January 31, 2009

Dawn of Aquarian Age finally arrives, astrologically

Forty years ago, when I was 10-years-old, a vocal group called The Fifth Dimension scored a huge hit with a song called "Aquarius," from the Broadway musical "Hair," in which the lyrics tell us: "when the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars."
It would be the dawning, the lyrics said, of the Age of Aquarius -- the astrological time in which the sunrise on the morning of the spring equinox occurs at the Zodiac point known as Aquarius -- that will be in the year 2150, according to astrological calculations. (We are now still in the Age of Pisces; each Zodiacal Age including Aquarius to come lasts 2150 years.)
The news is that the astrological event spoken of in that song, 40 years ago, is finally coming to be: a friend of mine who is very educated on astrology has just emailed me a bulletin alerting me to the fact that on the morning of Feb. 14, Valentine's Day, the Moon in Libra enters the seventh house of relationships; at the same time, Jupiter and Mars will be aligned in Aquarius in the twelfth house of spiritual transformation.
This event in the stars is believed to be an energizing force that will inspire the possibility for transcendental breakthroughs, even in seemingly intransigent situations. There is a lot more to it -- very esoteric --but the gist of it is that there is an opportunity to heal schisms that have separated us.
The alignment will occur Feb. 14 at 7:25 a.m. and will last for 18 minutes.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Making still pictures move

When making newsvideos for ConnPost.com, I sometimes (often, lol) borrow techniques from documentary filmmaking, which I have always been a huge fan of. (Remember Ken Burns' series on the Civil War, in the 1990s? That was a knockout.)
One of the techniques is to make still pictures move, which is something Ken Burns popularized in that Civil War series and has come to be known as the Ken Burns effect. Many Macintosh computers even come packed with software to do the Ken Burns effect.
(However, If your Macintosh computer does not have the software, you can still do it. It's done manually, not electronically, by putting a high resolution jpeg image up on an LCD computer screen and actually panning and closing with a real videocamera, positioned on a mount in front of the screen.)
The technique was used to the hilt in the 2002 Discovery Channel documentary, "Gangs of New York," which was a tie-in with the film that year by director Martin Scorcese. Scorcese's "Gangs" is a masterpiece of filmmaking, in my opinion, and it is a movie I like to watch again and again because of its high quality of workmanship; but the Discovery Channel documentary of the same subject is also amazing. They use the panning technique with old digitized photos from the mid-19th century and it is really impressive.
The key of course is to have a really high resolution jpeg to start with. These are best made with scanners from high resolution originals.
I used the technique yesterday, when I made the newsvideo on Joe Meyers' take on the upcoming Academy Awards -- the jpegs came from a movie studio digital press kit and of course the Academy Awards press Web site. I also use it in a newsvideo that will be posted Monday for a food page newsfeature about the popularity of pork (written by yours truly) as a low-cost meat in the recession; there is a long-panning shot of a farm in Indiana that seems to go on forever.
So I hope you enjoy them.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 30, 2009

Springbeans set to play halftime show

Superbowl Sunday promises to have one of the better choices for a halftime show in memory: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
MarianGail Brown and I were just talking about how were are looking forward to seeing the halftime show because we grew up listening to Springsteen: MarianGail, a teenager of the 1980s, when Springsteen was HUGE, and yours truly, a teenager of the 1970s, who had been listening to Bruce from his earliest albums.
I told MarianGail the story of how Bruce's first album, "Greetings from Asbury Park," in 1973, didn't sell well, and neither did his second, "The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" in 1974. (I liked those LPs -- I didn't understand why the mass audience did not.) CBS was ready to cut ties with Bruce but his third album, "Born To Run" in 1975, was the rocket that finally launched him into the Top 40 and made him a star.
Springsteen got caught up in contract negotiations and disagreements at CBS for the better part of four years after recording "Born To Run," and did not release an album again until "Darkness On the Edge of Town" late in 1978.
"Darkness" is one of MarianGail's favorites, but I have to admit I have always had a tremendous liking for Bruce's album from 1987, "Tunnel of Love." If I had a $5 bill for every time I played that CD in my car, it would be a handy stack of bills.
So we'll be watching.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Pork ribs for the Superbowl

I completed work on a full-length newsfeature article and newsvideo this week on the rise of pork as the most popular meat of the recession, and it reminded me that with Superbowl Sunday here, it would be a good time for barbecued pork ribs to go with all those chicken wings.
Chinese takeout kitchens are great for that; for a modest price you can get an order of barbecued ribs and chicken wings that could whet the appetite of a dead man.
Americans love pork: the National Pork Board in Des Moines Iowa, informed me that nearly 20 billion pounds of pork is sold in the U.S. each year. Since there are 70,000 pork farmers, my math whiz dad, Tony Sr., figured out that means each farm sold an average 1,142 pigs at average weight of 250 pounds each.
That is going to take a lot of barbecue sauce!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Graham Parker a welcome subject in Go

I was glad to read Go writer Sean Spillane's article, in Thursday's inaugural edition of Go, about the British New Wave-era rocker Graham Parker.
I was a senior in high school when I first discovered Graham Parker. You had to discover him somehow, somewhere, because he wasn't Top 40. I had a couple of Parker's albums -- one of which I still own to this day -- and still admire that style of music, which was more of a power pop than a straightforward punk style like the Ramones.
A couple of his songs still stick out in my mind as classics, even though they never made it to the Billboard charts: "Heat Treatment," "Soul On Ice," "Hotel Chambermaid." LOL, these songs are so obscure I don't even think you could find them on Napster.
At the same time, the New York band Television, with their iconic "Marquee Moon," a favorite on college radio at the time, was also one of my New Wave favorites. (I even owned a copy of the solo album "Alchemy" made by Richard Lloyd, one of the guitarists in Television, which at one point was selling as a collectible for $650.).
Yes, there was a lot more to the music of the late 1970s than the Village People and "Y.M.C.A." If classic rock radio stations would play some of that stuff, I would tune in more.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 29, 2009

