Book review: "Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News"

Today, it's hard to imagine a time when you couldn't get news any time of day or night. We can just pick up the phone, glance at the computer or flip the TV to any of several all-news channels to see what's happening in the world.

But. little children, there really was a time where none of that was possible. News only came once a day in a newspaper delivered to your door or on short TV broadcasts. 

Ted Turner changed all that in 1980 when he launched Cable News Network. Today, we think of CNN and 24-hour news as such a normal part of the TV landscape that we don't realize what an audacious and risky idea it was at the start. No one had done it before; the pioneers of CNN were making up the rules as they went. 

In "Up All Night," published in 2020, author Lisa Napoli describes decades of key moments that led to the launch of CNN. 

It was far from a straightforward path. Napoli starts the story a good 31 years before CNN's birth with the tale of a girl who fell down a well near Los Angeles in 1949, and the ambitious but technologically clumsy efforts to cover that news on TV.

Napoli's narrative unfolds on two parallel tracks — one about the early development of TV, the other about Ted Turner. The TV news history is a necessary component of the story, but the Ted Turner tale is far more memorable.

Turner inherited an Atlanta billboard advertising business from his father, and in bits and fits, created a wide-ranging business empire. He forayed into television with the purchase of a fringe independent station in Atlanta.

Turner had no interest in putting news on the station — it most showed old movies — but the FCC required some "public service" element, so he reluctantly allocated 20 minutes late a night. The "news" program was filled with gags and parody, including one night where it was co-hosted by a dog. It was an inauspicious beginning for a man who would change the face of TV news.

Napoli portrays Turner as quirky and outrageous. During sales calls he would often throw himself onto the floor to show his determination to get a deal. He was so cheap that he'd cut his own hair and sift through incoming mail at the TV station for uncanceled stamps that could be reused. But he spent big on buying and rehabilitating the Atlanta Braves baseball team and even more on sailboat racing, his favorite hobby. 

"His frank, explosive personality was legendary, especially among his inner circle, who warily tip-toed around his ever-changing mood,"  Napoli writes. "Was he up, or was he down? He'd return from sailing expeditions clutching laundry lists of ideas they'd have to drop everything to pursue, only to find days later that he'd changed his mind. He was like a hyperactive kid, exploding into work in the morning — if he hadn't slept on the pull-out couch in his office the night before — spouting poetry, singing song lyrics off-key, roaming the halls to pump up the staff."

While the first half of the book lays a nice foundation, the book really hits its stride in the second. As the drumbeat grows toward the debut of CNN, a confused frenzy of hiring and preparation goes on behind the scenes. As a reader, even knowing of CNN's eventual success, you wonder if the motley crew assembled for this project can really pull it off.

With Turner watching his pennies, the station ended up hiring dozens of recent college graduates, paying them peanuts and throwing into whatever needed to be done. For the grads, it was energizing buzz of a time, working on a groundbreaking project during the day and partying at night. Napoli calls it "'Animal House' meets 'Network.'"

For all its strengths, the book is hamstrung by a peculiar writing quirk of Napoli's: She is stingy in offering dates for many of the events in the book. This is a history book at its essence, so dates are important. But many of the events in "Up All Night" float in the air untethered to a timeline

Natali tells a detailed story of Turner's participation the Fastnet sailing race in which 19 people died, but never says when it took place, not even the year. Other events are described but never dated, including the critical meeting where Turner decided to start an all-news channel, the landmark launch of CNN"s first satellite, and the groundbreaking of the network's first building. 

At one point, Napoli quotes Turner saying, "I hate the news. I'll never do news." This is a funny quote, and would be especially amusing if Turner said it right before deciding to launch CNN. But she offers no date.  

The other flaw: There no pictures (at least in my edition of the book). Napoli included dozens of continuing characters. It would be nice to see some of them. Early CNN anchor Kathleen Sullivan is described by a producer as "astoundingly beautiful in a non-conventionally beautiful way." Wouldn't it be nice if we could judge for ourselves?

