Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, September 12, 2024
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48 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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A short little family story:
My son is an engineer and works for a firm selling equipment and parts for an oil and gas firm. Part of his job entails establishing supply relationships with other companies. That means establishing relationships with his counterparts. As such, he cultivates these relationships by golfing, skeet shooting, and other activities. Well, last week he was working with a lady in one firm. She was in her fifties, also an engineer. Turns out she wasn’t interested in the golfing and other traditional “get to know you” activities.
To make a long story short, they ended up going out and getting pedicures. Made me laugh out loud.
wr, this is for you, and any of our other commentariat familiar with TV economics. A comment I heard about Trump’s “The Apprentice” sent me down a rabbit hole. My understanding is that a reality show is generally much cheaper to produce than other types of shows, so the economics are good. In the first series, the Apprentice was given a good time slot (I think it was on the same network and night as Friends) and it did very well, ranking 7th overall. Like many shows, it’s ratings declined over time, with the fourth series ranking 38th overall. Nevertheless, given the little I know about TV economics, that seems like a pretty good number for a show that doesn’t cost much to produce. Despite this, they moved it to a worse time slot and shifted to one series a year, until it declined to 113th in it’s last season*. So my question is: given the low production costs, was 113th worth keeping it alive? Or was it already a deader?
*This is complicated by the reformatting into “Celebrity Apprentice”, which had a best series of 46th and worst at 84th, but I assume adding the celebrities brought up the production cost substantially?
While everyone is waiting for poll results, here is a election (who will win) prediction from the betting market Polymarket:
Sept 10th: Trump 52%, Harris 46%
Sept 11th: Harris 50%, Trump 49%
Just one data point
In my memory, pundits have put way more weight on who “won” the presidential debates than voters. In the end, I don’t think they’ve made much difference. However, the one exception to that might have been Obama’s first one. Conventional wisdom is that he was a relative unknown and he demonstrated a presidential caliber demeanor, and that caused a number of voters to say, “Oh, okay, that could work”. If that is true, then Harris might fall into the same category. Note that I don’t have an opinion on this, I’m just thinking out loud.
@Scott:
I now have this wonderful vision in my head of a facility that combines skeet shooting and pedicure, for a complete wellness experience.
@MarkedMan: Quite possibly! Given that 67 million supposedly watched it, more than a few people were just introduced to her as a plausible candidate.
@Scott: A female friend of mine was moving out of town and wanted to hang out one more time. I’ve entered my 50s, a bald white guy who probably comes across as pretty masculine. But I really dug the pedicure we decided on! Just chatting while getting those tough-to-cut nails taken care of for you, I totally get it now.
Doctor’s appointment I had yesterday went better than expected. He’s referring me to another urologist for a 2nd opinion. Dr Weinstein thinks there is a good chance what was seen on the MRI and cat scan wasn’t kidney cancer. Weinstein can’t do a kidney biopsy in any case. The new doctor can if they think it needs being done.
I still have that pancreatic mass and have a endoscopy scheduled for a week from today too. My oncologist is reviewing everything and I have an appointment with them now coming up soon.
Should I have kidney or pancreatic cancer, I’m not inclined to do chemo again and just let the disease run its course. I haven’t told the wife this.
Non medical related- I’m hard at work on my Yakuza epic. Leeanne* is editing early portions for me. My first traditionally published book is due out in the stores next month. I was supposed to be doing book signings in November but that’s probably off due to my health.
*- Leeanne has been an editor off and on for me for over 15 years. She previously worked on this book till she had to care for parents. My publisher agreed to us working again instead of assigning me someone not familiar with the book. Leeanne has worked as an editor for authors not just me.
@Bill Jempty:
Fingers crossed you get good news back about both organs. We are pulling for you.
@Franklin:..tough-to-cut nails…
My dad was younger than I am today (I am 76) by a good ten years when he told me that his podiatrist had to use a bone cutter to trim his toenails. Fortunately when I get out of the shower I can still use drugstore nail clippers to trim mine.