Connecticut Post/ConnPost.com wing it on Colbert show

The Colbert Report on the Comedy Central network had a sports segment tonight in which Colbert commented on the importance of chicken wings for SuperBowl Sunday -- and he pointed out that there was a spill in Fairfield on Monday of 200 gallons of wing sauce onto a downtown street, necessitating a HazMat response.
Colbert is a funny guy, along the lines of Johnny Carson back in the '70s, but the computer-generated graphics on his show are really revved up and miles beyond anything Carson could have done in those years before Microsoft and Macintosh. Just like Carson before him, Colbert shows clippings, photos, etc., from actual news outlets to back up his comedic rants, only now he gets them from the Web, not a clipping service like Carson used to do.
To back up his monologue on the wing sauce spill, Colbert used what appeared to be a video still from ConnPost.com, for which he gave a credit line to the Connecticut Post and Connpost.com, as well as printouts of the online stories by Fairfield reporter Genevieve Reilly (who hooked the story) that appeared on your Hearst family of Southern Connecticut newspapers including the Danbury News-Times. It was all done with "taste."
-- TONY SPINELLI

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How the Stratford jazz band music video was made

Contrary to public opinion, music videos did not begin with MTV in 1982. Nor did they begin with Home Box Offices's popular series from the late 1970s, "Video Jukebox."
No, the history of music videos goes back much further than that -- to the musical short films of Lee De Forest in 1923, and the many thousands of Vitaphone shorts featuring bands, vocalists and dancers from 1926 to 1930. Some cartoons in the early 1930s featured musicians performing hit songs in live-action segments, and live action musical shorts by jazz stars were distributed to theaters during the 1930s to play before the main attraction. Other blues and jazz stars that made musical shorts back then include Bessie Smith, with "St. Louis Blues" in 1929, and Louis Jordan, a superstar of the 1940s.
Short music films were used from the 1940s onward mostly to promote record sales, and were played in theaters, and of course later on television in the form of promotional clips. There were even some jukeboxes that played the short films.
So the basic techniques of music video making were developed long ago, during the jazz age. I have seen many of the old musical shorts -- I just saw a couple of Andrews Sisters clips from the 1940s the other day on YouTube.
The basic technique back then was to capture the band performing live on a soundstage -- as opposed to lip synching to a pre-recorded track which is the standard today. It was not done with several different cameras in different positions, as is the case with a television studio appearance like SNL, but with one camera, in several takes from different camera angles, which is exactly the way dramatic films are made.
So, to make today's Stratford High School music video, I asked the band to play their best song a couple of times in a row; in the first take, I roamed among them with a handheld camera and got a variety of close-up shots from different angles. In the second take, I captured the overall band, using a modest amount of panning, sweeping and closing.
The second take is the take that provided the audio. The close-ups of the first take were cut out and spliced into gaps that I cut into the body of the second take, by overlaying the audio of both takes as closely as possible and then silencing the audio on the closeup shot once the clip was in proper position. This creates the illusion that several cameras are going from a wide angle shot to a close-up, or a series of close-ups.
All the cutting and splicing is done on the beat of the music, typically using the drums as a guide.
(To get really fancy, like in the 1979 music video of "Rock Lobster" by the B-52s, you have the band perform against a backdrop with a lot of colorful lighting and have them do maybe three takes for a maximum of different camera angles.)
And that's how it was done!
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM/The band placed third.

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January 28, 2009

Newspaper Web sites getting more viewers

The Associated Press today reported Nielsen Online research that shows leading U.S. newspaper Web sites are getting more visitors, and that those visitors are coming more often.
That is good news, indeed, because there is a lot of competition for viewership on the Web. People could be looking at the Drudge Report, or CNN.com, rather than at a newspaper Web site.
It is wrong, though, for people in the advertising consulting business to expect that viewers will have the same habits as they do on television, which Nielsen is more familiar with. In television media, someone may sit down for an hour out of their day to watch television news. It's a one-time visit. On the Web, people make several or more visits to their newspaper Web site per day. They check in frequently, to catch the latest breaking headlines and updates. They may spend no more than 30 minutes at a time, but they are return visitors, with a cumulative daily exposure of probably more than an hour. LOL, they often read the news as a mini-break from their jobs, where they have access to the Web.
Now, for newspapers to survive financially, the marketing and advertising people need to figure out how to capitalize on this growing, enthusiastic Web audience and market/sell more of the kind of advertising that is exclusive to the Web: little three-second moving picture loops called "gifs," short little 15-second commercials called "pre-roll" that play before watching a newsvideo, stuff like that.
I would guess that newspapers could even have ad alley staffers produce some of these products in-house, for the benefit of the advertisers that would like to buy these new products but don't know anyone in the creative production business to produce gifs, pre-rolls and other products for them.
All these new ideas are important because the Web is growing in status as the dominant media for many Americans, particularly younger ones, who spend far more time on the Internet than they do watching television. And they are spending more time as viewers of newspaper Web sites than they ever did as readers of printed newspapers.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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A reporter's hunch

Several weeks ago, I had a reporter's hunch that the economic recession was having a severe impact on the U.S. Postal Service, that the volume of mail was off, and therefore, the revenue for the postal service was sliding. I called the regional communications director for the postal service and tried to arrange an interview on the subject, but they couldn't pull it together quickly.
Now the story is out anyway: in D.C. today, the postmaster general told Congress that massive deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery, and asked the lawmakers to eliminate the requirement that the service deliver mail six days a week.
Just as I had suspected, from personal observations, the postal service has been hit with dwindling mail volume and rising costs, pushing it $2.8 billion into deficit last year, the postmaster general said.
He said if current trends continue the loss this year could be $6 billion or more.
The Associated Press reported that total mail volume was 202 billion items in 2008, more than 9 billion less than 2007, and the largest falloff of mail volume in U.S. history.
The recession has cut deeply into the junk mail industry that used to flood American mailboxes with coupons and flyers. At the same time, people are using the Internet to pay bills, send bills, do their banking, statements and business correspondence.
The AP reported that the postal service has reduced its work force by 120,000, and is in the process of reducing its headquarters work force by 15 percent, among other adjustments.
So you could say that my hunch was dead on. That's how reporters sometimes find their stories -- by keeping their eyes and ears open.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 27, 2009

