country’s words which can make a Brooklyn or Mississippi or even Boston (mine) accent sound like it’s circled the globe.

So – ciao bambino! I’m about to go missing and maybe on holiday as well. You’ll find me at some pub with a pint, some bangers and mash and my mates – some of whom may be a bit dodgy. Like me.

Childhood Obesity and Death

What does it take to wake up America to the dangers of obesity? Otherwise loving and often overly protective parents seen oblivious to the problem. Maybe because at least some of these parents fall into the obese – or at least overweight – category themselves?

Well there’s now a major study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, that tracked a large group of American Indian children for an average of 24 years. The findings? That obesity, pre-diabetes (glucose intolerance) and hypertension in childhood were strongly associated with increased rates of premature death. Specifically – the heaviest kids were more than twice as likely as the thinnest ones to die before they reached 55. That’s 15 to 20 years below average American life expectancy. And typically, say the experts, American Indians are about a decade ahead of other Americans in terms of obesity numbers. Right now nearly a third of all American children are either overweight or obese. You can see where this is going….

There’s never been a good excuse for ignoring obesity. But at least if you’re an adult – you’re making your own, presumably desired, decisions. That’s certainly not true for children. And millions of kids are being doomed to an early death simply because their parents, extended families and school teachers – those most responsible for protecting and directing them – are not doing their jobs.

Never mind the impact on our already fractured health care system. Think of the impact on a kid’s life. Years of taking pills or struggling with insulin shots. Heart attacks that can ruin lives even if they don’t kill. Cancer with all its implications. Strokes.

Do you really want the worst for your child instead of the best?

Habits instilled in childhood last a lifetime. It’s a lot harder to think thin for the first time when you’re 40 than when you’re 10. Healthy food in reasonable portions combined with daily exercise is not exactly a recipe for purgatory. In fact the exercise is called play when you’re a kid. Remember?

So parents and teachers – belly away from the food bar and invest a little healthy living in your kids’ future. And maybe in the process those of you who are making bad decisions about your own lives – will add a few good years onto them.