Amazon enters the war of streaming content as consumers abandon cable and traditional TV programming, and local donors make a local children's hospital a reality

 * ... AMAZON: The long, slow decline of cable and local TV is showing signs of accelerating with the announcement by Amazon of plans to stream popular new content via its Prime membership.

The idea: offer Amazon's Prime members (they pay $99 a year for free shipping and streaming video) access to Showtime, Starz and more channels at a low added cost. As noted in The Los Angeles Times: "Traditional pay-TV operators have struggled for years to come up with easy-to-use streaming options for their consumers." Amazon's move is similar to that of Hulu and Netflix, which charge a monthly fee so folks can cut the cord to traditional cable. This fragmentation in programming has been long in the works, and it has already taken its toll on the once robust marketshare of the major networks and their local affiliates. Millennials and those younger are leading the charge in cutting the cord (there has been a 16 percent decline in viewership for young adults aged 18-24), and it won't be long before most of us are cobbling together streaming options that bypass cable.

 * ... MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: We live in a generous community, and sometimes we forget to thank those for have done so much to lift the tide for all of us. So here's a big hats off to all the people who contributed to the Bolthouse Family Pediatric Department and the Helen Taylor Cobbs Children's Healing Garden over at Memorial Hospital's Lauren Small Children's Medical Center. (Joe and Jana Campbell funded the garden in memory of Jana's late mother, who loved gardening). Memorial is doing something important here, putting together a facility so local families with ailing children will not have to leave town for treatment.

 * ... NORM HOFFMAN: I took a short bike ride up Fairfax Road the other day and noticed that someone repainted the yin-yang symbol at the spot where Norm Hoffman was struck and killed by a motorist back in 2001. Hoffman, the popular Bakersfield College health professor with a larger-than-life personality, inspired many with his healthy lifestyle, outgoing personality and emphasis on the spiritual. The ancient Chinese symbol for yin-yang was painted after its death, it faded, but someone freshened it to remind us of a life well lived.

 * ... POLITICAL HUMOR: A Muslim journalist from Chicago posted this on Twitter: "Does anyone know if the concentration camps Trump is planning for us Muslims will have WiFi?"

* ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "Beer comes from hops. Hops are plants. Beer is salad."

 * ... SPOTTED: On Mount Vernon near the Starbucks a late model SUV is spotted with these two messages taped to its windows: "Radical Muslims R Here ... Buy a Gun!"

 * ... ACTIS: Hats off to the girls volleyball team from Actis Jr. High, the lone team from the San Joaquin Valley to make it to a tournament in Los Angeles. The team compiled an overall record of 37-3 and capped off the historic season with a 16-14 victory over Commerce Jr. High in the final game on the LA tournament. Congrats to coach Dan Letourneau, his coaches (daughters) and these amazing student athletes. 

Millennials give up on network and cable TV, disrupting yet another industry, a decorated Vietnam veteran responds to a columnist and another fall fund raiser for Saint Vincent de Paul center

 * ... CABLE: Big changes have come to traditional TV and cable programming, and not surprisingly the millennials are leading the way. The latest research shows the millennials (aged 18 to 34) are

abandoning cable, not watching traditional network television and instead "grazing" the internet and watching niche programming on their smartphones, computers and tablets. This, of course, has huge consequences for TV viewership and advertising, and it affirms what analysts have been saying: "Among viewers 14 to 25, TVs finally have lost out... Millennial households without children are the least likely to have cable - one quarter use the internet or antennas instead." Likewise, the New York Times reported that "time spent on smartphone based entertainment - music, videos, games (but not instant messaging or social media) - has doubled in just a little more than a year among those 18 to 34."

 * ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard."

 * ... GASPAR: Joe Drew, who recently retired from Tejon Ranch, served in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot and had this reaction to a recent column by Jose Gaspar in The Californian: "I read Jose Gaspar’s article on how Ben Carson’s comments about Muslims are demoralizing them. For me, the absolute lack of condemnation of ISIS from the Imam’s leading American Muslim religious communities is an import indicator of where the Muslim community stands on its commitments to our country. And this goes all the way back to 9/11." (file photo of Joe Drew)

 * ... STEAK: There are few better combinations in life than a Gary Icardo-cooked Harris Ranch New York steak and helping a cook cause. Add to that near perfect weather and you have the annual Fall BBQ at the Saint Vincent de Paul Center on Baker Street, where Gary and Adam Icardo will hold court to help the less fortunate in our community. The event is this Thursday beginning at 5 p.m. at 316 Baker Street. Cost is just $25 person.

 * ... ACHIEVER: Hats off to Hilary Gevondyan, a Bakersfield High School graduate who now works for First Republic Bank as vice president and associate general counsel. Some of her remarkable non-work activities include serving in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan, providing pro-bono legal counsel to immigrants seeking asylum and teaching a class at the Berkeley Law School.

 * ... MEA CULPA: I made a mistake in passing along a query from Darlyn Baker about the identity of a DJ who used to sit on a chimney to greet motorists downtown. The correct location was at 24th and Beech streets and the DJ used to sit up on the roof for days. If you remember who this was, or who sponsored it, let me know.