Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Informative Speech Sample (CCC)

Sample informative speech, some formatting may be altered in blog post. Thank you for Melissa Zubiate, who wrote this outline and delivered the speech this term...

Informative Speech Narration

Once the speech is finished, one should understand and know the key points about the civilian conservation corp. and hopefully develop an appreciation for this program. The speech will cover the introduction of the civilian conservation corp., the requirements that the enrollees must met and, the design of the civilian conservation camps, some of the civilian conservation camps accomplishment, and the end of the civilian conservation corp. program. There will be visual to show the audience pictures of the people and environment of the Civilian conservation corp.

Click "read more" below to continue.

Internet to Dominate TV Sales. Oprah makes deep cuts and changes. Disney seeks to unseat Nickelodeon.

Company Town

The business behind the show

Big-screen TVs are displayed by Panasonic at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Internet connectivity is becoming a more important feature of TVs, a new report says. Credit: Steve Marcus/Reuters

100 million tv's will be internet connected within four years.

Soon, the living room TV will become as hyper-connected as the people watching it.

A new report from researcher NPD In-Stat predicts that 100 million homes in North America and Western Europe will own television sets that blend traditional programs with Internet content by 2016. These new hybrid devices, capable of displaying interactive content related to TV shows, are a bid to hold the viewer's attention in a device-cluttered world.

"The TV people figured out nobody's just watching TV anymore," said Gerry Kaufhold, NPD In-Stat's digital entertainment research director. "They're watching TV with a tablet or a smartphone or a laptop in their hands. They've completely lost control."

Indeed, more than 60% of viewers check their email or surf the Web while watching TV, according to Nielsen's 2011 consumer usage report. Programmers realize they need to do something to draw the viewer's eyes back to the TV screen -- even as they develop apps for tablets and smartphones to deliver content related to the show that's airing.

"The level of engagement with the TV show goes down unless you've got something on the handheld device that ties them back to the TV show, somehow," Kaufhold said.

A tablet application developed for Simon Cowell's reality series "The X Factor" synchronizes the device with the singing competition and allows viewers to rate performances, vote and interact with other fans.

"Two things are starting to percolate in the television industry," Kaufhold said. "First is the awareness that it's not just about the big screen anymore. You've got to get something to these second screens. Second is how can we control as much of the screen real estate as possible."

Kaufhold pointed to a European connected TV standard (known as Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV) as a bellwether of things to come in North America.

Broadcaster France Televisions will use the new hybrid standard during the French Open, which begins in May. Tennis fans can push a single button on their remote controls to bring up an interactive screen that will display real-time scores of other matches, bios of tournament players and news, photos and Twitter streams describing the action.

Kaufhold said he could see the same technology being employed for such high-interest competitions as the online NCAA mens' basketball championship.

In the U.S., only about 12 million U.S. households have their Web-capable TVs connected to the Internet, although NPD In-Stat estimates about 25 million U.S. TV households own a set with the built-in network capability.

The Skinny: I enjoyed most of Season 2 of AMC's "The Walking Dead," which seems to put me at odds with the folks who spend their lives detailing and analyzing every moment on the show. Some deep thought on shows is nice, but sometimes it seems like people have too much time on their hands. Anyway, Tuesday's headlines include a look at Evolution Media Capital, the CAA-backed investment bank, new cuts at OWN and the money Disney will lose on "John Carter."

Photo: Oprah Winfrey. Credit: George Burns/OWN.

Oprah Winfrey's "aha!" moment. OWN, the cable network launched by former talk show queen Oprah Winfrey and cable programming giant Discovery Communications, is cutting staff and restructuring its operations. The decision to shed 30 staffers comes just days after OWN canceled its high-profile talk show featuring Rosie O'Donnell, which turned out to be a huge flop. Discovery Communications, which has sunk more than $300 million into OWN, is also putting a few of its own executives in key operating roles to try to boost ratings and stop the financial bleeding. Details from the Los Angeles Times and Deadline Hollywood.

The Daily Dose: Starz has given its new drama "Magic City" a Season 2 order before the show has even premiered. The pay cable channel took a similar approach with its political drama "Boss." The move is meant to send a signal to critics and media watchers about how confident Starz is in the show. However, one has to wonder how in stone those renewals are written. If "Magic City" generates little interest will Starz really keep it going for two seasons? No, it will find a way to back out of the deal. It's a publicity ploy, nothing more.

They shoot, they score. Evolution Media Capital, an investment bank backed by Creative Artists Agency, has made a splash in the sports and media marketplace. Launched less than four years ago, EMC has already been involved in more than 20 deals with a combined value of $15 billion. Deals EMC had a hand in brokering include the sales of the Texas Rangers and entertainment company CKX as well as TV pacts for the Pac-12 and the Boston Celtics. A look inside EMC from the Los Angeles Times.

"John Carter" takes bath. Walt Disney Co. said its epic flop "John Carter" would likely lose in the neighborhood of $200 million. The movie, which will end up being one of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history, cost some $350 million to make and market. So far, the film has made just under $200 million, worldwide, in its two weeks of release. Coverage of the Disney debacle from the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, and New York Times.

Plot twist. The legal battle between former "Desperate Housewives" co-star Nicollette Sheridan and ABC ended in a hung jury Monday. Sheridan, whose character was killed off the prime-time soap a few seasons ago, had sued ABC, claiming she was fired from the show in retaliation for making a complaint against "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry. Sheridan came up one vote shy of winning her civil suit. Now the two sides will either do it again or reach some sort of settlement. Analysis of the trial from the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Beast.