@MarkedMan:
The notion that debates don’t matter–which, contrary to what you’re implying, is the conventional wisdom–is based on the fact that there have been several historical examples of candidates who were seen as having “won” a debate who then went on to lose the election. These include Walter Mondale in 1984, John Kerry in 2004, and Mitt Romney in 2012.
I think this is oversimplistic. Mondale, Kerry, and Romney were all seen as underdogs going into the debates, and there’s evidence they did improve their standing in the race following their debate performance. For example, Kerry had been trailing Bush by around 6-7 points in polls; following the debate it narrowed to 1-2 points, which ended up being Bush’s margin on Election Day. Just because the debate wasn’t sufficient to pull Kerry across the finish line doesn’t mean it had no effect on the race.
Also, all these debates were the first debate of the election cycle, and the candidates who were seen as having lost those debates (who were all sitting presidents running for reelection) somewhat recovered in the second and third debate. Nobody much remembers Mondale’s superior performance in his first debate against Reagan; they remember Reagan’s line from the second debate “I won’t exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Nobody much remembers Obama’s underwhelming first debate performance against Romney; they remember his second debate which bequeathed us the line “Please proceed, Governor” (and, also, “binders full of women”).
Another thing is that it’s not just a question of whether people who watched the debate were swayed; it’s the much larger number of people whose only knowledge of the debate comes from clips and quotes that the media (and, increasingly, social media) focuses on later. A number of candidates have damaged themselves with a single debate gaffe–Gerald Ford declaring Poland wasn’t under Soviet domination, Dukakis botching the death penalty question–and once that gets out, it almost doesn’t matter what else the candidate said, that one unfortunate moment becomes the story. I suspect Trump’s “concepts of a plan” is going to be the best-remembered moment from this week’s debate, even though it was hardly the only reason his performance was panned.
@MarkedMan:
Can’t speak to what wr would/will say, but from my experience, the decision whether or not to continuing a show overwhelmingly depends on one metric: Does the show make money for the producing studio? Most people think it’s the network in charge (and sometimes they are), but in reality it’s the studio. I know of shows there the network wanted to continue a series, but the studio refuses to based on the show’s particular economics. As an example, the series, “Longmire” was cancelled by A&E Network a decade ago after three successful seasons. The studio producing it (Warner Bros) then took it to Netflix and produced another three seasons, which aired on Netflix. This is not uncommon. Most people don’t know the difference between a network and a producing studio. Making it even more complicated is that many networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, for example) also have their own studios which create content – not just for their networks, but for others as well. I worked on a FOX Studios show that aired on the IFC network. I worked on a Fox Studios show that aired on USA Network (an NBC owned network.)
So as to “The Apprentice”, it just got to a point where it didn’t make financial sense. If it had been a scripted show, they might have done another couple of seasons and eaten the deficit, because the true value in series is the long term asset you create that you then keep selling via syndication. It’s why “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory” and “Law and Order” are on repeat on your cable systems on multiple channels. Those shows will make BILLIONS for their studios. It’s why “The Office” (an NBC studios show) was pulled from Netflix and onto Peacock (an NBC network) when Peacock went on line. It was too valuable an asset to let Netflix have it when NBC could have put it on their own platform.
Unscripted shows, on the other hand, have very little value in the syndication market. Even with Trump as candidate and president, no streaming is airing “The Apprentice”. So, back when it was being produced, there was no upside for a studio to continue to produce the show if its not making money NOW, because it won’t make money later.
Hope that helps.
@Kylopod:
This or the insane ranting about immigrants eating cats and dogs (which has gotten a lot of play on social media – my favorite is it playing over the theme to Peanuts).
@MarkedMan: The economics of The Apprentice are hard to figure, because the show was pulling in a ton of money from the companies whose products were used for the challenges. I don’t know how much of that was simply handed to Trump and Burnett, but if some of it was being kicked back to the network, that would have made the show essentially free to produce.
My guess is that by the end of the last season of Celebrity Apprentice the show had pretty much zeroed out, or was even costing more than it could bring in. The network would not say whether they were going to pick up another season or not — and since one other motivating factor would have been not pissing off Burnett, with whom they would have wanted to stay in business — I’m guessing they were leaning towards cancellation until Trump announced his candidacy and forced their hand.
