The Joys of Air travel...

Ok ... can I vent for a minute?

I fully understand that for the Airlines and the travel industry as a whole, the resumption  of  passenger volume at or near  pre-pandemic  levels is a welcome  relief .    For many though,  there is a dark, aggravating  downside  to this.

With the return of wide spread air travel, airports and planes are once again filled with....

The general travelling public.

As I sit here in the San Francisco International Airport. I find myself missing the heydays  of the Covid 19 lockdown.  When if you were flying,,  it was out of necessity not desire.  Consequently, the majority  of travelers you encountered were seasoned  fliers who understood  both the basics and nuances of air travel. 

We are now back to the reality  of masses of people for whom:

-  The  concept of a boarding group number

-  The mechanics  of escalators and moving walkways

-  The ability to form an orderly queue

-  The  basic  physics  of  overhead  storage space 

-  The finite degree to which a seat can recline  

Are all clearly complete  mysteries. 

People who  who think a full sized suitcase somehow meets  the definition  of  a "personal item such as a purse or laptop ".

All those challenges however, pale in comparison to grasping the idea that these folks  and their assorted  family members could have selected seats when they booked their  flight. Or even before they  came to airport using online check in.  

Instead  they have no problem turning  boarding  the plane into an elaborate  game of "Let's Make A Deal".   Delaying the entire process while they  beg, plead, cajole, demand and even try to guilt and bully people who had the foresight to select seats beforehand into giving them up because  they all just HAVE TO BE TOGETHER! 

The reasons for this I can only assume is so they can help each other find their shoes at the end of the flight. Because they consider a pressurized confined semi public space a perfectly acceptable place to take them off.

Now don't get me wrong, very experienced  travelers  can be just as bad .  My personal  favorite  being frequent fliers whose  company  books them  in  economy class and they MUST get an upgrade  no matter what, or the world will  apparently  come to a cataclysmic  end. 

The core issue is, in my not so humble opinion, one of people not understanding the  basic reality  that when you are an airline  passenger  you are NOT in control.... of ANYTHING.   

None of the complex multitude of variables  and logistical elements  that need to all come together  for even the most basic of short haul flights are in your ability to control.

My beef with the "Travelling General Public" is  the entitled  belief many hold that air travel should be as convenient  and geared to their wants  as driving their own car would be.  Car travel is an individual  experience.   Air travel is a collective  group experience.   One where everyone  needs to make small accommodations  for the collective  good.   

Think of checking that clearly  oversized  carry-on, or  making that smallest of efforts  to not jump up and  block the boarding lane when they call for boarding group 2  when you are in group  5 as the post pandemic  equivalent of wearing  a mask or  social distancing. 

Do it for all of us , and we will all get where we are going .

Ok...I feel better now.  Excuse me while I go find an $11 cup of coffee.

Remembering history's first "Zoom Meeting "

 They say the worst thing you can have in live television is “dead air”. Suddenly in front of a room full of government and media dignitaries, with broadcasting history literally hanging in the balance, that is exactly what we were facing. Dead air.

The date was Thursday, October 15th, 1981. Two days earlier, I had boarded an Amtrak train in Columbus, Wisconsin, along with Mike Daugherty, John Garrett, Tom Gehrmann, Chris Kerwin, Anne O'Brien, Becky Weirough, Glenn Zweig, Steve Funk, and Mike Kennedy, Now in the ballroom of the Capital Hill Holiday Inn in Washington D.C. a live satellite demonstration, linking our group of American kids, and a group of young people in Brisbane Australia had just gone on the air.

We were there along with other young people who shared the unique experience of being media users, not just media consumers. We were from the “Kids 4” television project in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Kids4 had been on the air since 1978, and was an educational partnership between the local public access cable channel and the American Council for Better Broadcasting (ACBB, later renamed as the National Telemedia Council )

Joining us there in Washington, was a group from the KIDS ALIVE! Project in Bloomington, Indiana. Together, we were hosting a live cultural exchange via satellite with a group of young people from down under in Brisbane Australia, who hosted the popular children’s program WOMBAT on Australia's Channel 7.

The kids from the Australian television show went first, showing an amazing video montage of their studio, the gold coast of Australia and the stories they produced there at Channel 7 in Brisbane. Then it was our turn. Or so we thought...   

Kerri Brinson from KIDS ALIVE!, looked in the camera and cheerfully announced; “Well, here’s our video montage!”  And … nothing.

A technician from COX Cable Television, hurried into the room and whispered in the ear of a nearby adult that the Video tape player in the satellite truck, was not working, and therefore none of the prepared footage we had brought with us to Washington could be shown. So we proceeded to do what we always did when doing live television. We improvised. 

The kids from Indiana looked at us like we were nuts. They were not used to working live. One of the great things about the Kids 4 program is we started out doing all of our shows live. It was only after two years we switched to recording them first, then airing them.

Still, with a ballroom full of media dignitaries watching you , plus trying to fill time  with stuff off the top your head, AND cope with at least a 5 second time delay between you and the people you were trying to interview, it was bit tense, even by our standards. But the end result turned out to be something amazing and unexpected.

