views

for openers

TV’s New Technology

— Really?

F

Alan Muskovitz

Contributing Writer

or months, pop-up messages
from my cable provider have
been appearing on our home’s
television screens urging me to, at
no charge, upgrade my cable televi-
sion system with their newest tech-
nology. I was directed to Channel
1995 for instructions.
First of all, how is it possible there
are 1,995 channels to begin with?
The handful of channels I regularly
tune into have enough trouble fill-
ing up their 24/7 schedules. Why
else would Fox Sports Detroit repeat
every Tiger’s game several times
prior to the next live telecast? I’d
like to meet the person who knows
the Tigers lost and still watches the
rerun.
Your favorite nightly cable news
shows are rerun at 11 each evening.
Some channels air 24 consecutive
hours of M*A*S*H or Friends. I’ve
discovered that after four or five epi-
sodes, they actually start repeating
the repeats.
ESPN has at least eight separate
channels. That equals out to 1,344
hours of combined programming a
week. How do you fill up that sched-
ule? Look no further than ESPN2,
which just last week began airing …

drone races!
TLC runs nonstop back-to-
back episodes of My 600 Lb. Life,
the heart-wrenching series about
people battling morbid obesity.
Getting viewers to sit for hours
on a couch “binge” watching a
show about overeating can only
serve one purpose. It’s TLC’s
way of creating more 600-pound
people for their series. But I digest …
digress, sorry.
I finally ordered my new cable
devices. I placed my order over the
phone with a representative of my
trusted American cable provider who
ended up being a lovely young lady
in a call center in the Philippines.
The equipment arrived in a timely
fashion.
In lieu of paying a cable represen-
tative to come to the house some-
time between 8 a.m. and forever, I
took advantage of the free phone
installation assistance offered by
a fine young gentleman in, you
guessed it … the Philippines. He
called himself John.
John patiently walked me through
the process, which required untan-
gling and removing 30 years of hid-
den, dusty old cable cords — as well

as cords from a Wii game, Blue Ray
disc player and a VHS machine; none
of which have been used in decades.
It would’ve been worse had I not
recently removed our Victrola.
Next, John tutored me on how to
sync the new cable boxes and remote
controls with the company’s updated
software. Prompts on the televisions
asked me to choose what language
I wanted my remote controls to
respond to. As you may know, today’s
voice-controlled TV remotes change
channels on your verbal command.
Amazing. Here I was, communicating
with a man in the Philippines help-
ing me instruct my Japanese-made
television to speak English to me in
our country that by the year 2065 will
be 24 percent Hispanic.
Poor John, the Philippine Cable
Guy. It was 6:20 a.m. Philippine time

when we finally finished our (gulp)
2.5-hour phone session; a full hour
past his normal quitting time. I asked
if he was going home to sleep. This
is the truth — he said he was going
out for … a drink. Part of his normal
routine with friends, he claimed.
How I wanted to believe him, but,
in my heart, I know our marathon
cable installation drove him to hit
the bottle.
I thought about John all night. If
only I could have one more chance
to speak to him, I would beg for his
forgiveness .. .and ask him how to
access Netflix using my new remote
control. •

Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voice-over/acting
talent, speaker, emcee and a regular guest
host on the Mitch Albom Show on WJR AM
760. Visit his website at laughwithbigal.com
and “Like” Al on Facebook.

essay

Keeping Pro-Israel Politics Bipartisan In Age Of Polarization

A

Shalom Lipner

Times of Israel

merica. Bipartisanship.
Compulsory.
The literal ABCs of Israel’s
national security doctrine remain
Jerusalem’s airtight bond with the
United States. The tangible friend-
ship expressed for Israel by elected
officials at all levels of the U.S.
government, the robust coop-
eration between their business,
scientific, defense and intelligence
communities, and grassroots
American support for the Jewish
state endure as the sine qua non of
Israel’s success.
None of this would have been
possible unless Democrats and
Republicans — recognizing the
partnership’s inherent value to

America — had united in common
cause to embrace Israel.
The American Israel Public
Affairs Committee has long known
this. Reeling from the fallout of its
2016 policy conference, when then-
candidate Donald Trump took to
the podium to castigate President
Barack Obama as “the worst thing
that ever happened to Israel,” AIPAC
management was determined to
prevent this year’s event in March
from turning into a partisan
battlefield.
But noble aspirations are the first
victims in the era of the perpetual
political campaign. Addressing the
assembly on the first evening, Vice
President Mike Pence stoked the

coals of divisiveness, proclaiming
that “for the first time in a long
time, America has a president who
will stand with our allies and stand
up to our enemies.” He was only
echoing the sentiments expressed at
that same morning’s opening
plenary by Israel’s ambassador to
the U.S., Ron Dermer, who said,
“For the first time in many years,
perhaps even many decades, there
is no daylight between our two
governments.”
To be sure, Obama clashed with
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu repeatedly, famous-
ly blindsiding his government by
withholding a U.N. Security Council
veto that led to the condemnation

of Israel in the twilight of his presi-
dency. But he was still the same
president who ultimately signed
off on a multi-year, $38 billion
Memorandum of Understanding
on security assistance — the one
that compelled Netanyahu to
“thank President Obama and his
administration for this historic
agreement.”
Here’s the rub: Memories of there
never being any “daylight” between
even the tightest of allies are myth.
Nor has the advent of the Trump era
eliminated all points of contention.
But Israel has been fortunate to
enjoy sustained, exceptionally high
levels of coordination and collabo-
ration under U.S. administrations of

continued on page 6

jn

July 6 • 2017

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