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In support of Bangor's ban

I am struck by a story my colleagues are preparing for Nightly News this weekend that's also in today's New York Times concerning the city of Bangor, Maine. The city council there has made news by banning smoking in cars when children are present, effective immediately. Bangor is the first city to do this, but Arkansas, Louisiana and Puerto Rico have taken similar action, and several other states are considering it.

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The big apple feels small

It was hard to go far in New York today without seeing, or feeling, reminders of 9/11. A short lunchtime walk in Midtown confirmed that. Outside our office building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a crowd stood as members of the New York Police Department band played a medley of patriotic songs, their enthusiasm invoking the perseverance of a city and its people.

During a pause, the sound of bagpipes drifted over from outside St. Patrick's Cathedral half a block away, where a 9/11 service had just ended. The day was clear and bright, just like on that day five years ago.

I was reminded of something else that happened in this city on 9/11 and especially the days that followed. New York became an especially kind and civil place, as friends and colleagues and even strangers looked after one another. The city might have been showing

New York City firefighters from the 3rd Battalion attend
a Mass Monday at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.
(AP Photo/Shiho Fukada)

a little of that again today as the pace of things seemed a bit slower, a bit more gentle. Over at Park Avenue and 51st Street, a fire truck from Engine Company 65 was parked on the corner, the firefighters inside pausing for a few minutes and looking out at the pedestrian traffic. As I passed by, one of them nodded. I nodded back, feeling proud.

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Of wine and war

Renowned Lebanese winery copes with conflict
As efforts to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah have moved ever-so-slowly through the diplomatic process, the war has escalated, as our NBC colleagues have been reporting from Lebanon and Israel on Nightly News. Ordinary Lebanese and Israelis have been caught in the conflict, and not just those near the front lines. Business and commerce and culture have also suffered, but we have reported relatively little on this.

Beirut, for example, had made great strides in recent years toward becoming a cosmopolitan center and a travel destination city as it recovered from decades of civil war.  The latest conflict has been a great setback in that regard. And yet there is resiliency, determination and even optimism to be found.

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When the story finds you

A war changes hour by hour, so a plan in the morning for a story is likely to change significantly by afternoon. That, indeed, had happened by the time correspondent Martin Fletcher called me from northern Israel at mid-day yesterday to review his story for last night's broadcast.

A visit to a bomb shelter in Nahariya by Fletcher, producer Kevin Monahan and cameraman Chaim Dekel began with the simple idea of checking on how people were doing after several days in the shelter.  But as our team emerged, a series of rockets fired by Hezbollah militants started crashing into the neighborhood.  Fletcher and our crew ran toward the places where the rockets came down, documenting the panic that unfolded and ending up at a field where a man was dead, his mother (in the confusion everyone first thought she was his wife) desperately trying to call him on the cell phone that, it turned out, lay ringing next to his body.

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Warm grapes

An interesting story came up in our planning meeting this afternoon that you won't see on the broadcast because of time constraints, so we thought it was worth mentioning in this space. It's about the issue of global warming, and another disturbing prediction, especially to those of us who are concerned about grape expectations. (In addition to my role as a senior producer of the broadcast, I am also a wine critic for MSNBC.com and NBC Mobile on cell phones.)

A report just out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that by the end of the century, climate warming could wipe out at least half the areas suitable for growing premium wine grapes in the United States. The contention is that there will simply be too many very hot days for grapes to grow properly, especially in the Southwest and central parts of the country. The areas at risk also include California's Napa and Sonoma Valleys, which form the backbone of this country's multi-billion dollar wine industry.

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Our eating habit

With correspondent Tom Costello's Friday story on marketing to the heavyset still in mind [LINK], I got a good taste over the weekend of one of the root causes of obesity in our society. The occasion was my younger son’s seventh birthday. Because it rained all day Saturday here in the New York area, we postponed his party, which was to have included lots of outdoor activities.

Instead, we did something we rarely do on weekends: we went out to lunch. As we walked into the restaurant, a popular barbecue place, we passed a man, to put it delicately, whose mid-section required him to be several feet from the table from which he was practically inhaling his lunch. I wondered how he got this way. I noticed several very young children at the table and worried for a moment that health problems related to his obesity could cut the man’s life short.

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