Closing the kid gap. For years, Viacom's Nickelodeon has been the No. 1 network when it comes to reaching kids. But now the Disney Channel is closing the gap and only 31,000 viewers separate the two networks in the key kids 2-11 category. Here's USA Today on the fight for first place. One piece of advice to Disney Channel: Don't launch a "John Carter" cartoon.

They said what? IMDB.com is Hollywood's must-read database and trivia question solver. The website tracks actors and movies. Seems harmless enough. But Amazon's IMDB is not without its critics. Sometimes it gets information wrong and not all actors are thrilled to have their birthdays (and other stalker material including marital status and bra size) blasted out into the universe. Is the information accurate. What about talent that withdrew prior to Amazon's purchase or talent miss-represented through marketing and other tricks? A look at some of the gripes about IMDB from the Wall Street Journal.

Inside the Los Angeles Times: Patrick Goldstein looks at some recent TV and movie flops. Randall Roberts and Todd Martens on what made a splash at the SXSW festival.

-- Joe Flint

Follow me on Twitter. You could do a lot worse. Twitter.com/JBFlint

Twitter: @latcompanytown

Facebook: L.A. Times Entertainment

Communication Model Explained and Basic Concepts Related to the Model

The basics of communication can be found several places on the web. A suggested start is the University of Missouri, one of the top communication schools in the nation.

I. Foundation for School and Life Success
A. Introductions to not only the field, but to college and how to survive and prosper.
B. You must use the college requirements and learn the methods utilized at your school.
C. Notes, outlining, references, testing techniques, etc.
D. Assistance available through student services.
E. Use of computer, Angel, Word, Internet and so on.
F. Use of library, outside references, sources, tools.
G. Basic Research skills for life
H. Organizing thoughts
I. Outlining
J. Presenting your ideas effectively

The Shannon and Weaver model

II. Components of a Speech Transaction
A. Situation and Context
B. Speaker / Transmitter / Source
C. Channels / Media
D. Message
E. Symbols / Semantics
F. Encode
G. Decode
H. Feedback
I. Noise / Interference / Screens / Filters
J. Internal Noise
K. External Noise
L. Cultural Noise

M. All three forms of noise are interconnected and interact

N. Semantic Noise is not one of the three forms of noise, it means the signals or symbols of a transmission are not being understood properly due to outside factors (the other three forms of noise)
O. The components of a speech transaction occur simultaneously and are interdependent

P. All communication is transactional, involves a two-way passage of information, emotion, intent.

III. Intro into basic course concepts
A. Communication Model

1. Transmitter,
- Intent of Transmitter,
- What was meant to be communicated
a. Sender,
b. Source
c. Speaker
2. Channel,
3. Medium. Media
4. Message, intended message
5. Receiver,
6. Listener,
7. T2 (not Arnold!)
8. Feedback
9. Encode
10. Decode

11. Codes
a. Verbal,
- Words, actual language, vocabulary
b. Vocal,
- How you say the words, voice, inflection, etc.
c. Visual,
d. - Everything else, see, hear, smell, touch, etc.

12. Proofs,
- How we prove and argument, why we believe things
f. Ethos, Credibility, Power, Likeability, Trust, Source, Expertise, Position
g. Logos, Logic (some variance by culture)
h. Pathos, Emotion, Emotional Appeal
i. Mythos, Cultural, Cultural shorthand, David v. Goliath, Patriotism. Flag, etc.
12. Noise: Screens, \ Filters, Interference, anything that gets in the way of the message

13. Internal Screens,
- Whatever happens inside your mind or body to interfere with understanding the message as intended, or to interfere with transmitting the message in a way that will be understood
- Internal noise is what is occurring inside the transmitter or receiver. For example an event earlier in the day or in the life of the individual could change the way they interpret or send signals. Physical, psychological, cognitive forms of interference may impact how message is encoded or decoded, interpreted or received. Disabilities, health, fatigue, hunger, external events impact on how you feel or think, and unrelated thoughts are examples of internal noise.

14. External Screens
- Whatever happens outside of your mind or body to interfere with understanding the message as intended, or to interfere with transmitting the message in a way that will be understood.
- External noise is what occurred outside of the sender or receive. This could include sound, smell, lighting, temperature, time of day, events occurring at the same time as the message, other messages conflicting or concurrent with the intended message, environment, etc.

15. Cultural Screens
- Differences in culture (including Demographic, Psychographic differences) that interferes with understanding the message as intended.
- Differences in culture interfere with transmitting the message in a way that will be understood.
- Cultural noise comes from the self-identity, backgrounds, beliefs and culture of the sender and/or the receiver.
- Messages can have differing meanings. Protocol, prolific, etc.

16. Semantic Noise, not understanding the words, not understanding the language
- Not one of the three forms of screens or noise, because semantic can cross internal, external and cultural boundaries and it simply means tat symbols (usually words) are not being transmitted or interpreted the same between parties in the communication transaction,

17. Demographics as way of understanding yourself and your audience
a. Age
b. Gender (Sex)
c. Psychographics and Culture
d. Age and Gender are fixed properties
e. Psychographic is everthing else you can measure or put a number to
f. Psychographic differs as is is self-identified, what you volunteer yourself as

B. The Communication Process
1. Speaker/ Sender/ Transmitter
a. The source of the message
b. Requires technical skills
c. Requires enthusiasm and active stimulation
d. Involves intent
e. Requires understanding the Receiver
f. Requires decisions on how to send message
g. Requires knowledge, processing preparation and understanding

