Wednesday, January 27, 2010

THE NEXT BLOG WILL BE WRITTEN WEDNESDAY NIGHT, FEBRUARY 3rd!!!

Hi Everybody,

I wrote a note on Wednesday, January 27 about this week's blog being delayed because of a very difficult film audition. This is an updated note that was written Friday morning, January 29. That difficult (but very interesting) audition that required more study and preparation than usual and some other unexpected things have caused me to not be able write the next blog until Wednesday, February 3rd.

I know that some of the blog subjects will be President Obama's State of the Union Address.

President Obama's face to face challenge at a Republican gathering where he told Republican House people (in essence) that he's perplexed, tired, disappointed and plain pissed off about this Republican "Party of NO" voting against everything he suggests without offering any kind of counter proposals.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

Gay Marriage.

Magic Johnson's desire to be President Obama's Minority Czar.

The Supreme Court's latest "Legislating from the Bench" decision.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke are still being employed by us?!?.

A great quote from President Theodore Roosevelt.

Foreigners who honk their horns too damn much.

Annnnnd....An email I received from Cairo, Egypt that challenges my comments about Muslims.

On the entertainment side of things, my thoughts about a 1997 Mel Gibson-Julia Roberts film I saw for the first time and my thoughts about Mel Gibson's new film, "Edge of Darkness".

Again...The new blog will be written Wednesday night, February 3rd.

Thanks very much for your patience.

Most Sincerely,

Scott "The Jammer" St. James

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Tea Party People, Gay Marriage, Obamacare, Sarah Palin, TV shows, Films and Football Picks!!!

Tea Party People, Tea Baggers or whatever it is they prefer to be called.

I haven't written about them, but I've certainly been aware of them. At first I thought they were (for the most part) just a bunch of lost souls who were being easily swayed by rich radical talk show hosts who were preaching the gospel about how President Obama is in the process of ruining our great country, and by the way, he's a black guy.

I didn't write those thoughts (of mine) because I wanted to keep an open mind about what these Tea Party People-Tea Baggers are all about and if my first reaction was (to me) on the money, I would write (hopefully) a well thought out commentary about how misguided they are.

Okay....Here's my open mind conclusion about who the Tea Party People-Tea Baggers are and what it is they seem to want.

I believe the Tea Party People-Tea Baggers are scared. I believe that each individual who was-is scared, found out THEY ARE NOT ALONE!!! Hence, the Tea Party People-Tea Bagger "movement".

Folks, to me, this is a growing "movement". And I LIKE it!!! WHY do I like it? These people, instead of staying home while feeling they are (an old Southern expression) "Broke Dick DOGS", have become "ACTIVISTS"!!!

In case you hadn't noticed, I'M an "activist"!

WHY have many of our citizens developed a fear that has become all consuming, a fear that had them sitting at home feeling like "Broke Dick Dogs"?

Wellll...I suppose there might be a number of reasons, up to and including (whether they're conscious of it or not) the fact that this new president looks different than all our previous presidents, buuuut...If I had to pick ONE REASON for all the fear felt by this growing group of Tea Party People, I would pick what is known as, OBAMACARE!!!

Full disclosure: I have health insurance. And as of today, I have no complaints.

I do however recognize that more than 30 million of our citizens don't have health insurance and it would be nice if something could be done about that. We also have unfortunate American citizens who, because of "pre-existing conditions", can't even BUY insurance at ANY cost!!!

I also recognize that if we are going to have REAL healthcare reform, we absolutely have to come up with something that will in fact DRIVE DOWN COSTS of healthcare in this country.

And ya know what? I think we could DO that if two meaningful things were done.

TWO THINGS, Scott? Just TWO things?

Hey, I'm a simple kind of activist!

I think President Obama has or had a great idea when he talked about making it MANDATORY for young adults to buy insurance. I know. I didn't buy health insurance when I was young! Because I was HEALTHY!!! Who the hell wants to buy health insurance when they're HEALTHY?

Yeahhh, but if you seriously get sick BEFORE you buy health insurance, you have what is known as a "pre-existing condition" and you'll be faced with not being able to buy health insurance at ANY COST or it will be cost that's so prohibitive, you won't be able to buy it anyway.