The Chinese connection

It was a joy making the newsvideo about the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Ox. It turns out that the Chinese like to eat pretty much the same thing we Americans do on New Year's Eve -- lobster and other seafoods. Only, they do it because seafood and fish are symbols of prosperity. To the average American they are just good-tasting festive foods, with no particular symbolic meaning.
That's part of why I'm attracted to classical Chinese culture -- it is full of symbolism and esoteric meaning. For the Chinese, it's not just a new calendar year, with a change of numbers -- it's a new astrological year, with a new animal symbol, a new element symbol. It gives them a way of conceptualizing what the year will be like, and what to expect. They don't just stumble into a blind alley.
The Year of the Ox, they say, is not a year of great expectations. It is no Year of the Dragon/Element of Fire, like we saw in the great millenial year of 2000. (I remember a Chinese restaurant owner telling me way back in 1979 that she was looking forward to the year 2000 because it was such an auspicious sign. The dragon is the most beloved and luckiest of Chinese animal symbols and the element of fire is considered supreme.)
But it is what it is. Whatever it turns out to be, it is the time of our lives. It may be a good time, or a bad time, or whatever, but it is the only time we have so let's make the best of it.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 26, 2009

A cow is not an ox

I was preparing a video piece on the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Ox, and called and emailed around to some farms in the region in the hope of finding some oxen.
Alas, nobody had any oxen.
"I've got some cows," one guy said.
I almost laughed. A cow is not an ox. A cow is not even male -- there is no such thing as a female ox. Even if the cow has horns, it is not anything like an ox.
The Ox, as it was explained to me by an expert in Chinese culture, is a beast of burden, an animal that works hard at physical labor. It plods and it trods. Oxen are mature castrated bulls, who grow to enormous size, probably because of the high proportion of androgen in their hormonal chemistry. They lack the ferocity and agressiveness of bulls, probably because of their low proportion of testosterone, and thus, they are large and strong but easily worked on a farm. In the millenia before mechanized farming the ox pulled the plow and pulled many a wagon as well.
There is that line from the Bible: "do not muzzle the ox that treads the grain." In other words, laborers require their pay, their reward, their simple pleasure. (It has other meanings too but this is not a theological blog.)
There is that other line from the Bible, as well: "the lion shall eat straw like the ox."
I ultimately found generic pictures of oxen on the Web, so all was not lost.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 25, 2009

Speaking of economic stimuli....

I blogged this some time ago, probably back when the election was in swing so it probably got lost in the spaghetti sauce, but here it is again: my own idea for an economic stimulus, aimed at preserving and creating jobs.
All three remaining American carmakers (there used to be many of them, as you know if you are old enough to remember DeSotos) are winded and on the ropes, in need of federal intervention to survive what may be their last round. That's supremely significant because the car industry means a lot of jobs to Americans -- directly and indirectly. So feed two birds with one seed and allow Americans to write off the interest for their American-made cars -- a bonus for buying American. This would pump up the U.S. car industry, preserve the existing jobs and probably add more jobs. (Additionally, it would encourage foreign car companies like Nissan and Honda to build plants in the U.S., creating jobs, so that they too could say the car was made in America.)
The concept of giving Americans the ability to write off their interest payments is nothing new; it is an old idea that deserves to be resurrected. If people can write off the interest on their credit cards and personal loans, it will help Americans get out of the crushing debt that the relaxation of lending standards of recent years has led to. (I remember I did not get my first credit card until I was 26 and the limit was $500. Now they send card invitations to teenagers.)
The federal government just needs to bring back a couple of old-time tax code rules that used to give the middle class something to look forward to each April: a fat refund check.
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: I remember a study that was done in the last big recession, the five-year one that struck Connecticut from 1989 to 1993, in which economists determined that the most important segment of the economy to build, for overall economic health and stimulation, is the manufacturing sector because manufacturing jobs are a catalyst for economic stability and growth that other sectors depend on for their own security. It is vitally important to preserve our remaining manufacturing industries, strengthen them, and build new ones. (That is why cheap alternative energy makes so much sense; if we can make it cheap to run a manufacturing plant, energy-wise, it may offset the higher cost of American labor. However, the point is that the alternatives must be cheaper than what we have now, otherwise they will be nothing but trendy.) Tycoons like Bill Gates who threaten to move jobs overseas every five minutes are not helping any.

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Antique phone booth stirs memories

I have to admit, I hadn't seen an old-fashioned phone booth, complete with coin-operated telephone, in years. So when I saw one on display Friday at the Golden Age of Trucking Museum in Middlebury, I stopped in my tracks and got a picture of it.
Telephone booths used to be important to a reporter's work when I was starting out in journalism; if I went to cover a public meeting of a zoning board or something like that at night, the first thing I did was find where the nearest telephone booth was. That's because in those days, before cell phones, laptop computers or even fax machines, sometimes in order to make deadline, reporters had to dictate stories over a pay phone to the newsroom, where someone would type out whatever the reporter dictated over the phone. It was a two-man job: the reporter on the payphone dictating the story, and the (fast) typist at the other end.
To dictate a story, the reporter would use a notebook to write down significant facts, like how to spell people's names, with a quote from them, or numerical figures, and compose the story off the top of his head. It was straight news, and the object was to just get some breaking news into the paper. You didn't expect to win a journalism award for something like that -- you were just covering the bases of breaking news, with a headline something along the lines of, "zoning board says no to trash plant," and perhaps 8 column inches of text.
And it was all done from a payphone, preferably a phone booth.
Another antique at the trucking museum I got a shot of was an old, 1930s-era manual typewriter. Those old manuals made a clickety-clack sound that was pretty loud. A newsroom full of those manual typewriters with perhaps 20 reporters and editors clacking away at once, many of them chain-smoking cigarettes and cigars lol, was one big ball of noise. The newsroom today is a big, quiet room -- comparable to a library.
So it was fun seeing that phone booth and that old typewriter -- like old friends, really.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Book invokes sun on winter day

It was 1 degree below zero this morning when I began cooking breakfast, and you get that feeling, when you are in the grip of winter's icy January heart, that this stuff just goes on forever, without end.
But of course it does end. Easter springtime will be around the corner before we know it, with its pageant of lilies and lighter clothing. In the meantime, Sean Conway's "Cultivating Life," (Artisan/Workman) is a beautifully photographed guide to 125 projects for the backyard, from growing your own cooking herbs like basil to covering a trellis with roses.
I took a fast liking to this book, with sharp, vibrant photographs by Webb Chappell, because it is big enough and illustrated enough to be considered a coffee table book. Coffee table books are my favorite of any genre published because of their ability to entertain as well as inform.
"Cultivating Life" is a book you can enjoy casually while you curl up on the couch on these winter days.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 24, 2009

