Conservative Musings

TV executives are afraid of the public!!!

According to Jeff Johnson's article entitled TV execs argue against 'a la carte' cable at OneNewsNow.com, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has advocated for consumers to be able to choose their own programming by choosing the channels they want instead of taking a whole bundle.  This means that consumers could choose what channels they want to pay for and ONLY pay for those channels.  That sounds like a great deal to me.  There are many channels that I, not only don't watch, but don't care to support either.

However, TV executives think this is a bad idea.  They even claim it would "outrage" consumers.  They claim that many diverse programs would not make it off the ground if consumers got to choose. 

WOW!!!  That says a lot!  Consumers could actually drive the market.  What a concept!  Supply and demand would really be at work.   I think it would be great if TV lineups operated like the rest of the market. 

I think we should all contact the FCC and let them know what we want.  OneNewsNow.com is doing a survey regarding what consumers think.  The question was "Would you, as a consumer, feel worse off or better off should cable 'a la carte' become a reality?  At the time, I took the poll, there were  4183 responses and they voted:

2.46% thought they would be worse off

82.72% thought they would be better off

5.26% were unsure

9.56% were not cable subscribers

Contacts for the FCC -  http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html

-Lady Colonel

Happy 40th to Star Trek

Forty years ago this evening, an episode named The Man Trap started the journeys of the U.S.S. Enterprise and it's successors.  NBC ran this show right after an episode of Daniel Boone that evening (there had to be a connection to Kentucky somewhere!).

This evening a 40th anniversary party is going on in Seattle's Space Needle.  I had been in Seattle this week and kinda wished I coulda stayed and joined the party.

-Colonel Steve

Thoughts on Mel

Well, Mel Gibson has gone and done it.  He has confirmed the beliefs of all the people who cried "anti-Semitism" when he did the "Passion of the Christ" movie.  Or, has he?

I don't know Mel Gibson.  He may be an anti-Semite.  He may not.  Alcohol can do strange things to people.  It can change them into something new.  Or it can resurrect old demons. 

I became a Christian shortly before my 20th birthday.  That was a long time ago.  Most people who know me would be surprised to find out that as a younger child I had as foul a mouth as you could imagine and you couldn't trust me to tell the truth.  The truth thing changed as I entered high school as I discovered I disliked not being trusted.  The mouth moderated somewhat, but the profanity didn't go away until after I met the Lord.

Or, should I say, mostly go away.  I still find that when I am tired and/or stressed that old part of me wants to raise its ugly head and sometimes it breaks through.  I have never been drunk, but I can only imagine how I would be if I ever got drunk.  I don't like that imagination.

So, my point is this:  Mel may be an anti-Semite.  Or, it could be that he was an anti-Semite at one time in his past and the alcohol brought it out of him.  His statements while drunk should only be judged if they match his actions while sober.  And no, "Passion of the Christ" was not an anti-Semitic film.

As far as his actions while drunk?  He has been charged with DUI and should accept the consequences of that.

--Red

P.S. For the record, anti-Semitism is disgusting.  If Mr. Gibson is truly an anti-Semite then he is deserving of the public criticism he has received and should be made unwelcome in Hollywood.

Return of Babylon 5

According to news at the San Diego ComicCon, J. Michael Straczynski is working on bringing back Babylon 5 as a direct to 'DVD series.  It may be a little tough, since some of the actors portraying main characters have died since the end of the television series.  But heh, I loved the show and so did many other sci-fi fans.

(HT: Outside the Beltway)

-Colonel Steve

Muddled Movie Makers

In Doomsayers Predict Death of Movie Theater, Fox reports on the movie industry's response to lackluster ticket sales and what one solution (narrowing or eliminating the gap between theater release and DVD release) would do to movie theaters.  As usual with liberals, and Hollywood is replete with them, they refuse to recognize the real problem and thus seek the wrong solutions.

The problem, of course, couldn't be the recent lack of overall creativity and the focus on liberal themes in their films.  I'm sure most people just can't wait to go watch films that attack their values.  I love movies, but I'm not interested in having my values attacked, so I don't see nearly as many as I used to.

In a related story also on Fox, Globes Could Be Big Night for Gay-Themed Films, Hollywood shows that it is much more interested in hyping its own values than in making good movies that most people want to watch.

--Red