All L&O, all the time

Sunday, November 30, 2003

I made a comment last week that Law & Order seems to be on every day now. Well, guess what: NBC might create a digital television channel just for this show. From CNN:

A top NBC cable executive said Friday the network is hammering out plans to launch up to five new digital broadcast channels, just weeks after General Electric-owned NBC agreed to purchase Vivendi Universal's portfolio of motion pictures studios, cable channels and theme parks.

NBC Entertainment president Jeffrey Zucker told Reuters that a crime channel built around NBC's hit "Law & Order" franchise and another that played movies from Universal's film library were two possible ideas.

Listening in a winter wonderland

Sunday, November 30, 2003

For no reason other than a general need to be festive, I've updated g-world Radio 2. Like 5 or 6 other radio stations around DC, it's now exclusively churning out Christmas music. Enjoy!

Putting the “P.C.” in “PC”

Sunday, November 30, 2003

Another example of political correctness -- and the lawsuit culture -- run amok:

LOS ANGELES -- A Los Angeles County official has asked electronic equipment vendors to consider eliminating the terms "master" and slave" from equipment.

Vendors were sent an e-mail last week that says the terms may be offensive.

The term "master" and "slave" -- when applied to electronic equipment -- describes one device controlling another.

In May, a black employee filed a discrimination complaint with the county Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after noticing the words on a videotape machine.

The issue was solved by putting tape over the labels and replacing "master" and "slave" with "primary" and "secondary."

A fitting memorial?

Sunday, November 30, 2003

As I look in more detail at the finalists for a World Trade Center Memorial, I keep finding reasons not to like them.
The first, and perhaps most instinctual, is that all the designs are light and uplifting -- it's like they were designed by the architects of malls. I feel as if they don't adequately portray what happened there. Instead, they create a stylish park, none of which imparts a feeling of timelessness, as if it will be torn down and replaced later.
There were some dictates in this competition, not the least daunting of which was to preserve the footprints of the towers. I can certainly understand the emotional reaction of the families and friends of those killed, they wanted to keep that ground hallowed. Fair enough. But then on top of that, the designs must list all those killed; it must preserve and display the slurry wall that formed part of the WTC foundation, etc. This has resulted in memorials that are far too complex. The beauty of Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial -- which has become the new standard on which other memorials are designed and judged -- is powerful in it's simplicity. The Oklahoma City National Memorial really toes right up to the line separating effective memorial and bizarre tourist attraction. And I'm afraid that what they're building here in Arlington beside the Pentagon has crossed that line.
I just believe that the downfall of these memorials is that since the Vietnam Wall, they've all been designed to be a massive collection of individual memorials -- listing the names of each victim in such a huge catastrophe is unwieldy, but can be done. But when you do more: give each victim a chair, a bench, a votive, a projected image -- it becomes more about the memorial than the victims. The presentation of the names detracts from the names themselves. And since the death toll is still fluctuating, and there are doubtless some people that may have died there who were not accounted for, how can they use a specific number in all of these designs? What happens if the memorial is built, and they discover that someone is listed who was not killed? Or worse yet, someone fraudulently claimed as dead is listed?
One reaction I had to the WTC designs was fear -- when I viewed the animations, I got a scared feeling in the pit of my stomach because most of them have underground chambers with votives, lights, etc. All I could think of was the slab above me pancaking down and crushing me. I don't know, perhaps that was the empathic feeling the designers wanted me to have.
I just think that what needs to be done is simple. Put back some of the twisted steel that was carted away for use in a future memorial. Plant grass in the footprints of the towers, and build a low wall around them, with the names engraved. Simple, to the point, and will last for centuries.

Ah, that holiday spirit

Sunday, November 30, 2003

This story covers two stereotypical bases: the kind of people who shop at Walmart, and the kind of people who shop in Florida:

When the siren rang at precisely 6 a.m. Friday to kick off the Wal-Mart Supercenter's five-hour "blitz" sale, Patricia VanLester was first in line to grab one of the DVD players on sale for $29.87.

But before VanLester, 41, could inch her way through the crowd with her prize, she was knocked to the ground by a frenzy of shoppers.

"She got pushed down, and they walked over her like a herd of elephants," said her sister, Linda Ellzey, 48, who with VanLester had waited 2 1/2 hours for the sale to begin. "I told them, 'Stop stepping on my sister! She's on the ground!' "

Ellzey said some shoppers tried to help VanLester, but most people just continued their rush for deals.

"All they cared about was a stupid DVD player," she said.

The shoppers wouldn't even get out of the way for the paramedics who arrived to take the unconscious woman to the hospital.

"The people were all around this woman," said Mark O'Keefe, a spokesman for EVAC Ambulance. "They would not move as the ambulance crew arrived and tried to get to the woman. They were concerned about one thing: bargain-shopping."

This is a dream come true for some merchandisers -- create a product that's so in demand that people will trample others for a chance to get it.
Sounds like Soylent Green to me!

And the kind, concerned people at Walmart?

Ellzey said Wal-Mart officials called Friday afternoon to ask about her sister. She said the store also apologized and offered to put the DVD player on hold for her.

That's class.