2. Channel/ media
a. How the message is sent
b. Tolls used to send message
c. Media or Medium utilized in encoding and decoding message
d. Means by which the message is communicated
e. One of more channels may be used
f. May involve technical support or intervention
g. Could be as simple as eye contact

3. Message
a. Whatever is being communicated
b. Intended and unintended messages can be transmitted
c. Verbal and non-verbal transmissions
d. May or may not be interpreted properly by receiver

4. Listener/ Receiver/ Audience
a. Every message is filtered through the listeners frame of reference
b. Listeners frame of reference is the sum total of their experiences, goal, knowledge, values, attitudes and beliefs.
c. No source and receiver have the exact frame of reference
d. A message and its transmission must be adapted to the audience
e. Noise gets in the way of the communication

5. Feedback
a. Message sent by listener to the speaker, receiver to the transmitter
b. The receiver becomes the transmitter
c. The transmitter become the receiver
d. Because all communication is transactional (involving a transaction of information, feelings or ideas) feedback operates under the same principals and rules as the original transmission and channel
e. Feedback may be immediate or delayed
f. Noise/ Screens/ Filter interfere with both the original transmission and the feedback
g. Successful speakers adjust their message based on careful studied reception of feedback

6. Interference/ Screens/ Noise / Filters
a. Anything that impeded the communication of a message
b. Can be internal or external
c. May also involve internal and external cultural filters
d. External comes from outside, physical or psychological, of the speaker or listener
e. Internal involves anything, physical or psychological, involving what is inside the sender or receiver, speaker or listener.
f. External may be noise, lighting, major events, size or shape of room, sound, temperature, other speakers and so forth
g. Internal may be poor listening skills, lack of concentration, the other 50-% of what is going on in your brain, physical ailments or disabilities, fatigue and so forth.
h. Successful speakers overcome interference in a wide range of ways, numerous times during their message

7. Encode
a. Selecting symbols to communicate a message
b. Determining how to transmit the message
c. Combination of verbal, vocal, visual and other
d. Anticipating the receiver

8. Decode
a. Understanding symbols uses to communicate a message
b. Understanding the intent of the message
c. Understanding and translating verbal, visual and other codes
d. Anticipating the intent of the sender
9. Codes
a. How a message is encoded
b. Verbal are the words used, the vocabulary
c. Vocal is how the words are said or transmitted, vocal tones, inflections, etc.

d. Visual is everything else, all sight, sound, smell, tactile touch, etc.

10. Proofs
a. Ethos - credibility, real and perceived
b. Logos – logic, common pattern of thought to a group
c. Pathos – emotional appeals
d. Mythos – myths, common stories and shorthand by culture

11. Demographics
a. Explains an individual, group, audience, market or culture
b. Numbers
c. Age
d. Gender or sex
e. Psychographic (anything else you can put a number to)

For additional information please click on "read more" below"

Before a shining sea of white faces Mitt Romney gave his victory speech in Illinois, despite the speech being in Chicagoland.

Chicago has the lightest number in Afriacn American population in the country and highest percentage of population outside of Washington DC.

As a city Chicago has the second largest Hispanic population in numbers outside of Los Angeles.

Where were they at Romney's victory celebration as he attacked Barack Obama for being a well educated and inellegent man as a law professor at one of the top law schools in the country, at being a street level community organizer among the people and implied, but did not mention, the race that was not evident in his victory hall but dominates Chicago.

Where were the people of color? They were not on camera during his speech, despite the multi-cultural nature of Illinois.

He talks about being a "unite-er", yet he talks of 401 K's and opportunities on the doorstep of a city where without government aid, without support, no one would be able to rise above poverty and even the ghetto's that Obama has helped start to erase.

He talks about being a "unite-er" but makes ten thousand dollar bets, talks about his wife's luxury cars, their multiple homes and not about food or public education or basic medical care so needed by the majority of Americans.

Notice Romeny did not mention his spending ten to one over the total of his opponents in Illinois and in some areas twenty to one over his closest Republican challenger.

-From a Chicagoian viewing CNN coverage this evening, someone I know, as posted on Facebook.

How Do Racial Attitudes Affect Opinions About The Health Care Overhaul?

by Shankar Vedantam

Listen to the story on Morning Edition

President Obama signs the Affordable Care Act in the East Room of the White House on March 23, 2010. Data suggest that racial attitudes of ordinary Americans shape both how they feel about the health care overhaul and how intense those feelings are.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images President Obama signs the Affordable Care Act in the East Room of the White House on March 23, 2010.

Data suggest that racial attitudes of ordinary Americans shape both how they feel about the health care overhaul and how intense those feelings are.

As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear a case involving the constitutionality of President Obama's health care overhaul, social scientists are asking a disturbing — and controversial — question: Do the intense feelings about the health care overhaul among ordinary Americans stem from their philosophical views about the appropriate role of government, or from their racial attitudes about the signature policy of the country's first black president?

In a new paper published in the American Journal of Political Science, Michael Tesler presents survey and experimental data that suggest that the racial attitudes of ordinary Americans have shaped both how they feel about the health care overhaul, and how intense those feelings are.

The paper is one of many studies that examines how the views of voters on policy issues are shaped — at least in part — by factors unrelated to those subjects: Voters are more likely to back the policies of leaders with whom they share some core aspect of identity, such as race or religion.
Tesler finds that blacks have become increasingly supportive of health care under Obama's watch. Among whites, Tesler finds a sharp divide between whites who have a liberal outlook on racial issues compared with those who have a conservative outlook on racial issues.