In search of an old-time brewery

I visited the Golden Age of Trucking Museum in Middlebury Friday, for a video in our Connecticut tourism series called "If You Go," and saw something so rare that I can't honestly say I've ever seen one before, except in old photographs: a pre-prohibition beer truck.
It was basically a truck with a long wagon outfitted with racks to carry barrels of beer. Before Prohibition, which began at the end of World War I, beer trucks were a common sight on American roads, because the whole point of going to a bar in those days was to get freshly brewed beer from the local breweries, on draft. Beer was mostly a regional, and even local business in those years. If you were in Pennsylvania, you drank Pennsylvania beer. If you were in Connecticut you drank Connecticut beer. The beer industry created a lot of local jobs, and of course there was a lot of local pride.
So I looked at that old beer truck, and just knew I had to get some shots of it. The old beer barrels, themselves, were a wonder to behold. They were made of wood in those days -- lol, today they are aluminum and called kegs. It's a different ballgame.
So, being an inquisitive sort of reporter, I noted the name of the brewery, "Kress Black Forest Beer," and searched the name out on Google. Here is what I came up with:
Kress' brewery in 1870 was located at 215 East 54th Street in Manhattan. It made the New York Times that November because there was a fight there in which a 28-year-old German national, Leonard Gigerich, was thrown down a flight of stairs and died from severe head injuries.
I found no further mention of the Kress brewery of New York City on the Web, except on an antique breweriana page, but I think it is pretty safe to assume that the old-time brewery was one of the many that did not survive the Prohibition era. Today local beers are quite rare and you would be hard-pressed to find a bar that serves local brews on draft; brew pubs don't count because they do not distribute their beer beyond the borders of their own restaurant. Again, it really is a different ballgame.
If you have any info on the Kress Black Forest Beer brand, please drop a line.
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: Further research shows the truck belonged to the Adolph Kress Brewing Co., of Sparta, Wisconsin. However, that was so long ago, there is no further material available on the Web to tell the story of Kress Black Forest beer.

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January 23, 2009

Honesty is the best policy

I had wanted to see "No Country For Old Men," which won some Academy Awards in 2008, so I grabbed it immediately when I saw it available at the public library in Seymour, where I live. But I didn't return it on time.
So, I showed up at the library a day overdue, prepared to fork over however many dollar bills were demanded. Whatever the fine, it would be a bargain compared to what Shelly Koontz of Iowa had to pay the other day: Koontz, 39, was arrested and jailed for ignoring repeated requests from the Jesup. Iowa Library to turn over a book she had borrowed last April.
She posted $250 bail.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Holy smokes -- Pope has YouTube channel

Pope Benedict has already had a Website, from the Vatican, where faithful Catholics could email him and send their best wishes. Now he has a YouTube channel.
The channel, called youtube.com/vatican, offers the pope an opportunity to reach people electronically, internationally, with his message.
"Today is a day that writes a new page in history for the Holy See," Vatican Radio said in a statement.
Today was the first day for the pope's YouTube channel; the Obama White House also has a channel, as does British Queen Elizabeth.
YouTube, if you haven't heard, is like 1990s cable public access television on steroids. You get to make your own TV programming, if you are handy with a videocamera and editing software, and put together the Internet equivalent of "Wayne's World." (Yours truly, in my other life as a musician, has a series on YouTube called "Live from the Couch" in which I play cover songs on acoustic guitar from, you guessed it, my couch. More people have seen these videos on YouTube than I have ever performed live for, in small cafes or whatever, in my entire life. My channel has like 200,000 hits in 12 months.)
If you've never checked out YouTube, what are you waiting for? The pope may even throw you a blessing.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Here's some real wrestling

Like most boys growing up in the 1960s, I loved watching wrestling on television -- wrestlers were bigger-than-life characters like Chief Jay Strongbow, Haystacks Calhoun, or Captain Lou Albano, and they entertained with their outrageous personalities as much as they did with their theatrical, over-the-top style of fighting. It's still like that today, only the bodies are more muscular and the television production slicker.
But of course pro wrestling is all a show; if those huge guys were really wailing on each other nobody would walk out alive. High school wrestling isn't quite as theatrical, not nearly as dramatic, but as a sport, it is as real as it gets: in that spirit, ConnPost.com brings you high school wrestling videos every week, until the end of the wrestling season.
It is a tough sport. I can honestly say that the injuries I have seen on the wrestling mat over the past few weeks far exceed those I saw in an entire season of high school football. These young guys put it all out there, and often, the only people in the bleachers are their parents. Wrestling is an under-rated sport, if ever there was one.
One thing I notice about high school wrestling is that the mathes between the bigger guys end faster; they are strong enough to overpower one another, with the winner being the one with the greater speed and skill to go along with his brute force. The little guys, just like in boxing, can go round after round and chase each other from here to Hong Kong because they are full of cardio conditioning but lack the brute power to overwhelm each other. I try to show a mix of the two, the bigger guys (180 pounds or so) crushing each other and the smaller guys wrangling, to get a little variety.
So please enjoy the videos, and if you have a wrestling team you would like me to feature, please drop a line.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 22, 2009

Really fancy desserts: a how-to book

When it comes to food, and especially desserts, I have pretty simple tastes: before I discovered I was lactose intolerant, plain vanilla ice cream was one of my favorites. Say cake, and I think, "pound cake," or "banana nut bread," never anything really fancy.
So I got a kick out of "Dessert Fourplay," a desserts cookbook by four-star pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini (Clarkson Potter Publishers). There is some really fancy stuff in here, like chocolate-chipotle soup and honey/ginger ice cream. It opens the eyes to how decorative and elaborate desserts can truly be -- for all those who believe dessert is the best part of a meal.
It's a straightforward recipe book, which is not my favorite type -- I like reading a story to go along with the recipe -- but it is beautifully designed and the photography is sharp and vibrant. It is printed on high gloss paper so the desserts in the photographs just about jump out at you.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Soups and stews the vegan way

