First, my daily paper goes away. Now, my favorite (US) soap is going away too. I’ll have more about this later in the week.

What, it’s still on?

…for the know-nothing videophobes in our audience (ignorance of your culture is NOT considered cool):

• Bill Maher asked Newark mayor Cory Booker why America’s economy needed to keep growing all the time; doesn’t everybody already have more than enough? Booker quietly reminded him that not everybody does. Another guest, bio-ethicist Peter Singer, chided Paul Allen for devoting too much of his charity money to projects in the affluent Northwest; Booker chimed in with the observation that plenty of folks and organizations in the NW could really use that money.
• Angie Mentink on Fox Sports Net Northwest, during a postgame discussion of the UW men’s hoops team and its historic Pac-10 regular-season title, on why the team and its fans should save some celebration energy ’til after the Pac-10 tournament: “There’s a difference between feeling ‘happy’ and feeling ‘satisfied.’ It’s something I’ve tried to teach my husband about.”
• A Today segment discussed frugal living with a tabletop tableau of “simple life” stuff—a Netflix envelope, a Scrabble board, a package of store-brand toilet paper, a drip coffee maker, etc. Excuse me, but you think we haven’t already familiarized ourselves with these?Unless the show’s producers are on the vanguard of a new media meme. Let’s call it “the upscale downsizing.” This schtick is to talk about economizing precisely for people who haven’t had to economize. It demographically separates the newly downscaled from those of us who’ve already been here a while.

…and his call for a huge uprising against Obama’s stimulus plan? And the small but well publicized “tea party” protests held in several major cities soon thereafter? Turns out they were all carefully planned by a network of right-wing PR groups, funded by a brother team of far-right billionaires.

…(a population subset that again includes me) should view the CNBC documentary House of Cards, next airing at 5 and 9 p.m. PT tonight (Monday). In two hours, you learn just how the mortgage bubble grew and burst, taking countless common citizens with it. In short, greedy bankers + unregulated markets + creative math nerds = global fiscal disaster.

…today to Blossom Dearie, the legendary jazz artist of the lilting vocals and the assertive piano playing, as heard in dozens of albums and several Schoolhouse Rock shorts.

…(known among many customers by a two-letter initial): My week of cablelessness ended this evening, as I gave in and paid up what I owed ’em. The basic channels and local HDs came on promptly when I called; at least the visual portion. After some jiggling, I got the sound back on by turning up the VOL on my cable remote. There were still no cable HD channels or digital tier channels, and no menus. I had to call back to get them to “ping” a reset signal to my cable box (which seems to be the all-purpose answer to such issues).

How does it feel to be no longer tubeless? Great. I feel again connected to the great global media tether. Yes, I survived without it for a week. No, I didn’t instantly become a better person due to any magical power of tubelessness. Yes, I should keep it (and the DVD player and the Web browser) turned off while I’m writing.

One happy discovery: During the extended wait to reach a live person during my first call, the on-hold music consisted of recent and current TV themes. The signature sounds of The Office, House, Desperate Housewives, Survivor, and more serenaded me with the promise that all these pleasures would again be mine.

Whilst we were all looking forward to the big inauguration late last month, I failed to notice that Broadstripe Cable’s filed for bankruptcy. Rumors that Broadstripe would sell out to Comcast Belltown viewers would finally get On Demand) have been denied.

…of a major life experiment.

I’m without cable TV.

For the first extended period of time (except while traveling) since mid-1984.

Sorry, videophobic hippies: Tubelessness hasn’t instantly transformed me from some brainless, tasteless, corporate-drone “sheeple” into an all-wise Renaissance Man. I’m still the same imperfect meat-n’-potatoes dude I’ve always been.

Of course, I’ve quickly learned that most everything I’ve been regularly viewing is available either on regular broadcast TV or online. The two major exceptions:

• Certain live sports events, but in this post-Sonics winter there haven’t been many of those I cared about; and
• Coronation Street. Recent UK-aired episodes of this workhorse prime-time soap (Britain’s most popular show) can be found via BitTorrent, but not the nine-month-behind episodes on CBC’s schedule. CBC’s own Web site only streams episodes to users with Canadian IP addresses.

What’s it like so far? I can’t browse away through the 121 or so channels to discover something novel and bizarre. Also, I’m missing a lot of the cheap snarky fun I get from sneering at particularly dumb commercials (Shamrow, Snuggies, Obama collector plates, funnel cake machines, etc.).