Making the buying of health insurance by young adults MANDATORY would guarantee they would never have a "pre-existing condition" problem and they would be protected from having to go to the poorhouse if they got some terrible illness.

Okay. That's ONE thing! I said, TWO things.

It is my view that President Obama dropped the ball big time when he didn't include and or demand that "Tort Reform" legislation be enacted. If "Tort Reform" legislation is enacted along with the mandatory buying of insurance by young people, HEALTH CARE COSTS would DEFINITELY go DOWN!!!

And if a new healthcare reform bill were passed by both the Senate and House and sent to President Obama's desk to be signed into law, we will indeed (in my view) HAVE CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!!!

But what the hell do I know? I'm just a simple activist. Like you Tea Party People are.

And as long as I'm handing out advice here, here's a message for my brother and sister activists.

You've got Sarah Palin championing your cause? You hard working Tea Party People? Look, I have both sides of that "marriage" figured out. You Tea Party People-Tea Baggers are working hard to make things happen in our country. In case you hadn't noticed, Sarah Palin QUIT her job in Alaska. Why? So she could (ghost) write a book, make a bunch of money and do nothing that even RESEMBLES work!

Have you noticed that the head guy at Fox has no interest in Sarah Palin being a talk show host on his network? He isn't stupid. Did you see or hear what Fox host Glenn Beck said to Sarah Palin when she gave him an answer to a question he asked her? The question Glenn Beck asked Sarah Palin was, "Who's your favorite Founding Father?" Sarah Palin's answer was, "All of them." Glenn Beck's response to Sarah Palin's answer was, "BULLCRAP!"

She finally said, "George Washington", but the only thing anyone remembered was Glenn Beck's response to her after her first answer. Sarah Palin also believes that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.

NEXT SUBJECT...

I was going to write about the Gay Marriage issue, but I think we have enough to chew on in this week's blog. I'll write about that subject next week unless President Obama's State of the Union speech next Wednesday turns out to be off the charts compelling.

FILM STUFF...

This past week I saw two films on cable for the first time. The first one was a 2007 film on Showtime that's titled, "He Was A Quiet Man". It stars Christian Slater, Elisha Cuthbert (Jack Bauer's daughter) and William H. Macy. The "Quiet Man" is played by Christian Slater and I think this was one of his best performances ever. This is not a "happy" film, but I think it's a good film.

"Cadillac Records" is a film that came out in 2008 and I don't think it did well. That's a shame, because this story, now on the STARZ circuit, is about how the Chess record label came to be. Academy Award winner Adrien Brody plays Leonard Chess, the man who created the Chess label, a label that became the home of/to a lot of singers who ended up in the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame. Singers like Chuck Berry, Etta James, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and many others. I thought Brody was terrific as Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright was terrific as Muddy Waters, Mos Def was terrific as Chuck Berry, Beyonce Knowles was off the charts terrific as Etta James and Emmanuelle Chriqui (an actress I have a huge crush on) was terrific as Revetta Chess, Leonard Chess's wife.

TELEVISION STUFF...

The first four hours of the new "24" season were shown on Sunday and Monday night on Fox and I loved all four hours. Nice to see Jack Bauer back in action and saving us all.

A new Fox adventure show, "Human Target" was also shown on Sunday and I think that show is going to be a HIT! The regular night for "Human Target" will be Wednesday nights at 9, after American Idol.

Did you watch the Golden Globes? I did. I thought Martin Scorsese's speech about Cecil B. DeMille was off the charts terrific. I was happy that Julianna Margulies won for "The Good Wife" and that Michael C. Hall won for "Dexter", but I thought the line of the night was delivered by host Ricky Gervais when he said, "I like to drink as much as the next man, unless the next man is.......Mel Gibson."

And right on cue, out walked Mel Gibson. This was Gibson's first very public appearance since he was arrested for drunk driving and then, while drunk, said some things he wish he hadn't said. Mel Gibson is a big star as an actor, a director and producer. I believe he knew Gervais was going to say something like he did say, and Gibson figured that was a pretty good way to get what everyone would be thinking, "out of the way".

