MARCH
30,
2026 
TIIMELESS
SITCOMS
My memory bank is slowly filling up, but recently while watching a Mary Tyler Moore Show rerun on a cable channel, I clearly recalled a scene I'd seen nearly 60 years ago.
Lou Grant is disappointed to learn that Charlene, his new girlfriend played by Sheree North, has a “history.” He's glumly sitting on his desk, arms folded. Mary wants to know the standard he's using.
Mary: How many men is a woman allowed to have before she becomes "that sort" of a woman?
Lou (flatly): Six.
The audience and I found that answer incongruously amusing. Mary leaves the office but comes right back to lecture Lou. She does this several times, allegedly washing her hands of the entire matter.
But I remembered how the scene was going to end. She enters once more.
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I also remember viewing the sitcom Head of the Class, which aired on ABC from 1986 to 1991. Mostly I just liked to look at the gorgeous student portrayed by Khrystyne Haje. I recently ran across a rerun on a different cable channel. |
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In the third season, the class visited Russia for three days. Their sightseeing in the capital of Moscow included Saint Basil's Cathedral. Steve Rose has described this iconic landmark as “an odd-looking pile-up of onion domes, polygonal towers, blank arches and sharp spires.” The teacher, played by Howard Hesseman, repeated the myth that after this chaotic structure was completed, Ivan the Terrible wanted to make sure it could never be duplicated elsewhere. Therefore he had its architects blinded. |
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Hesseman's punchline in 1988, still funny four decades later: Now those blind architects work for Donald Trump. |
MARCH
28,
2016 
HOW
ABOUT FOULS PER ASSIST?
Long ago, when I was keeping stats for my high school basketball team, a teacher from the next county introduced me to a new statistical measure that he claimed to have invented: the Offensive Efficiency Rating. It was merely points per possession. Tracking this stat required some work, because we didn’t normally count up a team’s possessions. However, I referred to the OER occasionally when I was my college radio station’s sports director.
It’s still being used. ESPN SportsCenter reported that when Villanova shot 63% from the field to defeat Miami last week, the Wildcats’ 1.58 points per possession marked their “best offensive efficiency in any game in the last five seasons.”
Nowadays, of course, analysts tabulate all sorts of ratios. Before Duquesne met Nebraska Omaha in the CBI tournament on March 16, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said of Duquesne, “Of all its points this season, 36.6 percent of them have come from 3-pointers, 26th most in Division I.” Conversely, it said of Nebraska Omaha, “Only 20.6 percent of its points are coming on 3s, the 14th-lowest mark in Division I.”
Tons of statistics are calculated for all 351 Division I teams. The reporter searched all the categories to learn where the Dukes and Mavericks ranked, thereby discovering an additional Hidden Stat: “Both teams rank among the top 20 Division I teams in tempo, with Nebraska Omaha fifth and Duquesne 19th.”
Tempo? I hadn’t heard of that one before; apparently it’s also called “pace.” I looked up the numbers myself. Sure enough, Nebraska Omaha races through 79 possessions per game and Duquesne 75½. (When they met, they really racked up the points. Duquesne won 120-112.) Virginia has the slowest tempo at 62.7 possessions per game.
I assume there are many other ratios out there that I haven’t yet discovered, such as “put-back efficiency,” which would be second-chance points per offensive rebound. Or how about “blocks per foot,” defined as blocked shots divided by the average height of the starters. Some ratios might even be meaningful; others might only seem meaningful.
MARCH
25,
2016
A
WELL-GREASED SWITCHER
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Fox is rebroadcasting the musical Grease Live this Sunday. When first telecast live on January 31, it was an amazingly complex production, performed partly on a sound stage and partly on a studio lot outdoors in the drizzling rain. Bleachers were filled with audience members. That was one of my few quibbles: I heard the audience only when they erupted in cheering that sounded like American Idol. The Applause sign must have gone on. I would have expected to hear laughter and other reactions at other times, but I didn’t, so the audience almost sounded prerecorded. |
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During musical numbers, every camera shot was choreographed. The associate director counted the beats and measures until the next shot, as you can hear in this video and read about in this interview. That’s much different from the way my colleagues switch a sports event, which of course is unscripted. And it’s much more intense than editing a movie.
One commenter called this “a job for adrenaline junkies who prefer to be safely seated inside.” But how else can you make that many precise camera cuts in real time?