It's soup and stew season, the heart of winter, and I've got to admit the photo of the yellow squash and zucchini soup on the cover of "Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons," by Nava Atlas (Broadway Books), made me want to read this new cookbook.
It's pretty much a straightfoward recipe book -- I've read cookbooks that have quite a bit of non-fiction writing in them and those are really my favorites because I enjoy reading about food as a cultural element -- but it has that vegan theme, so it's a little different from the rest. All the photos are gathered in the middle of the book, rather than spread throughout and although they are not as sharp and vibrant as I expect photographs to be, you can see that the chef who made up the soups in the pictures had an eye for presentation; it whets the appetite.
I'm no vegetarian (I tried it for a few months when I was 22 but it didn't work out.) But I do earnestly believe that fruits and vegetables are vital to health, because of their moisture content, fiber, vitamins, minerals and other reasons, and I really do believe that soups and stews are one of the healthiest ways to eat vegetables.
Eat healthful foods as often as you can, I say, to counterbalance the fast food we Americans eat because we're on the run, etc. Bon appetit!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 20, 2009

Budget cutting time

Recesssions eventually end, as we have learned from history, but the problem is, we can't predict exactly when, no more than we can predict the Lotto number.
I am saying this because I was just watching TV news, while eating dinner after a very busy Inauguration Day at work in the newsroom, and saw Gov. M. Jodi M. Rell talking about how revenues from just about every possible source are far less than previous years. Even revenue from Indian casino gambling -- who doesn't love going to the casino to try a few games, browse the mall and enjoy one of those great restaurant lunches -- has taken a dive.
When revenue for state and local government runs low, there are only two things to do: raise new sources of revenue or cut budgets, because it would be irresponsible to run deficits.
It is irresponsible to run government on deficits because we don't know when this global recession will end. The last major recession, 1989 to 1993, was a five-year recession. And that one was not half as bad, not nearly as much of an economic crisis, as this one appears to be. We can only hope that the bold economic stimuli plans of our country's energetic new president, Barack Obama, will forestall a long recession and get us rolling again.
In the meantime, it is time to bite a few bullets and cut some budgets. Just like in our personal lives, when we have to pack our own brownbag lunch and thermos of coffee to avoid spending money at delis and coffee shops, we need to cut our governmental budget and tighten our collective belt.
It's tough to cut back, true, but it appears we have no choice if we don't want to run our towns, cities, states and nation into a deeper financial mudhole.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 19, 2009

Remembering King

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was killed in 1968 at the age of 39, was no stranger to Connecticut. As a teenager in the 1940s he had worked during the summers on a tobacco farm here. The story I was told was that he worked in the kitchen, helping to prepare meals for all the tobacco workers. (Connecticut was known for the high quality of its leaf tobacco, used as the wrapper-layer on fine cigars; it was exported to Cuba and used as the wrapper leaf on the most expensive Cuban cigars. The cigar industry was significant in Connecticut in those years and created a lot of jobs, which is what drew King here.)
His great speeches have become a part of American history. One of them, perhaps his best known, was "I Have a Dream," which he delivered Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, which was the first large integrated protest march.
It was a speech I heard numerous times as a kid in the 1960s, either on radio or on television. In the speech, King talked about how one day Americans would accept each other for the content of their character, and not pay so much attention to the color of their skin.
And here we have, at least from what it looks like to me, the realization of that dream: Americans in a landslide vote have elected Barack Obama to be the president. Americans elieve in Obama's ideas, his visions, his passion to lead.
Things have changed, as Bob Dylan said.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Making it up to St. Paul

Last Martin Luther King Day, a year ago, I was in my second or third week as the video man for ConnPost.com, and had wanted to do some nice work on the celebration I taped at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church. I shot an hour or more of scenes and had every intention of making the best video I possibly could once I got to the editing keyboard.
But something went wrong with the computer equipment and I didn't get a chance to make the video I had envisioned.
I made up for it today when I returned to St. Paul's, a year later, this time with no computer glitches. The only technical problem I had the whole shoot, really, was a small smudge on my camera lens that made the light streaming in through the windows seem magnified. I could have run out to my car for an alcohol swab and cleaned the lens but I would have missed some really emotional footage. I decided that the streaming light beam was a nice effect,-- a little poetic -- and used a short clip of it, just at the end of the piece, where I could put a fade-out on it and flow from light to dark on the final note of the song, "This Is the Day the Lord Has Made," which happens to be one of my favorite psalms from the Bible.
I hope you enjoy the newsvideo, and happy Martin Luther King Day on the eve of this historic moment for the United States.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 18, 2009

The reluctant ocelot

Friday was the first day of a bitter cold snap in Southern Connecticut, so I set out in the morning to videotape freezing winter scenes that would visually tell the story of one of the coldest days of the winter. One would-be subject would have nothing to do with my mission though -- the baby ocelot at Bridgeport's Beardsley Zoo.
I thought some shots of a baby ocelot, keeping warm and cozy on a frigid winter morning when the day began at 7 degrees below zero, would make a nice counterpoint to all the scenes of snow and ice. Gregg Dancho, the director of the zoo, did all he could to get the mother and baby out of their warm little nurturing box, but they would have none of it.
Gregg banged and called to the ocelots for a good three minutes, but as we could see from the closed-circuit television that monitors their behavior, they just ignored him and stretched out on the hay.
Those ocelots knew it was freezing outside, and it was not on their agenda!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 16, 2009

Requiem for Circuit City

Bankrupt and unable to find a buyer in a deeply recessed retail economy that brought the worst Christmas shopping season in four decades, Circuit City Stores Inc. -- the nation's second-biggest consumer electronics retailer -- announced today it will liquidate its 567 U.S. stores, putting 30,000 people on unemployment benefits in a job market that is already at about 10 percent unemployment.
Nobody stepped forward to buy the company and make a go of it; no Japanese conglomerates looking to expand overseas, no British investment opportunists.The recession is global.
It's bad news all around, especially for newspapers, because retail advertising by stores like Circuit City represents revenue. From a news perspective, the retail industry with all its advertising purchases is probably the most important sector of the American financial pie.
Circuit City is not suffering alone. Another big retailer, KB Toys, filed for bankruptcy in December and is also liquidating stores. I checked their store at the Trumbull mall over the Christmas shopping season and it was emptying out.
I can honestly say I did what I could to support Circuit City. I spent thousands of dollars there in the past several years, buying things like a personal computer, an LCD TV and flatscreen computer monitor, audiophile headphones, a couple of digital music player/recorders, Infinity car stereo speakers, hip hop music CDs for my teenaged son and rock for myself, computre software and peripheral equipment including a television capture device, and of course DVDs, to indulge in my passion for classic films. I did my part to support a retail store whose advertising dollars profit my own employer, but it wasn't enough.
I know I will miss shopping there.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Coming to terms with new media