FOOTBALL PICKS!

After going 3-0 in my NFL picks two weeks ago, I was brought back to earth this past weekend. I was wrong about Dallas, I was wrong about Arizona, I (again) didn't make a pick on the game involving the Jets and I was right about Indianapolis.

When the Colts put a bunch of their good players on the bench in that game the Colts were winning a few weeks ago, the Jets rallied and ended up giving the Colts their first loss of the season. Had the Colts won that game, the Jets would have been eliminated from any chance of getting into the playoffs. Right after that happened, I wrote in this blog the thought that it was entirely possible that the Colts might end up playing the Jets again with the Jets having the chance of keeping the Colts from getting into the Super Bowl. Can you imagine how the Colts would feel if this Jets team, in a space of a few weeks, kept the Colts from having an undefeated season AND then kept the Colts from getting into the Super Bowl?!?

That season saving win over the Colts is why I didn't make any predictions about the Jets these last two weeks because (to me) it was simply impossible to get a "handle" on these guys after they had been given that "gift" by the Colts.

The Jets had no business beating the Bengals, but they especially had no business beating the Chargers. I think the Colts are grateful that the Jets did beat the Chargers, but as Don Meredith used to sing, "Turn out the liiiights...the party's OVER!!!", because now the Colts are going to the Super Bowl after they give the Jets a big time reality check.

Vikings-Saints? Wow! This should be a terrific game and I think it's a toss-up. The pick here is New Orleans.

THOUGHTS AND OR COMMENTS?

Please write to me at scottstjames@sbcglobal.net and I will write back to you. If you write to the blog, there's no way for me to know your email address, so I won't be able to respond to you. When you write to me at scottstjames@sbcglobal.net, I will write back immediately. All anonymous emails sent to me are ignored.

THE NEXT BLOG?

Unless something unforseen comes up, the next blog will be written next Wednesday, the 27th, sometime after President Obama's State of the Union address.







Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Sarah Palin, Previous VP's and a message from me to President Barack Obama!!!

We really didn't think Sarah Palin was suddenly going to become invisible, did we? In case you hadn't heard, she's now a Fox News commentator of some kind. This is apparently not a regular gig. Yet! Because of a new book, "Game Change" that was written by two highly respected authors (John Heilemann and Mark Halperin), Fox News, if they care, might be interested to know what the McCain people learned about Palin during the last presidential campaign. Among other things, she didn't know the difference between North and South Korea and she apparently didn't know they are two different countries. No big deal if (for example) YOU or I don't know that, but the possible Vice President of the United States SHOULD know that, especially if McCain had won the last election.

There are other things in this book about the former Alaska governor that lend credence to the fact she would have been hands down the most unqualified person to ever be a heartbeat away from the presidency in the history of our country and no, I haven't forgotten about Spiro Agnew or the Robert Redford lookalike who was Bush Senior's VP.

Dick Cheney? No, Cheney wasn't someone who was politically uninformed. In fact, he was VERY informed and served his president well. Bush Senior's VP was a doofus and Agnew, though politically astute, turned out to be common crook.

You put Sarah Palin in the White House as Vice President Palin, you pray that the president she's supposed to be serving has off the charts great health. You put Sarah Palin in the White House AS president, that would figure to be good business for all the churches because a whole lot of us would be wanting to do some SERIOUS PRAYING about the health of our country!!!

AND THEN THERE'S PRESIDENT OBAMA...

I voted for him and it was the first time I have ever voted for a democrat because to me, the current Republican leadership had "lost it's way".

Having said that, like a lot of Americans who switched sides, I now find myself saying, "Hmmm!!!", when someone asks me how I think President Obama did during his first year in office.

I believe that President Obama has often appeared to be walking on egg shells when faced with a serious problem and that to me has been understandable because he's the first African American to hold this office and he would figure to not want to come across as being "uppity".

Now before you start sending the emails to me, THINK about what I just wrote. The word "uppity" might not cross YOUR mind, but if you think for one second that there aren't millions of people in this country ready to use that word loudly because of something he's said or done, you're living in the Twilight Zone.