A few months shy of the 60th anniversary of the first spacewalk, SpaceX valiant astronauts stuck their torosos out of the capsule for a few minutes.
I’m not making light of what was a cautious test of a new spacesuit system. I’m mocking the months long hype about the first ever spacewalk performed by civilians not part of a nation’s space program.
IMO, the more modifiers an action requires to be regarded as “first,” the less hype it deserves.
Oh, and the line that since the capsule’s atmosphere was vented they all technically spacewalked, is reminiscent of Prof. Farnsworth’s ad:
Farnsworth: It will air during the Super Bowl.
Fry: Wow!
Farnsworth: Of course, not in the same channel.
I see three separate posts here at OTB that all agree that the debate helped Trump more than Harris. I call bullshit on them all.
I call that debate The Wreck of the Donald J. Trump because it clearly hurt Trump and, maybe just my wishful thinking but IMO (I have been thinking about the various ramifications) the Donald J. Trump has taken a torpedo below the waterline and the coming days and weeks will show it now taking on water.
@EddieInCA:
@wr:
Any clue on the budget for Mythbusters?
The only hard data I managed to get, was that they removed Kari, Grant, and Tory for the last season, because paying for five hosts had gotten too expensive (and maybe the premiums for Tory’s health insurance had shot up).
They produced over 20 shows per season. In many they wrecked cars, exploded lots of things, built tiny houses, abused water heaters, hired police and fire departments for various tasks, consulted experts about 1/4 of the time, etc.
On the other hand, not much in the way of visual effects, past some graphs and animations to illustrate the myths.
@Mister Bluster: Oh geez! I’m not sure what’s worse, a bone-cutter or this
@wr: @EddieInCA: Thanks! I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by this stuff, given that I don’t watch reality shows at all (which is probably why I never noticed they are not in syndication).
So something like a Presidential debate is really unique. Huge audience, but fewer commercial breaks. Lots of people involved but many of them are paid for by the candidates. Minimal set, fixed position debaters. Everyone makes their money that night and then it’s only of interest to historians.
@SKI!:
Good point. I guess I was thinking more of memorable quotes, and I still think “concepts of a plan” is going to the most quoted specific line (though I’m already seeing it being Mandela Effect-ed into the singular “concept of a plan” for some reason).
There is an event happening in the wide wide world of sports that is going under the radar, heard about it in a blog about cutting edge aerodynamics…the current Americas Cup sailing competition. Hydrofoils so unstable they can not be operated without the same sort of triple-redundant computers used in some marginally unstable fighter jet designs. Easily making 40knts in 8-10knts of true wind speed. A video from a qualifier race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQEKQPHFrRQ
Best quote I’ve heard so far: “The science behind these boats is as sublime as some of the people funding them are ridiculous.”
@Kathy: That’s much more a question for Eddie than for me!
So, I can’t watch most LGBT movies, especially trans ones, they are too painful. I’ve told my partner that I’m going to force myself to watch “Monica” and she and a bunch of my friends will have to hold me down.
However, I just watched the trailer for this, and I knew it was coming but had forgotten about it:
https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/will-and-harper-release-date-trailer-news
I watched that trailer with happy tears streaming down my face. I will watch that the second it comes out.
Trump is backing away from ANY rematch with Harris at present. Guess he doesn’t want to be beaten like a red-haired stepchild again.
@Beth: That looks so good! Funny, sweet and moving.
There are a lot of writers here, and while I may be in the minority in caring about this, you may still be able to help.
Several years ago, I made the decision to try to purge ableist language from my speech and writing. It took a while, but eventually, using terms like absurd and bananas rather than crazy or insane became second nature. I also stopped using terms like dumb and lame, and I never used the r word.
