Today an old friend came on the show to promote his first book and I was very happy to help him do it. Jesse Katz is a former Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Magazine reporter whom I first met more than 20 years ago. I was an intern at the Los Angeles Times and he was a recent hire. 

Many people taught me how to write over the years but Jesse's tutorials were especially instructive. I learned there could be poetry in news writing. I admired the way he crafted his stories--choosing just the right words, reading his sentences aloud, appreciating the people whom he was writing about. I found myself trying to write in the same way in the years that followed. I never achieved the same level of craftsmanship in my writing but he certainly influenced me in a positive way. 

Jesse's new book is called "The Opposite Field." It's a memoir about Jesse's experiences as a dad and as a Little League baseball commissioner in multicultural Monterey Park. I enjoyed the book thoroughly. I hope it's just the first of many books to come from Jesse Katz.

Books, by the way, are why I'll be absent on Tuesday. Mrs. Buckley is the co-chair of a fund-raiser at our sons' school to benefit the school library. Los Angeles writer Lisa See ("Shanghai Girls," "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan") was kind enough to accept Elena's invitation to speak at the breakfast. A banquet room full of folks will be looking forward to hearing her presentation. I'll be one of the volunteers on hand to sell her book and others with the monies going to put more books into the school library.

We love books in the Buckley Family. All of us read every evening. Elena and I have always been readers and we're happy to say the Buckley Boys have become big readers, too. One book I will recommend to them in the years ahead is one that's on my bedside table right now, "Little Bee." It's not a book that's appropriate for the boys just yet.

While I tend to go for the Tom Clancy sort of stuff when I want to be entertained, I look to my wife's reading list when I want to read good literature. That's how "Little Bee" recently came over to my side of the bed. It was written by an English writer by the name of Chris Cleave and it's hard to describe without giving too much away. As Simon and Schuster puts it:

"It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this: It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there, but the book doesn't. And it's what happens afterward that is most important. Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds."

A good book is like that. You'll find magic in the pages. What are you reading?

Did you happen to catch 60 Minutes on Sunday evening? Correspondent Scott Pelley was granted access to the Centers for Disease Control to show how the government is responding to the H1N1 "swine flu" virus. He focused on 15-year-old Luke Duvall, a healthy high school football player who became ill with H1N1 and within days was barely clinging to life. He was on a ventilator and fighting infections that were threatening to kill him. It was enough to scare any parent to death--including me.

I called our pediatrician on Monday to inquire about the swine flu vaccine (we'd been told previously that not only did the doctor not have swine flu vaccine, she didn't have the seasonal flu vaccine) but that now yes, the office finally had some doses available. But only 200 doses, I was told, so hurry in before they run out, a nurse said.

I know there are questions and concerns about the H1N1 vaccine but for me, the potential risk of not vaccinating my children outweighs those concerns. Experts say 99-percent of the people who come down with the swine flu will just get sick and will survive the ordeal. But if we have an explosion of H1N1 illnesses this fall and winter, that means thousands of people will not survive it. I don't want to take the chance that my sons might fall into that one-percent. That's why we've decided as parents to have our children vaccinated.

I wouldn't presume to tell any other parent how to proceed or question their decisions on the vaccine if they differed from mine, but my thinking is there is risk in every medicine we give to our children and in many medical procedures. That doesn't mean we should avoid them especially when the benefit is they are protected from a potentially lethal illness.

That said, I still have questions and I suspect you do too. To that end, I invite you to submit any questions you may have by posting on this blog. We will read some of them on the air on the 1 P.M. broadcast on Thursday, October 21st and ask an expert on iinfectious diseases to answer them for you.

When I first saw the balloon flying through the air with six-year-old Falcon Heene reportedly trapped inside, I wanted to be sick. As a parent, it was a worst-nightmare times ten. It was that nightmare that every parent has had of their child being scared and in danger because of their own neglect or stupidity. I felt for the boy's parents and prayed for the young child. I hoped (aloud on the air during our breaking news coverage) that the balloon would somehow have a soft landing and the child would emerge unharmed.

When the balloon did have a soft landing and rescuers were able to secure it, they found no child inside. My heart sank again as I wondered if that child had fallen out as the balloon flew through the air. Later that day, we would all learn that little Falcon Heene was alive and well and had never been in danger.

 
While I was relieved to hear the child was O.K., my relief slowly turned to anger over the weekend. Certainly not at the boy--he's six-years-old. He's innocent. He was doing what children do--trying to please their parents. My anger is aimed at his parents after the local sheriff in Colorado alleged that the boy's father, Richard Heene, and the boy's mother Mayumi Heene, staged the entire affair as a hoax to promote a reality show. As an attorney for the Heene family points out, they are certainly innocent until proven guilty. But if true, what kind of a person would do this? And if they are convicted, what do you think the punishment should be?

According to a Robert Thomas of Denver, Richard Heene was pitching a TV show that would portray him as a "mad scientist" who carries out scientific experiments. Thomas sold his story to the website gawker.com, providing what he says are e-mail exchanges between him and Heene on this show. In one, Heene reportedly says: "This will be the most significant UFO-related news event to take place since the Roswell Crash of 1947, and the result will be a dramatic increase in local and national awareness about The Heene Family, our Reality Series, as well as the UFO Phenomenon in general."

The local sheriff, Jim Alderden of Larimer county confirmed emails are among the things investigators are looking at. "We certainly know that there's a conspiracy between the husband and wife, you've probably seen some of the e-mails and some of the things on the internet suggesting that there may be other conspirators," Alderden said.

As for Mr. Heene's alleged "mad scientist" proposal, Alderden said: "He may be nutty, but he's not a professor."

Among the worst moments of this story--when little Falcon appeared on CNN and other TV shows to talk about what happened. He literally became ill and vomited off-stage. Was the poor child sick? Nervous? Or being asked to carry out a lie that his parents were asking him to tell. We'll no doubt know the truth sooner or later. But I'm with Falcon. It made me want to be sick when I heard he was in danger. It makes me sick now to think his parents might have been using their child and all of us to promote a dumb reality TV show.

As you probably know, I work in an extremely competitive business. We fight to scoop each other, to steal viewers from one another, to win. But the truth is, if you've been around for a while and you've been through the fires with each other, you end up not only respecting your competition, you become friends with whom you share a special bond. One such friend is retiring soon and I wanted you to know what a superb journalist he has been.

Tonight, friends of the great Bob Long, Vice President and News Director at KNBC-TV will gather at Bob's favorite restaurant/watering hole (he has one in every city) to hoist a few in his honor, to lament the bean counters who are killing us, and to laugh. 

The late Hunter S. Thompson once famously described TV news like this: The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.

Sadly, Thompson was right. But what Thompson didn't know, was there have always been good men and women who have stood up to the thieves and pimps in this business. Bob was in the vanguard of that group. Like any good Marine (which he was), Semper Fi--always faithful--is the code by which he lives. It is the code by which he practices journalism. It is the code by which he protects his people. It is the code by which he treats his friends.

I had the good fortune to work with Bob and to learn from Bob in the 1990s when I was a young reporter at KCAL-TV and Bob was an executive producer. At KCAL, he was a bow-tie wearing, gravel-voiced, old-school tough guy who didn't suffer fools. But if you cared to do it the right way, and you listened to what the old man had to say, he was going to back you up every time. He was and remains as loyal to his friends and to his grunts as any right Marine would. 

Turn on the news on virtually any channel in Los Angeles, and you'll find reporters and anchors who experienced the tutelage of Bob Long. When I talked to him on the phone this week, he described them as his "sleeper cells, ready to burst out of their holes at The Enlightenment" to take back the industry and restore the proper order. It was said in classic "Bob Long speak," an always amusing blend of history-lesson, irony, humor and poetry. A good turn of phrase, a well-written sentence--words--matter to Bob and he inspired a generation of TV news journalists to care about them as much as he does.

And now this larger than life character who we've worked with and respected and loved is leaving. Bob Long retires at the end of this month. The day after he walks out of the newsroom, he boards a plane bound for his next assignment, in Turkey. He has agreed to an appointment at a university in Istanbul to teach journalism ethics. To those students, I say, you couldn't have a better teacher. 

When some conservatives expressed outrage last week and some parents threatened (with trembling voices and tears in their eyes) to keep their children home to shield them from President Obama's  "Back to School" speech to America's students (today at 9 A.M. PDT), I wondered what could be in the speech that would make folks so upset. Now, you can read the speech yourself. The White House released the prepared text in advance of the address and I've pasted it over from the White House website so you make your own judgments.

As President Obama prepares to address the nation next week on health care reform, I thought I'd tell you about our health scare in Italy this summer that resulted in my wife using what's being called "the public option" in the U.S. health care reform debate. That's an option in which a government-sponsored health care insurance plan would compete with private insurance plans.

It happened while we were visiting our favorite seaside town (which the Italian side of Elena's family has been visiting or living in for some 50 years ) on the Italian Riviera. Sounds fancy but it isn't. Our favorite Italian town is a family beach resort that Americans and other foreign visitors tend to bypass on their way to the five-star hotels of the Amalfi Coast. Our digs are decidedly less opulent. But it's still heaven to us. 

We rent a modest one-bedroom apartment that's a stone's throw from a centuries-old church (Here's a picture of Elena and the boys in front of it before the health scare). 

The manager  of the apartment building, Maria, has come to know us by name and looks after us like family.

Each day begins with a visit to a focaccieria where they know me as the "Americano." There are so few of us who ever visit that I stand out like...an American. I try clumsily in what little Italian I know to order a slab of freshly baked focaccia for the day. It's always warm and crispy in the right spots, moist in the right spots--dripping with olive oil and sea salt. It's terrible for my diet, I know, but I'm in Italy, what am I gonna do? 

We spend much of the day on the beach swimming, reading...and eating again.

In Italy, one rents a spot on the beach. For about 20 bucks a day, you get an umbrella, a table and a couple of chairs. You get a family-run cafe right on the beach and clean showers and toilets and locker room facilities. After lunch, most of the Italians go back to their apartments for a rest. We usually stay on the beach and soak up the sun (to live up to the words of Noel Coward who famously said that "only mad men and Englishmen"...Mrs. Buckley is half-British..."go out in the midday sun"). 

At night, we take part in the passeggiatta--or evening stroll. We join hundreds of Italian families who simply window shop, walk and chat while enjoying a gelato.

It was after such a perfect day that Elena began to feel pain in her abdomen. It was a terrible pain that lasted through the night. At dawn, we decided to get her checked out. We assumed it was food poisoning. But after a few hours of tests in the local hospital, it was revealed that Elena wasn't suffering from food poisoning. It was her appendix. And it had to come out. Now.

She was wheeled in to surgery without delay and thankfully, wheeled out soon after healthy, but minus one appendix. We sneaked the boys in for this picture and to reassure them while she was recovering.

But after the surgery came the big question: how are we going to pay for this? We hadn't purchased travel insurance and I wasn't sure if my union health care coverage in the States would cover surgery in Italy. Nearly two months later, we still don't know how or if we'll have to pay for the surgery. So far, we haven't paid a dime and we haven't received a bill. It's probable we will eventually be billed, but it's also possible that they treated Elena as they would any Italian who needed emergency appendix surgery. That is, maybe they treated her for free.

Italians have universal health care for all its residents provided by the government. Is it any good? According to an oft-quoted World Health Organization (WHO) report from 2000, the Italian health care system was ranked second in the world in best overall health care. The United States? We're in 37th. The Italians spend 8.7% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care compared to the 16% of GDP spent here in the U.S. Italians do have the option of using private health insurance and private physicians but they cannot opt out of contributing to the public health system.

How was the quality of the health care? I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV (old joke) but Elena has recovered nicely and she, believe it or not and considering the circumstances, actually enjoyed her hospital stay. She didn't have a private room. There wasn't a TV or a phone in the room. There wasn't a hospital concierge or a patient advocate or a piano playing by itself in the lobby (as we once experienced at a hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut). In fact in this Italian hospital, one is responsible for bringing their own towels and soap. The rooms are shared--in Elena's case--there were two other women in the room recovering from other ailments. In short, it wasn't plush. 

But it was as clean and as comfortable as any American hospital and Elena was lucky--the company was good. She and her fellow patient-roommates bonded and looked after each other as much as the nurses did. They dined together at a table for each meal. In this hospital, the patients don't receive their meals in bed on a tray. The women sat together at a table and dined on things like freshly made pasta served with turkey and fennel--served on place mats. I'm not joking. This was Italy, after all. The only thing missing from this hospital food was a bottle of Chianti. 

But I tell you about these simple differences--the way the food was delivered, the bringing of your own soap and towels, the lack of a TV in the room-to help make this point. Different isn't necessarily better or worse. It's just different. They do health care differently in Italy--it's the public option, Italian style, and for us on this occasion, it seemed to work.

But does every hospital stay and experience with the national health care  system end as well as ours did? Of course not. Was our experience with the "public option" indicative of how it would work here? No. The "public option" being considered in the U.S. is not like the European single-payer model in which government covers everyone. It would simply be an option for folks whose health insurance premiums are too expensive or who don't have health insurance coverage at all.

Still, is the "public option" worth exploring? My answer would begin with these questions: Does the current system in our country work? Are you satisfied with the way things are now? Is it right that some 46 million Americans don't have coverage? Other questions to consider: Is the public option the solution? Part of the solution? Something that may work elsewhere but wouldn't work here?

Maybe we just got lucky with our use of the "public option" in Italy. We're still waiting for our hospital bill and maybe we'll be shocked when it arrives. Maybe it'll prompt me to curse the Italian health care system. Or maybe, the "public option," while not perfect, actually works in some countries and could in some form work here.

What are your thoughts on the so-called "public option?"

When I blogged about the racist scene in "The Goods" on August 14th as the film was opening, I was told by publicists for Paramount Pictures that I was the only journalist in America who had raised the issue with them. Really, I thought? How can that be? 

The scene is so terribly racist--using the term "Jap" for a punch line and having auto salesmen beat up an Asian man for a laugh in a scene reminiscent of the real-life beating death in 1982 of Chinese-American Vincent Chin by out of work American auto workers. Critics in the mainstream media wouldn't let Paramount get away with using the "n" word or lynchings as punch lines would they? So why did Paramount get a pass from critics from mainstream media outlets who screened the film ahead of its release when "Jap" and the beating of an Asian man were used as punch lines in not just the film, but the trailer for the film?

On Sunday evening, I'll be riding in the 69th Annual Nisei Week Japanese Festival as the parade marshal. I am the son of a Japanese mother and a caucasian father and I was raised to be proud of my heritage from both sides of my family. So--as corny as it may sound--it'll be a nice moment for my parents when they see their son being honored in the parade.

Maybe that's why I'm particularly upset about a film from Paramount Vantage that's coming out this weekend (just as Nisei Week is getting underway) called "The Goods." I haven't seen the film but I have seen a trailer that contains a scene of racism the filmmakers use for laughs. It may indeed make you laugh, but it isn't funny at all. It's offensive. And yes, racist, in my opinion, and by definition. The Anti-Defamation League, for example, defines racism as "the belief that another person is less than human--because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any other factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person." The definition certainly applies to the way an Asian character is disparaged in the trailer. I won't share the clip here because I don't want to give the film a free commercial but here's the part that bothered me the most.

Jeremy Piven plays a used car salesman who is trying to save a failing automobile dealership. In the preview trailer, he gives his sales team a pep talk that includes the following monologue:

"Don't get me started on Pearl Harbor--the Japs, flying in low and fast--We are the Americans and they are the enemy!" An Asian character (who isn't Japanese), "Teddy Dang," played by Ken Jeong, becomes noticeably uncomfortable as the mob becomes heated. The sales team yells: "Never again!" followed by one character who screams: "Let's get him!" The mob then sets upon Dang, beating him until Piven's character tells them to stop. That's when Piven's character says: "We have all just participated in a hate crime. Let's get our stories straight (for when we get arrested). Dan came at us with a samurai sword, fire extinguisher and Chinese throwing stars." 

This is where you're supposed to laugh if you think using a racial slur like "Jap" during the course of a hate crime is funny and if you think blaming every Asian male for Pearl Harbor and then beating him for it is hilarious. The truth is it's as unfunny as it would be to call an African American the "n" word for comedic effect or using an anti-Semitic slur against a Jewish person for giggles.

The clip was brought to my attention by Guy Aoki, a longtime Hollywood watchdog who is the founding president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans. In a statement issued to KTLA, Aoki pointed out why this sort of racism is particularly harmful.

"Japanese Americans-and Asian Americans in general-have always been blamed for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As a result of racial hysteria, 120,000 Japanese Americans were put in concentration camps for three years for simply being the wrong ethnicity. Ever since then, (American) children (of Japanese descent) have dreaded going to school on December 7th, 'Pearl Harbor Day,' because they would be taunted and attacked for being of Japanese ancestry, making them somehow responsible for the death of thousands of U.S. servicemen. What makes the scene (in the trailer) more chilling is that it takes place in an auto dealership. In 1982, on the night of his bachelor party, Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat by two out of work Detroit auto-workers who blamed the problems of the American automobile industry on the success of Japanese imports. Chin died five days before his wedding day. His last words were, 'It's not fair.'"

Patti Rockenwagner, executive vice president for corporate communications for Paramount told me the trailer I watched was for on-line use for adults only and she conceded the racist comments and actions, taken out of context, should be considered "completely unacceptable." But in the context of an "outrageous satirical comedy," Rockenwagner told me, it should be taken as an attempt at humor by the filmmakers. 

In an official statement she said: "This film is an R-rated comedy that satirizes and exaggerates the extremes of the sales and celebrity culture. We understand that when taken out of context, jokes and situations in the movie about a variety of topics might be offensive to some people. To be very clear, "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard" is in no way meant to be mean-spirited, disparaging or hurtful to any individuals and we regret any offense taken." 

In other words, because many people are disparaged in this film, no one group of people should take any of it personally or seriously. Ridiculous. Humor is not an acceptable excuse for racism. Could the film's director (Neal Brennan) and screenwriters (Andy Stock and Rick Stempson) and Mr. Piven stand before an audience of Japanese Americans and say with straight faces that the scene isn't racist? Could they explain to Vincent Chin's family how this scene is funny? 

Where were the gatekeepers at Paramount Pictures and Viacom through all of this? Why should Japanese Americans and other Asian Americans continue to watch your films and your TV programs on Viacom networks like MTV and BET and Nickelodeon when they think top executives at Paramount and Viacom are either so insensitive or so ignorant that they would let this stuff get to the big screen? 

I'm not a comedian and I get it that humor sometimes makes us uncomfortable or pushes the boundaries of acceptable. In my opinion, this crossed the line. It's not O.K. to call someone a "Jap" for a laugh.

I have reluctantly taken the plunge and created a Twitter account (twitter.com/ktlafbuckley). I did it a week ago and my initial feeling is Facebook (where I'm FJ Buckley) is better, but we'll see. I don't spend a ton of time on Facebook and I doubt I'll spend a ton of time on Twitter, but I do hope it'll help me to stay connected with you and what's on your mind. I'm also hoping it'll help me to keep you informed about the show on a more regular basis.

If you saw me giving away the Mystery Office Prize on the air this morning and wondered what the heck it was about, here's the background. On the Morning News yesterday, the Cyberguy was on with us and suggested that I give a gift to a new "follower" (Don't like that word, by the way. I don't see myself as a follower, do you?). Anyway, I said on the air that I would give a "Mystery Office Gift" (something from my office) to one new follower. Hundreds of folks started following and I decided to pick one of the first to sign up--a MrsLowell as she's known on Twitter. Mrs. Lowell is a teacher who was recently married, according to her Twitter bio. So here's what she won:

* A cheesy signed publicity shot of yours truly (signed to her students)

* A CNN lapel pin

* A green tea packet (I drink green tea during the shows)

* A Peace Corps calendar

* A KTLA keychain

* A book from a onetime Morning News guest (Peter Scott) "There's a Spouse in My House: A Humorous Journey Through the First Years of Marriage"

* A computer mouse with Michaela's picture and my picture embossed on it (provided in a segment by Lawrence Zarian)

We had a little fun with it. Thanks to all of you who are now following my tweets. I better go now because I've got to go write a new one.

Kobe Bryant finally allowed himself a smile, allowed himself some joy last night in the closing minutes of the Lakers win against Orlando in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Did you see how high he jumped as the final buzzer sounded? He wasn't the only person jumping for joy last night. Lakers fans everywhere went crazy as the Lakers won their 15th NBA title. Unfortunately, a few (described accurately by LAPD Chief William Bratton as "knuckleheads") went a little too crazy setting bonfires, engaging in vandalism and chucking rocks and bottles at police officers. At least 25 people were arrested.