GMA is now a cross between Entertainment Tonight, People magazine and a commercial for every ABC show and/or Disney product they can think of.

Of course, GMA has always had less news content than the Today Show – it’s always been lighter fare, but things are totally out of control now.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see the Secretary of Agriculture on TV a lot (I don’t even know who he or she is) – but would it kill ABC to show a little hard news? Something beyond some sex triangle murder or a psychological profile of Casey Anthony. This is a Presidential campaign year and practically the only politics they show is the obligatory 17 second segment on the latest campaign gaff.

What does it say about a “news show” that mentions Lady Gaga 25 times more often than Secretary of State Clinton or does a “GMA exclusive” interview with Lindsey Lohan’s Mom?

There is so little hard news content that Weather-land man Sam Champion was actually making fun of the lack of news content in his own show on the air the other day.

The joke here is that GMA is actually part of the ABC News Division and doesn’t that really just make ABC News a joke unto itself?

Recently, I’ve seen segments for Celebrity Wife Swap, The Chew, and The Revolution – all ABC shows. Then, of course, there was that hard-hitting segment about Madonna and Elton John’s Golden Globes spat.

Lara Spencer seems to be the queen of Entertainment This Morning doing pop culture “news.” Lara, you do know it’s all crap, right?

And the deals of the day – they’re incorporating a QVC-like segment into their programming model. I mean, really, is there no depth that GMA will not sink too?

The happy news team thing has each of them laughing and giggling like every single word every one of them says is the funniest freakin’ thing they’ve ever heard until tomorrow when they start all over again.

And I guess the worst thing is that people are watching.

GMA is attracting more viewers now than they have in years. They are still behind The Today Show but not by much and if they can just shoe horn a little bit more celebrity gossip into the show, I’m confident they’ll be the  #1 morning “news” show soon.

It’s a pathetic excuse for a news program and I’ve had enough.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

What is a fitting end anyway? An end with dignity, solemnity or respect? Does a ship deserve anything approaching respect?

As much as I love ships, they are after all, just vehicles. Hunks of steel, wiring, plumbing, electronics and other assorted mechanical bits and pieces. They carry cargo and people from place to place. Ships can be a source of national prestige and pride. They bring power to distant shores. They are the big stick with which a President walks softly.

The officers and crew endow their ships with human traits i.e. anthropomorphism. Men who have sailed into harms way in destroyers and submarines and tankers, then been safely delivered home, develop an understandable affection for their vessels.

They hate to see their ships destroyed – but, you can’t save everything.

Realistically, with 50,000+ registered ships in the world, very, very few will be preserved beyond their commercially or militarily viable days. Most will be driven up on the beaches of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and a host of other 3rd world countries with little or no environmental regulations. Once there, they will be literally torn apart with hand tools and blow torches. The steel, brass and other materials will be recycled into razor blades, boxes of nails, the rear quarter panel of your Chevy, and an endless list of other products.

I live in the Boston area and we preserve practically everything. If you visit Paul Revere’s house, you’ll see we’ve actually saved his chamberpot. But, it’s much more expensive to maintain a ship than a house or a chamberpot. That’s why so few are preserved.

Warships do fare better then their ocean-going sisters. A handful are preserved for their educational and historic value. Here in New England, in addition to the Cassin Young, we have The Constitution, the battleship Massachusetts, cruiser Salem, destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy Jr, and the submarines Lionfish, Albacore, and Nautilus.

The only other museum ships I can think of in the region are the Charles W. Morgan – a whaling ship from the 19th century and the steamship Ticonderoga.  (The Mayflower in Plymouth is a reproduction.)

According to a recent article in The Boston Globe, the USS Cassin Young may be nearing the end of its days as an museum ship. It’s simply too expensive. We need the money for teachers, roads and Medicare.

If not preserved, is there another fitting end for a ship? For warships, the answer is “yes.” It’s appropriate but it’s not necessarily pretty.

My Father-in-law served on a destroyer-minesweeper during the Korean War. The USS Fitch was built at the Boston Navy Yard in early 1941. She was built as a destroyer and later converted to a mine sweeper. She was just 348 feet long, 36 feet wide with 276 officers and crew. For a little ship, the USS Fitch had a enviable war record. She patrolled the shores of Normandy on D-Day and was anchored in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese signed the surrender documents aboard the USS Missouri. She was there for two pivotal points in history.

