Happy Tuesday

It's Tuesday and you know what that means...two more days!

Monday's pre-game notes for Boston Red Sox (I love that dirty water): Johnny Damon snapped his 18 game streak. All good things must come to an end. Wait a minute, that's George Steinbrenner I'm thinking of.

Dan Rather pays tribute to his allies.

Rather took pains to acknowledge Mapes and former CBS News senior vp Betsy West (who also attended the ceremony), among others. Mapes was fired by CBS News and West was forced to resign in the wake of another 60 Minutes Wednesday report, which aired in September and used questionable documents as part of the sourcing for a highly critical report on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.

"They did most of the work, bore the heaviest burdens and took most of the criticism," Rather said of Mapes and the other producers who did the front-line reporting on the Abu Ghraib story. "It took guts, and they had them."

Rather received extended applause after telling the crowd, "Never give up, never back up, never give in while pursuing the dream of integrity filled journalism that matters."

He then went on to announce he was starting up a blog: Rathergate my @$$!

Meanwhile, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was honored with its second Peabody for its "Indecision 2004" presidential campaign coverage. Stewart thanked Comedy Central for its support and joked: "Apparently, Comedy Central also allows its stars to have a semester abroad," referring to the surprise trip that Dave Chappelle, star of the network's Chappelle's Show, has taken to South Africa, forcing the net to postpone the show's May 31 season premiere.

The Daily Show will be joined next year by a half-hour weekday show starring Daily Show correspondent Stephen Colbert.

"Colbert is irreplaceable, but we're happy to save on the salary," Stewart said.

Dave Chappelle went back to college?!? Oops, I misread that.

The state of television is bad these days. Several shows that had promise were cancelled.

Perhaps no show departing the airwaves will be as mourned by its fans as American Dreams. Unfortunately, after three seasons of good faith from NBC, Dreams was only averaging 7.3 million viewers, an audience that didn't improve when the network temporarily moved it from Sunday to Wednesday. Even though Zucker was one of the period drama's most outspoken supporters, there just wasn't room for "Dreams" on a network trying to change directions.

"It just becomes, unfortunately, the contradiction of America, I guess," Reilly says. "People say they want quality, family-friendly shows at 8:00 and yet you put them on and what they really want to watch is 'Desperate Housewives.' Ultimately, we are in a business here. We love the show... It just was not pulling the ratings to really justify the cost of the show or to justify another year on the schedule."

I call BS! I'm still digesting the WB's dropping of Summerland. With the ongoing disappearance of the family sitcom, comedies are disappearing from the networks. Even family friendly dramas are disappearing.

Natalie Portman likes being bald. I don't like the new look.

Sometime today, I need to watch Episode 1.