January 24, 2021
Oh. Hello there. I was just sitting down to a cup of hot chocolate. Some people would say the weather outside is miserable. It's cold and gray (well black now that it is night) and freezing rain and ice is supposed to make for a messy commute tomorrow morning.
But me? I love winter weather. Well, maybe not this particular vein of winter weather. I can't vigorously disagree that it is miserable out. But I'm a winter person. I love cold weather and snow. There are a lot of terrible things associated with climate change, but the personal thing I'll miss the most is the snow. I already miss the snow. Significant snowfalls used to be a thing that happened 2-3 times a winter. Now it happens ever 2-3 years. But yesterday it was bright and sunny. It was a great day to be out if you can tolerate 20° F temps. One way to get through cold temps is to keep moving. Me? I put on some hipster shades and ran an impromptu half-marathon. It's not the smartest decision I've ever made but... another story for another time perhaps. (I run, but I hesitate to be called a runner.)
I got sidetracked - it happens to me quite easily. To cut to the chase, before this preamble jumped the tracks, I was talking about hot chocolate. It's a little cold, so a hot beverage sounded nice. I'm not a coffee person, or even a tea person (the coffee person's snooty cousin). I can't make fancy hot chocolate, but I can pour water over some Swiss Miss. You might think... there I go getting sidetracked again. If brevity is soul of wit, my soul cries out for salvation. I am not a pithy person.
I am (or was by this point) drinking hot chocolate to warm up from a winter chill. CBS Sunday Morning is like a cup of hot chocolate - warmth on a winter morning.
The CBS Sunday Morning Power Rankings for Sunday (well, duh) January 24, 2021:
1. Ted Koppel
Ted Koppel became a senior contributor to CBS Sunday Morning in 2016. I love an old, no BS newsman. I also love it when an old, no BS newsman reaches a point in his career where he no longer bothers to hide his disdain for those who do not take facts or journalism seriously. I'm not of Koppel's generation. To me, his history begins with Nightline - a show which sadly outlived it's usefulness once ABC finally understood there was money to be made at 11:30 PM. That or Jimmy Kimmel complained about the midnight timeslot. Or both. I desperately want to make a joke about other late night shows that Nightline outlasted like the Magic Hour or the Chevy Chase Show, but I'll cede that territory to The Simpsons. Speaking of The Simpsons, the Nightline format was eminently mockable:
All of which is to say, that I knew more about Ted Koppel from spoofs, sketches, and satire from when I was kid than from actually watching Ted Koppel. If I was staying up late as a teenager, it was to watch Letterman, not Nightline. Ted Koppel was not the most spoofable news personality on ABC (Sam Donaldson), but I think he would have gotten a kick out jokes done at his expense.... if it was a good joke. The sense I get from Koppel from CBS Sunday Morning is that he has a withering take down ready to go at a moment's notice if you came at him and didn't stick the landing. He is 80 years old and has no time for your unfunny joke or misdirection or equivocation. Tell it as it is and tell it straight.
He is 80 years old. He's probably not going to waste time on something that he does not find important or is not something he has passionate thoughts about, like the criminal justice system:
He also does an excellent job of interviewing other prominent voices of his generation:
Ted Koppel is 80. He's probably only going to do something he feels is important. Dr. Anthony Fauci is also 80. I think the same applies to him. Two peas in a pod these two. Why is Dr. Fauci a political figure? Because of the meme-ified, hand to the face as dissected in this interview? This is why we can't have nice things. I know I said I'll try to steer clear of politics, but we live in an era of failure.
The 11 AM spot is usually Tracy Smith's celebrity interview. We got Ted Koppel and Fauci today - sign 'o the (pandemic) times.
I'm sure Ted Koppel could care less that he is atop the Sunday Morning Power Rankings. As it should be. I was -3 during the Iran Hostage Crisis.
Mark Whitaker is not what I'd call Sunday Morning Regular. I must admit to some how having missed the 6' 8" John Fetterman during the post election aftermath despite Pennsylvania, the state of which he is Lt. Governor being a focal point of the unfortunate saga. I had either checked out (someone poked to wake back up on Jan. 20...) or was focused more on Georgia. To be fair, I don't have HBO, so I would have missed John Oliver's spot on "Lt. Governor Stone Cold" bit. I also was unaware of his previous appearance on the program filmed while he was mayor of Braddock, PA.
