Cable TV plans give viewers more choices than they need.

Would anyone buy a full course meal at lunchtime
if all they wanted was a bowl of soup & crackers?
 
By David Maril
 
New cable stations and networks are being created all the time.

Fox is adding a sports channel. ESPN keeps expanding its empire as its competition grows and is concerned enough to have even brought the unstable Keith Olbermann back to boost ratings.

Al Jazeera America has been launched, adding to the intensity of the 24-hour cable news mentality.

The commercials permeate the TV airwaves fast and furiously promoting the advantages of having cable or satellite service.

All promise digital clarity and hundreds of channel choices.

There’s one big option missing, however. None of the pay television services allow you the privilege to order only what you want. You are restricted to selecting from an assortment of programming packages with flashy and misleading names like premium, gold, platinum, expanded basic and economy.

The cable and satellite providers advertise low monthly fees to get you to sign up. However, those basic packages have a lot of stations but few of the popular selections many of us want. Once you begin examining the stations included in these economy packages, the realization is that you will also have to pay for many offerings you don’t want just to receive the one channel or two you are seeking.

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond.   Your weekday morning look  (with links)  at late-breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may be on Friday:
 

Mississippi riverboat Delta Queen at Paducah, Kentucky

The Liberty Belle, which operated in Philadelphia before being drydocked in Baltimore, was auctioned off Thursday in Canton by Alex Cooper Auctioneers.

Read More at:  Maryland Daily Record

•  U.S. MILITARY HAS DEEP DOUBTS ABOUT AMERICAN STRIKE ON SYRIA; BRITAIN DEMURS

The generals are questioning the impact and wisdom of American intervention in Syria, as the British Parliament tells P.M. David Cameron: no go. Meanwhile the New York Times is reporting that President Obama plans to move ahead with a limited strike anyway.

Read More at:  Washington Post | Wall Street Journal | New York Times

•  ACCUSER’S CREDIBILITY QUESTIONED IN NAVAL ACADEMY SEX ASSAULT CASE

Defense attorneys for three Naval Academy football players accused of sexually assaulting a female midshipman last year while she was passed out at an Annapolis party raised questions Thursday about her credibility and motives.

Read More at:  Baltimore Sun

•  BALTIMORE POLICE GET $500K IN GRANTS TO REDUCE DNA PROCESSING BACKLOG

Maryland U.S. Senators Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin announced the windfall.

Read More at:  Baltimore Sun

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Typical email sent by columnist, with response by computer-age VoB editor.

Name abbreviation equals
poor communication
in the extreme

‘I.P.’ WRITTEN FOR VoB BY ‘D’
 
By David Maril
 
The more sophisticated we become with communication technology the more primitive and impersonal our messaging seems to be.

Emailing and texting have grown into the preferred way of communicating among people often just sitting just a few feet apart.  Now, fueled by the obsession of texting, while driving or doing something else that should require full attention, a style of typing-shorthand is replacing the written word.

Critics from older generations have been complaining for years that kids today no longer learn how to write anything out by hand or finish a complete sentence. Pens, pencils and paper have become obsolete.

But the shift is more drastic than that. It’s to the point where few words even need to be spelled out anymore. In the interest of speed and haste, everything is a candidate for abbreviation.

It started with cutting down on the letters in words. Now, even names are shortened.

An amazing number of emailers sign their messages just using the first letter of their first names. On any given day, you can hear from T., W., S., C., J. or even A. If you receive a thank-you message from L., you may also get a  “tks” — for thanks — if lucky.

Granted, this letter-for-names trend had been introduced by characters on popular television shows. Years back,  the Baltimore-based “Homicide: Life On the Street” character Al Giardello (played by Yaphet Kotto) was called “G”.  On “CSI: Miami” David Caruso’s Horatio Caine was “H.”

One problem, of course, is that you may know several people who have first names that begin with the same letter.

OK, maybe it’s too much to ask people to spend time actually writing out their names. But would it be too much, or too time-consuming, to use two or three initials? Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear from a computer-age JFK or FDR?

