One less reason to buy the Mercury News

I wouldn't call myself a TV addict, but for the past nine years I've been able to count on Charlie McCollum to tip me off when there was something worth watching on the tube...and when I shouldn't waste my time. As you may know, McCollum writes the TV column in the San Jose Mercury News...or at least he used to.

Turns out that Monday's column -- which told me that The Riches is back and I might want to spend some quality time with Minnie Driver -- was his last. McCollum noted that "due to the recent staff reduction and a resulting realignment of assignments at the Mercury News...I will be moving on to other writing and editing jobs at the paper."

One less reason to read the Mercury News.

Here's another: Today's SV Life section, which includes movie reviews, had no reviews by local reporters. There was one from the LA Times News Group, another from the LA Times (is there a difference?), and one from the Sacramento Bee. Oh, and commentary from the Miami Herald, and a filmmaker profile from the Minneapolis Tribune. Plus Dear Abby, the comics and the movie listings. That's it.

I guess a local reporter still compiles the "Three Things to Do Today/Tomorrow" listings for this section, but everything else is canned.

Tell me again why I should buy this newspaper?

What I can't forget...at least not yet

I recognize that vacant look. I've seen it before -- on my mother's face. It's the look of Alzheimer's.

Instead of grading student papers tonight, I'm watching "The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer's" on PBS...again. I've seen it once before, but that was three or four years ago...before my mother went into an Alzheimer's care facility.

During the program, a man talks about losing his wife to Alzheimer's. What he misses most, he says, are the conversations they used to have. Sometimes now she doesn't even recognize him. It makes me think of my father, who cared as best he could for my mother and kept her at home...until the point when she started leaving home because she didn't like "that strange man" who kept talking about marriage.

In another scene in "The Forgetting," two daughters visit their mother, who is in a nursing home. She is largely unresponsive, doesn't seem to recognize them. They speak to her in cheerful voices, patting her hand, her hair. Been there, done that.

Later in the show, the daughters talk about how long it's been since their mother was diagnosed -- 13 years -- and how they know it could go on like this for another five, 10 or even 20 years. It seems endless, they say. They wonder what they will do if she gets pneumonia -- treat it, or let it run its course? I've had that conversation too.

It is nearly 10 years since I first realized something was wrong with my mother. As the out-of-towner in the family, I was the first to notice the changes. Mom had stopped doing needlepoint, which she'd loved. She'd stopped cooking; said she'd done enough of it. She'd stopped cutting her hair; said she liked it longer.

Later, I found that her last completed needlepoint was dated 1997. My brother looked back through his photos and saw that 1998 was the year she let her hair go.

We've now had a decade of living with Alzheimer's and watching our mother slowly disappear. There's no knowing when it will end...or if it will end with her.

Happy birthday Patrick Stewart!

Today is Patrick Stewart's 67th birthday.

I'm a long-time fan, and I still rue the day the Star Trek TV franchise ended. I don't go to Star Trek conventions or dress up like a Klingon at Halloween or anything -- I'm not that kind of a fan -- but sometimes I just wanna watch an episode of Star Trek. Fortunately for me, Spike TV, the "macho guy" channel, offers afternoon reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

What's the appeal? Can't be that bald dome...though my Dad was bald...hmm. Maybe it's the British accent and the fact that we both enjoy a nice cuppa Earl Grey (or at least his character, Captain Jean Luc Picard, did).

A couple years ago in Las Vegas, I ran into Patrick Stewart. He was gracious enough to let me get this souvenir shot. If he appears a little stiff, there's a reason: we were at Madame Tussauds.

To Iraq and back...the Woodruff report

If, like me, you missed last night's special report by ABC News Correspondent Bob Woodruff, To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports, you can still catch it online.

In an email to JMC faculty, Prof. Bob Rucker calls it "a truly remarkable and moving special report."

He continued, "This is absolutely GREAT television reporting...definitely EMMY Award caliber. It is also very very emotional TV. It's difficult not to tear up and cry when you see what Woodruff and some Iraqi war veterans went through, and now face as life-long battles for survival."

To watch the video, go to http://abcnews.go.com/ and click on Bob Woodruff links on the main page, or click on this direct link: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2909190.

Wanna be a better writer? Watch TV!

It's not the advice I would normally give a student writer, but it sure has worked for Soledad Rosas. So here is her advice: If you want to get better at telling stories, watch more TV...especially soap operas.

Rosas, a broadcast major and a student in my "Writing Workshop" class last fall, is a good writer. Right away, I noticed she had a knack for writing stories. Even with a simple assignment ("go outside and observe something...anything...then describe it...be descriptive, use telling details...write me a couple hundred words, and turn it in by the end of class"), Rosas created a story.

