The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 29

I 1 The Orlando Sentinel Catalogs that guarantee to beat holiday shopping deadline The Gadget Guru, D-2 MONDAY, December 20, 1993 mmMm nJC J1(S Cf 1111 1 1 1 Greg Dawson TELEVISION UvLziLJ It'S thE J. -v'mJm A I 1 A uo. p' 0 i A 1 "if I 3 n- I -A i if -v I danaTtasviosentiiSJ'- You can run but you can't hide from the tensions that surface during holiday gatherings By Loraine O'Connell OF THE SENTINEL STAFF ii As we partake of another joyous holiday season, surrounded by our spouses' loved ones, let us give thanks that we have to endure these people only a few times a year. For many people, the holidays are an ex-, ercise in patience as they deal with the parents and siblings of the one they love. "I never liked the way my mother-in-law treated my husband," says Amy, an Orlando consultant.

"Peter would just put up with it, but I'm more vocal." (Like the other spouses interviewed for this article, Amy, 34, and Peter, 35, didn't want their real names used) "My husband didn't get along with his parents very well," Amy says, so tension was always in the air when his mom and dad were around. The tension exploded one Thanksgiving while Amy and Peter were visiting his parents. "I went downstairs and found my mother-in-law ridiculing him and I asked what was going on," Amy recalls. "She told me it was none of my business. I said, 'Want to bet? It involves my husband, it's my business!" Thus began a 45-minute free-for-all between Amy and Audrey, Peter's mom.

"She told me I wasn't wanted there, and I said, 'Fine, I'm Actually, she and Peter left the next morning without encountering his mom again didn't come out of her Amy and Audrey didn't speak for three years. You won't find scenes like that in any Norman Rockwell painting. Family therapists say the reality of family life conflicts with sentimentalized de-t pictions of it because we are, after all, only human. As such, we're susceptible to foibles that don't crop up in Rockwellian fantasies personality conflicts, power struggles and immaturity. Robin Chapman is the consummate pro How did it come to this? How did it happen that WESH-Channel 2 anchor Robin Chapman, the premier anchor on Orlando TV, lost her job? Mart of the explanation may lie in the very qualities that made Chapman the best: her intelligence and sophistication, her sharp wit and pithy needling of "the boys" on the set, her penchant for historical and literary references all set her apart from the anchor crowd and maybe from some viewers too.

put it bluntly, in a conservative TV market where ratings suggest the audience likes its female anchors soft and cuddly, Chapman may have been too smart and sassy. Chapman's demotion and the continuing ratings dominance of WFTV-Channel 9's Eyewitness News, with co-anchors Bob Opsahl and Maria Weech, is a reminder that local TV news is not Jeopardy! or the G.E. College Bowl. If it were, Channel 2 would be raking in the prizes and money, and Bob and Maria would be the ones standing there with their fingers on the button waiting for a question about Maria Maples they could answer. it is, though, WESH remains mired in second place behind WFTV, while WCPX-Channel 6 is stalled in third (though the last sweeps period showed some progress since Uncle Bud Hedinger replaced Michelle Muro).

felt it had to do something to shake up its chemistry, and Chapman was the illogical choice as scapegoat. She is wearing the horns gracefully. handling of her demotion is in sharp contrast to Muro's amateurish snit after she was similarly demoted in September. Muro remains off the air but on the payroll, in self-imposed exile, still refusing to accept a new assignment. i Chapman, the consummate pro, was philosophical about her fate, counting herself lucky next to laid-off Martin Marietta workers, and said she likely would take the weekend anchor slot being vacated by Wendy Chioji her replacement as co-anchor on the 5:30 and 11 p.m.

weekday newcasts. Chapman is 43 and Chioji is 32, the gap evident in the photos that ran with the initial story in Friday's Sentinel. Some speculated that Chapman's age was a factor in her demise, but WESH news director John Harris said no. It's a believable denial. After all, Chap-man looks virtually the same today as she when she was named Steve Rondin-aro's co-anchor in 1990.

If age meaning image were a factor, she wouldn't have been hired in the first place. With apologies to James Carville: It was the Nielsens, stupid. Let's hope Chapman follows her first instinct and returns to Channel 2 after the first of the year in a weekend anchor position. She probably will it's the smart thing to do. Meanwhile, resurgent Channel 6 continues to make moves proving it's serious about challenging WFTV and WESH in the local news sweepstakes.

Starting Jan. 10 WCPX will add a 5:30 p.m. weekday newscast co-anchored by David Wittman and Mary Hamill. Witt-man will continue to co-anchor the 6 p.m. newscast with Hedinger, and Hamill will retain her co-anchor slot with Hedinger oh the 11p.m.

show. Channel 6 general manager Mike Schweitzer said the new 5:30 show will be straightforward newscast, unlike the last WCPX attempt at a 5:30 newscast that featured frantic, disjointed reports from correspondent Bob Sokoler (now at an Atlanta station). That same week (Jan. 15 and 16) WCPX will enter the weekend-news derby with a two-hour newscast on Saturday mornings (6 to 8 a.m.) and a lV4-hour show on Sunday mornings 6 to 7 a.m. with an additional half-hour from 10:30 to 11.

