Back to Stockbridge
There was a time — most of the 20th century, in fact — when it was possible for cartoonists to make a living as cartoonists. With few exceptions, those days are gone. Bill Waterson bowed out at just the right time, in late 1995, right before the decline of print media in general and newspapers in particular.
Ten years after the Richard Taylor book was published, the Famous Artists School introduced its cartooning correspondence course. It competed with the cartooning course from the Art Instruction Schools that Charles M. Schulz took. He later became an instructor at the school.
Here’s another good exhibit for me to see at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA.
Another TV Break-Up
Long before I was declared, with Morley Safer’s approval, to be a member of the CBS Family, I followed The CBS Evening News.
Growing up, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC seemed cold, off-putting and intimidating to me. They conveyed a sense that “beware, the world is a scary place.”
Walter Cronkite on CBS was a firm authority figure, while also being warm, welcoming and reassuring that, “we can get through this.” I was a big fan of Cronkite’s series The 21st Century. That was when I first heard about lasers over fiber optic cable. Having been myself, albeit not in a big way, a broadcast journalist, I consider Cronkite to be the reference standard for integrity.
By today’s age standards, Cronkite was required to retire much too soon, but I thought Dan Rather was a capable successor. I remember watching his infamous 1974 exchange with Nixon as it happened.
After Rather, CBS News lost its way, especially when the news division was put under the entertainment division. Consistency and stability were finally restored to the evening newscast by Nora O’Donnell. Now Nora is gone, and I am not surprised by this news item.
CBS News Ratings Collapse After Norah O’Donnell Exit
https://www.tvinsider.com/1177996/cbs-news-ratings-norah-odonnell-john-dickerson-maurice-dubois/
I disliked the new format so much that after two nights I switched to NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. So ended my sixty years following The CBS Evening News, and now Lester Holt has announced that he’s leaving!
Fortunately, there is The PBS News Hour, that I began watching when it was the MacNeil/Lehrer Report. They’ve been providing excellent, professional coverage of the chaos that has gripped the nation with the return of Trump to the White House.
I Have Done the Unthinkable
I have cancelled Fios TV; which, for me, is the same as saying that I have cancelled Turner Classic Movies. Why? Because the picture on Fios TV One is so soft as to not qualify as being HD.
Until two-and-a-half years ago, TCM on Fios TV was in SD. I was delighted when, in September, 2022, Verizon added TCM in HD to the lineup on channel 730.
I was also very pleased to see that Fios TV in HD and the Watch TCM streaming service were indistinguishable in picture quality. That is no longer the case with the new, and mandatory, Fios TV One system.
A direct comparison with the WatchTCM app isn’t necessary to see Fios TV’s obvious softness. Making that direct back-and-forth comparison reveals a loss of detail comparable to DVD quality. It’s obvious not only on the JVC D-ILA projector, but also on the 720p bedroom TV. And it’s on every station, not just TCM, but TCM is the only cable channel I care about.
Based on HD having such poor resolution, Verizon’s touting of 4K video is laughable. Obviously, Verizon has introduced lossy recompression into its video chain, undoing what had been the hallmark of Fios TV’s original and outstanding image quality. What scarce technical resources are they saving by doing that?
One way for me to think about this is I’ve been returned to the way it was before TCM HD on Fios TV. WatchTCM was the only way I watched the channel, and very rarely did I use the DVR to record TCM in SD. But I refuse to do that again, having been spoiled and knowing what’s possible.
This does not bode well, not just for cable TV, but for the future of Turner Classic Movies. TCM has lost this devoted subscriber and charter member of the defunct TCM Backlot program.
WatchTCM must inevitably become a standalone streaming subscription service, no longer tethered to the out-of-date cable TV business model. Until that happens, I will be relying upon the Criterion Channel, which offers at least some of the content that’s available on TCM.
P.S. I neglected to mention there’s a TCM section inside of the Max streaming service. It’s a collection of movies, rather than being TCM or WatchTCM.
We Are Doomed
How can there any doubt that America is headed for a Constitutional crisis? We’re already there, but it seems a very high bar has been set, being the defiance of a Supreme Court ruling that’s unfavorable to the administration. A Supreme Court that has already given Trump free rein — more like reign — to do as he pleases, without consequences.
Trump is an agent not of change, but of destruction. He is doing exactly what I, and many others, knew he would do.
Yes, Donald, it’s the worst mess we’ve ever seen.
Unashamed Unreality Unleashed
New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker was one of the panelists on Friday’s Washington Week.
Baker’s commentaries have been excellent. Today’s is being posted here as a NYTimes freebie. The quotes about Trump being a masterful propagandist is a dignified way of saying that he’s a con man.