Here's what she wrote. She called it, "Talking To Each Other."

"Is that a man?" she asked Sergio, who sat almost, but not
quite next to her. Sergio stopped writing in his thin
notebook. He stood up and walked quickly down the stairs.

Sitting on the side of the steps outside Dwight Bentel
Hall, Katy chewed her gum rhythmically. Her long bright
gold hair, tied at the top, glided down her back. Her right
leg supported her against the smooth rail. Using a
pocketsize, Katy typed a few words, looked up and then
typed some more. From the bright green grass with dim gold
autumn leaves where he stood Sergio replied "No." They
giggled simultaneously.

A bright summer-like sun came down from the sky. Wearing a
red baseball cap that was his perfect fit and a bright
green T-shirt, Sergio walked up the stairs again.

"Do you think anybody took notes?"Katy said in a friendly
manner as she continued typing.

"No, it is such a great day," Sergio replied, and looked
indirectly at Katy.

"I am making background noise crunching on chips," said
Katy as she reached into the bag of chips with her left
hand. She grabbed some potato chips and ate them slowly,
making sure they crunched, then she continued typing.

Sitting on the concrete steps, Sergio also kept writing
every detail in his notebook. A few minutes later, without
saying a word, he walked up the stairs and opened the heavy
brown door. Katy did not seem to care and kept typing
holding her tiny machine in an upward position.

A moment later, she left walking fast. Katy seemed to know
the path by memory.

Rosas's short piece has characters. It has dialog. It has action (of a sort). It has a beginning, a middle and an end...all the element of a story.

I particularly like her closing line: "Katy seemed to know the path by memory." To me, that's the line that makes this piece hang really together as a story. It rounds the story out; it creates a sense of familiarity, a sense of closure.

When it comes to writing, different approaches work for different people. So, students, here is what I have to say: If you want to learn to write stories, you might try watching more television...especially soap operas.

Obama, Sundance and student films

You know how sometimes one link leads to another...?

Well, this morning I was reading about Barak Obama's recent New Hampshire appearance (I'm a N.H. native, so I tend to notice N.H. stories) in Salon.com...and isn't it interesting how much attention he's getting? I think it shows how hungry so many Americans are for a new path in this nation's politics and policies. But I digress....

Anyway, from Salon.com, I clicked on a banner ad for the Sundance Channel...I mean, how could resist a TV show called "One Punk Under God"? It looked kinda interesting, but perhaps not my cuppa tea...so I clicked on a link to Sundance's Second Life blog...and, yes, Sundance avatars (named Vincent and Maya, if you must know) will soon be appearing on a Second Life Island near you. And if you're interested, you're invited to tell the folks at Sundance what you'd like to see their avatars do (in a nice way, of course).

Then another Sundance link -- for the "College Television Awards" -- caught my eye, and ended up watching some very cool short films created by college students. My favorites were an animation, "Things That Go Bump in the Night," and a short film, "Trojan Cow."

Check them out!

Still Spanning the Globe

I stumbled upon the end of an era this morning...the last "Spanning the Globe" segment by sportscaster Len Berman on the Today Show (at least that's what I thought...see note at end of this post).

When I was in college, I used to love watching Len Berman, who covered sports at WBZ-TV in Boston in the 1970s. I think that's when he started putting together his wacky "Spanning the Globe" sports clips. He later moved on to NBC...and I moved on to take my first reporting job in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest. It was a long way from home, and I was delighted to stumble across Berman and his "Spanning the Globe" sports report on a local NBC affiliate.

It's hard to believe now, but I was a bit of a sports fan when I was a kid. My Dad was an avid Boston Red Sox fan, and I remember Carl Yastrzemski, "the man we call Yaz" (yes, I can still sing it!), and the "impossible dream" summer of 1967, when the Red Sox came this close to winning the American League pennant. One of the things I'm truly grateful for is that my father lived long enough to see the Sox finally win the 2004 World Series.

For my Mom, it was the Boston Celtics. I remember the golden era of Coach Red Auerbach and legendary players like Larry Bird. When my Mom was in her 50s, she took her first cross-country road trip -- and one of the highlights for her was passing through the town of French Lick, Ind., the birthplace of Larry Bird.

Since then, sports have become so much harder edged and more commercial. Now I rarely pay attention to it, or miss it...except when a marker comes along like Berman's last "Spanning the Globe."

Note: Imagine my surprise at finding an email from Len Berman in my in-box this evening. He wrote:

Hi Cynthia......hopefully you'll be happy to hear that Al Roker was
just kidding this morning. "Spanning the World" is alive and well and
will next air on the Today Show December 13th.
Best regards,
Len Berman

How cool is that!