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Brian Williams posted this video on The Daily Nightly last night. There's some fascinating food for thought in here...

Farewell to history

I liked what Brian Williams said so much on The Daily Nightly today, that rather than merely link to it, I'm going to save you the step and copy and paste it here...

Watching the last Yankee Game from Yankee Stadium on ESPN with my son last
night -- felt vaguely like the financial news these days. Nobody asked for
what's happening right now in the financial markets. Taxpayers weren't asking
for the burden they've just taken on. Likewise, as they were panning the sad
faces at the end of last night's game, marking the end of the House that Ruth
Built, I was thinking: these fans didn't ask for this. No Yankee fan that I know
was begging...or even hoping...for a new stadium. Bathrooms from this century?
That would be nice. An industry-standard jumbo video screen? Great. A few more
of the amenities baseball fans have come to love at some of the newer parks?
Sure. But the new stadium isn't about the fans (fewer seats at higher prices) as
much as its about the team...player salaries...the owners. But as one
sportswriter put it, "we are the only nation that tears down our own
cathedrals." Aint it the truth.

I enjoyed the broadcast of the game. For a fan like me, there were moments that were quite emotional.

While watching some of the pre-game hoopla with Nolan he was asking me about Monument Park. I showed him some photos I uploaded to Facebook of dad and I visiting the monuments on our last trip to the stadium together.

I told Nolan how he was only 2 months old at the time and that I remembered telling dad that I couldn't wait until he was old enough for me to take him there. Dad advised me not to rush things -- he'll grow up fast enough.

Nolan then looked at the picture of pop and said "That's the past," and clicked forward to a picture of he and I at the stadium, "and that's the future."

"Yup," I said, "Pop went to Yankee Stadium with me, I went with you and someday you'll take your son to the new stadium."

"Or daughter," he was quick to add.

Surge

Besides the call for 20,000 more troops, here's what we an look forward to in President Bush's speech tonight according to NBC's Kelly O'Donnell on The Daily Nightly...

Advisors say the president will in effect say "I get it." He will take responsibility and acknowledge that past attempts to secure Baghdad have failed and he will explain how and why he expects different results this time. Advisors referred to the president as being in "education and explanation mode." Advisors say the president will strongly reject any suggestion that this is a so called last ditch effort, as many critics assert.

iFunny

Over at The Daily Nightly, Brian Williams describes the iPhone as...

"...Steve Jobs' latest invention that is supposed to combine and condense all our electronic needs (and presumably all of our food, water and breathable oxygen) into a very expensive Altoids box."

The Idiot Box

Here are some of Brian Williams' "rules of television" from The Daily Nightly...

There are a few simple, constant rules of television: Rachel Ray is always on (she is usually cooking, somewhere, on some channel) and so is the guy who sells "OxyClean" and those new wall hooks that can be used to mount a frozen turkey in your den. A few more rules of television: Dane Cook is on HBO most hours of the day... and when you come across "Pulp Fiction" while channel surfing, it's usually at the point in the film just before the twist contest at Jack Rabbit Slim's.

How the reports stack up

I found this photo of reports from various Washington commissions on The Daily Nightly.

On the left, obviously, is today's report from the Iraq Study Group. It's about a half-inch thick. That's followed by the 9/11 Commission's report, which is an inch and a half. Just slightly larger, at two inches, is the Tower report on the Iran-Contra scandal.

Anyone care to guess what the massive nine-inch volume on the right is?

No points for you if you cheat and use the link above to find the answer!

'I don't recall'

We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the day news of the Iran-Contra scandal broke--Nov. 4, 1986.

The whole story provided me with an excellent civics lesson, teaching me what the 5th Amendment was all about.

There's an interesting post on the Daily Nightly today about what it was like when the story broke. They've also included a video clip of the NBC Nightly News from that date.

There is also this observation from NBC News Senior Investigative Producer Robert Windrem...

The scandal also resonates now in ways that couldn’t be imagined back then. Today, the Lebanese magazine that broke the story would be online. Experts and journalists with responsibility for the region —- not to mention bloggers -- would have found it almost immediately and pushed it out a lot quicker. And what few recall is that the scandal unfolded in large measure because of the White House’s nascent e-mail system, a prototype electronic mail system from IBM called the Professional Office System (PROFs). As North and countless others have learned since, e-mail leaves a long digital tail that lives on even after being deleted.

Plattsburgh on 'The Daily Nightly'

I'm a loyal reader of Brian Williams' Daily Nightly blog. So imagine my surprise when today's post from the NBC Nightly News anchor included the following:

Greetings and thanks are due to several groups: the journalism students from SUNY Plattsburgh, N.Y. who visited 30 rock today -- it was great spending time with students, as it always is...

I'm willing to bet this means the annual NBS-AERho convention is in New York City.

Back in 1994, my senior year at Plattsburgh, we went to the convention in New York. While we were there we attended tapings of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "Rush Limbaugh: the Television Show," "Phil Donohue" and "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee." We even got to spend some time with Regis as the current students apparently got to do today with Brian Williams.

I'm sure Peter Ensel, my old advisor and current head of the communications department was in on this. Way to go Plattsburgh gang!