Someday, having an African American in the White House will be no big deal. Same deal for an Asian, Latino, Woman, Gay Person, etc., etc.

Muslim? No! I most definitely wouldn't go that far!

Back to President Obama. Yes, I thought we were voting for someone "SPECIAL" when we voted for him and maybe by the end of his first term, we will discover that we DID vote for someone "special". But right now, all I know is that like every other politician before him, Barack Obama seems to have said what was necessary to get himself elected. Health Care for everyone is what he has hung his first term on. But even if he gets a Health Care bill passed, it will probably be something that is better than what we have now, but not anywhere near as good as what the people who voted for him hoped it would be.

And these WARS?!? I am simply not convinced that these wars are in our best interests when we have so many other problems to take care of here. Problems that are affecting millions of us because of all the money that is spent on these wars and all the money that was spent on bailing out businesses that should have been forced into bankruptcy.

Eventually, President Obama is going to have to stop being concerned about the "walking on egg shells" thing and become (as I suggested in a previous blog) an out and out ASSHOLE to people in his inner circle or members of Congress who try to talk him out of things he knows in his heart of hearts is the RIGHT THING TO DO!!!

To me, a serious decision needs to be made regarding wars and our economy. The United States Of America's economy. An economy that is in terrible shape. More and more home foreclosures, more and more people filing for bankruptcy. The millions who are unemployed that we know about and millions more who are unemployed who have simply given up. I could go on and on about this mess and point fingers at the banks and insurance companies that have been allowed to rape us, the disastrous deregulation, consolidation and any other word that ends with t-i-o-n and don't even get me started on NAFTA! And no, our problems are not all caused by Republican or Democrat leadership. They are equally at fault. Reagan, Clinton, W. Bush and other high level politicians who seem to have been bought and paid for by the lobbyists representing the people I mention in the 5th, 6th and 7th sentences of this paragraph.

And right now, President Barack Obama appears to be going along with most of what the people who got us into this mess want us to CONTINUE to do.

Mr. President, that is not acceptable! Mr. President, I understand that a lot of compromising has to be done in order to get ANYTHING done, but you have to present something dramatic in order to get something dramatic after the compromising is done.

Okay, Mr. President. You've taken your shot with Health Care and if any of it gets passed, it will be a shadow of what you wanted, but at least it will be something. And you will have gotten it despite having to walk on egg shells to get it.

Mr. President, here is what I would LOVE to hear from you regarding these wars, national security and our (closer than anyone will admit to) dangerous road toward "GREAT DEPRESSION TWO!!!"

I know. This will come across as wishful thinking that doesn't have a chance in the world, but if you don't throw it out there during desperate times....And make no mistake....These are desperate times....

Mr. President, I would like you to (in essence) tell the world and these here citizens of the United States of America that we, here in America, have some serious problems we need to attend to. HERE!!!

We, the United States of America, have been asked to help out country after country after country and we have always responded favorably with money, supplies and our people. Same deal with these wars. World War 2 was unavoidable. Korea, Vietnam, other small wars, Iraq, Afghanistan? Anyone want to tell me how any of those wars benefitted us? Afghanistan was originally about getting Osama bin Laden. No argument here. He was responsible for 9/11. But that mission was never completed. In fact, the mission appeared to be run by incompetents as was that Iraq sham.

And then, Mr. President, I would like you to tell the world that we, the United States of America can no longer be the country to help other countries because we, the United States of America need to focus on HELPING OURSELVES!!!

And to also tell the world to not mistake what we're doing as a sign of weakness when it comes to national security. What we will be doing is trying to get our economic situation back in order and that is something that will take some time. But if any ragtag turban wearing gang of Muslim terrorists comes here and tries to pull another 9/11 on us, that will be a disastrous mistake on their part that will result in the full fury of our military might. And when I say, full fury, I'm referring to nuclear bombing them into the Stone Age if that's what it would take to make these ragtag turban wearing Muslim terrorists have a serious wake-up call that would result in them saying, in unison, "Gee...Nobody ever EXPLAINED it to us THAT way before!!!"

Hey, I can dream, can't I?


ENTERTAINMENT STUFF...

