January 2004 Archives

OK, it's a given that George W. Bush is no rocket scientist (or even a Rhodes Scholar) but you would think he might have managed to grasp a little basic math during school. Hell, even a Yale MBA is expected to know how to add and subtract.

But Bush continues to push his increased domestic spending agenda, his increasingly bloated police state bureaucracy (aka Homeland Security) and, of course, the invasion and occupation of Iraq as the deficit deepens and the economy shows no sign of recovery.

However, even someone as dense as Dubya may finally realize he can't keep spending this nation into bankruptcy (if, in fact, he has not done so already).

There are signs Dubya is rethinking some of his big spending plans. Nothing definite, mind you, but a hint here and there -- like some of the things he failed to mention in the State of the Union.

Even worse than Bush's spend 'till you drop habits is the Greek Chorus of die-hards who support this failure as a President, no matter what. Well, they say misery loves company and misery will be the ultimate legacy of George W. Bush.

Return of The King, the final installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, leads the Oscar nominations, which comes as no surprise to anyone who has watched the three films.

Peter Jackson's monumental film effort is incredible on several levels:

1--It is incredibly faithful to the books;

2--The three films are some nine hours of total viewing time yet manage to hold the viewer's attention throughout;

3--And, for a change, we have three films featuring incredible special effects that did not come out of George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic studios.

If the film sweeps Oscar night, as it should, each and every award will be justly deserved.

Myron Demchak Jr., 40, of Hanover Township, Pennsylvania, didn't care much for President George W. Bush's State of the Union address, so he called the county's 911 center, told the operator he was a terrorist and said he was going "to kill the son of a bitch."

This, of course, didn't sit too well with the U.S. Secret Service, which swore out a criminal warrant against Demchak.

The 911 operator traced the phone call to a phone booth and police found Demchak as soon as they arrived.

Secret Service Agent Mindy Pretzman said Demchak was drunk and extremely uncooperative. He eventually admitted making the calls and later said he did so because he "did not like what (the president) had to say."

Obviously.

Cleaning out a drawer in my old rolltop desk the other day and came across a Gulf Travel Card, a gas credit card from the early 1960s.

That card was the first credit card I carried, not so much because Gulf gas was all that great (it wasn't) but because Holiday Inn honored the card for lodging and meals.

Those where days before American Express, Visa or Mastercard. The only way you charged an airline ticket was by using the Universal Air Travel Card, a charge card system owned by the airlines, and most hotel and motel stays were cash on demand.

But the Gulf card started a trend, allowing the traveling motorist to venture from coast to coast and charge his lodging on a gas card. A girlfriend and I once drove coast-to-coast with only $200 between us. But we both had Gulf cards and they paid for the lodging and food on the trip. Soon, others followed the trend. Best Western honored the Shell card. Quality accepted Sunoco and so on.

Holiday Inn stopped honoring Gulf cards in the late 1970s and the company soon disappeared, swallowed up by Chevron. The arrival of bank cards, American Express and Diners Club put an end to the use of gas cards for hotel stays although British Petroleum still uses a "Multi-Card" that can be used for lodging at some hotels.

At first I thought of cutting the old Gulf card in two and throwing it out but I tossed it back into the drawer with other relics of the past -- including a Playboy Club key, but that's a story for another day.

The composition is already there," photographer Jay Maisel once told me. "All you you to do is find it."

Maisel understands composition better than most of us who view life through a camera viewfinder. His works about his beloved New York are the art of photography at its best.

The same can be said of Helmut Newton, the German-born high-fashion photographer who died Saturday after an auto accident in Los Angeles.

Newton loved the female form and his stark, black-and-white nudes redefined nude photography. Some called his work pornographic, but there was nothing pandering or exploitive about Newton's work. He loved the human form and that love came through in his work.

Doctors say the 83-year-old Newton suffered a heart attack and crashed his car into a wall as he was leaving the Chauteau Marmont Hotel, his winter home.

