River rose all day the river rose all night

Forget the peppy-dramatic theme music being used by the hopeless shills at The Weather Channel.  This morning, I've got Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" on the brain.

• In case you haven't been reading John Higgins' weekly columns in Broadcasting & Cable, here's a kick in the pants to do it. Even though his "Money Talks" column is ostensibly about the financial side of the TV business, you learn a lot by what's on the tube by following the money ... as any TV Barn reader knows. This week, Higgins examines the mess at NBC and answers the question I asked a few weeks ago: "why it's (Kevin) Reilly's neck on the line when his boss, Jeff Zucker, has been at the network a lot longer and has a far less impressive track record."
• I've just read a draft of an essay being prepared by Reese Schonfeld, the first president of CNN and one of the smartest guys I know when it comes to cable news. "It’s time for some American network, maybe CNN, to offer a news channel covering Iraq and Iraq related stories, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. ... Our goal in creating the Iraqi network is to provide the American public with the information it needs to make an intelligent decision about what we should do in Iraq – stay in, get out, or increase our forces. We should make sure the audience knows this is a high-stakes game with results that will last for centuries. After that it’s all up to the Americans who are spending lives and money on this effort. There are at least two questions: Is the war worth waging? And if it so, are we waging it effectively, are we going all out to win?" What makes the proposal worth considering is that it comes from a man who thinks the war on Iraq is worth fighting. He believes an all-Iraq news channel could probe beneath the surface and inform viewers better than a headline service, which is essentially what CNN is now (except when covering hurricanes and doping allegations against retired bicycle riders). And yet, as someone who doesn't see the war anything like Schonfeld or Christopher Hitchens or any of its defenders do, I too would welcome a 24/7 Iraqi channel. As Justice Brandeis (I think) once said, sunshine is the best disinfectant. Schonfeld would set aside time for telling the "good news" from Iraq as well as explaining, for instance, that "all of Shiism is divided into at least four parts," a fine detail TV doesn't bother with. Schonfeld is looking for someone to print his article, so contact him through his website if you're interested.
• Some weekly archives aren't working like they should. Use the master archive instead.
• And kudos to Salon's Heather Havrelisky for naming what was on the tip of my tongue while watching the first four hours of HBO's "Rome": Atia is just like "The O.C.'s" Julie Cooper!