A lot of cash is a requirement for an FCC broadcast license, but there are a few other hurdles. One calls for the owner to be “of good character.” While this criteria is somewhat subjective, we have an opportunity to test the waters right here in the Biggest Little.
 
As has been copiously reported in other media, Kevin O’Brien, one of the partners seeking federal approval to consummate the acquisition of WLNE-TV, Channel 6, got fired from his last gig as broadcasting chief for the Meredith Corporation, the Iowa-based media company that publishes specialty books and magazines (including Ladies’ Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens). Overseeing 13 television stations and more than 1000 employees for the past three years, O’Brien was largely credited with the turning the broadcast division around.
 
According to reports by the Associated Press and other news organizations, O’Brien also made his share of racially insensitive remarks, including, “We can’t right all the wrongs of the Civil War; we’ve got to quit hiring all these black people.” Here’s another: “I’ve never seen a minority broadcast enterprise work in my entire life, especially if they have control.” He is said to have commented to a black waiter at a company picnic, “You probably don’t like the same fruit as me. You look like a watermelon kind of guy.”
 
In 2005, O’Brien’s lawyer denied to Maynard Institute columnist Richard Prince that he had made the bigoted remarks attributed to him. Yet court documents indicate that O’Brien is apparently an equal-opportunity kind of guy. A number of employees have said that O’Brien routinely expressed dislike for Meredith’s chief financial officer, who is Indian, and according to court documents, “stated on numerous occasions that ‘my father always told me, you can’t trust those Indians.’ ”
 
Asked to reschedule a news summit in Orlando, Florida, so it would not conflict with Rosh Hashanah, O’Brien reportedly said, “These Jewish holidays — I’ve always thought those existed just so those people either wouldn’t have to work or take the day and do inventory.”
 
Another classic O’Brien quote was revealed in the court papers: “That woman was so ugly she could knock the balls off a pool table.”
 
There’s more, much more in the court documents as reported by the AP, Des Moines Register, and the TVSpy Web site (also, a tip of the sombrero to former WPRI-TV reporter, Bob Blanchard). Barbara Ciara, the managing editor/anchor at WTKR in Norfolk, Virginia, a honcho with the National Association of Black Journalists, has suggested that other media companies avoid hiring O’Brien for any position in which “he could do more damage to the careers or psyche of black journalists.”
 
So, who’ll be the first to file a challenge to his ownership?

Nino scores
There are more than a few unknown, underground genius-types lurking about the Biggest Little. Some (like Les Daniels) are much better known in the outside world than here at home, where they are far more likely to get the finger from a passing motorist than an autograph request.
 
Three cheers, then, for Nico Muhly, a great hometown artist on the rise. Nico comes from exquisite bloodlines, since his dad is Emmy-winning filmmaker Frank Muhly and his mom the internationally acclaimed painter Bunny Harvey.
 
Nico just did a gig at Zankel Hall in NYC as part of composer John Adams’s “In Your Ear” concert series. The Bernard Holland review that ran in Monday’s New York Times was half-admiring and half-head scratching. How cool is that? Stay tuned to P&J for our pronouncement when Nico conquers the world.

Salute to a doughboy
P&J always enjoy promoting our friends when they’re on to something good. We haven’t seen our friend Bill Manzo, who ran the cigar emporium Sikar and currently makes Federal Hill Pizza on Atwells Avenue, in a number of years.
 
About a month ago, your superior correspondents were in a Shaw’s Market when we happened across some pizza dough from Federal Hill Pizza. Knowing that this was Bill’s outfit, we decided to try it for our famous Casa Diablo spinach pies and homemade pizzas. Our verdict? It’s the best dough we’ve ever used. Great job, Bill.

Kids’ korner
P&J hope our readers’ inquiring minds did not miss the recent contretemps over a children’s book by Susan Parton, titled, The Higher Power of Lucky. The book won the prestigious Newberry Medal for kiddie lit, but some librarians have kept it off the shelves. 
 
The reason? Because on the first page of the book, Ms. Parton uses the word “scrotum.” It also appears elsewhere in the book. Golly!
 
Not that this is gay porn for the fourth-to-sixth grade set. The protagonist, 10-year-old Lucky Trimble, overhears another character mention that his dog has been bit on the scrotum by a rattlesnake. (Ouch. We can ignore use of the word scrotum, but this is a pretty painful image for even us putative adults.)
 
To her credit, Parton indicates how Lucky has no idea what the word means, and follows with: “Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much. It sounded medical and secret, but also important.” If that isn’t a nice dose of reality, we don’t know what is. It’s a lot better than the infantile humor used by P&J when we refer to the town of Scrotum, Connecticut (Groton), and East Prov’s famous Scrotum (Squantum) Club.
 
Books that stretch the limits are easy targets for reactionary conservatives.  To those elementary school librarians we say simply, “Kiss our Squantums.”
 
(This whole thing about youthful education reminds P&J of the story about the two eight-year-old kids in New York City. The first youngster says, “My big brother had a party last night and got in trouble because my Mom found a condom on the patio the next morning.” The second replies, “What’s a patio?” Ba-boom!)