As long as we're talking photography, let me add a shameless plug for our new studio's web site (Blue Ridge Creative). We've worked long and hard on our new studio in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. If you're traveling on the Blue Ridge Parkway this summer, take Virginia Route 8 (the exit for Floyd) and come see us.

With the passing of Bob Keeshan, aka Captain Kangeroo, the last of my childhood television memories is gone.

Keeshan got his start as Clarabell the Clown on the old Howdy-Doody show with Buffalo Bob Smith, who died in 1998 Smith hosted the Howdy-Doody show for 13 years. Keeshan's Captain Kangeroo ran on CBS from 1955 until 1984, followed by six years on PBS -- the longest running children's show on television. Both CBS and PBS received hate mail when the networks made the decision to cancel Keeshan's show.

With Keeshan's death the old breed of television child show hosts are gone -- and with them an era that most likely will not be repeated. Children's programming is on the wane. Even Saturday morning cartoons are decreasing on networks and soon will join Captain Kangeroo, Howdy-Doody, Buffalo Bob and everyone else as just a memory.

Always nice to discover something interesting in your own backyard. We recently set up a new studio in Floyd County, Virginia -- the Blue Ridge Mountain Community where I attended high school and worked at my first real newspaper job.

An Alabama transplant came by the studio. We were on the road but his visit led me to Fragments from Floyd, a Blog about life and issues from someone who clearly enjoys rural life. His photography is worth a look too.

Haven't had a chance to meet Fred First yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Sounds like an interesting guy and Floyd of late is attracting a lot of interesting people.

I'm sitting in a Borders bookstore, sipping coffee and running my business, thanks to T-Mobile's Wi-Fi network and a Sony Vaio laptop that is more powerful than the 2.4Ghz Pentium IV sitting in my office back in Arlington, Virginia.

I've been on the road for a while and the Vaio and Wi-Fi networks have made it possible to connect to the 'Net at T-1 speeds in coffee shops, hotel lobbies, airline clubs and bookstores.

Life on the road sure ain't what it used to be. For example:

T-Mobile operates Wi-Fi "Hotspots" not only in Borders bookstores but also many Starbucks coffee shops;

Boingo, a competing Wi-Fi service has Hot Spots in hotel lobbies, airline clubs, coffee shops and restaurants;

While T-Mobile, Boingo, Verizon and others charge a daily or monthly fee for access through their services, a growing number of businesses offer the service for free. Panera Bread, for example, has free Wi-Fi in many of its shops around the country.

Roanoke, Virginia, installed Wi-Fi transmitters in the city's downtown area and offers the service for free to anyone with a laptop or PDA with a wireless card.

Wi-Fi beats looking for a modem-capable payphone or suffering through the agonizingly-slow data connections of a cell-phone.

Drove our TR-6 for the last time Saturday, taking her from our home in Arlington over to her new owner's home in Alexandria.

The exhaust gave out a sweet sound as we drove along the George Washington Parkway. Drivers, as they always do, paused to give the French Blue two-seat British roadster a second look when passing.

According to the manufacturer's nameplate in the door, the car rolled off the British Leyland line in Coventry, England, on January 14, 1974, just over 30 years - and 108,000 miles ago. Not bad for an English sports car with electrics by Lucas, the Prince of Darkness.

My first car was a 1957 Ford - a white two-door hardtop with a black interior. She had a 312 cubic-inch V-8 and a three-speed manual tranny when I bought her for $500 from Roberts Ford in Floyd, Virginia, but an uncle who was a mechanic helped me shoehorn a 1962 Ford 406 cubic-inch V-8 under the hood and mated it to a 1958 Lincoln Police Special three-speed overdrive transmission.

The transmission had an electric switch that allowed the driver to switch into overdrive into any gear so it was, in reality, a six-speed. We beefed up the suspension as well. The car would fly. It outran more than one Virginia State Trooper on the roads of Southwestern, Virginia.

Drove the car throughout my high school years. Lost my virginity in it.

