CNN Crashes and Burns

Ted Turner recently said that he wished that he was still running CNN, which he started in 1980. I wish he was too. New ratings show that the first cable news network is now in fourth--and last--place among cable news shows in prime time. And it is spot they richly deserve. Larry King has lost all pride of place and now gives his entire hour to minor players and freaks, I think he is channeling the spirit of Joe Pyne. He is followed by feather-weight Anderson Cooper who gets two hours of non-news delivered with the demeanor of a quasi-serious junior high schooler.
(CNN fired a real newsman, Aaron Brown, a few years ago in order to foist Cooper on an unsuspecting public.) And, to really rub it in, the second hour is a repeat of the first.

If CNN is satisfied to be whipped by the likes of Sean Hannity, Greta Van Sustern, Glenn Beck and all the rest, ad nauseum, then why not just shut the whole thing down and tell Rupert Murdoch that he has won? Watching the ghost of what used to be a very good network is no longer a reasonable use of one's time.

Turner says he would stop news-lite and give much more foreign news coverage. It may be too late for a rescue, Ted, but if you do pull it off please tell Wolf Blitzer to take some lessons from Fareed Zakaria on gravitas in the workplace.

Wake Up the Pilots, We're Here

On the NWA flight that missed Minneapolis: These guys didn't just overshoot the runway, they overshot an entire state. Their story about being so lost in a discussion of company policy that they lost all track of time and place is not credible; what they had lost was consciousness with 144 people on board. I don't know a thing about flying but I'm guessing that it is hard to miss a metropolitan area of more than 3 million people when you are over it. Retire these two Corrigans tonight.

Fascinatin' Vibrations

The George Gershwin Estate has entered into an agreement with Brian Wilson, genius of the Beach Boys, that will allow Wilson to finish some of the partially-written songs left by George when he died at age 38 in 1938.
The Gershwin Estate must be headed by baby-boomers who, typically, love the music of George and Ira and of Brian and his brothers and cousin. I look forward to hearing the final music, a blend of Manhattan verve and L.A. sun.

On another note, Barbra Streisand's new album, Love Is the Answer, is the top-selling album in the country right now. Just when you think beauty has left the building forever it stages a comeback. Diana Krall produced it and plays killer piano as well.

Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome

The Twins played their last game tonight in the Metrodome and lost it to the Yankees in the American League Division Series. A brilliant win over Detroit last Tuesday was to be their last hurrah in Minneapolis before two losses in Yankee Stadium and tonight's end of the season. Next April they begin anew in an outdoor stadium that is also, blessedly, downtown.

The Metrodome is only 27 years old and is still home to the Vikings, though they are making threatening sounds about wanting their own new place. Anyway, it is over there for the Twins after two World Series wins--1987 and 1991, the last one one of the best Series ever played.

Thanks for the memories, Minnesota Twins.

On another note, I saw the Beach Boys perform at the Dome in 1984, and Bob Dylan with the Grateful Dead a few years later. They can't take that away from me.

The Prize

First thing this morning, Barack Obama would probably have preferred that the Nobel Peace Prize pass him by. He still may have to make decisions for war, and he is not exactly an ascetic in sackcloth, but the Commander-in-Chief of the deadliest military machine in all of history.
And he has taken an oath to use as much of that power as necessary to protect this country. This Oslo award could get in the way of conducting some vital business.

That was this morning; tonight he probably sees the bright side of a sitting president winning the Nobel Peace Prize only ten months into his term. His election itself last November as a black man, in a country that until the mid-nineteenth century bought and sold Africans, has electrified the world. Such an historic change for the good in a country this powerful seems like a move toward a more peaceful world to those outside our borders. (When I was in the Philippines in January there was only one name on the lips of women and children,--and they hear the truth first--Obama.) Can he change the way the world sees America? He already has.

Vikings 30 -- Packers 23; Twins 6 -- Tigers 5, in 12

The Metrodome is sports heaven this fall. Farve does not flinch before the Pack and Mauer & Co. are on their way to the Bronx to meet Jeter and his Yankees. There is nothing like autumn in downtown Minneapolis, she is a pretty city and so are her teams. We stayed at the new Hotel Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago and everything in town was especially vibrant and young. She knew this was coming.

Ruth Brin

A great lady of Minneapolis and St. Paul has passed away. Ruth Brin was a scholar of Jewish literature, a poet, liturgist, book reviewer, and novelist. My acquaintance with her came from responding to an announcement in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in the early 1970's. A several-week class on Jewish mysticism was to begin at the Jewish Community Center--right up my alley (the topic, not the actual Center). I enrolled and was fascinated by Mrs. Brin's teachings of the Kabbalah, false messiahs, and Jewish literature and culture. Over the years I always read her book reviews in the Sunday paper.

Twenty years later I saw her shopping in Brochin's, the excellent Jewish bookstore on Excelsior Boulevard in St. Louis Park, and introduced myself and said that I had been in her class on Jewish mysticism. I was looking for a Jewish prayer book and told her that I preferred the one with the more vivid colors on the spine over one that she thought was superior. "You are a mystic!" she said.

A great light has left the Twin Cities, Ruth Brin, of Blessed Memory.

Game Days

Things will be hopping at the Metrodome in Minneapolis for the next couple of days. About four hours from now the Vikings (3-0) led by Brett Favre will meet his old team from Green Bay (2-1) in the kind of delicious drama October can bring to sports. On Tuesday the Twins meet the Tigers there in a one-game playoff for their division title and the chance to be World Series bound. If the Twins lose this will have been their last game at the Dome, their new pad on the otherside of downtown opens next spring. Let them say goodbye to the dear old place with another World Series for the ages.

A Swing And A Miss

This was not Barack Obama's best day since being inaugurated last January. Tonight I'm trying to think of how many good--I mean substantive--days he has had. Quite obviously, this hare-brained trip to Copenhagen was a poor use of time; presidents arrive in foreign capitals when the deal is done, to sign the final documents. They don't go to implore. As someone wrote the other day, he needs to finally graduate from candidate to president. We have to see him doing something, ordering an outcome, making something lasting happen. Flying and speech-giving have dried up as revivifying wells of leadership.

Decision Making in the White House is the title of a book JFK's man, Ted Sorenson, wrote during that presidency and I wish Barack Obama would begin enacting its title. Time's a wastin', Mr. President. You won the election nearly a year ago. You are in charge, so take charge. Separate the wheat from the chaff, use your majorities in Congress (Pelosi and Reade couldn't lead ducklings across a country road) to get done what we who elected you want done. Now, this term.

The presidency is more than a starring role for a pop idol; it is an action part in the real world. Sparks must fly, friends be newly inspired, and foes sent reeling. Otherwise, there is no point in even running.