Another noted that the AD repeats a lot of numbers. “The operator of Camera Three knows that most of the time when she says ‘three’ she’s not referring to him. Except sometimes she is.”
To avoid this confusion, I’d suggest the following rules. Single digits should be reserved for ordinary numbers, as in “four measures and one beat.” Cameras should be assigned two-digit identifiers between 10 and 49. Shots should have three-digit identifiers from 150 to 199, 250 to 299, and so on; however, when they’re being called in sequence the first digit isn’t necessary. And the counting of beats should use a different language, perhaps German in which Eins! Zwei! Drei! Vier! Fünf! Sechs! Sieb’n! Acht! can all be single syllables.
Mark Evanier remarked, “Like certain magic tricks, some things in television are more impressive when you know how they're done. And speaking of magic: If you go full-screen and look real careful at the various monitors on display in front of Ms. Havel, you may be able to figure out how they did that amazing transformation of the car during the number.” Between the one-minute mark and the dramatic “whip!” pan, a Chevy is temporarily changed from dingy white to sparkling red.
And if that isn't enough, here’s another control room, at halftime of Super Bowl 50.
MARCH
23,
2026 I
MADE THE MISTAKE; YOU HAVE TO OWN IT
One week ago, the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center put the threat of severe storms at Level 4 out of 5 for a stretch of the East Coast, from Maryland to the Carolinas. Tornado watches prompted schools, businesses, and museums to close across the Washington D.C. region. However, no tornadoes hit the nation's capital, and The Atlantic's Joshua Partlow reports that many meteorologists on the internet were extremely disappointed.
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Brady Harris, who calls himself “Weathers #1 HYPE Man,” wrote that meteorologists had “screwed up the Forecast BIG Time today.” He pledged to do better. In wraparound shades and a T-shirt featuring a kitty cat in a lightning storm, Harris explained to his StormCat5_ followers in a video: “I made the prediction. You have to own it. And you have to tell people, you know, publicly, that, ‘Hey, I messed up.’” |
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My beside-the-point point is a grammatical one. I think Harris messed up in another increasingly common way: substituting a universal “you” for “I.” He should have said:
“I made the prediction. I have to own it. And I have to tell people, ‘Hey, I messed up.’”
MARCH
20,
2026 THERE
WILL ALWAYS BE WAR
Did you know that the highly destructive bombing of Tehran that began three weeks ago was depicted in detail 6½ centuries earlier? It's one of the 90 scenes of the Apocalypse Tapestry, commissioned by Louis I, Duke of Anjou, and woven in Paris between 1377 and 1382.
The
scene is based on the 18th chapter of the Biblical book of Revelation
by Saint John the Divine, who's shown here in his commentary
booth. He gleefully predicted the devastation of Rome (which he
called Babylon). Excerpts:
I saw an angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils. Therefore she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
And the kings of the earth shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: gold, and silver, and oil. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her burning.
A closer look shows the avenging angel descending through a sky filled with fiery explosions to drop his bird-like destruction from above. The evil ayatollah screams in panic as his buildings collapse around him.
The recovered and restored portion of the 460-foot-long tapestry is currently on display at the Château d'Angers in western France.
MARCH
18,
2016
EVERYBODY
RIDICULES ROBERT
I hear that the Columbia Broadcasting System is considering selling off its radio division. Nevertheless, I recently listened to a 1949 CBS radio comedy, My Favorite Husband, as one sometimes does when one’s Sirius XM is tuned to channel 148.
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In the script by Jess Oppenheimer (left), two people upstairs are wondering why there's laughter coming from the people downstairs. “You don’t have a steamboat in the house, do you?” asks Lucille Ball. “A steamboat? No.” “Well, they’re not laughing at Fulton.” The actors didn’t wait for an audience reaction, which was wise because there was none. Only puzzlement. What did that line mean? |
I presume it referred to Robert Fulton, who was mocked for declaring he could propel a boat on the Hudson River without sails or oars. In 1807! It seems unlikely that “laughing at Fulton” was still a meme 142 years later.
Actually, the reference might have been only 12 years out of date. In the 1937 movie Shall We Dance, Ginger Rogers sang a Gershwin tune including the lines:
They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round.
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound.
They all laughed at Fulton and his steamboat, Hershey and his chocolate bar.