Replaced the '57 with a Mustang fastback - my first new car and a black beauty with a 289 high-performance V-8 and four-on-the-floor. It later would be replaced by a Shelby GT-500, a Carroll Shelby-modified Mustang with a 427 under the hood. Fast car. Too fast. Missed a turn one night and totaled it against a rock wall.

I was driving a Ford Torino (428 Cobrajet engine, 4-speed) when I bought my first British sports car - a Bugeye Sprite. Fun car. You didn't so much get into it as put it on. After years of American iron and cubic inches, I had to start thinking of four-bangers and cc's. The little four-banger in the Sprite sounded like an angry bumblebee compared to the thunderous roar of the big V-8s.

But I loved that car. Drove it on the road and raced it on Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) tracks around the country.  Replaced it with an MG-Midget, a later-model Sprite with a different name badge, and raced it as well.

In 1976, I dumped the Midget for a brand-new, Pimento-red TR-6. Compared with the Midget, the 6 was a large car, with a 2.5 liter inline-six and tall 185-15SR tires (with tubes, not tubeless). Didn't race it but drove it everywhere: To Florida twice for vacation, to the West Coast once. Drove it in the snow, in rain. Put 70,000 miles on it in three years. It never left me on the side of the road.

My wife and I had our first date in that car. After we got married, we wanted a house. She had a Mustang and I sold the TR just before we moved East but she made me promise that one day, when we could afford it, we would own another one.

After a few years in Washington, the lust for sports cars returned. I was making more money now and bought a Porsche - a bright Red 911 Targa. Amy stuck her lower lip out and said "what about my TR-6?"  They stopped making the TR-6 in 1976 so I looked around, found a one-owner, 1974 French Blue model and bought it for her.  We became a two sports-car family. The Porsche was my daily driver, the TR hers.

I put over 200,000 miles on the 911 before taking it off the road as a daily driver and replacing it in 2000 with a Jeep Wrangler. Amy shook her head in amazement.

"Most people start out with something like a Jeep," she laughed. "Then they get a fancy red sports car. Leave it up to you to do things backwards."

Yet the Wrangler turned out to be so much fun the 911 gathered dust in the garage. I sold it a year later. Amy, after a bout with Epstein-Barr syndrome, said the TR was too much to drive, so her new daily driver became a new, bright red, Jeep Liberty. The cycle was complete.

British sports car go downhill fast if you don't drive them on a regular basis. We drove the TR three times in two years, too little to keep the seals from drying out and the rubber from rotting. We decided late in the year to sell her and, true to form, the first time we fired her up, both carbs spewed fuel from dried out O-rings in the floats. We replaced the O-rings, got the engine running as best we could and spent a week negotiating with the final buyer, closing the deal on Saturday.

I pulled the TR-6 out of the driveway, followed him to Alexandria, handed over the keys, returned to the empty garage space and cleaned, for the last time, the oil and fluid drippings that said a British sports car was once parked here.

In 1972, I stood in the freezing weather and snow outside the offices of the Manchester Union-Leader in New Hampshire and watched Senator Edmund Muskie break down in tears and destroy his Presidential campaign.

Muskie, the clockers and watchers said, didn't have what it took to be President. Potential Presidents of the United States don't lose it and start crying just because a conservative, hard-ass publisher like Bill Loeb of the Union-Leader writes a nasty editorial.

That was my first Presidential campaign, traveling as one of the "boys on the bus," the entourage of reporters who followed the primary season. The 1972 campaign started with Muskie as the pre-emptive frontrunner to win the Democratic nomination and challenge Richard M. Nixon, the incumbent Republican.

Flash forward 32 years. I'm back on the bus (although the bus now is an airplane and there are women on it) and watching another pre-emptive frontrunner, Howard Dean, melt down under the stress of a campaign.

Earlier this week, Dean -- the former Vermont governor who was supposed to cakewalk his way to the nomination -- fell apart in the final days before the Iowa caucuses and finished a disappointing third. He first took his anger out on his senior staff in a temper tantrum that left many shaking, then stormed onto the stage at his campaign headquarters and self-destructed in a red-faced, arm-waving shoutfest that looked to all there like a man out of control.