In an experiment, Tesler presents a health care overhaul policy to whites, telling some that the policy is advocated by Bill Clinton and telling others that it's advocated by Barack Obama; Tesler finds that whites with liberal racial attitudes become more supportive of the policy when they think Obama is its chief advocate, while whites with a conservative attitude become less supportive of the policy when they think of health care as an Obama policy.

The study is part of a broad range of research projects that shows that issues such as race and religion play a powerful role in shaping how people feel about policies related to war, welfare and crime.

More: Policy-ish

Medicaid And A Tale Of Two Miami Hospitals

States Struggle To Cover Uninsured With Pre-Existing Conditions

Health Care In America: Follow The Money

From NPR News (click here)

March 19, 2012 With the Supreme Court poised to hear arguments about President Obama's health law next week, the time seemed ripe for looking at the economic stakes. The public sector is a big part of the American health care industry, which now accounts for 18 percent of the GDP.

The Supreme Court takes up the Affordable Care Act next week, and NPR will be exploring the questions surrounding health care in America beforehand. Many of the publicly debated issues in the act hinge on money. How much is spent on our health? Who spends it? How?

Some know how much we pay for our own medical care, but many aren't aware of how immense an industry health care is in the U.S. Our trips to the doctor employ a lot of people, and our schools play an important role in preparing those people to take care of us.

The workforce numbers don't even count people who work for pharmaceutical or health insurance companies.
All those employees are part of the huge growth in the U.S. health care industry in the last 40 years. If spending keeps climbing as it has, in another 40 years the share of our GDP that goes to health care could be about twice what it is today.

Data on U.S. health care sector as related to the economy.

Notes

*Projected data

"That either means that we get an awful lot more health care, or we get a lot of health care that's awfully expensive," Anthony Carnevale, a labor economist at Georgetown University, tells NPR's Robert Siegel. "Generally what the research says is it's about 50-50 — we get a lot more health care, and the health care we get a lot more of is more expensive."

Data on public spending on health care, and on uninsured Americans.

The money isn't just from individuals and the private sector. The government is a big player in health care. NPR's Julie Rovner says that while the sector is complex, it's not a predominantly private system.

About 100 million people — a third of the U.S. population — are covered by the major government programs: Medicare, Medicaid and military coverage. Public employees and their dependents who receive health insurance paid for by the government add another big chunk to that amount, bringing the public share of spending to about 45 percent. But government programs don't cover everyone, and about 1 in 6 Americans under 65 is uninsured. Many of those are young adults and children.

For some people, employers fill the gaps in health care that the government doesn't reach. But employer insurance only covers a little over half of U.S. workers, and many Americans are struggling to keep up.

Health care's share of our workforce and our economy keeps on growing, and economists expect it to be about 40 percent of our spending by 2050, up from 18 percent today. Even now, the U.S.'s share is about twice that of other developed nations — most European countries spend about 9 percent of their GDP on medical costs.

Deeper Voice gains political advantage

A new study that finds that voters tend to go for the candidate with the deeper voice. A British Biological Research Journal published multiple studies that found that listeners are more likely to vote for the deeper voice, regardless of their sex. But there are exceptions. Harry Reid has a high voice. Romney's voice is mellow and low compared to his competition. Candidates use vocal coaches to "enhance their electability."

So how do you explain Harry Reid's high vocal range?

Also, would scratchy or rough voices such as Abraham Lincoln or even Franklin Roosevelt stand a chance today?

APA Help Sources

APA and MLA style help
http://citationmachine.net

APA Style Guide
http://www.apastyle.org/

Capital Community College APA/MLA
http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/apa/

Purdue Owl
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

University of Wisconsin Writing Center
http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/DocAPA.html

Vanguard University
http://psychology.vanguard.edu/faculty/douglas-degelman/apa-style/

Use your school Library on line or in person for actual reference generators and additional assistance...

Republican Math

Rick Santorum wins the American Virgin Islands...but Mitt Romney walks away with six of the nine delegates, with one of the three remaining "at large" as a wild card.

Only in America.

-Rachael Maddow

MSNBC News

Monday, March 19, 2012

Academic Sources

Academic sources, otherwise known as Scholarly Sources, are juried. That means they are blind judged for accuracy and solid research. These sources include:

Academic Press (books, journals and "letters" from university press publishers, ex: University of Nevada Press, BYU Press, Princeton Press, etc.)

Academic Journals (specific publications by professors and juried by their peers, usually published by a university or an academic association).

For my courses only: The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times,
both of which go through a juried process and both of which have other
significant reasons to count as "academic sources" for undergrad students.

.gov

.mil

.edu

Sometimes, but usually not: .org

(NEVER .com, .biz, .info, etc.)

Primary Documents: letters, laws, government statistics, Congressional Record, actual documentation though official channels or that can be authenticated as honest and true from the time ("Love Letters of an Airman", "Bill of Rights", specific codes of law, etc.)

Primary interviews with experts or those who have experienced something first hand (you must be able to defend and confirm their expertise specific to what you are writing or talking about).

Artifacts (pottery, relics, letters, etc.)

See Also:

CSN Resources

Sources included in Unit 9 Unit 10

See also Source Credibility (click here)

First posted August 19, 2009

Holy spectacles, Batman! Show brings Gotham City to Thomas & Mack

Las Vegas Sun..click here for full coverage.

Batman Live

By John Katsilometes

Saturday, March 17, 2012 | 1:07 p.m.

Batman Live

Las Vegas has thrown the switch on the Bat Signal.

