—–

I’m sold.

It’s the glasses propped at the end of Waterston’s nose that closed the deal for me. The authority and intelligence that comes with such a precarious propping makes it impossible for me to support off-shore drilling any longer.

We should all be like Sam. We should all oppose offshore drilling and do so regularly (with reading glasses properly propped). But like Sam we should still allow ourselves to  benefit from the off-shore drilling. Fill the gas tank, heat the home, fly to Washington DC to lord our moral authority over others, and of course make a gajillion dollars in the frivolous and unnecessary energy-sucking industry of entertainment. (more…)

When “Law & Order” first hit the airwaves in September of 1990, I was an immediate fan. The concept, the ignoring of the personal lives of the lead characters, the wonderful acting and especially the endless plot twists hooked me a few seasons before the public would catch on and make the show a regular ratings hit. The first four seasons are among four of the best ever produced for dramatic television, thanks mainly to Michael Moriarty’s exceptional work as Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone, a resourceful, Robert F. Kennedy-style hard-nosed prosecutor determined to see justice done (though the whole cast was top-notch).

After 88 episodes Moriarty left, Sam Waterston (one of my favorite actors) took his place, and while the show was never quite the same, it remained regular viewing until around 2002.

The program’s eventual deterioration was a case study in the boiling frog theory. The quality of the production and acting remained, but the politics slowly shifted to the far left almost without my noticing. And it wasn’t the actual politics that first became apparent; it was the negative effect of those politics on the quality of the storytelling. (more…)