"It hurt him," Democratic consultant and pundit Jim Carville said. "You may have just watched the beginning of the end of the Dean campaign for President."

A lot of things have changed in politics over the past three decades. In 1972, as a print reporter covering the campaign, I took notes, then sought out a phone so I could call my office and dictate, off the top-of-my head a story for the next day's edition. I had a manual portable typewriter with me but most of us chose to dictate stories to a rewrite man back at the office.

That was the way stories were filed.

On the trail today, I'm shooting video, not writing for a newspaper, and besides a digital video camera, I have two laptop computers, three wireless phones, a wireless modem, a satellite modem and a BlackBerry. I shoot video, upload the tape into the laptop, edit it on the spot, and shoot the final product to Washington where it can be shown immediately or edited further for use later in the day.

Stories are written and sent immediately, either through a wireless or sat modem or through a Wi-Fi (wireless) network. No waiting, no searching for a free phone, no delay. Instant news. Fast-food journalism.

What hasn't changed, though, is the ability of a candidate to self-destruct because of a lost temper, a lapse in judgment or plain, simple stupidity.

Dean claims he was simply trying to rally is young army of campaign workers but those of us who have watched campaigns for the past three decades have seen this before: Ed Muskie crying on the back of a truck in the New Hampshire snow or Gary Hart challenging reporters to "follow me around" to see if he was cheating on his wife and then having Donna Rice spend the night at his Washington townhouse where reporters who camped out all night caught her leaving the next morning. Or Bob Dole's lost temper in 1996 when he shouted "stop lying" to Bill Clinton. These little moments tell us that the man who wants to be king may not be up to the job.

Dean's meltdown played out live before a national TV audience Monday night and became instant fodder for late night TV hosts, who played it again and again. David Letterman's technical wizards modified the tape so Dean's head exploded at the end of his tirade.

Now Dean trails Kerry in the New Hampshire polls (a day earlier he was leading).

In 1972, Ed Muskie's tears appeared in a brief news clip on two national newscasts (NBC and CBS. ABC did not run it). According to the ratings of the time, less than 150,000 people saw it (although many more read about it in newspapers).

This week, Howard Dean's red-faced shoutfest appeared on five broadcast news networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS and Fox), four late-night talk shows (Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conon O'Brien), four network news morning shows (Today, CBS This Morning, ABC Good Morning and Fox Morning News) and six cable TV news channels (CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox and BBC). The combined audiences for all these shows is 95 million Americans. A quick check of the Internet shows video of the speech is also available on more than 100 web sites.

Politicians still make fools of themselves. That hasn't changed. What hasn't changed is the ability for more people to watch them

Yeah, yeah, I know. We haven't updated in a while. Been busy, very busy, opening a new studio and gallery in Floyd, Virginia.

The studio, called Blue Ridge Creative, becomes the focal point for our operations.

For those of you who don't know, Floyd sits in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, about 50 miles Southwest of Roanoke. I spent a good part of my young life in Floyd (ages 5-8 and 12-17), worked my first newspaper job at the town's weekly (The Floyd Press) and graduated from Floyd County High School where I was school photographer.

So opening the new studio was a homecoming as well as embarking on a new venture. It will allow us to explore a new area of photography as part of Floyd County's growing arts community and give us a base of operations away from the hustle and bustle of Washington (although we will alternate our time between Floyd and our home in Arlington).

Visit Blue Ridge Creative when you get a chance. Now that we are settled in, American Newsreel will resume.

Charles Brady, acting chief of the Transportation Security Administration at Washington's Dulles International Airpot, was supposed to be on duty during the hightened Orange security alert on New Year's eve.

But he was drunk instead.

Brady should have been on duty at 1 a.m. New Year's Day but was spotted driving erratically on Virginia Route 28 near Dulles so a Metropolitan Airports cop pulled him over.

The cops booked Brady for DWI. He claimed it was 2:30 a.m., not 1 a.m. and he was off duty. Dumb SOB was so drunk he didn't even know what time it was.