March 4, 2005

• News and Notes

  I always find it interesting when someone at work or at a social engagement or writing here on Xanga or another blog program will talk about having to “watch TV” or are bored with some program they “watch on TV”. Because I’m older, single and pretty much make my time my own, any time I spend in front of my HDTV is never spent “watching TV” but “viewing” either movies or TV programs from DVD or that I’ve recorded from the Tivo. Pretty much, with Tivo, and with DVD mailing services like Netflix, the “television” has become a “video display device” for whatever one wants to watch on it on his own time. Clearly, “video on demand” is partially here right now, for some of us. My Tivo machine is four years old, and I haven’t “upgraded” anything in a long time, but when I watch “TV” it isn’t whatever is “available”, it’s whatever I want to see, and when someone asks me if I’ve seen a “commercial” I’m apt to ask “what are those?” because I rarely watch them. Special occasions, like the Super Bowl, or the Oscars, I usually watch “in real time”, but in the case of the Super Bowl, I “lagged” about a 15 minute “wait time” so I could “speed through” commercials if I wanted. I watched the Super Bowl with my roommate, and he likes Super Bowl commercials, which are sometimes entertaining.

  I’ve mentioned before on this blog that pretty much I’ve always taped television shows for watching later. When L.A. Law came on in the late 80s, I recorded the shows religiously for months before I even watched one, and then I “skipped” through the commercials. I still have the first three seasons on VHS tape. Lately I’ve been “catching up” with some older television programs on DVD, which I rent from Netflix. I’m on the last DVD of the first season of the old  “Dick Van Dyke” show, the 3rd DVD of the 3rd season of “Seinfeld” which I never watched when it first aired, and recently I’ve been watching old “Combats” from when I was a kid.

  “Combat” was filmed in black and white, and aired in the early 60s. The programs are amazing. I remember watching them every week, along with my brother and dad, who fought in the North African and Italian campaigns in World War II, but that was a long time ago, and watching them again with fresh eyes is very telling. The television series, which starred Vic Morrow and Rick Jason, commences with D-Day, and follows “the squad” led by Sgt. Saunders (Morrow) through France prior to liberation. I used to joke that the series lasted longer than the actual war, but when you take into account that the series begins with D-Day, which was in June of 44, it is really only chronicling the last year of the European campaign. The second episode, “Any Second Now”  was directed by  no less a famous director than Robert Altman, who I just heard talking about how series TV could be a very artistic medium (he shot “Tanner ’88″ for HBO in the late 80s). His episode (as do all of the series shows) played like a miniature movie. As I’m watching the series, I’m thinking, why not bring this back as a “major motion picture” instead of “Bewitched” or “Dukes of Hazzard”. Jude Law could play Lt. Hanley, and Johnny Depp could be Sgt. Saunders. (Are you listening, Hollywood?)

  I’ll seque from television combat to the reports that yesterday graced my computer news feed screen that there have now been over 1500 American troops killed in Iraq. Another “landmark” in a very dirty war that I’ve been against since the beginning. I still claim that the similarities with the Vietnam crisis in the 70s are right in front of our faces and this is very scary. I don’t see that we will  be “pulling out” anytime soon, and am still awaiting the word that Bush will reinstate the draft, even though he claims he won’t do it. (But our pres. has lied before if recent memory serves.) How many more will die? I’m frankly getting sick of seeing “Iraq” everywhere I turn, just as I was sick of seeing “Vietnam” everywhere in the late 60s. Vietnam was called the “10,000 Day War”. I remember reading the first “reports” of Vietnam in the four page “Scholastic” newsletter in third grade (1961) when America started to get involved, taking over from the French, who had colonized the country. It seems like Vietnam hung heavy over my complete life as a child growing up, and I narrowly escaped being drafted into that war by a hair’s breadth after high school. The “first Gulf war” which involved Iraq was in 1991. We’ve had our present troops in the country since 2003. The “pundits” say that if we withdraw now, the country will be a “hotbed for terrorism”. (As if it wasn’t that in the beginning.) Osama bin Laden has been talking to al Zarquawi (according to reports last week) about targeting America, as if al Zarquawi didn’t have enough on his hands in Iraq right now. (The Germans spread themselves way too thin in WWII, and on top of that planned to wipe out the complete Jewish race, which led to bitter infighting amongst their high command, and ultimately caused their downfall from within at the same time the allies (helped in great part by Sgt. Saunders and Lt. Hanley on TV at least) were storming through France. (And the Russians through Germany) I guess we could hope that the “insurgents” will wear themselves thin, but one thing I ”learned” about Vietnam is that stubborn “insurgents” will never back down, and as long as there are new generations of people trained to hate Americans, we will find our troops being slaughtered no matter what.

  History teaches us that in order to “end” WWII in Japan, we had to drop a couple of atom bombs on major cities, slaughtering a great many civilians who weren’t necessarily complicit in the “war effort”. Our reasons for not mounting a Japanese offensive (a Nipponese D-Day) were that more Americans would be killed in that country, because the Japanese would essentially “fight to the last man.” 

  Well, the North Vietnamese were the same way, and we didn’t learn our lesson there. The “insurgents” in Iraq don’t seem to want to let up any pressure. I just hope nobody’s thinking of dropping an atom bomb on Baghdad any time soon. We’ve got enough troubles.

  “Combat” is one of those “forgotten” television shows which has thankfully resurfaced on DVD, and adds to the “mix” of programming material that makes it possible for people like me (and anyone who uses technology to it’s best advantage) to not have to “watch TV”. That includes the TV news shows, as I would rather get my news fix with the Reuters feeds on the internet. I can at least try to forget world politics and dirty wars when being entertained.

  The question is, however, for how long?

  • 9:49 am
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