Star Stuff

“We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

I was fortunate enough to have been young when Carl Sagan was hosting the original Cosmos.  Simply put, I was and remain a fan of a wonderful educational tool.  So I was very excited when I learned that Neil deGrasse Tyson was hosting a new Cosmos for a new generation.  I recorded each of the episodes of the first season, anticipating watching them with my children.  And then . . . nothing.  Neither daughter had any interest until very recently.

CBS v Time Warner: An Opportunity for Consumers?

First, some disclosure.  I am a former employee of CBS.  In the early 1980s, I worked for CBS Radio and helped convert them from manual audio switching by engineers to computer-controlled audio switching.  I have always had a soft spot for them among the networks.

David Carr, who covers the Media for the New York Times, wrote a great article over the weekend (here, and also reproduced at the end of this post) about the battle between CBS and Time Warner Cable over how to divide the massive amounts of money being paid for cable TV programming – with the result that Time Warner has cut off CBS programming (including its owned channels like Showtime) from the Time Warner subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.