Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
This is an odd day for me, always has been, as I am of German/Scandinavian descent and so there isn’t a lot of resonance in my background with the day. And the feel of the bacchanal that accompanies the day was far from the emotional bandwidth that resided within my family of origin. We were good German Catholics.
If you are celebrating today, be careful. Apparently tomorrow is a great day for dentists, having to deal with the results of fistfights from tonight.
It’s been a grey, grey, drear, damp day in Claverack with sudden bursts of sun breaking through the dark clouds for a few seconds, teasing one to hope for more.
Just back from a walk around from the neighborhood, I immediately went online to see if there were any updates on the Israeli election. There aren’t any yet. It’s a tight election and tomorrow we may know more but there are likely weeks of wrangling ahead to see who can actually form a government. Poised for the first time to be a power are Israeli-Arab voters who have joined together their numerous small parties under a single banner for this election.
Netanyahu has claimed they are coming out in droves and has said it is US money that is hiring buses to bring them to the polls. It has brought accusations of racism upon Netanyahu.
The result of this bitterly fought election, as ugly as anything American politics serves up, is important to America. Israel and the US have been historically close and I believe the majority of Americans would like to keep it that way but right now the relationship is frayed.
Chris Borland, a player for the SF 49ers, has decided at 24 to retire rather than to face the possibility of permanent brain damage. He is one of the best rookie players in the league.
Every year during “The Upfront,” billions of dollars are exchanged between networks and advertisers, buying great swaths of advertising inventory in exchange for what is hoped will be an advantageous price. NBC is facing a particularly trying Upfront this year with lingering problems from the Brian Williams situation, Today being in second place among the morning shows and has a ratings slump occurring at MSNBC.
It will be very interesting to see how the Upfront plays out this year. Discovery’s head, David Zaslav, has announced that he thinks this year will be “tepid.” Money is beginning to move toward digital alternatives.
I follow this because this was once part of my life, when I worked at A&E and Discovery.
Veering from advertising to humanitarianism, the island nation of Vanuatu is beginning to run out of food and supplies. While the death toll has been low so far, communications are still down and needs are going up. One organization ramping up to help is Save the Children, http://www.savethechildren.org/.
Living alone, as I do, gives one a great deal of time to think. My friend, the writer Howard Bloom [“The Lucifer Principle” and others], calls nature a “bloody bitch.” And when I consider situations like Vanuatu, I have to agree. It will be years for it to recover. 40% of its income comes from tourism, cruise ships stopping by mostly. That is indefinitely suspended.
Nature is wonderful and awe inspiring. It is also destructive and capricious.
Right now a vast solar storm is occurring. If it gets bad enough, you might see damage to satellites, overloading of power grids and other fun things. And should you be living in the high latitudes, it will also be beautiful to behold.
Do you remember the movie “The Breakfast Club?” It was released thirty years ago and there was a special screening of it last night at the SXSW Film Festival. Amazing; seems like yesterday. Its stars Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy were there, also a little in disbelief that it had been thirty years.
Twenty years ago, Microsoft gave us Internet Explorer. Now they are going to kill it off and will launch a new web browser, specifically oriented to mobile users and integrating Cortana into it [their version of Apple’s Siri]. It doesn’t officially have a name but is codenamed Project Spartan.
Now I must finish up and go to the drugstore to pick up a prescription so I can keep getting everything together for India.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 03 20 15 As the snow swirls on the first day of spring…
March 20, 2015Outside the window of the office where I am sitting, big white flakes of snow are falling today, the first day of spring. I am hoping that by the time I return from India, winter will finally have loosened its grip on the northeast.
It has been a tiring winter and no on will be sorry to see it go.
I have had a busy day, spending the morning packing for India and then off to a couple of meetings, now with a little space between one meeting and the next so I thought to get off today’s Letter.
Part of the time I was in one of my meetings, the conversation turned to all the changes happening on the media landscape. While I don’t think television networks are going to go away anytime soon, especially since “cord cutting” is real but minimal, I do think we have probably hit some kind of tipping point in the television landscape.
During television’s prime time, people watching Netflix, which has emerged as a behemoth on its own, consume a third of the Internet’s bandwidth. Next year, it will spend more money on content than the BBC, which is staggering.
It is reported Apple will launch a TV service with approximately 25 networks, which will probably only accelerate the changes happening – if it indeed happens. Apple has always seemingly had a love/hate kind of thing going with content. This time, though, I am guessing it will happen.
Media is the business being most disrupted these days it seems to me.
The word “disrupted” adequately describes the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu. Now John Boehner, Speaker of the House, is on his way to pay “Bibi” a visit. The press is wondering if the leaders of the US and Israel can pass olive branches back and forth. Right now there are only hard feelings.
Hard times have fallen on Representative Aaron Schock of Illinois, who abruptly resigned recently. It is being reported that the Justice Department is opening an investigation into his affairs. Subpoenas have been issued, according to sources, and served on his staff in Peoria.
The Iranian nuclear talks have broken off but will resume next week. It is getting very close to the make it or break it moment. We will see what happens.
What didn’t happen in Europe today was that the lights didn’t go out. Europe is far ahead of the US in the use of solar energy and there were concerns that today’s solar eclipse could have a huge effect on the European power grid. Thankfully, it didn’t. Fossil fuels rode to the rescue during the time of the eclipse.
The dollar is down and oil is up which resulted in the market trending higher today. As I am writing the Dow Jones is up 225.
Not up but down is the maximum area of Artic Sea ice this year, at its lowest point in recorded history, in fact.
Vanuatu is still reeling from the effects of Cyclone Pam, communications are still patchy at best and the island nation has been transformed from a lush green tropical forest to a dirty brown now that foliage has been ripped away by the winds. Fires are burning all over the islands that make up the country as residents try to clear the land.
While it is still almost two years before the Obamas leave office, speculation is growing as to where they might live once they leave the White House. It is not expected they will return to Chicago. Today, a major Obama supporter and donor, through a series of companies, purchased the home outside Honolulu that was used in the television series “Magnum, PI” back in the 1980’s. In political circles it is being whispered that the Obamas would like to return to Hawaii, at least part time, when finished in the White House.
Outside, the snow continues to fall, thick, white flakes, swirled around by the wind, giving the impression I am looking into a snow globe.
Tags:Aaron Schock, Apple, BBC, Cyclone Pam, John Boehner, Magnum PI, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Netanyahu, Netflix, Obama, Solar Eclipse, Vanuatu
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