May 18 2013
Gotcha! If one didn’t know that Turner TV’s news networks are trying to be serious you’d think of them as the TV homes of brilliant farce and satire.
As video documented by the site Atlantic Wire on May 7, CNN’s studio presented a split-screen chat with...
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May 11 2013
I enjoy sea cruises. Good value, lotsa eats, easy to relax. Can read three books in seven days. The office can’t get you unless you go to the e-mail lounge, which I avoid. Not much I can do if I’m needed; I’m on the Atlantic Ocean, fer...
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May 04 2013
Common Sense in Exile, Part I:
On Sunday, April 21, at 10 a.m., WPIX Ch. 11 may have established a fresh low for desperate, anything-for-a-buck TV when it aired an infomercial called “Best Sex Ever.”
The program was loaded with explicit sexual references and dialogue, including “Come on, honey...
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Apr 27 2013
Too often the problem with funny is that it’s unconditional, indiscreet, as if funny just can’t help itself.
On April 19, as law enforcement invaded Watertown, Mass. in search of Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, New York’s Fox News clung to the story.
At 9 a...
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Apr 13 2013
Ask a silly question . . .
For pure, unintentional, unfiltered absurdity, we dare you to top NBC’s “Today” show of April 3rd.
The topic, among co-hosts Natalie Morales, Al Roker and Bill Geist, was the results of a poll about conspiracy theories. Several of which were so stupid as to only...
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Apr 06 2013
The funniest sitcoms on TV remain the unintended ones that appear on financial news channels.
Last month, after the large hedge fund operation run by Steve Cohen — one of its biggest boys had already been indicted for on-the-job corruption — reached a record $616 million settlement with the SEC, the financial...
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Mar 23 2013
Roughly 15 years ago, I wrote a sports column about a neighborhood recreation complex, one replete with five baseball diamonds that, during daylight, non-school hours went unused — save for a kid on a dirt bike, now and then — unless adult-organized and supervised league games and practices were being conducted.
Many...
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Mar 16 2013
Who is Shiquan Bellamy? Why is it unlikely that you never heard of him?
1) Following last week’s selection of a jury, the double-murder trial of Bellamy, now 21, was scheduled to begin. He’s charged with the robberies and execution murders of 25-year-old Nia Haqq and Michael Muchioki...
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Mar 10 2013
Don’t blame me. Reader Jim Mulloy started it with, “What percentage of non-attorney spokespersons in commercials are spokespersons for attorneys?”
And that got me to thinking . . .
Why are we told that “viewer discretion is advised” when it’s far more advisable to advise viewer indiscretion?
How many more times...
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Mar 03 2013
Having been told, over and over, that Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is a must-see, especially as an historically immaculate treatment of the man and the times, it recently came to light that a significant event in the film not only didn’t happen, the opposite occurred.
The film shows that...
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