WBGH, again you win the contest as the most clueless PBS station in the world.

There is this small news event occurring this week, called the Democratic National Convention.

And what are you showing tonight?

John Denver, a man and his music.

Are you completely clueless?

Another year, another lack of donations from me.

When will you start showing the programs we want to see, and stop with the crap you think raises you the most money?

This is an ongoing rant.

David Parmet pointed me to these Pledge Week extravaganzas.

My fave:

Surviving members of every 50s doo-wop band fight to the death with clubs — shirtless and totally coked-up — in massive Thunderdome-like arena

Merlin Mann is a god. One of the minor deities, but a deity nonetheless.

Some additions:

1. Celtic Women v. The Three Tenors in a massive glass-breaking, heavy metal tribute to Metallica!
2. Civil War outtakes — “Dear Ma,… General Grant has given the soldiers with one leg the afternoon off from ditch digging, god bless him…” (David Parmet)
3. Ken Burns vs the Celtic Woman in a nude mud wrestling match.. with fire!!! (David Parmet)
4. Cirque du Soleil performing with live wolverines
5. Ken Burns and Bill Moyers fighting for the right to interview what’s left of Nixon

STOP. THE. AWFUL. PLEDGE. DRIVES!

Later today, I will be discussing an offer of support for the GrabPERF System which came in last night.

I know that I have made my need for hardware and financial support for GrabPERF fairly clear over the last couple of days. However, I was impressed and surprised by this offer of sponsorship/support, especially given who the person making the gesture is.

I won’t say reveal any details yet (yes, I am stealing a Buzz Marketing trick from Scoble and Wright), but this is a very exciting development for the GrabPERF System.

Perhaps corporate sponsorship is the model I need to look at for this.

GrabPERF: The PBS/NPR of Web Performance Monitoring.

I watched part of Fatal Flood last night. It was brutal. And, unfortunately, was echoed far too recently not to be a disturbing insight into the nature of the American mind.

The attitude in this nation towards the disadvantaged and disenfranchised has not changed since 1927. This country is falling away from the city upon a hill, the emblematic vision that fuels the misguided and selfish leadership of the United States.

Katrina exposed the raw, festering wounds in the United States. The stench from the Delta is the rotting of the American Soul.

Watched Auschwitz on PBS tonight. It is terrifying to see this happening, but a historical perspective must be jarred to reality by the knowledge that the over-arching goals of the extermination camps still apears in human activity.

Sometimes I wonder if we are fit to consider ourselves the primary species on this world.

The Head Lemur has an excellent rant on his favourite Rubbermaid Laundry Basket, and the state of the company itself (Laundry Baskets).

I agree with his design changes, and I also wholeheartedly agree with his rants on the state of the Rubbermaid site. I used to be a Rubbermaid evangalist myself. When I was a grad student in the early 1990s, I stored the contents of my nomadic life in RoughNeck containers, which doubled as firniture. However, since then, the quality and diversity of their product line has sunk and they have been marginalized.

After watching the Frontline on Is Wal-Mart Good for America, I blame Wal-Mart and poor management for the slide of one of my favourite brands. Wal-Mart squeezed an American plastics company right to the edge, exposing magaement issues, and forcing them into a merger with Newell.

So, although I like the design that the Head Lemur has suggested, it is unlikely that a company which was once so creative and cutting edge will even care that someone has a cool idea to improve one of their products.

I hope I am proven wrong as well.

Looks like the slow Holiday shopping season is affecting everyone, even Wal-Mart.

Seems that even the Chinese can’t help them now (Frontline: Is Wal-Mart Good For America?).

Link: Yahoo! News – Hockey Night in Canada theme composer launches lawsuit against CBC.

Chorus:
Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.

Westward from the Davis Strait ’tis there ’twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.¹

Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his “sea of flowers” began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.

And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.

How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.

¹ “Not until 1859 did the last search party, led by Leopold McClintock, find
the cairn containing messages confirming Franklin’s death, and skeletons of
some of the last survivors, some of whom had apparently resorted to
cannibalism. According to a note found in the cairn at Point Victory, “Sir
John Franklin died on 11th June 1847″ at a point when only 24 men had thus
far died.”
– The Franklin Expedition: 1845-1859