Similarly, Napoli frequently describes the disorder of Turner's first TV station and later the mess (and "scurrying rats") of the first CNN facility.  How about a picture or two of the places?

The cost of driving, 2024

Dedicated readers of this blog will recall my groundbreaking 2019 article "The cost of driving," and its paradigm-shattering follow-up "The REAL cost of driving."

Now — buckle up your seatbelts — I'm updating this report for my new car, a 2024 Kia Sportage. How much does it cost to drive this car?

First, we start with the cost of gas. The last time I bought gas it was $4.95 a gallon. Since this car gets about 37 mile per gallon, that works out to 13.4 cents per mile for gas.

Then there's maintenance. This could be complicated, since the costs of oil changes, repairs, new tires and the like can vary widely and come at unpredictable times. Fortunately, there's a shortcut. AAA's 2023 "Your Driving Costs" publication shows the cost of maintenance of a small SUV (the Sportage's category) as 10.4 cents per mile.

Then there's depreciation. This, again, can be a tough one to figure. Each mile you drive brings you one step closer to the day when your car dies and you have to buy a new one. I'm going to estimate that car will last 160,000 miles and that my next car will cost $37,000 (don't like those assumptions? Fine. Do your own calculation).

Dividing $37,000 by 160,000 comes to 23.1 cents per mile.

All of that adds up to 46.9 cents per mile.

To be clear, I'm talking about the cost of driving, not the cost of ownership. For instance, as a car owner you have to pay car registration fees each year, but those do not change depending on how much you drive.

Then there's car insurance. In the past, I could make a pretty strong case that the cost of car insurance didn't vary depending on how much I drove. But now, my insurer, AAA, asks for my car mileage each year. They may indeed be using that information to set my rate, but to what degree?

Under my current policy, I'm paying $902 to insure the Sportage. I'm expecting to drive the car about 10,000 miles in the year. So insurance cost 9 cents per mile. Still, I don't believe there is such a direct connection that each extra mile I drive costs 9 cents. There's a basic cost of doing business — if I only drove, say, 10 miles in the year, do you think AAA would only charge me 90 cents? Of course not — there's going to be minimum charge at least.

With some arbitrariness, I'm going to say that driving each mile adds an extra 6 cents. So total cost of driving: 52.9 cents per mile. 

 

Book review: "The Greatest Beer Run Ever" by

All Chick Donohue wanted to do was bring some guys beer. It shouldn't be a big deal, right?

Except in this case, with Donohue in New York City and the intended recipients of his beer largesse in Vietnam, it was a big deal. And it was an especially big deal since the men Donohue was looking for were a little bit preoccupied fighting the Vietnam War. 

It all started in 1967 as Donohue was sitting in his local bar — Doc Fiddler's — in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan. The bartender and some patrons were talking about how many local young men had gone off to fight in Vietnam. They worried that, given growing public resentment over the war, that the soldiers didn't feel supported. 

So the bartender suggested that someone bring those guys a beer to show them that their home neighborhood was thinking about them. After a little pressure from the bartender, Donohue volunteered to do it.

This is the opening of "The Greatest Beer Run Ever," Donohue's 2020 book. It is a story so incredible, so preposterous, that it seems impossible that's it's actually true. Yet it is.

Even as Donohue volunteered for the beer run, he doubted it was possible. "Some authority figures will probably stop me, but I have to try," he recalls thinking. 

Donahue was in the Merchant Marines, so he managed to get himself onto a ship delivering ammunition to the troops in Vietnam. Once there, he heads off to deliver beer.

The story takes a series of surprsing twist and turns. Donahue travels around with U.S. troops and gets shockingly close to the front lines. Despite his prediciton, no "authority figure" stopped this civilian from traveling around a war zone trying to deliver beer. In fact, Donohue was surprised how readily he was able to get rides on U.S. military planes and helicopters and was even treated with deference by Army officers.

Finally, a buddy explained why:

"Don't you get it, pal? They think you're CIA! Because why the hell else would you be here? In jeans and plain shirt, no less."

