For my annual Christmas Honors List for the Television Crossover H, I found inspiration in a Christmas song:
"Have a holly jolly Christmas,
and when you walk down the street.
Say hello to friends you know
and everyone you meet."
And that's why this year I'm inducting two old school friends of mine from the talking heads....
No, not the band! I mean those friends of mine who were pundits, brought on screen to expound on their personal realms of expertise. Usually pundits wouldn't be considered, but this is the Christmas Honors List! The Rules are loosened like my pants after a holiday meal, and again, these two guys are old friends of mine.
And as this year is a milestone for the three of us, I figured it was as good a time as any to have them join me in the Hall.
First up....
From Wikipedia:
David Peter Pekoske (born May 5, 1955) is an American government official and retired U.S. Coast Guard vice admiral who served as the seventh administrator of the Transportation Security Administration in the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2017 to 2025. He served as the acting deputy secretary of homeland security from April to November 2019 and again from January to June 2021. From January 20, 2021 to February 2, 2021 he served as acting secretary of homeland security, during the Senate confirmation of Alejandro Mayorkas. Pekoske retired with 33 years of active military service in 2010 as the 26th vice commandant of the Coast Guard.
Pekoske was born in Meriden, Connecticut. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in ocean engineering from the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. He is a 1989 graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University with a Master of Public Administration degree. Pekoske graduated from the MIT Sloan School of Management with an MBA in 1997.
From Alison Sider
[The Wall Street Journal]
01/21/2025
The head of the Transportation Security Administration said he was pushed out of President Trump’s new administration.
TSA Administrator David Pekoske told staff late Monday morning that he had been advised by Trump’s transition team that “my time as your Administrator will end at noon ET today,” the time of Trump’s swearing in, according to a farewell message viewed by The Wall Street Journal. CNN earlier reported on the staff message and Pekoske’s departure.
Trump named Pekoske, a former vice commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, as TSA administrator in 2017. President Biden re-upped him to a second five-year term in 2022. Pekoske said last year that he hoped to stay in the job. It was not immediately clear who would replace him. The Trump transition team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
From Justin Doubleday
[The Federal News Network]
Pekoske’s ouster comes midway through his second five-year term as TSA administrator. DHS and the White House did not respond to questions about the reason behind Pekoske’s dismissal and plans for TSA leadership moving forward.
Trump first nominated Pekoske to serve as TSA administrator in 2017. After being re-nominated by President Joe Biden, the Senate confirmed Pekoske for a second five-year term in 2022.
During his tenure, TSA worked with Congress to grant the agency’s screening workforce a historic pay increase. TSA also negotiated an expanded collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees.
Just my O'Bservation, but I think being jettisoned from a position in the second term of His Flatulence Drumpf was the best thing to happen to David. He won't be tarred and pilloried with the incompetents who would have been surrounding him.
Just my two quatloos....
Here are just a few of the programs on which he appeared. Usually he made the rounds during travel periods of high volume; I think there were a few guest spots in times of crisis for the TSA.
This is hardly a complete list....
GOOD MORNING AMERICA
TSA Administrator
4 episodes
2022–2024
TSA Administrator
5 episodes
2021–2024
TSA Administrator
2 episodes
2021–2024
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS with LESTER HOLT
TSA Administrator
1 episode
2024
FOX NEWS LIVE
(as TSA Administrator David Pekoske)
1 episode
2018
I know he also appeared at least once on MORNING JOE where he was interviewed by Joe Scarborough regarding the holiday travel rush.
“True terror is to wake up one morning
and discover that your high school class is running the country.”
Kurt Vonnegut
Actually, in this case, I thought it was kind of cool.
And for my next school friend to join me (Birthday Honors 2005) in the TVXOHOF, a space case if I ever knew one...
KEITH COWING
From Wikipedia:
Keith Cowing is an American astrobiologist, former NASA employee, and the editor of the American space program blog NASA Watch. He is a credentialed NASA journalist and is known to be a critic of NASA activities and policies.
NASA Watch is a website blog which provides insider information and commentary about the United States space program and the U.S. government agency, NASA. The first posting was in March, 1996. Cowing is a strong supporter of human spaceflight. Cowing started the website when Daniel Goldin was administrator of NASA and at that time expressed harsh criticism of Goldin's policies. The inciting event for Keith was the mass layoffs in the transition from Space Station Freedom to the International Space Station. For several years, NASA refused to accredit Cowing as a journalist and denied him access to NASA media events. Cowing was eventually granted full press accreditation.
Cowing was a firm supporter of Goldin's successor as administrator, Sean O'Keefe, appointed by George W. Bush. Cowing also obtained exclusive first-hand information about the genesis of the Vision for Space Exploration, detailed in the book "New Moon Rising" which Cowing wrote with Frank Sietzen.
From MuckRack
Keith Cowing is trained as a biologist (M.A. and B.A. degrees) and has a multidisciplinary background with experience and expertise that ranges from spacecraft payload integration and biomedical peer review to journalism and website authoring. He once worked as a professional Sign Language interpreter. Keith has participated in 3 month-long expeditions to a remote island near the North Pole and spent a month living at Everest Base Camp covering the first ascent of that mountain by an astronaut. Keith also likes to restore old spacecraft and retrieve their data - especially when the experts tell him that such things are impossible.
From cowing.com
Keith has appeared hundreds of times on television and radio including ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox, NPR, CSPAN, VOA, CNN, PBS, CBC, CTV, CGTN, Discovery Channel, NHK, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and the Travel Channel and has been quoted in a number of newspapers and magazines ranging from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times to The Economist, Wired, and Pravda, among others. Keith appears regularly as a guest on BBC TV and radio and on CGTN.
I'm afraid I don't have all those hundreds of times he appeared on TV, but I have enough to satisfy the requirements. (Even though the Rules are often cast aside when it comes to Honors List inductees.)
NOVA
[special thanks]
1 episode
2008
WORLD TODAY
SABC-TV [South Africa]
TAGESSCHAU
Self
1 episode
2024
Self
1 episode
2021
ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES
[MSNBC]
BBC
MORNING EXPRESS with ROBIN MEADE
Self (archive footage)
1 episode
2021
DEUTSCHE WELLE (Germany)
CBTN (China)
He even showed he was a real trouper by appearing on CNN on his birthday!
It's nice to have a couple of Meridenites with me in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame. They will probably be the only ones, but at least one of my friends from the UConn Theater Department joined me - Shirley Jordan as a Conflated Nurse. And trumpeter Rebecca Steinberg, daughter of another UConn Drama Gumby (Beth Brooks Steinberg), is in as well as a member of the League of Themselves.
Merry Christmas, Team Toobworld!
