Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/845037
July 6 • 2017 5 jn F 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. views Alan Muskovitz Contributing Writer for openers TV 's New Technology — Really? essay Keeping Pro-Israel Politics Bipartisan In Age Of Polarization Shalom Lipner Times of Israel A 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