Interesting TV Shows on PBS – TV abstainers should read this.

For the last year PBS has interrupted its regular schedule about once a month on weekends for pledge breaks, and they would continue that for several weekends in a row. They would substitute pledge programs that I found less appealing than the regular programming. That hasn’t happened lately, and I have been surprised to find they have added real advertising between shows. Maybe it is bringing in the extra money they need to keep providing good shows. So far the advertising has been tasteful, non-intrusive, and only presented between programs, never interrupting an on-going show. AND – there seem to be additional great programs to the already impressive lineup.

 This week I have watched several outstanding programs; some part of a series where there is at least one more episode coming next week. The first show I watched was a documentary on a subject dear to my heart. I don’t remember the exact title of the program, but it is about tracking the migration of primitive humans out of Africa, along the shores of Arabia, to India and the Indonesian Islands. Later migrations led them to Southern France.

The oldest Hominid species that we know of so far that would have been capable of such a trek, would have been Homo Erectus. The example they gave was Turkana Boy, a fairly complete skeleton found in Eastern Africa in 1984. He would have been 5’ 3" tall, and would have grown to 6’ 1" if he had lived. Scientists estimate that he was about 8 years old when he died 1.5 million years ago. He was a true hominid and differed from the apelike australopithicus species by having a different skull and teeth formation, and a narrow pelvis (narrower than modern humans have) that would have enabled him to run fast. He also had little body hair which, unlike other animals, allowed body cooling by sweating. There is evidence in the bone structure of his cranium that indicates he may have had language skills.

A few weeks ago there was a PBS program about another earlier Hominid called Ardipithicus Ramidus that died about 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia’s Afar Valley and was discovered by a member of Richard Leakey’s team some years ago, but only publicized this year. This was a female that was probably an ancestor of Turkana Boy.

I find all this fascinating. It all helps give clues about just who we are, and where we came from. Somehow scientists have discovered that the evolution of humans was not an even flow. At one time something involving drought, killed almost all existing human species. That was about the time the lush Sahara area was turned into a desert. That bottle-neck in human population caused modern humans to lack some parts of DNA we should have. They say that we all, black, white and all shades of skin in between, are descended from a single female who lived in the eastern part of Africa.

In the book series written by Jean Auel that started with ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’, I was impressed with her fictionalized version of early humans. But the period she wrote about was much later than Turkana Boy. In Auel’s book Ayla the heroine, and her lover discovered they could ride horses, and figured out some mysterious ceremonies performed by Neanderthal shamans. This went on for a few pages, and then they would make mad love for pages and pages more. That finally turned me off. She did some good research for her first book, but after that it was just a pre-history version of Jude Deveraux. They were always traveling west, and I wanted to find out if their ultimate destination was at the caves in southern France. I may read the latest book, but with all those pages of mad passion in large print, the book looks as if it weighs 5 lbs. or more.

This week on PBS, another fascinating show was the second in a series called "The Story of India". They have discovered there is a little town near the Indian Ocean where they can trace some oral chants back to the beginnings of language use. This week's episode told the history of Peshawar, now part of Pakistan where a suicide bomber killed a lot of people today. It is one of the oldest cities in what used to be India, and dates back to some people called the Kushans who came from the west and had a leader that ruled in a way that led to 200 years of peace in a very large part of India. They were Buddhists. We need that king to come back reincarnated as a leader who can stop Al Qaeda.

To top things off, last night I saw a most marvelous documentary about the life of Johnny Mercer, singer, composer, but mainly a great lyricist from Savannah Georgia. He wrote the lyrics to so many familiar songs that I didn’t know he had written. I think they said he wrote songs for 94 movies. He also wrote less successfully for some Broadway shows. Not only that, he was one of the founders of Capital Records. I did so enjoy hearing all those wonderful old songs, and singers from the ‘30s, 40’s and 50’s. like Perry Como, Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Rosemary Clooney, and many, many others. Mercer wrote ‘Ya Gotta Ak-cent-u-ate the Positive’, ‘Moon River’, ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’, 'That Old Black Magic', and many more you would recognize even today. He collaborated a lot with Hoagy Carmichael. He also wrote a lot of songs for Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. (Actually I like Mercer’s voice a lot better than Astaire’s). That’s when performers smiled, wore pretty clothes, had pleasing voices – and didn’t all sound like teenagers from Texas. But it was the Beetles and their teenage fans that prevailed, and Mercer was finally put out of business by Rock and Roll.

Well everything changes – not always for the best. Maybe pretty styles and pretty music will come back some day, but not soon enough for me.