A stage version of how the Caped Crusader joined forces with Robin (aka the Boy Wonder) is heading to the Thomas & Mack Center in the dizzying spectacle “Batman Live.”

The show is set for the Thomas & Mack Center from Oct. 3-7. Tickets start at $29.50 and are on sale Friday at the UNLV Box Office, by calling 702-739-3267 (FANS) or at UNLVTickets.com. Tickets also can be purchased at the concierge station at Town Square. Show dates and times are Oct. 3-5 at 7:30 p.m.; Oct. 6 at noon, 4 and 8 p.m.; and Oct. 7 at 1 and 5 p.m.

The show is a fully authorized production from Warner Brothers Consumer Products, DC Entertainment and Nick Grace of Water Lane Productions, whose credits include the international tour of “Mamma Mia!” and the touring production “Walking With Dinosaurs.”

The all-ages, arena-scope blowout features a 3D depiction of Gotham City laden with ominous, darkened buildings; a 105-foot, bat-shaped video screen; and an all-new Batmobile designed for the production.

Forty-two acrobats vault around the enormous set. Pyrotechnics and video illusions burst onstage. Along with the show’s central characters -- Bruce Wayne as Batman and Dick Grayson as Robin -- Alfred Pennyworth (or, Alfred the Butler), the Joker, Catwoman, the Riddler, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy and the Penguin appear. The unnerving qualities of Gotham City are well represented, as are Wayne Manor, the Batcave and Arkham Asylum.

The man who penned the script for the show says the storyline is a faithful adaptation of the tale of how millionaire Wayne found a kindred spirit in young circus performer Grayson, forging a heroic alliance for the ages.

“He’s been Batman for about a year, and he meets a young circus performer whose parents are gunned down right before his eyes," Allan Heinberg said in a phone interview Friday. “He is forced into being this kid’s guardian, to avenge the kid’s death on his own to make Gotham City a safer place. The story is all about this relationship, learning about themselves, learning that they need to lean on each other because they cannot do it alone.”

Heinberg says such linear storytelling is what sets “Batman Live” apart from productions from Las Vegas’ predominant performance company -- and you had to feel this comparison coming -- Cirque du Soleil.

“Cirque is notoriously nonlinear and non-narrative,” says Heinberg, who has been a writer and producer on TV series like “The Naked Truth,” “Party of Five,” “Sex and the City,” “Gilmore Girls, “The O.C.” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” He has spent the past seven years writing comics, including “Young Avengers” for Marvel Comics. He says “Batman Live" is distinctive even for those who have seen all variety of production shows in Las Vegas, including those staged by Cirque.

“What Cirque brings is its spectacle and magic, and we have aimed to have that degree of spectacle and magic,” Heinberg said. “But ours is a very linear and very narrative drama. It’s much more like a traditional play, story-wise. I don’t know the comparisons with Cirque would be that immediate.”
Heinberg calls the experience of writing for this level of production “extraordinary.”

“It has been extraordinary to try to create something that’s very faithful to the source material but has not been done in live-action form, onstage, before,” he said. “In the process of translating it to the stage, we felt we were inventing a new kind of performance art. It’s not quite theater, not quite circus. It has all the spectacle of a rock show and a musical, but it’s not sung. It’s really its own unique, theatrical form, an arena spectacular.

“It’s narrative, emotional arc of a play, but it is larger than life on every level.”

Everything about the production is outsized. The load-in convoy is 20 tractor-trailers. The crew needs two days to assemble the stage. It took 100 hours just to sculpt the body for Batman’s costume, and there are more than 490 costume elements onstage.

The soundscape, which Heinberg says he listens to often just for pleasure, was recorded by a 92-piece orchestra under the direction of English composer James Seymour Brett. In collaboration with acclaimed composer Michael Kamen, Brett also co-wrote the music for the epic Steven Spielberg miniseries “Band of Brothers” and the film “X-Men,” among other major projects.

More than half a million people have seen “Batman Live” worldwide since 2010. Reviews have been laudatory. A sampling from the London Daily Telegraph calls the show, “A live-action drama stuffed with dazzling special effects, retina-popping visuals and improbable feats of highwire derring-do, choreographed within a Catwoman’s whisker of perfection.”

Righteous.

Evil Ed Asner returns after 40 years to "Hawaii 5-0". Rosie a flop. 21 Jump Street an underserving hit.

From the LA Times Company Town Blog, click here for the latest industry news.

The Skinny: I didn't watch the finale of "The Walking Dead" so I don't want to hear anyone talking about it today! Monday's headlines include "21 Jump Street" taking the top spot at the box office, James Murdoch leaving Sotheby's board of directors and, of course, a story about "The Hunger Games."

Guest star Ed Asner reprises his 1975 role as August March on "Hawaii Five-O." (Norman Shapiro/ / CBS / February 22, 2012)

Ed Asner resurrects villain he played on original Hawaii 5-0 TV series.

Ed Asner has developed a knack during his extensive showbiz career for portraying crusty characters armed with a gruffness that camouflages a decent nature and good heart. Those traits were at the core of Asner's most famous role, the crotchety Lou Grant of the landmark "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its dramatic "Lou Grant" spinoff.

But there was a brief moment in Asner's past nearly 40 years ago when he went over to the dark side, playing a villain on CBS' "Hawaii Five-O." On Monday's episode of the revamped "Hawaii Five-O," he gets to resurrect his bad-boy past.

The episode features Asner as August March, a wealthy art collector and smuggler who may — or may not — have changed his illegal ways after serving three decades in prison for smuggling valuable art. The twist is that Asner is reprising a role he played on the original "Hawaii Five-O" when he tangled with that show's granite-faced hero Steve McGarrett, played by Jack Lord. The new installment contains footage from that 1975 episode that shows Asner with a streamlined three-piece suit — and a bit more hair.