I sometimes get surprised reactions from people when I'm out on the job, shooting video for ConnPost.com, because they don't know what to make of a guy with a video camera; they see it's not a big television camera, like they're used to seeing on TV news, and sometimes laughably assume I am somebody's dad making home movies or a YouTube fanatic out on a lark.
If I tell them I'm from the Connecticut Post, , they scratch their heads and wonder how videotape can play in a newspaper.
They see I am a cameraman, and get confused when I start asking questions and conducting interviews.
"Are you a cameraman or a reporter?," they sometimes ask.
"I'm both," I try to explain, telling them that in Web newsvideo, the reporter is both cameraman and interviewer. It is a different format from TV news. There is no anchor, no on-camera reporter, no crew, no studio. Only a reporter who does his own videography and editing on a Macintosh computer.
"Where is your notebook and your pen?," they sometimes ask.
The truth is, I haven't used a notebook and a pen in more than a year. One thing about videocameras is that it is impossible to misquote anybody -- it is either them speaking or they have sent their evil twin.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Give thanks for miracle on the Hudson

It was 7 below zero when I opened the door this morning to get my home-delivered Connecticut Post, and all I could think of when that frigid air hit me was I am thankful for the miracle on the Hudson last night, when US Airways Flight 1549 crash-landed into the Hudson River and all 155 people aboard made it out alive.
The news is often full of tragedy. I know I have suffered it in my own life -- loved ones getting killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, dying way too young. So when a flock of birds gets sucked into both engines of a loaded passenger jet, causing it to crash into freezing water, you have to be thankful for the skill and mental dexterity of the veteran pilot, and to the guiding hand of the good and gracious Lord, if you are so inclined.
It was a miracle all right -- there were not even any serious injuries.
So yes, it is bone-chilling cold this morning, but it is a warming thought to know that tragedy is not in the air.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 14, 2009

Fairfield Gaelic Pipe Band rehearses for parade season

Back in 2007, ConnPost.com's very first multi-media profile of a local band was the story, slideshow and video of the old-time music group based in Easton, the Easton Banjo Society. I remember we visited the band in the height of summer, when the bullfrogs were out croaking in the little ponds around Easton and the night air was full of banjos and bullfrogs, like some backwoods jugband daydream. The second came in December of 2008, when I profiled the poll-winning doo wop vocal group, Yesteryear, and caught them live in front of a packed house at Angelo's in Bridgeport just before Christmas, when everyone was out merry-making.
Being a music lover, I just had to do something bigger and louder so you will soon be seeing a multi-media presentation including slideshow, music, article and newsvideo on the Fairfield Gaelic Pipe Band. The sound of 20 bagpipers playing "Men of the West," an iconic bagpipe number if ever there was, with bass drums thumping can stir even the hearts of the dead, I would guess. Unless there is some unforeseen technical difficulty, the video should be posted here later this afternoon and help get you in the mood for the coming of St. Patrick's Day and the parade season.
So if you love music as much as I do, please enjoy the multi-media work that we hope makes ConnPost.com your interesting and refreshing Internet place to visit.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Meeting a cock-eyed pessimist

I was shopping in the Amity section of New Haven for wine, bourbon, sodas, and other things necessary for my dad's 71st birthday party, and the guy in line behind me started grousing about all the bad stuff going on his life and how it was driving him to drink.
You could call him a cock-eyed pessimist, rather than the proverbial cock-eyed optimist.
"Everything is changing," he said, "and it's not for the better."
But I know, and I hope he comes to know, that really is not true. Lots of things have changed that are so much better than before -- "yesterday's gone; don't stop thinking about tomorrow," as Fleetwood Mac sang.
Here are some of the things that bring joy to my day that did not even exist 10 years ago:
+High-definition home theater. When I watch a movie -- last night I watched the classic western "The Magnificent Seven" -- it's pretty much like being in my own private movie theater, with the wide picture of a flat screen TV played through a stereo, etc. The picture quality and audio quality are just a miniature version of being in a cinema. Back in the 1950s, a person had to be loaded with a capital L to afford those kinds of things. Now even a non-millionaire such as myself can enjoy it.
+Digital music players. I carry with me a small digital player the size of a cigarette lighter that plugs into the auxiliary jack on my car stereo so I can bring my digital music files with me, rather than carry scratchable CDs. I can program the player each morning on my computer, to hear something different. It holds literally thousands of songs -- like having a traveling music library at your fingertips.
+Online shopping. I have saved so much money by shopping online it is phenomenal. I even buy equipment I need to make newsvideos; for example, I recently paid $22 online for a camera battery that costs $70 in the store.
+Online dating. We live in a time when it is not cool to date people you meet at work, through work, or even in day-do-day life in some cases, but online dating is exploding. Several of my family members and friends actually met their spouses online. It offers a chance to explain who and what you are in a nutshell, so people can quickly comprehend whether you are their type, and if they are honest in the profile they write about themselves you can do the same for them. It saves people lots of time and disappointment because they know who and what they are dealing with from the word go, if the profile is accurate. Even if you don't meet anyone that becomes significant to you, at least you have participated in the process and come to know your own self a little better.
So yes, things are changing, and at times these changes are really good things. The key is to partake of these new times and new things and learn to apply them to your life and enjoy them, instead of sitting around wishing it would be yesterday again.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 13, 2009

Howie Mandel is my opposite

Now that Howie Mandel's publicist has announced the star is out of the hospital, insisting the comedian "did not have a heart attack," it's a good time to point out that the host of TV's hit show "Deal or No Deal" is in some ways my complete opposite.
It was brought to my attention shortly after Mandel's show became widely popular that he is germophobic, deathly afraid of germs, and won't even shake hands with people on his show because of the bacteria their hands might bear; rather, he bumps fists with them.
I watched the show to see for myself, and sure enough, there he was, avoiding handshakes with his guests. I laughed because I am the complete opposite of a germophobic. Actually, my motto is probably more like "a little dirt won't hurt," which is what my scoutmaster always said when I was a kid.
I brazenly eat cold pizza, despite the bacteria doctors say lurks there. I have been known to walk through the woods on a summer day and eat wild, unwashed fruit, even eating around the rotten part rather than avoid it because it isn't picture-perfect. I have done things Howie Mandel would never do, and I wonder, what name do they give it when you are the opposite of a germaphobic?
I'm sure if I could hang out with Mandel for a couple of days he'd be eating KFC out of the refrigerator.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Clam chowder series comes at the right time