However, there is one word that some consider ableist that I haven’t stopped using, because I don’t think there’s a good replacement for it. That word is stupid. Unlike dumb or the r word, I don’t think stupid implies anything about a person’s intellectual capability. Some very intelligent people say and do some very stupid things. Other words don’t quite have the same meaning. Ignorance literally means lack of knowledge, and you can still be stupid even with full knowledge. Willful ignorance means choosing to not obtain knowledge, which may be a stupid choice, but is not stupidity in and of itself. Unwise lacks the same level of conscious choice as stupidity — you might behave unwisely due to naivety, carelessness, or the heat of the moment, but stupidity is chosen.
Any thoughts on this? Is there a replacement?
@Grumpy Realist: Who can blame him? I wouldn’t want to be dog-walked like he was once, let alone twice.
@EddieInCA:
You forgot the scare quotes on ‘unscripted’. 🙂
While admitting the truth of what you say, I will note that I am hoping to watch re-runs of Forged in Fire and Fat Guys in the Woods for the rest of my life…
@Monala: I’m not sure I understand what the purpose of using a different word would be?
@Monala:
“Stupid” doesn’t bother me because some people are.
@Grumpy Realist:
@Mikey:
I won’t quote his rationale, because why would I. But it boils down to a childish and irrational claim like: sick people take medicine. if I don’t take medicine, I’m not sick. Not coincidentally, this is a rationalization often used by antivaxxers.
@Monala:
For me, ‘stupid’ has always been about intellectual capability, so eliminating it would be consistent with your discourse agenda.
Dungeons and Dragons distinguished “intelligence” (whose absence is “stupidity”) from “wisdom” (whose absence is perhaps “imprudence”). If you’re looking for an adjective form that is about making bad choices (as opposed to lacking intelligence), perhaps “witless” would do.
@Monala:
Everyone is stupid from time to time, including me if you can believe it 😉 Smarter people are just better able to rationalize their stupidities.
Or, as Tim Harford put it: we all visit the Dunning-Kruger clubhouse, even if we’re not permanent members.
@DrDaveT:
Adam Savage often answers questions about Mythbusters in his Youtube channel. In one, he mentions that whatever he got paid for that show was a one-time thing, as it wouldn’t live on in reruns forever.
The Discovery Channel in Latin America has rerun it a couple of times, but not that often. On the other hand, I think most seasons are available on DVD.
Mythbusters wasn’t a reality show, but it was largely unscripted (all the setup and explanations were, IMO).
@CSK:..“Stupid” doesn’t bother me because some people are.
I’m smart!
@Mister Bluster:
I knew you’d come up with that.
I’ll be testing a hypothesis this week: slow cooking and pressure cooking turn out very similar results.
To that end I’m doing my take on the beef and onion sauce for timballo Genovese. I did it a few weeks ago in the slow cooker on high for 6 or 8 hours. This time it will be the pressure cooker (same appliance, different function) for a time to be determined.
My notion is that both methods break down proteins and other things, and that this is what is important as regards flavor. My attempts at bean soup, and bean and chicken stew, turned out about the same in both modalities. the difference is that slow cooking takes hours, while pressure cooking takes minutes.
We’ll see.
@Kathy: I find that pressure cooking can be more effective at rendering fat, depending on the meat.
Alberto Gonzales has announced he’s supporting Harris. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And we need all the help we can get. But jeez.
@DrDaveT:
The air fryer excels at that.
On international news, Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori died yesterday. Odd it wasn’t bigger news, and good riddance.
In Mexico, His Majesty pushed through his judicial reform, with help from a senator from the PAN (National Action party). This is bad, really bad, but not as bad as many think. What the King of the Covidiots intends to do is recreate the rule of his true party, the PRI as it existed between 1921 and 1994.
What really worries me is that his party and coalition are the only that managed obtained a majority of votes for the presidency (twice) and in congress. My hope is his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, will prove less popular and thus more susceptible to pressure from other parties and the citizenry.
Meantime the peso has lost a s**tload of value, leading some investors to confuse it with El Felon’s data mining app stock.