CBS' Face the Nation, which currently airs at 10:30, moves to 11 a.m. Anchors for the weekend newscast have not been announced, but news director Ron Bilek said Craig Eicher and Joan Conley are "good possibilities." In unveiling the expanded newscasts plus a new Lake County bureau Schweitzer also announced a long-overdue upgrading of news-gathering hard- i fl.u 1 "Most of us believe that people have control over us or that we have control over them," says Gini Cucuel, a Winter Park marriage and family therapist. "We're brought up that way because parents control their kids. So we believe that those who are big and powerful control other people." When things get uncomfortable or arguments erupt, "we believe we have to jump in and control the situation to make it come out OK," she says. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

"The only thing we have any power over at all is our own mind," she says. The trick is to make up your mind before the holiday get-together that "the only; thing I can control is me and I'm going to have a pleasant time" come heck or high water. Easy for her to say, right? No, really you can enjoy yourself, even Please see IN-LAWS, D-2 to hurt or insult you, but, as I said, I don't want to spend Christmas Day watching parades on TV." Practice your new assertivenesr someplace safe before dealing witr your in-laws. Learn how to assert your-r self with some friends by, for example, changing plans with them. Offer to be helpful whenever you're asking someone else to adapt to yout-lifestyle, For instance, if you're and don't want to suck down the usual; family feast of dry turkey and greasy gravy, say, "Would you mind if I bring! something for myself to eat so can.

stay on the weight program I'm following?" SOURCES: Family therapists Gini Cucuel, of Winter Park, and Gary Wolter- ing, of Orlando. Demonstrate an attitude that will contribute to lessening conflicts. Make 4 A dear to yourself and to relatives that this holiday is a here-and-now oppor- tunity to get together, not an excuse to rehash old hurts and Be supportive of your spouse later on, but don't Interject yourself Into longstanding family conflicts or arguments. Let the people involved deal with It. When they think they've ended Metitend.

If you're feeling manipulated or pressured to do something you really hate, be assertive but not belligerent. State your point of view, acknowledg-. ing that the other person may not like It; emphasize that you're not trying to hurt or Insult the person but stick to your decision. Example: "I don't mean Consumers are wary of FDA's look at vitamins BOSTON QLOBE The man, who wears Big Bird's feathers For 25 years Carroll Spinney as waddled through his working day as the big yellow canary on 'Sesame Street' By Dave Saltonstall NEW YORK DAILY NEWS EW YORK It's hard to imagine a more familiar figure than Big Bird, that goofy 8-foot canary who has introduced millions of young 44 Americans to such quandaries as reading, writing and basic human decency. But ask those same kids about Carroll Spinney and expect to get a long, blank stare.

That's because Spinney is Big Bird, the man behind all those feathers, and for the last 25 years he has guarded his identity like a hawk guards its nest "It's like when a magician does a trick and makes a lady disappear," said Spinney, 59, explaining his Vitamin supplements, popped by an estimated 60 million to 100 million people in this country, have become as American as cheeseburgers. Americans actually spent as much last year on supplements as they did on compact discs about $4 billion, according to the Council for Responsible Nutrition, an industry trade group. But while the federal government has no plans, presumably, to snatch cheeseburgers from the mouths of grease- and salt-loving Americans, no matter how many studies link bad diets to heart disease and cancer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering regulatory changes for the dietary supplements industry. And that has manufacturers and consumers up in arms.

A pamphlet being distributed nationwide in health-food stores urges consumers to "Write to Congress today or kiss your supplements goodbye!" And write they have even though the likelihood of having to kiss most supplements goodbye appears remote. U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, is getting 1,000 to 5,000 letters a week, most favoring a bill she has co-sponsored that would allow manufacturers to continue making health claims on bottles without FDA approval. Please see VITAMINS, D-2 'I "mm '4 long-neia aesire to remain somewhat apart.

"I don't want to know where she went I want to think, Wow, she's And I think that's particularly true for Kids have always been Spinney's prima nware i or nis iroops uie iieia ana in uie newsroom. 1 1 i i ry concern. But these days as Sesame FILE PHOTOS Street and the Children's Television Workshop celebrate their 25th anniversary r-Spinney is granting a few rare interviews. Please see SPINNEY, D-2 xnciuaea is a new sateune-iransmission truck, a "live" truck for remote broadcasts, a computer system for the newsroom and a state-of-the-art graphics i Carroll Spinney says the chance to portray Big Bird is a dream come true..