I've been working on a three-part video series on Connecticut's clam chowder heritage -- the state has three distinct styles of chowder because it is on the cusp of New England and New York -- and I believe Ipicked the right time of year to do it.
It is bone-chilling cold, the heart of January, and it's just the time of year when you want to enjoy a nice steaming bowl of meaty clam chowder, whether it be creamy New England style, tomato-based Manhattan or clear Rhode Island. The story that goes with the three videos will most likely appear on the food page of the Connecticut Post,, and will include the recipes of the three restaurants that graciously allowed me to videotape their work in the kitchen: Liquid Lunch in Shelton and Milford, Soup Thyme in Monroe and Westport Seafood Co. in Bridgeport.
The multi-media package should be complete in a couple of weeks, and I would like to hear from readers on their own favorites among the three styles of chowder, and what their personal tips may be for making a better batch at home.
So bon appetit, and write in!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 12, 2009

Casablanca: a real gem compared with today's glass

I have seen some really awful new movies -- the bad-taste comedy "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanomo Bay" was so disgusting I switched it off -- so I turned to some classic films to see something with some real substance.
The film I chose last night, the night of the Golden Globes, was "Casablanca," a movie that was so well-done in every way, from compelling script to creative lighting, it is still hard to beat nearly 70 years after it was made. It is a DVD I am glad I had the foresight to get a copy of, because I truly like watching it over and over, comprehending something new about it each time.
One of my favorite dialogue exchanges in the film is when the gendarme asks Humphrey Bogart exactly why it was he moved to Casablanca in the first place.
"I came here for the water," Bogie says.
"What water? You are in a desert!," the gendarme replies.
Bogie pauses for a millisecond and utters that great line, that was custom-fitted for him by the screenwriter Harold Koch: "I was misinformed!"
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Madoff made off with the cash

Despite being under house arrest for a $50 billion ponzi scheme that was the largest act of fraud in the history of Wall Street -- coming at a time when Wall Street was already knocked to the ground and bleeding from a global financial crisis partly fueled by widespread credit default -- Bernard Madoff was still able to send more than $1 million worth of jewelry and heirlooms as gifts to family and friends last month, during the Christmas and Chanukah holidays.
It's a wonder the man still has non-estranged family and loyal friends to even send gifts to: it was reported last week that he even pulled the scam on his sister!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 11, 2009

Economic development: 10 small steps equals 1 giant step

Now that former NBA star Magic Johnson's grandiose development plan for hotel rooms, luxury housing and retail for 11 acres adjacent to the Harbor Yard complex has vanished, the city has got to take this opportunity to comprehend that when it comes to bringing new life downtown, 10 small steps are the same as one giant step.
Rather than find some gazillionaire with pie-in-the sky plans, the city needs to find small, everyday and doable projects that do not need a Fort Knox A-list of financiers to complete. It's true that big, glitzy projects play better on page one in the short term, but in the long term it means nothing if all these projects fall through.
It is better to have a thriving little Two Boots restaurant on Fairfield Avenue than a glitzy, glamorous project that never gets further than an artist's sketch board.
There are so many empty storefronts downtown: there should be a redevelopment effort focused on filling them and making Main Street breathe again, rather than trying to find a gigantic showstopper.
It's something that any city or town in the region would profit from in economic development: focus on the practical and doable.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Behind-the-scenes: hunting for news stories

I was offended by remarks some readers made about reporter Rich Weizel's profile story today about former Bridgeport Post reporter Avril Westmoreland, because they said reporters nowadays just wait for stories to come to them on the Associated Press wire and don't do any legwork, or something to that effect.
For me, that is about as true as a snowstorm in Baja. Actually, reporters work very hard behind the scenes hunting for stories.
It takes up a large part of our workweek, and sometimes the stories we are pursuing come to dead-ends or don't pan out, like when the principal subject of the story wants no part of any interview or photograph session. Sometimes they fall through at the last moment, and we have to quickly move on to something else, so the one thing we need to generate is a lot of ideas. People who give us ideas (other than self-serving ones) and share information that could become a story are like gold to us. I laugh about those who say they can't trust reporters as friends because reporters might write a story. LOL, that is what reporters DO. To expect otherwise would be like expecting a police officer not to arrest you if you commit crime in his presence.
As a reporter, I always have my eyes and ears open for a story. I tune in to people, and to life, when most people tune out. I never stop being a reporter, because I am always looking for that next story.
The only exception I made is the night -- in 1994 before cell phones as we know them today existed -- when I applied first aid at the scene of a late night shooting involving a group of people I was socializing with, including a Catholic priest who was standing beside me and took a bullet through the arm. Two others went down with worse injuries; the former mayor of Bridgeport, Len Paoletta, was bleeding profusely with a blanket clenched between his thighs to tamp the wound. I chose in that flash of an instant to offer first aid and help the victims rather than run to a telephone and try to summon a photographer after-hours. If I had not offered to help these wounded people before the ambulance arrived their pain and suffering could have been worse. I chose to be a first-aid responder first and a reporter second; I wrote the story the next day, for the Sunday paper.
But that was my one exception. At all other times, I am always hunting for a story. Hunting and gathering is an enormous part of what we do, day to day. I have a stack of story ideas right now that require more digging before I can do anything with them. So, no, we don't sit around and watch Associated Press stories roll in. We are out working with our eyes and our ears -- and our legs.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Comedy film "Marley and Me" reflects reality (sort of)

There's a scene in the comedy film "Marley and Me," about a newspaper reporter trying to train a rambunctious puppy, in which he talks about a plan to write an article about a coca leaf, from its origins in South America to the streets of Miami.
It reminded me of an actual piece I wrote back in 2006, when I was a print reporter, in which I traced a turkey from a farm in Minnesota to a table in Fairfield, via a food pantry for needy families. It took weeks of advance work to get that story ready in time for Thanksgiving, but it was time well-spent because it gave my editor an angle on Thanksgiving that had never been done before. In the news business, "new" is three-quarters of the word news.
So I admit I kind of enjoyed "Marley and Me" -- it's fun to watch movies about people in your line of work -- but had to laugh at the line where the reporter with the story idea says he believes he can get full and friendly access to Columbian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar! (In real life, even the common street drug dealers flip out when you walk or drive around their turf with a camera.)
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 10, 2009