I did some research to see what finally happened to his ship and shared my findings with him one afternoon at our kitchen table.

I explained that she was retired from active duty and mothballed in 1956. In July 1971, the Navy decided she could never be reactivated. She was a warship unsuited to modern warfare. She was too small and too old and too expensive to refit. The Navy, however, had one more mission for this old war veteran.

In November of 1973, she was towed to the coast of Florida and anchored in deep water. Aircraft flying off the USS Forestall used the ship for target practice and sank her.

“They sank my Fitch?” my Father-in-law asked, eyes tearing up.

“We sailed with The Forestall and they sank my Fitch?” he added, slowly shaking his head from side to side.

“Isn’t that better than being scrapped?” I asked. He did not reply. He looked stunned and disappointed.

I think, in the end, he agreed, but I’m sorry I told him. I think he was better off thinking she was laid-up the back waters of some vast reserve fleet.

The USS Fitch was one of the few ships to reach what I call a fitting end. She was a warship and ended her life furthering the training of a sister warship’s crew. She was built to fight and died so others could learn to fight.

That is about the best one can hope for.

What is your favorite word?
Yes

What is your least favorite word?
No

What turns you on?
My imagination

What turns you off?    
Arrogance

What sound do you love?
A nice speaking voice

What sound do you hate?
My name called in an angry way

What is your favorite curse word?
Jesus-Fucking-Christ

What profession, other than yours, would you like to attempt?
Writer

What profession would you not like to participate in?
Laborer

If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive a the pearly gates?
“There’s someone here who’s been waiting for you:”
“Mark, take a walk.”

Feel free to comment…

I have a goal to read 20 books a year.

Mostly, I read non-fiction but recently I’ve been trying to read more fiction than in the past. I realized not too long ago, while I have learned a lot in my non-fiction reading, these books rarely capture my emotional attention.

I attended a reading of Townie by Andre Dubus III. During his commentary, he mentioned “Men typically read non-fiction for information. Women read fiction for emotional engagement.” That comment stuck with me. I realized that I wasn’t emotionally attached to many of the books I’ve read in recent years. I read but my imagination is rarely fired up. So, I’ve mixed in more fiction than ever this year. Including 2 works of fiction by Andre Dubus III.

I occasionally review books on Amazon. Below are the books I’ve read in the past 2 years and a few comments on some of them. (My comments are in italics.) I’ve provided links to some of my favorites.

How to Make Professional Home Movies with Everyday Equipment
The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs
Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
Building The Perfect WordPress Blog – Getting Started with WordPress!
Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong – This was a very interesting look at baseball behind the numbers.
Flashforward – The book that TV series came from. Gets a little silly at the end.
The Jaws Log, 30th Anniversary Edition – Behind the scenes of an iconic movie.
Descent into Darkness Pearl Harbor, 1941 – This book really fired up my imagination. Think about this scene…the writer is underwater in a clunky diving suit, in the dark with only his waterproof flashlight to light the way through an overturned battleship…
iMovie ’09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual
The West Wing (The Official Companion)
Google AdWords For Dummies
Battleship Oklahoma BB-37
Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker-in-Training – Insider’s view of a rapidly changing business.
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa – One of the books The Pacific mini series was based on. Simply horrifying.
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
Seized: A Sea Captain’s Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World’s Most Troubled Waters
Simple Truths of Service: Inspired By Johnny the Bagger
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod – I rarely reread books but this one was worth it. Cape Cod as it once was.
Ancient Egypt
A Grand and Bold Thing: An Extraordinary New Map of the Universe Ushering In A New Era of Discovery
Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B. B. King – A very frank telling of his story. He pulls no punches.
Then Belichick Said to Brady: The Best New England Patriots Stories Ever Told (The Best Sports Stories Ever Told) – An awful book.
What Dreams May Come: A Novel
Escape from the Deep: A Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew
Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams
Selling the Sea: An Inside Look at the Cruise Industry
What Time Is The Midnight Buffet?
eXtreme New England Weather
Cruise Confidential: A Hit Below the Waterline: Where the Crew Lives, Eats, Wars, and Parties. One Crazy Year Working on Cruise Ships
Townie: A Memoir – This is excellent.
Complete Guide To Cruising & Cruise Ships 2011 (Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising and Cruise Ships)
Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs
The Garden of Last Days: A Novel
Knuckler: My Life with Baseball’s Most Confounding Pitch
Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy – Not funny at all. I slogged thru this and did not enjoy much. It’s more like a text book than anything else.
The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel - A dog pines for thumbs and a happy life for his master.
Get Rich Click!: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money on the Internet
iMovie ’11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual
The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Most Daring Sea Rescue – Story of an amazing rescue off Chatham.
Late Bloomer
House of Sand and Fog – A tragic story of lives unraveling. I can’t wait to see the movie.
War of Our Fathers: Relics of the Pacific Battlefields