After successfully delivering some of his beer, Donahue ends up in Saigon when the Tet Offensive breaks out. This opens up a whole new chapter of the adventure. Frankly, Donahue was lucky to get out of Vietnam alive.

I don't want to give up too much of the story, but this is a book you should read. It's fun, it moves fast and you'll learn some things about the Vietnam War.

You may wonder, as I did, whether this story is just too good to be true true. Could Donahue have just made it up? So I was pleased to discover that a professor at Columbia University closely fact-checked the story and confirmed its authenticity. 

There are three "bonus" chapters tacked awkwardly onto the end of this book. One is a "Where are they now?" section, another describes the neighborhood of Inwood, and the third recounts a quirky Vietnam War story, but not one involving Donahue. Each of these might be of some interest, but they don't mesh well with the rest of the book. The "Where are they now?" chapter, in particular, goes on too long.  

Your Big Mac now costs more

There's been a lot of discussion about how California's new $20-an-hour minimum wage for workers at large fast food chains will affect prices. So I decided to check if the prices at my local McDonald's changed after the law went into affect on April 1.

I checked the prices of more than 25 different items on the McDonald's menu both four days before the law's start date and then two days after.

The prices of all the items increased. The increases ranged from 2% (McCrispy) to 12.6% (the 4-piece Chicken McNuggets). The average increase was 5.6%

To be clear, each McDonald's franchise owner is free to set prices as he or she sees fit. So the price changes at your local McDonald's may be different.

	March 28	April 3	% increase
Big Mac	$5.89	$6.19	5.09%
Bacon Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese	$6.89	$7.19	4.35%
Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese	$5.69	$6.19	8.79%
Double Bacon Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese	$8.29	$8.49	2.41%
Double Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese	$7.29	$7.59	4.12%
Cheeseburger	$2.89	$3.19	10.38%
McCrispy	$4.89	$4.99	2.04%
Spricy McCrispy	$4.99	$5.39	8.02%
Deluxe McCrispy	$5.59	$5.79	3.58%
Deluxe Spicy McCrispy	$5.89	$6.29	6.79%
Large Fries	$4.59	$4.79	4.36%
McNuggets
10 pieces	$5.69	$5.99	5.27%
4 pieces	$2.39	$2.69	12.55%
6 pieces	$3.59	$3.69	2.79%
20 pieces	$7.49	$7.99	6.68%
40 pieces	$11.29	$11.89	5.31%
4 spicy	$2.49	$2.69	8.03%
Meals
Big Mac	$9.99	$10.49	5.01%
Bacon Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese	$10.69	$11.19	4.68%
Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese	$9.89	$10.39	5.06%
Double Bacon Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese	$12.19	$12.69	4.10%
Double Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese	$11.79	$12.29	4.24%
Meals
McCrispy	$8.99	$9.49	5.56%
Spricy McCrispy	$8.99	$9.49	5.56%
Deluxe McCrispy	$9.39	$9.89	5.32%
Deluxe Spicy McCrispy	$9.59	$10.09	5.21%
Meals
McNuggets
10 pieces	$9.79	$10.29	5.11%
6 pieces	$7.19	$7.69	6.95%
Average			5.62%

How we bought a car in 2024

My wife and I had been considering buying a new car for about five or six months, and come early 2024, we decided the time was right.

We wanted a hybrid, preferable a small SUV. We also didn't want to spend too much — my target was to get a car under $30,000. This was hardly an easy goal in an environment where car prices have been rising much faster than inflation.

All those things, combined with a positive review by Consumer Reports, eventually led me to the Kia Sportage Hybrid. There are cheaper hybrids, but they're smaller. There are fancier ones, but they're pricy.

The retail price for this car sometimes showed up just below $30,000, whcih was encouraging. But in the strange world of new car shopping you don't really know what the price is until you try to buy one. In a buyer-friendly market, dealers will sometimes find rebates or other discounts to take the price well below MSRP.

2024 Kia Sportage

But as I was to discover, this was not a buyer-friendly market. 

The car hunt began in earnest on a Friday, when I requested price quotes via the Consumer Reports and Edmunds websites. Very soon, my phone was ringing, texts were arriving and emails were tumbling into my inbox. 