In the interview, Whitaker does what CBS Sunday Morning does best. He tells a story about someone or something that I previously knew nothing or very little about. It would be silly for me to say that a 6 minute piece can give the whole picture of a person, but Lt. Governor Stone Cold seems like a cool dude.
3. Jane Pauley
Jane Pauley's been hosting TV News/Infotainment for a long time. There are a lot of facets to what she does I could focus on. As the host she is probably always going to be on the list. Of the shows three hosts, and I may be a little too young to have a true opinion on Kuralt but we can come back to that another time, I think she does the best job of narrating the Sunday Almanac/Sunday Passage segments. It is perhaps a little sad that it's been more Passage than Almanac in recently. This week's Sunday Passage was for Hank Aaron. I'm a sports fan. Hank Aaron was before my time, but you grown up knowing the greats. And he was a great. His death this week reminded that my first true sports love was baseball. Possibly my favorite call in baseball history is subject Vin Scully's (featured not so long ago on Sunday Morning) call of 715:
4. Seth Doane
Sunday Morning regular Seth Doane is based in Italy. He got COVID back when it first went through country last spring. Ever since Italy has been battling the UK for the hardest hit EU country, there have been a handful of Seth Doane stories COVID in Italy from quarantine, to tourism collapse, to today's spot about Italy's fashion artisans. Let's just say I'm a fan of postcards from Italy in many forms including Seth's Sunday Morning segments. I know nothing about fashion and in a crisis, I'm not about to say, above all else save the embroidered dresses. But I would be lying if I said there wasn't beauty in them and it's always a shame to lose something beautiful. Now that Brexit is complete and Italy has become the ignominious COVID champ of the EU by default. Let's all hope Italy bounces back so we can get more stories from Seth about tortellini and balasamic vinegar. While I'm not well traveled, who doesn't envision their retirement will involve swapping stories at a cafe by the Mediterranean.
5. Blue Mounds State Park, Minnesota
I've already established my affinity for cold and snow. If not to a cafe on the Mediterranean, maybe I'll retire to Minnesota.
I once rode my bike to Prophetstown State Park in Indiana when I was at Purdue. I think the idea of the park was to recreate the Indiana prairie as it would have been to settlers in the 19th and 18th centuries. I thought it was a waste of a state park. In Kentucky, I used to lakes, rivers, hills, scenic overlooks, but nothing really overlooks anything else in Indiana - it is just flat. It is probably also flat in Minnesota, but with more lakes. Maybe I would have enjoyed the park scenery better in the winter. Bison always help too.
7. David Pogue
David Pogue is the main science & technology correspondent for Sunday Morning. He also occasionally dabbles in music - mostly classic rock (I do quite enjoy it when contributors veer out of a lane to cover something that holds special meaning to them). Today's story is about climate change refugees. A cover story would usually rank higher (top 4) by default. However, stories on climate change often make me anxious and sad. Even if we can avert the worst case and the planet isn't dying, where will I play in the snow when I'm old. Sometimes, I don't really have it in me to take in one of these stories. Climate change, whatever the cause (it is humans putting greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere), is bad. The question is, is it extinction level bad? For some species, it already is.
8. Lee Cowan
Lee Cowan give the obligatory Larry King retrospective. I suppose Larry King is an important enough media figure to warrant a full segment. In a historical context, is he more important than Henry Aaron? I don't think even Larry King, reputed lover of baseball, would make that argument. But it's not really a contest for who should get more time. Sunday Morning is not a sports show, so it makes sense to cover a well known media figure in more depth, especially someone they have covered previously on the show. I enjoyed the subversive use of the clip of the Dalai Lama saying Larry King's wife (whichever one it was at the time) could be his daughter as King. Make of that what you will. I suspect/hope Larry King would have found it funny.
9. Ben Tracy
Ben Tracy is not a regular on Sunday Morning. It is quite possibly the first appearance he has made. Occasionally news correspondents put together packages like this for Sunday Morning to give a retrospective of events in essay form, but I am not previously familiar with the oeuvre of Mr. Tracy. Will he making future contributions? I don't know. Will bizarre things keep happening in the news without Donald Trump? I'd have called the piece, "Donald Trump: What a long, strange trip it's been".
10. Martha Teichner
Martha Teichner has a degree in economics from Wellesley College. Do you have a degree in economics?
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