Producers say it may be the first time in television history that a guest performer has played the same role on separate versions of the same show.

Revisiting history is only part of the thrill for the 82-year-old Asner as he resurrects the smooth-talking villain he played as a side gig at the same time he was on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." He enjoyed working in Hawaii and bringing new layers to what figured to be a one-off performance.

"The intrigue of it was that it was a such a contrast to Lou Grant," Asner, touring in a one-man show, "FDR," playing President Franklin D. Roosevelt, said by phone. "Lou was a good guy, while this role allowed me to salaciously salivate over the oiliness and evil of the man. It gave me a chance to be bad."

Bringing August — and Asner — back to the new "Hawaii-Five-O" was the inspiration of executive producer Peter M. Lenkov, who had worked with Asner previously in an episode of "CSI: New York" a few years ago.

"When we first started doing the show, we wanted to do something that bridged the old show and the new," Lenkov said. "I have vague memories of that original episode. But when we had idea of bringing back specific characters, I thought of Ed. I knew if we were going to do it, he would be great."

The original "Hawaii Five-O" episode, "Wooden Model of a Rat," revolves around August concocting a plot to frame McGarrett for the theft of a small but valuable piece of Chinese art from a museum. The criminal relies on a smooth manner and smile to accent his sinister nature as the fence for stolen art and gems.

But when he's first seen in the 2012 installment, August couldn't look less like a master criminal. Wearing a plaid shirt and suspenders, he's clearly agitated when police show up to ask him if he knows anything about how a smuggling operation may have led to the violent death of two cops. He is insistent that he abandoned his criminal past after his prison stint.

Said Lenkov, "When we first saw August, he was originally very black and white. He knew he was a bad guy. Now he's a lot more gray than black and white — there's a lot of shading going on. He's playing someone who really wants to be given a second chance. But is he conning the police or is he really there to help?"

Asner said he really didn't reference his previous portrayal much when diving back into August's skin. "The only thing I really retained was his dealing with stolen art. What I really focused was on the needs of the show: playing an innocent man being hounded by the police."

Bringing the reliable Asner to the series should provide another boost for what has become one of CBS' key dramas. Although the TV prime-time graveyard is filled with revamps of classic series such as "Bionic Woman," "Knight Rider," "V," "Get Smart" and this season's short-lived "Charlie's Angels," "Hawaii Five-O," now in its second season, has thrived.

"It's one of the most successful reboots ever," said TV historian Tim Brooks. "These reboots usually play on nostalgia. They were smart not to do that. The show didn't spend a whole lot of time aping the old series — it can be watched not as a revival but as a whole new show. And there's always room for at least one Hawaii show on prime time."

Brooks added that Asner, who will also appear on TV Land's "Hot in Cleveland" on Wednesday with his former "Mary Tyler Moore" costar Betty White, brings his own recognizable, appealing persona to his projects: "Ed Asner is apparently eternal. He ages well. I just hope he doesn't do any back flips off tall buildings."

The conclusion of the "Hawaii Five-O" episode leaves the door open for yet another return for August March. Said Lenkov: "We definitely want him back."

Asner is more than ready: "It has to happen," he said with a chuckle. "I do it so charmingly, don't you think?"

21 Jump Street made $35 million in its first weekend

Photo" "21 Jump Street." Credit: Scott Garfield/Sony.

Jumping out on top. Sony's "21 Jump Street" took in about $35 million to grab the top spot at the box office. I was one of those contributing to Sony's bottom line. While "21 Jump Street" was good,the previews show all the best scenes and a Richard Grieco cameo would have gone a long way with me. Disney's expensive "John Carter" continued to struggle, making only $13.5 million in its second weekend. Overall, box office was down 6% compared with the same weekend last year. That marks the first time this year that ticket sales were off versus 2011. Box office coverage from the Los Angeles Times and Movie City News.

The Daily Dose: HBO appears to be taking a low-profile approach on air with regards to the demise of its gambling drama "Luck." After last night's episode, the promotions for next week's show did not mention that it would be the series' finale and instead said only that it was the season finale. "Luck" has not been a ratings draw for HBO, but the network had ordered a second season. However, the death of a third horse during production led the pay cable channel to pull the plug on the series.

The fine art of subliminal seduction. Because our key demographic at the Morning Fix -- girls -- can't get enough of "The Hunger Games," here's a story from the New York Times about the subtle marketing of the movie that makes kids think they've discovered it rather than being brainwashed into seeing it. The New York Post writes about how some magazines are looking to "The Hunger Games" to jumpstart sales.

Murdoch off another board. Embattled James Murdoch is giving up his seat on the board of auction house Sotheby's. Murdoch, whose association with the phone hacking scandal at News Corp.'s British tabloids has seriously damaged his prospects to succeed his father, Rupert Murdoch, as chief executive of the media giant, had previously resigned from the board of GlaxoSmithKline Plc. Details from Bloomberg.

The biggest broadcaster you've never heard about. Unless you are a student of the television industry, the names Dave Smith and Sinclair Broadcasting probably don't mean much. But if you are a network or a syndicator or a TV journalist, at some point you've collided with Smith and Sinclair, a Baltimore-based broadcaster that owns local TV stations all over the country. A profile from Broadcasting & Cable.