Usually, the first question of each salesperson was "When can you come in?" They want you to come in immediately, get you on their turf, and make a deal right away. Experienced buyers know that this is exactly the opposite of what you want. It's best to stay off the dealer's lot as long as possible. I wanted to do as much of the deal over email as I could. 

That said, I do understand that salespeople want to know if you're a serious buyer — not just someone trolling casually for prices — and also that you're a real person. I don't doubt that there are bots out there "shopping" for cars. So I was willing to take one call from each saleperson early the process, to prove I was a genuinely interested buyer. But I tried to keep it short.

On the other hand, I did get a couple emails from bots, like one that said, "Hi Scott! I'm Diana, your virtual assistant at Garden Grove Kia. You've got an eye for excellent vehicles!" These seemed to be quick-response messages in advance of human contact..

Early on, I questioned my willingness to accept phone calls from dealers when I had an unpleasant conversation with Keenan, a salesman with Kia Glendale. He kept badgering me to name an exact day and time to come to dealership, while I kept telling him he needed to send me an offer by email. He eventually sent me just one email with only his contact information, but he never sent an offer, even after I specifically asked.

Some salespeople texted, but I tried to quickly steer them to email. This worked for most, but not all.

One of the stranger meanderings of negotiation was with Zammy of Kia of Carson. She emailed me early in the process on Friday.  It took 10 emails back and forth but she soon offered a price of $37,331 "out the door."

I realized in this process that the out-the-door price —  or "OTD" —  was the best way to negotiate. If you only look at the base price, you're not just ignoring the sales taxes and registration fees, but also the many "accessories" and extra fees dealers will pile on.  

I knew the sales tax and registration fees we're going to add around $3,500 to the purchase, but I was dismayed that a car that with a list price in the mid-$29,000s would actually cost run $37,300. I started to wonder if I should start looking at other models.

But I was encouraged when Zammy called and suggested a different car, one with a "base price of $30,000." OK, I thought, that might be around $34K OTD, which is getting closer. But when she emailed the offer it turned out to be $36,564. The base price she showed was not $30,000, but almost $31,000 ($30,988) and she added $895 for "accessories," which she said was Lojack.

I emailed her back, expressing my disappointment with the price. She said the only thing she could do was lower the price by $200. Hmmm. That's where we left it on Friday.

I mostly took the weekend off from car negotiations, but on Monday, Zammy and I again exchanged emails. Her new offer was $35,894. Then later the same day it was $35,675. It was nice that it was going down, but it was still far from what we wanted to spend.

There was a strange Groundhog Day aspect to communicating with Zammy. Even though we exchanged dozens of emails, she also sent six texts, four of which asked the exact same question, "Are you still in the market or do you have any questions?" 

 

Then there was the confusing approach of the sales gang from Huntington Beach Kia. Over five days, these guys sent me 20 emails and a dozen texts. They came from an array of names: Christian, Cristan, Gustavo, Mario, Zaid. Just when I thought I knew who I was dealing with, a new name would pop into my inbox.

 

They may have all been the same person. A message from Zaid's email address was signed by Christian. A text from Gustavo Gutierrez said "I go by Christian." 

It was pretty amateurish. One email sent to me was just blank. In another, Kia Huntington Beach alerted me to a newly priced Sportage, but the car actually was in Glendale, not Huntington Beach.

 At one point, Cristian emailed me saying he had "great news" and I should call him. But when I called him, he had no news at all, just a question: When could I come in?

In all this time, they sent me exactly one offer: A $36,900 offer bloated with overpriced accessories. I rejected it quickly.

 

On Tuesday, Christian even called to try get me to send him the offers I was getting from other dealers. Sorry, dude, I'm not doing market research for you. 

Then there was Sergio from Kia Irvine. Sergio texted me on Friday as I was launching my car hunt. I told him right away, like I did with the others, that I preferred email. He never seemed to get that message, continuing to text me even while I was responding by email.