That one technical glitch turned what would have been a largely scripted exchange into an actual conversation.

Instead of following a script,  we talked.  Asking each other about school, about hobbies and what was it about working with television that interested them, as well as sharing our own experiences as kids learning to use media and not be used by it.

Of course at the time, it felt like a disaster.

Looking back on that day, now, more than four decades ago, I marvel at how much the world has changed. At the time, what we were doing in Washington DC that day was not all that remarkable from a technical standpoint. Live satellite broadcasts were hardly unusual in 1981. Yet from a cultural and educational standpoint, the Kids-to-Kids interconnect was nothing short of revolutionary.

As much as I say that live satellite television was commonplace in 1981, that isn’t to say the mechanics of it were simple. The path of the satellite interconnect - from Washington, D.C. to , Brisbane, Australia was a complex series of relays starting with a signal carried by cable to trucks parked just outside in the courtyard of the hotel. From there, the signal was  beamed by microwave across town to PBS Headquarters.

PBS then sent  the signal to KQED In San Francisco via a  satellite, 22,300 miles above the Earth. Which THEN transmitted it up to another satellite which relayed it across the Pacific Ocean,  and  down to the an earth station near Sydney, Australia.

Finally from there the signal travelled via land lines to the studios of Channel 7, Brisbane, where the Australian children received it and responded. Their messages back to the U.S. travelled in the reverse direction using landlines and satellites back to Washington, to the on-site satellite dish located in the courtyard of the Capitol Holiday Inn, which fed the signal into the ballroom room where it was seen on  large screens by all of us there.

Whew! Did you follow all that? Don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz. But here is what you need to know, everything that I just described, in all its complicated glory, the average teenager can now do with the phone they carry in their pocket. No trucks needed, no delay and now we don’t even think twice about it.

 .
The Interconnect didn’t radically change the media landscape, or advance broadcast technology. What it did do, was in the space of a few short hours make the world a remarkably smaller place. It showed that live satellite broadcasting could be used for more than breaking news and sporting events

More than that, it laid the foundation for the type of personal inter connectivity that today, we take completely for granted. I know this, because I do it nearly every day. At least three times a week I will face-time, or WhatsApp video call or Facebook messenger video call with friends and family scattered all over the globe.  From London, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to San Francisco, and  Madison, Wisconsin,  and dozens of points in between.    What is commonplace today,  was nothing short of history making on that day in 1981

The interconnect was the first global Zoom meeting.

The greatest take away from that day for those of us fortunate enough to have been part of it, was the power of broadcast technology to bridge distances and connect people in new and exciting ways. It was, at least for me, a  life changing experience. A live demonstration of the power of broadcast technology to connect people and be a platform for sharing experiences and ideas, in (nearly) real time.

Media Literacy is more crucial now than ever before. Teaching young people how to harness the power of media, and connectivity as tools for education and empowerment is more important today, than it has ever been.

Teaching young people to be media users, not just media consumers has always been at heart of the mission of Kids 4 and The ACBB / National Telemedia Council . That mission, which took a gigantic step forward in 1981 continues today. Now as the International Council for Media Literacy You can find out more about the IC4ML and it's mission and legacy on their website,:  https://www.ic4ml.org

Those lessons of the Interconnect are even more important today than they were four decades ago. In a world where if kids in Sun Prairie, WI  want to talk to kids in Brisbane, Australia , all they need is a smart phone and a decent Wifi signal; 

Forty years on, it remains an experience that played a tremendous role in shaping my path in life I am so very grateful to have been a part of it.

Dear Wisconsin Voters... It's up to you

Many of my friends are shocked when they learn that I, used to be a Republican. How could a good progressive Gay man like me, ever have been a member of the GOP? The answer is found in a conversation I had one afternoon when I was thirteen years old.

I was attending an event hosted at Vilas Hall, on the University of Wisconsin Madison Campus. The event was to promote a media literacy and education organization I was heavily involved with at the time. 

Like many such events I attended, I spoke early in the program, and was the youngest person there. I would then have to sit there while speaker after speaker began to blur together, and my 13 year old mind began to wander. Realizing. I was in danger of nodding off, I quietly excused myself, and ducked out into the adjacent "green room" to get a drink of water.

As I walked into the lounge area I heard the sound of a Television, and saw an older gentleman sitting on the couch watching the University of Wisconsin Football game. With his curly white hair and trademark red vest, I instantly recognized former Wisconsin Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus.

 I had met him a few times previously, and was friends with his daughter Susan, with whom I worked with on media literacy and education projects. He saw me, motioned me over (remembered my name), and cheerfully announced that the Badgers were up by 7. I sat down next to him, and we watched game for a few minutes in companionable silence.

He then turned to me and asked how I was doing. I. talked briefly about the Media education project I was there to promote. Then I got up my courage and asked if I could ask him a personal question. Governor Dreyfus smiled and said; "So is this an interview Dave?". I assured him we were off the record, he laughed and gestured for me continue. I said; "Why did you want to be Governor?" Dreyfus had recently finished a very successful term, but then not run for re-election. A move that had surprised most, and frustrated many, inside the Wisconsin Republican Party. As the conventional wisdom was had he run again, he would have won re-election quite easily.