C-Span chief to step back. Brian Lamp, who more than 30 years ago had an idea to televise congressional hearings, is stepping back as chief executive of C-Span, the nonprofit cable channel. The 70-year-old Lamb will remain as executive chairman while longtime C-Span co-presidents Rob Kennedy and Susan Swain will now also share the chief executive title. More from Variety.

Miramax mayhem. We live in a "that was so 20-seconds-ago world" that a story about what happened on Friday seems like history by the time Monday rolls around. That said, in case you missed it, Mike Lang abruptly left his position as chief executive of Miramax after less than two years on the job. Given that Miramax doesn't make movies anymore and only seeks to maximize its library, there must have been some serious personality clashes there. More from the Los Angeles Times.

Rosie O'Donnell hit the road. Another that-was-so-20 seconds-ago story was OWN's late Friday cancellation of Rosie O'Donnell's talk show. When companies release news late on Friday, it's because they hope the media have already left for the weekend and will forget about it by the time Monday rolls around. O'Donnell was a huge and expensive flop for OWN. A look at some of the issues with the show from the Daily Beast and the Chicago Tribune.

Inside the Los Angeles Times: James Rainey visits with new CBS News anchor Scott Pelley. Ed Asner revives his old character on CBS's "Hawaii Five-0."

-- Joe Flint

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Fixing What Is Wrong With Our Economy

SOURCE: From the AFL-CIO, click here for web site.
Statement from the AFL-CIO Executive Council

The economic policies that led to the financial crash of 2008 and the subsequent Great Recession should have been permanently discredited by their epic failure. Instead, the Republican presidential candidates are now resurrecting the same failed policies and pretending the crash never happened.
America cannot afford to go down this path again. If we want to fix what is wrong with our economy, we have to learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them.

The crash of 2008 and the Great Recession were inevitable consequences of three decades of economic policies designed by and for Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans. At the heart of the problem was the hollowing out of American manufacturing, the growing dysfunction of our financial sector and a rapid increase in economic inequality, all of which crippled the growth engine of the U.S. economy.

Starting in the 1980s, corporate America decided to boost profits by shipping U.S. jobs overseas. NAFTA and the admission of China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) accelerated the drive to relocate production to “export platforms” in foreign countries that would ship goods back to the U.S. market. Corporations that sent jobs overseas became forceful proponents of a “strong” (overvalued) dollar, which enhanced the profitability of their overseas operations but at the same time made much of the U.S. manufacturing sector uncompetitive and led to perennial U.S. trade deficits.

Also by the 1980s, the U.S. financial sector was failing to perform its essential function of channeling savings to productive investment in the real economy. Financial firms on Wall Street focused instead on making a quick buck by stripping assets from existing businesses and downsizing their workforces, and on various forms of complex financial engineering that had little economic value. Financial firms also provided critical support for a “strong dollar” policy that diverted productive investment away from the U.S. manufacturing sector toward overseas operations. By the eve of the crash of 2008, the manufacturing sector had shrunk to half its 1960 size, while the financial sector had doubled in size and accounted for 40 percent of corporate profits.

The deindustrialization of America and the substitution of speculation for productive investment were not accidents, they were not inevitable, and they were not the outcome of natural forces. They were the predictable results of mistaken policy choices made by politicians of both parties for more than a generation. These policy choices had victims with first and last names: millions of displaced workers, shuttered factories and hollowed-out communities across the country hobbled by shrinking tax bases that no longer could support vital public services.

Both deindustrialization and the dysfunction of finance contributed to a remarkable rise in economic inequality starting in the late 1970s. Trade deficits and offshoring wiped out millions of well-paying, middle-class jobs, and the threat of offshoring held down wages for all workers. But a long list of other deliberate policy choices also played key roles in the rise of inequality. These included the abandonment of full employment in favor of fighting inflation, the prolonged attack on workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively with their employers, the erosion of the minimum wage and other labor protections and massive tax cuts for the wealthy. In the end, nearly two-thirds of the pre-tax income gains after 1979 were captured by the richest 10 percent and more than half was captured by the richest 1 percent.

The experience of the past 30 years shows that rising inequality is bad not only for workers, but also for the economy as a whole. Less affluent households tend to spend more of their income, generating more economic activity, while more affluent households tend to consume less. Wage stagnation undermines political support for the levels of taxation necessary to support public investment in things like roads and schools, which underpins future economic productivity. And high levels of inequality are associated with political decision-making that leads to slower growth. In short, the upward redistribution of income throws sand in the gears of the economy.

The combination of all these policy mistakes caused the growth engine of the U.S. economy to sputter. Starting in the early 1980s, the economy’s average annual growth rate slowed considerably in comparison with the postwar period. The expansion of the Bush years was the weakest since World War II in terms of output growth, investment growth, employment growth and wage growth. In fact, the Bush expansion was the first since World War II in which real income for the typical middle-class family actually declined. There was clearly something wrong with the U.S. economy long before the crash.

The weakness of the economy was temporarily papered over by a bubble in real estate prices at the turn of the 21st century, which was made possible by the deregulation of Wall Street. Instead of broad-based, sustainable growth fueled by rising wages and investment, the U.S. economy was artificially inflated by complex financial engineering that made credit more easily available and exposed the entire economy to enormous risk. The bubble allowed working families to maintain their standard of living, despite stagnant wages, by borrowing against the value of their homes and going deeper into debt. But of course households could not keep increasing their debt loads forever. When the real estate bubble finally burst, the house of cards came crashing down and working people were once again forced to pay for the sins of Wall Street with their homes, their dreams and their children’s futures.