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Little League baseball players are 12 years old and younger.

PRESSURE  ON  PREPUBESCENT  ATHLETES,
EXPLOITATION BY CORPORATIONS & TV
IS UNHEALTHY  AND  UNCALLED FOR

‘Winning is the only thing’
is  being  taught  to  kids
at way too young an age
 
By David Maril
 
Nothing epitomizes the dog days of August more than the arrival of the Little League Baseball World Series, one of the most unworthy national — make that International — sports events of the year.

And the funny thing is over the years famous big-time national sportscasters, such as Brent Musburger, known derisively by many fans as Gushburger, continually sing the praises of how wonderful and American it is having 12-year-old kids in clean, snappy baseball uniforms playing under pressure in a 40,000-seat stadium at South Williamsport, Pa.

ESPN and ABC have televised the Little League World Series games for years. And the list of baseball announcers who have broadcast these games is quite impressive. Baltimore Orioles’ voices Gary Thorne and Jim Palmer have done Little League duty over the years. Other well-known announcers include Al Michaels and the late Jim McKay and Curt Gowdy.

It’s amazing in these days of so much concern about participation, everyone playing and not putting too much pressure on young athletes, the Little League World Series seems above criticism.

Oh, occasionally there will be controversy or insinuations about a pitcher or key player being older than officially listed. Back in 2001, the series was  scandalized when it was discovered Bronx, N.Y. pitcher Danny Almonte was 14 instead of 12.  Almonte’s team was forced to forfeit its third-place finish.

In most years anytime there is a dominating pitcher who looks mature for his age, insinuations are made about inefficient registration procedures and teams getting away with using players who are too old and having an unfair advantage.

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Hall of Famer Art Donovan played pro football for 12 years (1950-1961) — nine with the Baltimore Colts — then spent the rest of his life telling stories about it to all who’d listen.

COLORFUL, LARGER THAN LIFE FOOTBALL STAR
WAS WELL-LIKED BALTIMORE COLTS LINEMAN

A-Rod did other dopers a favor by getting caught
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering if the biggest Maryland non-story of the decade was Gov. Martin O’Malley’s recent announcement he wants to run for president, it’s interesting to note the following:

  The most fascinating thing about Art Donovan, who died on Aug. 4th at the age of 89, is that he was not a native of Baltimore and, in fact, was born in the Bronx.

If ever a person talked and joked around like a Baltimorean it was Donovan.

Whenever I think of Donovan, I hear his voice and the late Charley Eckman’s, arguing and joking around on the airwaves about some hot local sports topic. Both these likable, down-to-earth, tell-it-like-it-is characters were, as Eckman would say, “right guys.”

Donovan, an NFL Hall of Famer and a dominant defensive tackle on the ’58 and ’59 Colt World Championship teams, was a second generation sports celebrity. His father, Arthur Sr., is considered one of the greatest boxing referees of all time.

  After trading for Scott Feldman from the Cubs, I can’t help thinking the Orioles dealt with the wrong Chicago team and went after the wrong pitcher. They’d have been better off beating the Red Sox to the punch and finding a way to trade with the White Sox for Jake Peavy.

  If you don’t think Boston is a tough baseball town, consider that when it was announced Red Sox owner John Henry was buying the Boston Globe, the biggest concern about the deal in New England was whether the purchase would stifle the newspaper’s critical coverage of the Red Sox.

  The 12 baseball players who agreed to begin serving their suspensions for violating anti-doping rules owe a big debt of gratitude to Yankee celebrity Alex Rodriguez for drawing the spotlight away from them.

Even though three of the players serving suspensions are All-Stars, their names were hardly mentioned. Rodriguez, the highest paid player in the game, is the talk of the sports airwaves as he appeals his sentence of a 211 game suspension. It’s as if the other guilty players don’t even exist.

  If things get too tough in New York for A-Rod in baseball, maybe he should run for political office. He can take heart from the fact Anthony Weiner and Elliot Spitzer continue to run for city mayor and comptroller despite their scandalous personal track records.

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