And as for the background noise, which I’ve come to need for certain types of creative brainwork, I’m learning to get it from substitute sources, including online audio/video sites.

This experiment will last at least until I can pay two months’ back bills to the cable company. Beyond that, we will see (or won’t see, as the case may be).

…during a soliliquy about Thursday’s heroic plane rescue: “What I always say about Airbus, they float better than they fly.”

…today to the memory of Patrick McGoohan, who created, wrote, directed, and starred in perhaps the greatest TV drama ever, then spent his last four decades taking occasional supporting roles and generally looking out for number six.

Earlier this week, I complained about the Seattle Post-Intelligencer dropping the Zippy comic strip. Now, according to unconfirmed rumor, there might not much longer be a P-I to carry or not carry the strip.

KING-TV claimed Thursday night that the Hearst Corp. will put the Post-Intelligencer up for sale, as a formality under the Joint Operating Agreement with the Times toward shutting down the P-I within months. P-I and Times bosses all claimed they haven’t heard yet of any such move. However, it would seem a plausible possibility. The owners of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, also the junior partner in a JOA, have made just such a move. And both the Times and P-I severely cut their page counts following pathetic holiday-season ad sales.

We, and the papers’ staffs, will learn the degree of truth of this telecast rumor sometime Friday. (There likely won’t be an official announcement in the papers themselves until at least Saturday.)

Needless to say, I’ve not wanted this to happen. I’ve supported the efforts of the Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town, which put public pressure on the Times to keep the JOA alive. I’ve long preferred the P-I, which long ago shed its last vestiges of William Randolph Hearst Jr.’s right-wing squareness to become the region’s dominant center-left editorial voice.

Yet few people, especially within the newspaper biz, quite expected industry-wide ad revenues to plummet so far so fast. Recent Times and P-I issues have had fewer than four pages of display ads and fewer than two pages of classifieds.

And you can’t expect the papers’ owners to just eat these declines. The Times’ majority owners, the Blethens, have tried to sell some of their other properties with no takers. The Times’ minority owners, the McClatchy chain, allegedly wants to sell its most prestigious possession, the Miami Herald, also with no apparent takers.

And the P-I owning, family-held Hearst Corp. is notoriously private in its business dealings; but it’s clear that its major income-earning properties (Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Esquire) also carry far fewer ad pages these days.

I’ll talk more about this when I know more, which will be after anyone else in the business here knows more.

My mother told me that she’d once heard my late father tell of the delightful and luxurious time he once had staying in the Taj Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai), as he was about to be shipped home at the end of WWII. Now, the place is a battle zone instigated by one of those thug bands that think blowing stuff up + killing people = victory (or its emotional equivalent). How macho; how dumb.

Forty-five years after JFK’s slaying, it’s still poignant to view the initial TV coverage. CBS happened to be the only network feeding programming to its eastern/central affiliates at that hour. As the World Turns was such a ratings powerhouse in those days, NBC and ABC didn’t bother to program against it.

Thus, the catastrophe that (according to some perverse nostalgists) jump-started 12 years of further catastrophes first came to the nation’s attention by interrupting the most sedate and reassuring TV series yet devised.

ATWT creator Irna Phillips had sensed that TV was, by nature, a more ambient medium than radio. (Former ABC exec Bob Shanks called TV “the cool fire.”) So she toned down the melodrama and the histrionics, and devised an extremely quiet, low-key drama, in which an average Midwestern family discussed its average Midwestern daily doings.

Thus, the media’s most lulling, calming tribute to Ike-era ideals gave way to Walter Cronkite telling us, indirectly, of that fantasy America’s violent demise.

This year, T-Day week sees the nation in another cusp between eras.

A “perfect storm” of economic collapse has yet to reach bottom.

An unneeded, unending war continues to destroy lives.

Yet tens of millions of us still bathe in the afterglow of that great joyous moment three weeks ago.

There’s a feeling in the social zeitgeist. A feeling of optimism, of unashamed sincerity. A feeling that we really can turn the corner on all our crises. A feeling that the world really canturn, into a better place.

I share this feeling, and hope you do too.

…in certain paid political announcements, we know who the true original Mavericks are–James Garner and Jack Kelly.

Telemundo’s now cablecasting Mr. Bean dubbed into Spanish! My day is now complete.