I had to prod Sergio a little to send me an actual offer (his early promise of "we can do Invoice price for you" was pretty vague), but when he did send one, on Monday, I got pretty excited. It was the best offer yet, at $32,400

Then I took a closer look. Even though I had told Sergio that I lived in Long Beach and he should base the sales tax calculation on that, it was quickly apparent that he had used Irvine instead. The difference is significant — the sale tax for us poor Long Beach residents is $700 more than if I lived in Irvine (don't get me started about the unfairness of that). 

What's more, his offer didn't include all the required state registration fees. Sergio fixed the sales tax amount, but when I pointed out the incorrect registration fees, I got an abrupt response of "Those fees are generated on your zip code, those are non negotiable."

I wasn't trying to negotiate — if anything, I was pointing out that the dealership seemed to be volunteering to pay part of my registrations fees. If they wanted to do that, it's fine by me. 

His response to this was, oddly, to send me an offer on a different vehicle. This was the best price yet, but had one problem: It was not a Kia Sportage Hybrid. Sigh.

With so many high-priced offers early in the process, I was getting discouraged, so we decided we would look at Toyota Camry Hybrids, too. But this just produced more frustration. Low-end Camry Hybrids were impossible to find and the models that were available were priced even higher than Sportages.

I also learned that the skill-level of the Toyota salespeople was no higher than the motley bunch from Kia. An email from someone at Beach Cities Toyota Westminster offered this eloquent message: 

"Hybrid Camrys we sell before car hit over ground and we charge over MSRP. But if car stay on my low for few days , I can make you a deal. We will contact you when its happen." (All those typos are genuine.)

Would you really give $30,000-plus to someone who can't write a coherent sentence?

Fortunately, my experiences weren't all negative.

 

One early responder on Friday was Eddie Favela of Kia of Cerritos. Eddie's first question was, like most, "What day/time are you available to come to KIA of Cerritos?" But we quickly moved on. We talked on the phone, and that same day he offered me an out-the-door price of $34,102.

Eddie's offer was the best on the first day but still high for me. I waited a couple days until Monday, and then made my counter-offer: $31,500 OTD. I winced a little as I sent it, fearing that Eddie might just conclude we are too far apart, and stop responding. 

But Eddie responded in less than an hour with $33,102. That was getting better. The same day, I asked for a "breakdown" of that price, and on his next email the OTD price became $32,992. (I liked that Eddie was the only one I dealt with from this dealership during the negotiation.)

That was good for me. And when Eddie agreed to take part of my payment — $2,900 —  by credit card, we had a deal. (Eddie said that their maximum for credit cards was $2,500 but they'd allow the $2,900. Later, the finance guy told me their limit for credit cards was $5,000).

Still, there was one little wrinkle: My money. I had started moving money for this deal on Friday, but it takes a few days for the dollars to become available in my bank account. This deal had come together so fast that I didn't have the money quite ready. I was scrambling to get it in place.

While that was happening, I asked Eddie to email me a copy of the contract. He said he couldn't do that but sent me a picture of the financials from his screen.

He assured me, after I asked, that there would be no extra fees over the amount we'd agreed. Even so, I was skeptical. In my experience, car dealers always include extra fees at the last minute. 

By Wednesday, my money was in place. I wanted to pay by bank transfer, but Eddie had told me already that they preferred cashier's check. I didn't love that, in part because I have to pay $15 for cashier's check at Bank of America, but but bit the bullet and got one Wednesday morning. 

In the afternoon, my daughter and I drove to Kia of Cerritos. We met Eddie, who was friendly, and immediately suggested we drive the car around the block. As we did so, a seatbelt alert buzzer went off and, for a while, none of us could figure out how to it turn it off. In an instant, I wondered if this car was a lemon while Eddie (he admited later) saw his commission vanishing. 

Then it turned out that Eddie, sitting in the back, was slightly sitting on the middle seat, setting of the alarm. That solved it and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

After the drive, we went back into the showroom and Eddie started bringing us a mountain of papers to sign. I gave credit to Eddie for having asked me email a photo of my driver license and my car insurance information ahead of our visit —  this allowed them to input the info before we arrived and save us time.