So, I did some research.

At the start of the decade, about half the population in the US had internet access. Now that number is closer to 80%. Everyone I’ve spoken with was glued to their TV or radio on September 11th. I do not recall speaking to anyone who’s primary source of information was the internet.

There was no on-line social networking to speak of. MySpace didn’t start until 2002 and was then overtaken by FaceBook in 2006 as the leading social networking site. There was no Twitter. The first tweets were in 2006, and there are now over 200 million Twitter users. If a terrorist attack happened today, I think word would spread like wildfire on Twitter and FaceBook. In 2001, we just called everyone – on our land lines.

And who’s got a land line any more?

Today, 96% of us carry a cell phone. At the start of 2001, only about 38% of the US population had a cell phone. Of course, those phones back in 2001 didn’t have cameras, didn’t have access to email and the internet, and hardly anyone texted. They are what we would now call “basic phones.”

I had this phone.

The first bluetooth headsets were announced in Spring ’01. Now, in some cities and states, they are required for cell phone use in cars. Of course, now most cars have built in bluetooth available.

The smart phone that defined the category – the Blackberry – wasn’t even a phone in 2001. It was a data device only. The first Blackberry with an integrated phone wasn’t released until 2002.

In ten short years the Blackberry defined, dominated and then was overwhelmed in the category it created. The 2007 introduction of the iPhone was the beginning of the end for Blackberry. In a market it once owned, it’s now third and falling further behind Apple’s iPhone and the legion of Android smart phones. I bet it won’t even exist in another 10 years – do I hear 5 years?

Ten years ago there was no Skype, no Youtube, no LinkedIn.

HDTV existed but few people were watching the few programs available in HD.

Chronicle, the award-winning local news magazine from WCVB in Boston started broadcasting occasional shows in HD in 1999. They didn’t switch to full time HD programming until 2006.

The cost of a 47” “HD ready” TV advertised on the BestBuy website in 2001? $1,999 and then you needed an HD box to make it work. Now you can buy a higher quality HDTV at less than a quarter of that price – no box necessary. And almost everything on the major networks is broadcast in HD now.

Speaking of BestBuy. They’ve done well in the last ten years, In 2001 the top electronics retailers were: BestBuy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Radio Shack, The Good Guys, The Wiz, Ultimate Electronics, Tweeter, BrandsMart, and Rex Stores. Today only BestBuy and Radio Shack still exist as brick and mortar stores.

Back in the day, the DVD player was the big seller – everyone was migrating from VHS to DVD. Now, you can’t even buy a stand-alone VCR at BestBuy. DVD is being replaced by Blu Ray and even that technology is being supplanted by cloud streaming services like Netflix and iTunes.

In September 2001, there was no iPod, no iPhone, no iPad. iTunes was released in January 2001 but it didn’t become fully functional until the iPod was released in October of that year. By the way, Apple stock was selling at about $16 a share in the Fall of 2001. Yesterday it closed at $390 so it’s been a pretty good decade for Apple.

Over at Microsoft, the big news was the roll out of Window’s XP. It was released for retail sale in October of 2001.

In my research for this post, I visited the AT&T website from 2001 via the Wayback Machine. If you’ve never used the Wayback Machine it’s pretty cool. They’ve archived a huge number of websites over the years so you can see what websites actually looked like in years gone past. It’s worth snooping around on.

Anyway, the big news at AT&T in the summer of 2001?

“AT&T Rolls Out Next-Generation Payphones“

If that doesn’t say something about how technology has changed in ten years, nothing does. When is the last time you used a payphone? Do you even know were to find one that works?