Last Friday would have been Elvis Presley's 75th birthday. TCM showed films that Elvis had starred in all day and night. Priscilla Presley and a long time friend of Elvis' talked about Elvis in between the showing of some of the films.

In a documentary that was shown, we saw a lot of what happened during Elvis' first six nights of live performances in 1970 at The International (which later became The Hilton) in Las Vegas. I wasn't there opening night, but I was there several nights later and many nights after that.

Wonderful memories for me, but seeing a couple of his old films brought back some wonderful memories and new observations from a guy who hadn't seen those films since the years they were released. Two examples; "Jailhouse Rock", 1957. I was a child when that film came out. 50 years later, I found myself looking at an actor who had great potential, potential that ended up being wasted on a lot of junk films designed to sell tickets (because it was Elvis) and to sell soundtrack albums. I was surprised. "Jailhouse Rock" was actually a pretty good film.

"Viva Las Vegas", 1964. There's a reason that Priscilla Presley said in her autobiography that the one woman she feared Elvis might leave her for, was Ann Margret. Watching Ann Margret and Elvis performing together in "Viva Las Vegas" made me feel sad because those two were sooo good together on screen, it's just a darn shame they didn't work together again. It was fun watching them flirting with each other on screen, but when they sang and danced together on screen, it was cinematic magic. I mean, the chemistry between those two was electric!!!

THREE TELEVISION SHOWS...

Have you had the chance to check out "Mercy" on NBC? Wednesday night at 8 or 7 Central time. I have liked that show from the beginning and I think it gets better and better.

After "Mercy" is a show I hadn't seen in a long time. "Law & Order, SVU". Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay are the two main stars and tonights episode featured a terrific Guest Star performance by Sarah Paulson who played psychopathic poisonous person and was scarily believable. "Law & Order, SVU" is also on NBC, but on Wednesday night at 9, or 8 Central time. Good, good show.

Speaking of NBC...How about that Jay Leno-Conan Obrien mess? Leno came on after the Law & Order show, so I watched Leno for the first time since the first night of his new show that is about to be cancelled. I thought he was pretty funny tonight and I'm sure he'll be funny when he goes back to being on late at night like he used to be. Conan O'Brien? I'm sure he's a nice person, but I'm more of a Letterman guy.

THE FOUR NFL GAMES...

If you read this blog last week, (it's still there, just below this one) you know that I pointed out I did television and radio sports for many years here in Los Angeles and just for fun, I thought I'd make some football predictions. I was wrong with my pick of Texas over Alabama in the BCS championship game, but I was right in my Dallas, Baltimore and Arizona NFL predictions. I didn't make a pick in the Jets-Bengals game.

In the Saturday games, I like Indianapolis over Baltimore and if the Cardinals don't beat the Saints straight up, I think they will cover the point spread.

In the Sunday games, I think the Cowboys will beat the Vikings, but if they don't, I think they'll cover the point spread. Once again, I don't have a prediction for the game involving the Jets. They're playing the Chargers in San Diego, the Chargers have been unbeatable for quite a while, but this Jets team got a break from the Colts a few weeks ago and they've established themselves as a very dangerous team. But so are the Chargers, aren't they?

THOUGHTS AND OR COMMENTS?

Write to me at scottstjames@sbcglobal.net and I will respond to you. If you write to the blog, there's no way for me to know your email address, so I will be unable to respond to you. All "anonymous" emails are ignored.

THE NEXT BLOG?

Barring unforseen circumstances, the next blog will be written and posted late Wednesday night, January 20th.


Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Profiling Muslims? As Sarah Palin might say, "You Betcha!!!"

Whenever a certain group of people are stopped and questioned about their "intentions" more often than every other group, the charge of "Racial Profiling" is made. Or "Muslim Profiling" or "Cell Phone in a Car Profiling", etc., etc.

But lets go back to "Muslim Profiling". I will accept the claim that not all Muslims are terrorists.
But can the bleeding heart crowd please accept the fact that most terrorists are Muslim!

I bring this up because because of that Muslim terrorist who was carrying some kind of bomb in his underpants while on a Christmas flight to Detroit. We got really lucky because the only thing that happened was that this Muslim terrorist ended up burning himself while some heroic passengers took him out of "action".

