David Letterman Deprivation: Though it apparently is not of much interest to my daily paper, a contractual dispute between Direct TV and Viacom has resulted in a blackout of various stations in my areas (the exact contours depends on the locale), including: CBS, Comedy Central, BET [forgot that one! Boondocks will be glad.], MTV, VH-1, Nickelodean, and Noggin Network. This followed another dispute between YES Network (Yankees) that resulted in my need to listen to the games on the radio; I need to do the same for Mets games when I'm visiting my mom because of the increased fees required to have FSNY coverage. I know I'm a bit too young to be nostalgic, but this sort of thing was not a problem in the past. The games were on broadcast t.v. and CBS was not blocked. In fact, I think a local station like CBS should be required via some sort of "must carry" rule, or the corporation involved should pay a lot more than they do now to use public airwaves.

TV Update: Talking about TV, I caught an amusing new series entitled Significant Others (Bravo, Tu 9:30PM) about couples dealing with relationship issues. The cast of mostly unknowns came off well. I also caught some of the press conference of the formation of a new PAC entitled (this is serious, but still funny) Godless Americans PAC. Idealistic bunch ... amusing problem -- the fact that a candidate would not want to be endorsed by them. This led to a whole exchange on how they might formulate a quid pro quo in order not to do so!

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Best of JET: I was perusing my blog and found an old post of mine [I don't keep a copy of most of what I write online, so I guess future biographers will just have to do with an incomplete account of my life's opus.] that seems to fit the current times as good as any. It is entitled God's (or Nature's) Law Enforcement ... I have been told it has a bit of Camus to it, but (though I found The Plague quite rewarding) it was in no way consciously influenced by him.

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Trivia ... Why are storks associated with babies