Funny, as I’m typing this, my word processing application is suggesting that the word “payphone” is spelled incorrectly – that word was, apparently, never included in the application’s dictionary. Not only is the device obsolete, so is the word, I guess.

In the last ten years, technology has changed in so many ways.

We’ve gone from a analog society to a digital one. From desktops to laptops and tablets. From calling to texting and from VHS tapes to streaming from the cloud.

In 2001 social networking ment people you met and saw and spoke to in the real world – now it means “friending” people and living partially in the real world and partially in a virtual world at the exact same time.

Change can be fun and exciting and scary and unsettling all at the same time. Who knows what the next ten years of technology will bring?

I, for one, can’t wait to see.

The Fall of 1972 was an exciting time for me. I was 13 and at the height of my Red Sox obsession. I’d suffered through a strike-marred spring and followed the Sox’ progress toward the pennant each day. The Providence Evening Bulletin arrived late in the afternoon, and often my mother would find me sprawled over the landing at the front door pouring over the sports pages. I lived and died each day with the exploits of Marty Patten, Tommy Harper, Carl Yastrzemski and a kid from New Hampshire they called “Pudge.”

October that year was the first time the Red Sox broke my heart. It was so cruelly unfair. A labor strike shortened the season and Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ruled no missed games would be made up. The schedule was what it was and even if that meant some teams played more or fewer games than others, so be it.

The Red Sox finished their season .5 games out of first place. They were second to the Detroit Tigers, but the Tigers had played 156 games to Boston’s 155. They played, and won, one more game than the Red Sox and claimed the divisional crown. So unfair. Crushing.

Later in October, as The Oakland A’s were claiming the first of their three consecutive World Series Championships, my father brought us all to a Republican fund-raising barbecue.

The guest of honor at the barbecue was John Chafee, decorated Korean War vet, former Governor of Rhode Island, Secretary of the Navy and candidate of the US Senate. Chaffee was the last of the liberal Republicans. He was to arrive via helicopter later in the day.

Smoke from grilling burgers, hot dogs and chicken wafted through an old barn that was lined with tables holding items up for auction.

I love old stuff. I love antique stores – the junkier, the better. This was an auction of infinitely appealing junk. As I wandered up and down the aisles, my eye spied a beige baseball. What 13-year-old boy can see a baseball and not involuntarily reach to pick it up?

I did and it was signed. There were names all over the ball. It was an official American League baseball. As I tried to read the names, I slowly turned the ball in my hand and… Ted Williams.

Even his signature was big and bold. Brash. The John Hancock of baseball.

Ted Williams is a baseball god. A legend. A player who gave up nearly five full seasons in the prime of his career to fight in both World War II and the Korean War and still finished with over 500 career home runs and a .344 career batting average. He was the last player to hit over .400 for a full season and, fittingly, homered in his final at bat.

Ted Williams once said his lifetime goal was, “to be the best goddamn hitter in baseball.” And he was.

I was holding a ball he had held in his hands. It was heady stuff for a young Red Sox fan.

The auction wasn’t for hours. I kept coming back to the ball. Holding it, trying to read the rest of the names. The owner was a man named Phil Kettle who was a big wig in Republican politics in my home town. He’d had the ball for a long time, but I’m unclear how he came to own it.

Getting to see and climb around on a helicopter was a pretty enticing reason for me to go to the barbecue, but everything changed when I saw that ball. Helicopter or no helicopter, I was captivated by the idea of owning that ball.

My dad gave me the okay to bid up to $10. In 1972, that was quite a bit of money. Gas was 36 cents a gallon and the minimum wage was just $1.60.

Finally, it was time. The auctioneer rattled off names, descriptions and bids. As item after item was sold, the crowd got more and more amped up. An auction is exciting whether or not you’re bidding – you just get caught up in the high-energy, atmosphere of the event.

I was sitting on the right side of the crowd on top of a shed with some other kids. My parents were nearer the middle of the crowd with their friends. Finally it was time…the bidding began.

“Do I hear five dollar?” the auctioneer asked. I raised my hand, shouted out my bid.

It was promptly countered, “five and a quarter.”

“Ihavefiveanaquarta.DoIheafivefifty?FivefiftydoIheafivefifty”

“Five-fifty,” I shouted.

Countered.