Ford and his Lizzie kept the laughers busy. That's how people are.
They all said we’d never get together. They laughed at us, and how! For oh, ho, ho — who’s got the last laugh now?
But since then, “laughing at Fulton” seems to have fallen out of our collective consciousness.
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MARCH
17,
2026
Two
centuries ago in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York, a neighborhood
called Tipperary Hill (named for a town in Ireland) was settled by
Irish immigrants. |
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Many of them had come here to be laborers on the construction of the Erie Canal between 1817 and 1825. Here we see the Canal passing through downtown Syracuse in 1904. Below is the major intersection on Tipperary Hill today: the corner of Tompkins Street and Milton Avenue, home of the Tipperrary Hill Heritage Memorial and the Francis Academy of Irish Dance. Notice anything about the traffic light? It's upside down. |
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Google
Earth
One century ago, when the city first started to install traffic signal lights, they put one here. Some Irish youths, incensed that anyone would dare to put the “British” red above the “Irish” green, broke the light. The city replaced it. The Irish broke the replacement.
Officials eventually gave up by hanging the signal with green on top and red on the bottom, and so it remains. It's the only one like that in the nation. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
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MARCH
14,
2016 I was sitting near the stage of an outdoor arena in my little hometown. All around me, hundreds of adults were hurling insults at two men they’d never met — a Mexican and a Muslim. My father was beside me, and he joined in booing and heckling the foreigners. As a shy adolescent who on Tuesday would be starting the eighth grade, I was slightly embarrassed to be there. The crowd shouted for the strangers to be clobbered and punished. They wanted to get them out of there. One was using the alias of Pancho Villa, the notorious Mexican bandit turned revolutionary. The other called himself Ali Pasha, “The Terrible Turk.” This was, of course, a professional wrestling show at the Richwood Fairgrounds in 1960. I mentioned it at the end of this article. It was great entertainment for folks who enjoy that sort of thing. There are people who know how to incite crowds like that, to whip them up to hate the designated villains. One such agitator was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame just three years ago.
Now that he’s set his sights on the White House, his political followers have started to act like wrestling followers. But they don’t seem to be play-acting. A riot could break out at any time. It isn’t only the demagogue who’s responsible for the bad behavior of his rabble. It’s the rabble themselves.
“...I implore you, if you're thinking about voting for Trump, reconsider. You are only promoting chaos and hatred. I witnessed it firsthand. And trust me, this is not something you want to see in person. This is not what you want to happen to our country.” MARCH 2026 UPDATE: About Trump's war on Iran, Robert J. Elisberg writes, "this is what happens when unqualified incompetent, wannabe macho civilians are in charge. Posturing, swaggering, fist-bumping. War is serious. People die. Costs rise. Life is disrupted. And no matter how much claims he can just declare the war over, it's still going on because there's no exit strategy. Nor goal."
MARCH
4,
2016 I often turn left at the intersection shown below, from PA 910 onto Freeport Road. (The pictures are from Google Earth.)
It’s hard to see the markings, especially on a rainy night. Where exactly should I go? There ought to be a “Keep Right” sign at 1, but there isn’t. (Maybe there used to be, until someone cut the corner short and ran over the divider and knocked down the sign.)
Closer to the city, the left turn shown below is thoroughly marked. It's from the 40th Street Bridge onto PA 28, headed into Pittsburgh. Not only is there a “Keep Right” at 1, it’s flanked by a “Do Not Enter” at 3, and there are “Wrong Way” signs at 4 and 5. And there are arrows on the pavement.
Nevertheless, last Saturday morning 81-year-old Perry Kastanias made his left turn too sharp. He passed to the left of the “Keep Right” and headed down the off-ramp. Going in the wrong direction, he struck one vehicle and then collided head-on with a second. Mr. Kastanias did not survive. UPDATE: In February 2026, an SUV traveling the wrong way after midnight bounced off three tractor-trailers, setting fire to one and scattering debris across all the lanes of Interstate 70 near New Stanton. The highway had to be closed for ten hours.
MARCH
1, 2026 Many folks love the musical Wicked and its movie adaptation. I never warmed up to any of its songs except the dramatic "Defying Gravity" and this one, "Popular," which caught my ear because of the way Stephen Schwartz has inserted an extra lilting syllable into the title — during a chord change, to boot. I couldn't figure out exactly how he did it until I looked at the sheet music.
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