I got a moment before I have to go back to nightmare town* so, I wanted to get back to something that made me curious earlier:
@EddieInCA:
So, off the bat I know this is a bit of apples to bananas comparison, but… So my partner and I (because of her) have been watching a lot of “Taskmaster” (UK, AU, NZ) and “Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee” on Youtube. Taskmaster UK appears to be legit licensed on Youtube, the other’s do not, but, I’m guessing haven’t been subject to DMCA takedowns for some reason. I’ve been wonder how that works. Anyone have a clue?
Also, seriously check out “Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee”. It’s hilarious and we’ve noticed that Guy Montgomery as host character is a real dick, but comes off much softer because of his accent. I don’t think I could take some seriously if they were yelling at me with that accent.
*also, it appears that nightmare town is on fire. So I have that going for me.
@Monala:
@CSK:
@Mister Bluster:
@Kathy:
Stupid doesn’t bother me, because I am!
Seriously: I realise my utter incompetence in some fields: advanced mathematics, sight-reading music, carpentry, playing soccer, being a Mafia boss, etc etc.
The point is, being numb-nuts in one area of human activity doesn’t mean you are useless in all.
And above all, are not disqualified from being “human being” and/or “fellow citizen” on that basis.
But when someone combines a generalized and willful ignorance with malice and pursuit of dominance, and setting arbitrary limits to “human” and/or “citizen” that you need to be on your guard.
Hello, Western politics, post 2016-ish.
And also, European politics 1930s.
And also, the Atlantic slave economy.
etc
Biden wears Trump hat!
I don’t think this is photoshopped.
See it here!
@Mister Bluster:
Oh that’s beautiful and hilarious. Can you imagine if someone called Trump an old fart? I’d be worried that person would be killed.
@Beth: Taskmaster! Addicted! Original, New Zealand, Australia, I watch them all. Usually while I am doing something else, which is the only reason I don’t watch the non-English language ones.
Have to admit, though, I was a little turned off in the beginning because I thought it had too much of that British punching-down humor (Greg constantly and a little too cruelly mocking Alex), until I watched an AMA with Alex and learned he created the show, produces it, and wrote most of the insults himself, at least in the beginning. I imagine they have a writing staff now, given the success.
Brooklyn pays tribute to late, former congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ahead of her 100th birthday
Shirley Chisholm for President 1972
On another pop culture site I frequent with a politics section, it is being reported that Laura Loomer punched back at Lindsey Graham by asking when he would come out of the closet.
Normally, this would just make me laugh and grab a bucket of popcorn, but wow…it is a bit depressing watching the meltdown of the GOP. On top of that, Trump is about to announce his own crypto currency, coming on the heels of some really lousy days regarding his truth social stock performance as of late, just one pathetic grift after another.
The polls may not be reflecting this yet, but this really could turn into a bit of blue wave election.
Trump, for now, refusing to another debate, his VP candidate digging a deeper hole to get out of with his rhetoric as the minutes, hours, and days fly by, although LGM reports that Tester is in trouble in Montana, so it is not all doom and gloom for the GOP, but it is far from happy days.
Even the Georgia charges that were dismissed today do not have any impact on the core charges against Trump/his conspirators attempt to steal the vote in Georgia, so not really good news for Trump.
I really am starting to wonder if the GOP sees the writing on the wall and just does not care if Trump loses the election, figuring that all they really need is to have just enough of a majority in the House/Senate to jam up the works in a Kamala Harris administration. Their Holy Grail, Roe Vs Wade was overturned, so they really got what they needed out of Trump. Just being able to mostly obstruct Democrats from implementing new laws may be all the GOP needs to stay happy at this moment in time.
The GOP is acting like fools and partying hard while the ship slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
@inhumans99:
Ok. So 100% Trump and Loomer are fucking. And there’s no way that messy group of dipshits will be able to keep it quiet.
[Jason Mendoza Voice] Yo! This is the Bad Place.
@MarkedMan:
I like how it’s intentionally designed to bring out the absolute beautiful insanity of ADHD and autism, but never makes fun of people for being that.
My partner said the one episode of Taskmaster AU, season 1 ep 7 I think. Where Nina Ayoma has to deliver a pizza. She said that’s the most accurate description of living with me.