Worst salesman for a recession

I stopped into a discount shoe store to buy a pair of inexpensive winter boots, and was prepared to walk out with them for a mere $27.99.
The salesman, 22, had other ideas.
"You don't want these. You want some Timberlands," he said, referring to the more expensive brand boot that had pretty much the same look, but a jazzy label to go with it. They cost maybe three times as much, and were available at the shoe store across the street.
He was actually suggesting I go across the street and buy the boots there rather than make a sale for the store that employed him.
"The Timberlands will impress," he told me.
I laughed.
"Look, I just want a pair of boots to wear when I shovel snow, I'm not trying to win a Field & Stream fashion contest."
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 9, 2009

Illinois governor has amazing head of hair

The Illinois House voted overwhelmingly today to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich, an unprecedented action that sets up a Senate trial on whether he should be thrown out for abuse of power, including allegations that he tried to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat, as the Associated Press reported this afternoon.
One news report posed the question: "Blagojevich -- what happens next?"
So I've got to say, with an amazing head of hair like the governor sports -- he makes the Beatles in their 1964 prime look like thinning middle-aged men -- Blagojevich will be working as the spokesmodel for Paul Mitchell shampoo and will be earning enough money to buy the Cadillac Division of General Motors and come out with his own signature line of Fleetwood Broughams.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Depression Era cookbook turns up at estate sale

A copy of the "Post-Telegram Cook Book", published by the predecessor of the Connecticut Post during the height of the Great Depression in 1934, turned up this morning at an estate sale in Stratford.
So here then is an authentic 1934 recipe for banana nut bread, courtesy of a Mrs. W.E. Gough who lived at 482 Brewster Street in Black Rock:
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg well beaten
1-1/2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. soda
1/2 cup chopped nutmeats
1-1/2 cup mashed bananas
2 tbs. water
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Cream shortening and sugar well. Add egg and bran. Sift flour with salt, baking powder and soda. Mix nuts with flour and add alternately with mashed bananas to which the water has been added. Stir in vanilla. Place in a greased pan. Let stand 15 minutes for contents to settle. Bake 1 hour to 75 minutes in 375-degree (considered moderate) oven.

And here's one for cornbread, courtesy of a Miss Helen Connors who lived at 2 Ludlowe Road in Fairfield back then.

1 cup corn meal
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
5 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 egg well beaten
2 tbs. melted butter

Mix and sift the dry ingredients. Add the milk slowly, the egg, well beaten, and lastly the melted butter. Bake in a shallow greased pan in a hot oven about 20 minutes.

The book is not without its unintended humor though: I found a recipe for something called "Arabian Pork Chops."
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Another amazing lottery win

Thanks to having an email address, I have hit the lottery in the Netherlands, France, Australia and England -- several times!
If I had known the kind of luck that just having an email address would bring, when it comes to multi-million dollar lottery prizes, I would have bought a personal computer sooner! I would have been on the Information Superhighway in 1994, as soon as the Clinton administration opened it up!
Of course the lottery emails are all scams; the video I made yesterday is an interview with a leading identity theft expert, with some practical ways we can all protect ourselves. The best way to protect ourselves against these scammers is to delete those emails as soon as they arrive and pretend they never existed.
I got one that was so overhwhelmingly convincing though, so complete in it's illusion of authenticity -- it purported to be from Yahoo itself -- that I called the bluff and made a long distance call to London, England, to speak with the fine old British gentleman presented in the email as being the chief executive officer of Yahoo in the U.K.
I asked for the fine gentlemen -- his photo on the email portrayed him as a balding and gray caucasian man of about 67-years-old impeccably dressed in a tailored suit -- by name. (I knew it was a ruse but I went along with it just to play it out.) The guy that came onto the phone and offered himself up as the stand-in for Alfred the Butler had an East African accent and sounded to be about 35-years-old.
The background noise was echoic, like he was in a sparsely furnished boiler room.
"I'll pick up my prize personally when I'm in London next month to visit the Queen," I told him.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 6, 2009

Early signs of recession were true

Back in early summer of 2008, ConnPost.com posted a video and article about how pawn shops in Connecticut were taking in more than the usual amount of gold jewelry and tradesmen's tools, showing there was a serious economic downturn that had been going on since at least late 2007. At least one reader castigated me at the time for suggesting that we were in a recession -- not a pretty word -- but there it was, in print.
Then, in July of 2008, ConnPost.com posted a video and article about how automobile repossessions were soaring, suggesting there was an underlying credit crisis and big trouble for America's Big Three car makers, because people were letting their big SUVs and pickups go to auction rather than pay for the gasoline and keep them.
It took months for the official line from Washington, D.C., to correlate with what we had been reporting. It was not until December that the government reported the economy had slipped into recession in late 2007.
I would like to say we are coming out of the recession at this time, but it would be a bold-faced lie. I will say that we will keep our eyes and ears open, which is what reporters do and love to do. That's how found those stories in the first place.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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January 4, 2009

A seminar at the wrong time

I've seen advertisements on the Web lately for seminars by a guy who promises to teach us all "how to be rich."
Considering the timing, that is about as well-conceived as having Paul Bunyan speak at a global warming conference and Daniel Boone address the Friends of Animals. We are in a worldwide recession that is the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is so bad that General Motors, Ford and Chrysler -- which together represent one of the last great bastions of American industry -- are on the brink of bankruptcy and require desperate federal intervention to make it into the new year.
People don't need lessons on how to be rich. People need lessons on how to survive. Just how to you eat on $20 a week?
Being rich is pretty far from our minds right now and the real things we need to learn can't be taught by some Donald Trump wannabe.
-- TONY SPINELLI

Posted by Spinelli on 7:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A sales gimmick for the 21st Century

I saw an advertisement on the Web the other day, just in time for the new year, that caught my eye:
"Free sample of amazing new vitamins! Fifteen day supply to try our product! (Just pay shipping and handling.")
The shipping and handling was $8.95!
Now, I am no stranger to using the mail for packages and merchandise: I have sold my share of stuff on e-Bay, and I know that a little container of 15 vitamin pills does not cost ANYWHERE NEAR $8.95 to mail, packaging included.
That's almost as bad as paying $2,000 for an exercise machine, in "10 easy monthly payments."
-- TONY SPINELLI

Posted by Spinelli on 7:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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