We are still digging our way out from the rubble of the crash. It typically takes years to repair the damage from the collapse of speculative asset bubbles. When the U.S. real estate bubble burst, households lost more than $10 trillion in wealth from the plunge in housing and stock prices, and they were heavily indebted to begin with. Even today, households are still digging their way out of debt, and it may take years for them to see daylight. This helps explain why progress toward closing our jobs deficit has been so difficult, and why the economic recovery is still so fragile. Another drag on the recovery has been the loss of 765,000 jobs at the state and local levels between 2007 and 2011, more than in any modern downturn.

The Republican presidential candidates not only failed to learn anything from Wall Street’s mistakes, they now want to double down on more of the same. They propose to deregulate the financial sector yet again, pass more trade agreements that encourage the offshoring of U.S. jobs, suppress wages by intensifying the assault on unions, prioritize inflation-fighting over full employment and perpetuate overvaluation of the dollar and the U.S. trade deficit. We already tried this approach, and it already failed spectacularly.

The Republican candidates pretend that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy are the answer to wage stagnation and the economic crisis, but the Bush years taught us that these obscenely wasteful tax cuts only make the problem worse. They are the equivalent of eating our seed corn, because they starve the kind of public investment in education, infrastructure and innovation that is indispensable for long-term economic growth.

President Obama has shown that he understands the problem. He has said clearly that “we are not going back to an economy that’s all about outsourcing and bad debt and phony profits,” we cannot return to a “bubble and bust” economy propped up by “fleeting bubbles and rampant speculation,” and we “must make sure such a crisis never happens again.” He has called for rebuilding an economy “built to last” through a sustained program of public investment in infrastructure, education and innovation. He has called economic inequality the “defining issue of our time” and sounded the alarm at the decline of the American middle class over the past 30 years. He has opened a national conversation about encouraging businesses to bring jobs back to the U.S. instead of shipping jobs overseas. He has acknowledged that America can no longer “serve as the consumer engine for the entire world,” and called on trading partners that run trade surpluses every year to rebalance their economies by consuming more of what they produce.

What we need now is an economic program as serious and far-reaching as the problem President Obama has correctly diagnosed. We must start by shifting the focus of U.S. economic policy from one of maximizing the competitiveness and profitability of corporations that happen to maintain headquarters somewhere on U.S. territory to one of maximizing the competitiveness and prosperity of the human beings who live and work in America.

First, if we want to be competitive with Germany and China in the 21st century, we will need trillions of dollars in productive public investment over the next 10 years in affordable education and apprenticeship programs for young people, who have suffered greater income loss than any other demographic; infrastructure; energy; manufacturing; transportation; skills training and upgrades; and new technologies; all of which have been starved by successive rounds of tax cuts for the wealthy and inaction on long-term federal investment initiatives. Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans, who have benefitted most from the economic policies of the past 30 years, will have to start paying their fair share. We need to pass a financial speculation tax, let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income and establish a minimum effective tax rate of 30 percent for households earning more than $1 million.

Second, to encourage domestic investment and lay a stronger and more stable foundation for long-term growth, it is essential that we tackle the problems of wage stagnation and economic inequality. This will require reforming our labor laws so that all workers who want to form a union and bargain collectively have a fair opportunity to do so, making full employment the highest priority of our economic policy, increasing and indexing the minimum wage, shrinking the trade deficit and, again, eliminating incentives for offshoring.

Third, we need to start making things in America again. We cannot hope to revive U.S. manufacturing without bringing our trade deficit under control, which means ending the overvaluation of the U.S. dollar and combating currency manipulation by our trading partners. We will also need to enhance Buy America safeguards, aggressively enforce our trade laws and end incentives for offshoring in the tax code and in our trade agreements.

Fourth, we need to shrink our bloated financial sector and make it serve the real economy once again. We can no longer afford a financial sector that squanders scarce resources on unproductive gambling and exposes the entire economy to the intolerable risk of speculative bubbles. This means reregulating Wall Street, eliminating tax advantages for leveraged buyouts and finding other ways to favor strategic investment over short-term speculation.

Fifth, if we expect other countries to stop relying on trade surpluses as their source of growth, we will have to make it easier for them to rely on domestic incomes as their source of growth. This will require a global New Deal that establishes minimum standards for the global economy, prevents a race to the bottom, creates vibrant consumer markets in the global South and in the process creates new markets for advanced U.S. manufacturing.

We also have unfinished business in digging out from the rubble of the crash. America wants to work, and decisive action to close our jobs deficit must not be delayed any further. An immediate multi-year program of public investment in infrastructure and clean energy would draw in business investment and buy time while households dig their way out of debt. To stop the foreclosure epidemic and stabilize housing prices, broad-based reductions in mortgage principal will also be needed. The U.S. economy cannot recover until the housing market—the single largest market in the country—is healthy again, and the banks must be held accountable for their contribution to the crisis.

One thing is clear: We can no longer rely on household debt, real estate bubbles, tech bubbles, stock bubbles or any other kind of bubbles to fuel our economic growth. We cannot go back to a low-wage, high-consumption economy. We need bold leadership to draw the right lessons from the mistakes of the past 30 years and forge a new model of economic growth in which we make things in America again, workers can form a union and bargain collectively if they want to, working people can afford to buy the things they make, the U.S. economy produces as much as it consumes, everybody who wants to work can find a good job and prosperity is broadly shared.

SOURCE: From the AFL-CIO, click here for web site.
Statement from the AFL-CIO Executive Council

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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Shannon and Weaver model

by Shankar Vedantam

More: Policy-ish

Notes

Monday, March 19, 2012