Why this Muslim terrorist was even allowed on the plane to begin with is the result of the sloppiest of "intelligence" work, because this guy's father had tipped off authorities that his son had new beliefs and new terrorist friends and this was something we (our "intelligence" people)should be concerned about.

And then there's this Muslim terrorist who conned the CIA and who knows how many other people into believing he was some kind of "double agent" and was ready to give useful information about Al Qaeda to the CIA. This Muslim terrorist was a 36-year old Jordanian physician. Now think about that. This Muslim terrorist was a DOCTOR! A guy who was in the business of HEALING people, not killing them. But this Muslim terrorist Doctor, after not being searched, not only killed seven CIA people, he also killed the Jordanian intelligence person who convinced the CIA that he (the Muslim terrorist) was "legit" and he (the Muslim terrorist) also killed HIMSELF with the suicide bomb he was wearing.

Let's think about this for a second...A 36-year old guy is a Jordanian physician. A Doctor. A healer of people. Young guy like that has the world by the ass, doesn't he? No problem finding women or whatever floats his boat, the legitimate "connections" he can make, connections that figure to make his life even better....But for whatever reason, this Muslim Doctor terrorist, decided to kill a bunch of American CIA people, himself and the guy who vouched for him.

And now I or you should be concerned about "PROFILING"?!?

Hell, Cuban officials are already bitching about the extra screening procedures for Cuban citizens that are now in place when they want to fly into the United States.

Yo, Cuba! I don't CARE!!! In fact, I'm not sure I want you here, screening procedures or not!

But here's where I'm going with this. I DAMN SURE DON'T WANT ANY MORE MUSLIMS COMING HERE!!! Whether they're flying here, taking a boat here, somehow driving here, somehow walking here, whatever.

Yes, I'm in favor of "profiling" Muslims if they try to get on a plane to come here. Subject 'em to scanning machines and make 'em take all their clothes off.

But ya know what? I would support a law that would simply keep them out of our country, period! By now, our country's "leaders" (and the rest of us) need to understand something. The Muslim population (as a whole) doesn't like us. The Muslim population (as a whole) has nothing in common with us.

And we think we can "turn them" by killing a bunch of them in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did the thought ever cross the minds of our "leaders" (and the rest of us) that when we kill Muslims (or anyone else) in their countries that WE are looked upon (by them) as AMERICANS being terrorists?

They don't want us there (except when we're giving them money) and it's long past time that we said, "We don't want you Muslims HERE!"

Your thoughts and or comments can be sent to scottstjames@sbcglobal.net I respond to everyone who sends me an email at that address.

One more thing regarding the Christmas visit we got from a Muslim terrorist on the flight to Detroit and the visit our CIA people got from the Muslim Doctor terrorist.

Some very serious mistakes were made by our so-called "intelligence" people regarding that Christmas flight and how that Muslim Doctor terrorist got up close and personal to all those CIA people without being searched is beyond comprehension.

Some people should be fired for the Christmas episode and I think there's a chance someone or more than someone might be/should be put on trial for what appears to have been incompetence of the very first order which resulted in all those CIA people getting killed and injured.

OTHER STUFF...

Some new regulations will soon be put into place that the big banks don't like. These same big banks that got all that tax money from us. Before the new regulations kick in, banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, Chase and Citibank are charging new outrageous fees and jacking up interest rates on customers.

Early last year, I told you what a Bank of America employee told me (off the record) about things they were doing to their customers, things their customers hadn't gotten around to realizing yet and I told you what I did and what I thought you should do. And that is to take all of your money out of those banks and put it into credit unions. I switched to a credit union in March or so. Five days ago, it was reported that Huffington Post website and co-founder Arianna Huffington and former Senate Banking Committee chief economist Rob Johnson (in a widely read blog post) were/are encouraging bank customers to "yank their deposits" from the banks I mentioned and to move their money to community banks and credit unions.

Personally, I'm not that sure about community banks, but I am sure about credit unions.

Sudden thought: What these big banks have been doing is a form of terrorism as well, isn't it? Think about that.