Looking back at the television to check the score, he turned the sound down and then asked me if I had ever noticed the murals in the rotunda of the WI State Capitol building. I proudly replied that I had, and eager to demonstrate my knowledge, rattled off the names of the four murals at base of the rotunda.  

Government, Justice, Legislation, and Liberty.

The former Governor of my home state then went on to give me the best civics lesson I have ever had. He explained that he had benefited from the education system and professional and economic opportunities that living in Wisconsin had provided. Consequently, he felt an obligation to "do his part" to ensure that those opportunities and advantages he had enjoyed, were protected and expanded.

He went on to say that our system was set up to make that possible. The executive branch (Government) worked with the Legislature and the State Senate to craft and pass the laws (Legislation) that were then interpreted by the courts (Justice). Combined, this system of checks, balances and cooperation between all three entities, ensured freedom and opportunity for everyone (Liberty).  

 He looked at the television, then back to me, saying, it was to ensure others had those same opportunities he enjoyed, was why he had gotten into politics.

It was at this point his daughter poked her head into the room and chided us both for. "hiding out" and said we should re-join the event next door. I shook Governor Dreyfus' hand and thanked him for taking the time to talk with me. "My pleasure Dave", he said, and we went back into the next room.

It would be a conversation that would stay with me for years, and it was on that day, at the ripe old age of 13, I decided that I , like Lee Dreyfus, was a Republican. I would join the Young Republicans, campaigning for Ronald Reagan in 1984. Two years later, I would cast my first vote. While a student in Germany in 1986, I proudly walked into the. American Consulate in Munich, filled out my absentee ballot and cast my first ever vote, for Republican Tommy Thompson for Wisconsin Governor.

That next year  I would stand  at  Berlin wall while Ronald Reagan challenged the then Soviet Leader to  "tear down this wall!"  The pride I felt as an American would only reinforce my belief that the Party of Lee Dreyfus, Tommy Thompson and Ronald Reagan was where I was meant to be.

I would go on to become an active member and officer of the College Republicans, even chairing the CR election efforts on campus for. Bush-Quayle '88 and '92. My reasons were clear. It was a Republican who had showed me the power of our system of government to make the lives of Americans better, and by extension, the world a better and safer place.

So what happened? Why did I leave the GOP? The most concise way to answer that question is  to simply say,  the  GOP left me. Or more accurately,  the GOP left me, Lee Dreyfus, Tommy Thompson, George HW Bush, Bob Dole and yes, even left Ronald Reagan.

The town of Ripon, Wisconsin was the birthplace of the Republican Party. As a very small boy, I lived  in Ripon and would regularly go past the landmark where the GOP had its creation. The Republican Party on the ballot next month in Wisconsin, the party of  Wisconsin incumbent Senator Ron Johnson,  bears no resemblance to the that party. Let alone to the party of Lee Dreyfus.

The Party of Ron Johnson  sees our great system of cooperative branches of government, with its checks and balance, as an obstacle not an asset. Johnson is a man who serves a small select group of corporate and financial interests. The people of the great state of Wisconsin, are at best a nuisance to be tolerated, and in truth, often seen as a threat to the agenda those interests have tasked the likes of Johnson to deliver for them

The Republican Party is addicted to crazy. It has embraced the darker politics of division and fear in place of faith in our system and public service to our citizens. Like many addicts, the Wisconsin Republican Party, doesn't want to get better.   The only way for the GOP to stop digging the deep dank dark hole it as been wallowing in, is to finally hit rock bottom.

This isn't just an election. It's an intervention. For the GOP, it's time for tough love.  If you are voting for the GOP.  it  is a vote to return to 50 million Americans without access to health insurance. It is a vote to turn the stunning natural beauty of the state of Wisconsin into a strip mined, fracked toxic wasteland where contaminated water catches fire when it comes out of the tap.  To support the Wisconsin GOP is to support wild ridiculous conspiracy theories soaked in a veneer of  white supremacism, and neo-fascist "Christian" nationalism.  A party that believes Trump is their 'God"

A vote for the party  of Ron Johnson is to hand what is left of the WI public purse over to unregulated special interests and then gut public education and services to pay their bar tab.

 It is to sacrifice Wisconsin's place as America's Dairyland in favor of becoming the. Mississippi of the North. An under-educated, under-employed, over polluted gilded swamp of the very rich, the very poor and nothing in between.

Trump Supporters liked to scream about how they wanted to “Make America Great Again!", which is nothing more than code for not wanting a people different from them to have any rights. Well,   I want to make the GOP great again. I want a Republican Party that believes in the synergy of Government, Justice , Legislation and Liberty.

Like with a child that has serious impulse control issues, America needs to give the GOP a time out. It's for the people of Wisconsin to step up and save the GOP. 

How? By voting out the twisted cult masquerading as the Republican Party .