Back and fourth we went. The bids spiraled up and up, closing in on my ceiling.

There was one man, a grownup, bidding against me. He may have been a fine man. Maybe he wanted the ball for his own kid. I don’t know, but at that moment, I hated him. He was all that stood between me and the ball. Every time I bid, he bid.

Seven, eight, nine dollars. I was running out of time. He had to stop, had to relent and let me win the ball.

“IhavenineseventyfivedoIheatendolla?tendollawho’sgonnagivemetendollar?” The auctioneer sang, “Tendolla?”

“Ten dollars,” the man shouted. I was done. I’d hit my limit.

The auctioneer looked my way, asking for a bid. Going over and over in that sing-song way auctioneers have.

I was silent, despondent. I looked for my parents but I’d lost track of where they were.
The crowd was with me.

“Give the kid the ball.”

“Let him have it!”

“Going once.” “Do I hea ten an a quarta? Ten an a quarta?” looking right at me, asking for my bid.

“He’s just a kid,” someone shouted.

“Going twice.” “Do I hea ten an a dime? Ten and an dime?”

“Going three times,” and just as he was about to finish with “Sold” I hear “Ten-Fifty,” from  across the crowd. My head snapped to the left and there was my dad, arm in the air, bidding for my Ted Williams ball. My heart soared with an adrenaline rush.

And off to the races they went. Back and fourth.

My dad, like Ted Williams and John Chaffee, is a Marine and once he gets something in his teeth, he doesn’t let go for anything.

Eleven, twelve, back and fourth, up and up, thirteen, fourteen, man against man, fifteen, and then finally…

“Sold!”

My father didn’t relent. He won the ball for me.

I still have that ball. I’ve sold off all the other hold-overs from my youth – my baseball cards, coin collection, Hot Wheels, GI Joe’s, comic books – but I’ve always held on to the Ted Williams ball.

It’s my line in the sand. No matter what has happened in my life, I’ve never let it go and I’m not going to sell it. It’s going to end up with one of my boys. It’s evidence that I was once a red-headed, freckle-faced, 13-year-old boy. It’s a tangible link to two of my heros – Ted Williams and my dad.

“Well, this mission marks the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program and also ushers in an exciting new era, to push the frontiers of space exploration and human spaceflight.“

Is he on crack?

This is a new era of…..nothing. No manned spaceflight program, no new vehicles, no manned missions planned. Nothing. Just some vague words about someday going to Mars.

We have this fantastic space station orbiting earth. The biggest science lab to ever fly and we have no way of getting there and back. We have to ride with the Russians. We paid for most of their contribution to the ISS, and now we’re buying rides on their spacecraft.

Forty two years ago today, I watched men walk on the moon. I was excited and confident that I’d soon see men explore Mars. I’m not so hopeful any more. I’m sure it will happen, but may not be in my lifetime and, when it happens, they might not be Americans.

We need a President who can express a vision of the future that includes manned spaceflight. Someday people are going back to the Moon, someday they are going to Mars and beyond. I  want those people to be Americans. I want to lead the way, not hitch a ride.

What has happened to the space program is a travesty.

As we all know, when you “upgrade” your phone, ie buy a new phone and resign a new two-year agreement, the cell companies offer you a huge discount on the cost of the phone.

For example, if you buy an iPhone 4 16GB and sign a new two-year contract, AT&T sells you the phone for $199. The actual cost of the phone without a contract is $649. And, yes, this is a real price, and real people sometimes pay it if they have no other option.

Prior to July, AT&T, calculated sales tax on the $199. In Massachusetts, the sales tax rate is 6.25% so the tax was $12.44.

Now, the state requires that the sales tax be calculated on the full $649 value of the phone. So, starting July 1st, the sales tax jumps to $40.56 – a $28 increase!

This is how it works for all cell phone sellers in Massachusetts now – corporate, reseller, franchisee, or dealer, AT&T, Verizon, etc…

It seems to me, the state just found a really sneaky way of extracting even more money from it’s citizen’s wallets. Of course, anyone within a tank of gas will run to New Hampshire to buy their new phone.

It’s so much easier for the state to squeeze more money from the taxpayers then to actually reform government, cut waste and slash state payrolls of politically connected hacks.

It’s just how it is in the bluest of all the blue states…..tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend.