Television

I hate to bring up pigs again -- remember the whole pit bull vs. hockey mom and "lipstick on a pig" fiasco? -- but an old saying needs repeating: Never wrestle with a pig; you both get dirty, but the pig likes it. A variation might be: Don't try to tell jokes with a comedian. You both might get laughs while lapsing into bad taste, but only the comedian will get away with it. That's about all there really is to say about President Obama's Special Olympics joke on The Tonight Show.

OK, I was one of the biggest nerd-geeks ever in high school, and I've been a fan of all the "Star Trek" TV shows, including "Voyager" (mostly for Seven of Nine, admittedly) and even the mostly forgotten "Deep Space Nine." But this is kinda creepy:

One of those pop-culture sites recently did a post on "Twenty Celebrities that have Aged Miserably." It's kind of a mean-spirited post -- if celebrities seem to age worse than most people, it's only because they started out

This is just plain dumb:

Plans call for Sci Fi and its companion Web site (scifi.com) to morph into the oddly spelled Syfy — pronounced the same as “Sci Fi” — on July 7. The new name will be accompanied by the slogan “Imagine Greater,” which replaces a logo featuring a stylized version of Saturn.

In an era when the news business is shrinking rather than growing, this is certainly good, er, news:

Fort Wayne TV viewers will have a fourth choice for local news beginning this spring.

WFFT, Fort Wayne's Fox network affiliate, will debut a weekday local news program in a few months. The 35-minute "Fox Fort Wayne 1st News @ 10" will run Monday through Friday following Fox prime-time programming and include local news, weather and sports coverage.

The federal government that wants us to believe it is competent to handle a $1 trillion "stimulus" bill shows it can't even manage the piddly little digital conversion that it mandated:

The U.S. House voted Wednesday to delay the transition from Feb. 17 to June 12, ending an on-again, off-again battle over the effective date.

As usual, I haven't been watching "American Idol," so I'm not up to speed on this apparent outrage:

For the most part in the past, "Idol" hopefuls who make it to Hollywood are serious singers who really think they have a shot at winning, with the costume-wearing, prop-toting jokers mostly weeded out during the audition weeks or not given screen time on the big stage in Los Angeles.

Even those who more or less ignore popular culture have to pay some attention to the Super Bowl if they want to stay in the conversation (the top three TV shows of all time for viewership are last year's Super Bowl, this year's Super Bowl and the "M*A*S*H" finale). The game was one of the more exciting ones, not decided until the waning minutes of the last quarter.

Mark Souder is being a pouty, whiny Republican obstructionist again. Just because a few fat-cat TV station owners are complaining about the extra expense of sending out dual signals for four months, Souder is refusing to go along with the unanimous vote of the Senate in delaying the Feb. 17 switchover to digital (mandated by Congress) until June 12:

From the future history archives, Sept. 9, 2011 -- President Barack Obama is urging Congress for the 15th delay in the planned switch from analog to digital television broadcasting, arguing that too many Americans who rely on analog TV won't be ready.