The Fox/Time Warner Cable Battle...

That was in the news a lot for a few days. It was finally settled, but you know what's going to happen next, don't you? Your Time Warner Cable bills are going to go up and we will be told that the reason they're going up is because of Fox. But what they won't tell us is that while Fox will make more money, Time Warner will make even more money because of this convenient excuse they'll have. Meanwhile, your pockets and my pockets get even emptier.

Are you tempted to buy some rabbit ears? Yeah, you can hook those things up to your television sets and you don't pay a monthly fee. And you would be surprised how many channels you get without having to have cable. If enough people did that, companies like Time Warner, Dish and Direct TV would have to give serious consideration to letting their customers pick only the cable channels they want to have as opposed to being forced (as we are now) to take and pay for channels we will never want to have.

AND SPEAKING OF PEOPLE WHO ARE PUTTING THE SCREWS TO US...

Have you noticed the gas prices lately? We are driving less, people are still struggling in this rotten economy, and here comes our old greedy bastard pals, the oil companies with higher gas prices for no reason other than the fact, they can!

ENTERTAINMENT STUFF...

Did you see last night's episode of "The Good Wife"? That show is sooo good. Tuesday night at 10, 9 Central, on CBS. And am I the only guy who thinks that boot wearing investigator is hot? Or, as a former producer of mine told me today, "I like her sass!"

Here's some films on the cable circuit I saw recently...

"Rock Star", starring Jennifer Aniston and Mark Wahlberg. A 2001 film that's currently on the HBO circuit and I liked it. A lot!

"The Soloist", starring Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Jr. and Catharine Keener. A film that came out last year and is currently on the HBO circuit. This film is based on a true story and I thought that what Jamie Foxx had to do with the way he spoke was terrific. Downey, to me, is always good, but I kept hoping we would see more of Catharine Keener because she was very good in the small amount of screen time she got. The film did not do well at the box office, but I liked it.

"The Caine Mutiny", a 1954 film classic that I had never seen before and it was shown on TCM. It features an all-star cast and it's a film that 56 years later, still holds up.

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Johnny Carson. Pretty famous names, huh?

I mention these four guys to you, because former CNN news anchor and long time friend of mine, Patrick Emory sent me a wonderful, less than 4-minute tape of those four guys singing in a St. Louis theatre in 1964. Everyone I've sent this tape to has loved it. If you would like a copy of it, I'll be happy to email it to you. All you have to do is send your request for "The Rat Pack Tape" to scottstjames@sbcglobal.net and I will email it to you immediately.

Yes, I know that Johnny Carson wasn't an official Rat Pack member, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you see/hear how he did when he performed with those legendary singer/performers.

THE BIG FOOTBALL GAMES:

Many of you blog readers (especially those who live away from the Los Angeles area) don't know that I did a lot of television and radio sports reporting here for many years. Like with this blog, I did a lot of opinion/commentary stuff on the sports reports. But I also made picks when there were big games being played.

And yeah, like most folks, I was wrong more often than I was right.

Having said that, Alabama is favored by 4 over Texas in the BCS championship game tomorrow night and I like Texas plus the points.

In the four NFL playoff games this weekend, the first thing that jumps out at me is, how the heck did the New York Jets get into these playoffs? And then I remember that the Indianapolis Colts gave them a "gift" and wouldn't it be ironic if the Colts end up having to play them again to get to the Super Bowl? And if the Colts lost that game! The Colts wouldn't have lost to the Jets a couple of weeks ago if they hadn't put all their good players on the bench in the second half. And that would have eliminated the Jets. Something to think about, especially if the Jets beat the Bengals (again) this weekend.

I think Baltimore will beat New England, Arizona will beat Green Bay, Dallas will beat Philadelphia and I have NO opinion on the Jets-Bengals game.

THOUGHTS AND OR COMMENTS?

Write to me at scottstjames@sbcglobal.net. I respond to everyone who writes to my email address. If you write to my blog, there's no way for me to know what your email address is, so I can't respond to you. All "anonymous" emails are ignored.

THE NEXT BLOG?

Barring unforseen circumstances, next Wednesday (late), January 13.