Still, there were countless pieces of paper where I had to write down my name, address, phone number and email address. Why couldn't these have been pre-filled to save time? 

After a bit of a wait, we were ushered into the office of Luis, the finance rep, to complete the deal. In my experience, this is one of the least-pleasant parts of the buying process, since it's the finance guy's job to try to squeeze a little more money out of you.

Luis wasn't particularly friendly, but not really unfriendly either. He asked for some information and had me sign a few more papers. 

Then he got to the pitch for the extended warranty. I politiely declined, and he tried to goad me into a discussion. "Not for any amount, even just $500?," he asked. "Is this just a principle thing, or you don't like to save money?" 

I could have taken the bait and explained how extended warranties are a bad deal for consumers (and almost pure proft for the dealership), but why even go there? I was under no obligation to justify my spending decisions to him. "No, thank you." I said. He grew cool, but we finished the paperwork and left.

In the end, the price was exactly what Eddie had said — there were no last-minute fees. Thank you, Eddie Favela and Kia of Cerritos.

We were ready to go. But the car wasn't. Eddie had sent it to get washed and gassed up. We  had to wait about 25 minutes.

Eventually, the car showed up. My daughter headed home with our other car, while Eddie gave me a last rundown on key features. He nicely connected my phone to the entertainment systems, and answered a few more questions. And then soon, it was time to go. And I drove off the lot with our new car. 

Book review: "Independence Day" by Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is such a good writer he could probably make a refrigerator repair manual into a page-turner. 

In his latest book, "Independence Day," Lopez's topic is retirement, specifically his own. Lopez explains that at age 66, he was wondering if it was time for him to exit the working world, so he decided to give himself one year to look into the pros and cons of retirement. The result is this very readable 2022 book.

Lopez recognized that retirement would be a major change for him. An award-winning columnist with the Los Angeles Times since 2001, he has worked as a journalist all his life (he also wrote the best-selling book, "The Soloist"). 

"I left college on a Tuesday night in 1975, started work the next morning, and I haven't stopped. It's all I know and what's more important, it's a big part of who I am."

Was it time to give it a rest? Or would he miss his work, which gave him the opportunity to go places and meet people he otherwise never would?

On his one-year quest, Lopez talks to people like 102-year-old Hedda Bolgar, who continued to work as a therapist because she felt her services were still needed. "If there's an unmet need in the world, you try to meet it," she said.

He also talks to a California couple, Joan and Ted, who retired at the ages of 53 and 58 then spent 30 years happily traveling the world on their boat. "I would say don't wait," Joan advised. "Do it now. Do it while you're young."

He talks to TV producer Norman Lear and movie-maker Mel Brooks, both in the never-retire camp, though Brooks suggests that Lopez could cut back a little."I'd say keep doing what you're doing, but don't do as much of it," Brooks said. "But always look forward to waking up with something that you do well."

He talks to Jane, who retired but then missed working, so she went back part-time. "It was great!" After three years of that, though, she was happy to retire for good. 

Some of Lopez's interviewees retired and struggled to keep busy, others had an armful of tasks. One couple retired with optimism but financial issues forced them back to work. 

He talked to Maurice Kitchens, who retired from the insurance business as soon as he could, then launched a bountiful second act, directing, producing and acting in community theater.

In short, Lopez talks to all kinds of people with all kinds of opinions on retirement. 

Lopez is such as smooth writer that the book flows easily. He emphasizes personal stories — his own and others' — and his conversational style makes it feel like you're just sitting across from him chatting.  One chapter passes easily into the next. Even if you're not that interested in retirement, you would probably enjoy "Independence Day."

Lopez does veer off the topic once in a while, talking about such things as his diet, TV drug commercials, or his daughter's search for a college. You could strain to find the connection to retirement in these passages, but frankly you'll probably enjoy these stories as much as the others.

I won't spoil the ending by revealing what Lopez ultimately decided. But he's not recommending people imitate him anyway. The main takeaway from this book is that everyone is different, with different needs and goals, and each person must make his or her own decision about retirement.