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« Victoria Beckham | Home Page | Virginia Tech »
Betty White (b. January 17, 1922):
"I love everything with a leg on each corner, but the human animal is a vengeful creature, and we wish very bad things for other human animals."
My favorite Betty White bit, from just two years ago, is here.
Categories: Betty White, Birthdays, Quotes of the day, SNL, Video
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Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. (January 27, 1919 – January 16, 1972), aka David Seville, creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks, was the cousin of writer William Saroyan. Bagdasarian and Saroyan wrote the song "Come on-a My House" in 1939, which became a hit when it was recorded by Rosemary Clooney in 1951.
Categories: Music, Trivia of the day, Video, YouTube
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That was host Craig Ferguson's description of his Late Late Show, and it's fairly accurate.
The above clip is from last year's Labor Day episode, in which Craig's sidekick, a robot skeleton named Geoff Peterson (constructed by Mythbusters engineering whiz Grant Imahara), showed up drunk and responded to the appearance of Secretariat, a recurring gag.
I usually record the show and watch it before going to work. Trust me, starting off with Craig, Geoff and Secretariat better prepares you for the day than watching Today, GMA, or CBS' morning show du jour.
Categories: Craig Ferguson, Late Night TV, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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As Dave Barry would say, You Cannot Make Up This Stuff.
(Colbert Report video: Think Citizens United was a joke? You have no idea...)
"Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,
558 U.S. 08-205 (2010), 558 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 876
(January 21, 2010), was a landmark decision by the United
States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment
prohibits government from placing limits on independent
spending for political purposes by corporations and unions.
The 5–4 decision originated in a dispute over whether the
non-profit corporation Citizens United could air a film
critical of Hillary Clinton, and whether the group could
advertise the film in broadcast ads featuring Clinton's
image, in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign
Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act in
reference to its primary Senate sponsors."
-Wikipedia
By giving corporations First Amendment rights and removing limits on donation size, the Court, in the words of President Obama, "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington- while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates," and "strikes at our democracy itself."
The clip above is simultaneously hilarious, enlightening, and depressing. It's an accurate depiction of how SuperPACs work- although the transfer "ceremony" is optional- and reveals how the Supreme Court gave coporations a blank check.
And, depressingly, it's real. This is what a conservative Supreme Court has done to our election process.
Categories: Campaign Funding, Colbert Report, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Supreme Court, Video, WTF?
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Biography of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, whose off-campus "office" was a topless bar.
Categories: Richard Feynman, Video, YouTube
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In today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, third letter down:
And no, I never received a response to my e-mail from Representative Murphy or his staff.
It could be they're preoccupied with other activities:
(YouTube video of Murphy seizing evidence from a television reporter.)
(YouTube video- whistleblower told to leave Murphy's office. She was fired.)
In case you're wondering, it appears the House Ethics Committee never reported on the charges.
(YouTube video- All it takes is a half-million dollars from a lobbying group to get Murphy's attention.)
Categories: Campaign Funding, Congress, Conservatives, Corruption, Elections, Facebook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Republicans, Tim Murphy, Video, YouTube
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(YouTube video: "Northern Lights," from the series "Northern Exposure")
Goethe's final words: "More light." Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, "More light." Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlight. Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on, the night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on. Arise, shine, for thy light has come. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light. (Psalm 119:105, Dylan Thomas, John Henry Newman, Isaiah 60:1)
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Kirsty MacColl (October 10, 1959 – December 18, 2000), a talented singer-songwriter who died saving her sons from a speeding powerboat.
(YouTube Video: Kirsty MacColl performing "They Don't Know")
Categories: Kirsty MacColl, Music, Video, YouTube
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Two YouTube videos that provide a concentrated distillation of Hitchens' position on religion. Strong language, strong opinions, blinding lucidity.
Categories: Christopher Hitchens, Video, YouTube
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“I always thought, in the death matter, an exception would be made in my case.”-Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens (April 13, 1949 – December 15, 2011) could simultaneously enrage and enlighten, irritate and inform. You have to admire someone who would take on Nietzsche while awaiting the arrival of the final darkness.
Some of Hitchens' contributions and observations...
A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realization that you can't make old friends.
A theory that seems to explain everything is just as good at explaining nothing.
Beware the irrational, however seductive.
Ernest Hemingway used to read his obituaries with a bloody Mary every day to start the day, to ward off depression. It worked for ten years... until he put the shotgun in his face.
Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.
Handed a small baby for the first time, is it your first reaction to think: “Beautiful. Almost perfect. Now please hand me the sharp stone for its genitalia, that I may do the work of the Lord.”
Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
I think [the Bible] reads as if it were written by men and women, and men and women, as we know, are one-half chromosome away from chimpanzees.
I've been nearly scratched by Mother Teresa. I've been nearly spanked by Margaret Thatcher. I could tell you stories...
It is not enough to “have” free speech. People must learn to speak freely.
One of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.
Our prefrontal lobes are too small while our adrenal glands are too big.
Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins.
Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.
The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics.
The place for religion is in the mind, within the individual.
What can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.
Categories: Christopher Hitchens, Passages, Video, YouTube
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(YouTube video: Trailer for "The Three Stooges")
This actually looks like it might work.
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Seventy years ago today, a 19-year-old American aviator was killed overseas.
The Royal Canadian Air Force Spitfire he was piloting collided with another military plane in cloud cover 1,400 feet above the hamlet of Roxholme in Lincolnshire, England.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr. is remembered not for the accident that claimed his life, or for his relation to the wealthy Pittsburgh Magee family, but for a poem he had written a few months earlier and had mailed to his parents on the back of a letter:
"High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, -- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Published after his death, Magee's "High Flight" is now closely associated with military aviators and astronauts.
Speechwriter Peggy Noonan quoted parts of the first and last lines of the poem in remarks she wrote for President Ronald Reagan following the Space Shutle Challenger disaster.
However, most people forty and over are familiar with "High Flight" as a TV station "sign-off":
(YouTube video: "High Flight," often used by television stations to end the broadcast day. This version is from the 1960s)
Categories: High Flight, John Gillespie Magee, Jr., Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan, Video, YouTube
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Alexander (Sandy) Courage, who wrote the enduring, eight-note Fanfare for the Starship Enterprise and the theme to the television series Star Trek, was born on December 10, 1919 in Philadelphia. He died May 15, 2008 in Pacific Palisades, California. He was 88.
Fanfare, written in 1965 for the first of two Star Trek pilots, was heard throughout the three original seasons of the show, has been reprised in all of the Trek feature films and several of the TV series, and may be the single best-known fanfare in the world. When told by writer Jon Burlingame that more people knew his Trek flourish than Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, "Courage- in his typically self-deprecating fashion- said that must surely be an exaggeration," Burlingame reported.
Courage was not the first choice to write the Star Trek theme. Trek creator Gene Roddenberry initially approached Jerry Goldsmith with the assignment. Goldsmith declined because of other commitments, and recommended Courage. Much later, Courage did the orchestrations for Goldsmith's scores for Star Trek- First Contact and Star Trek- Insurrection.
In addition to the fanfare, the series theme and the scores for the two pilot episodes ("The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before"), Courage composed the music for four episodes: "The Man Trap" and "The Naked Time" in the series' first season, and "The Enterprise Incident" and "Plato's Stepchildren" in the third. However, themes from first season score were frequently "tracked" in other episodes.
Jeff Bond of TrekMovie.com ended his comprehensive article on Courage with a quote by Michael Giacchino, who scored J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot:
"... Alexander Courage is responsible for the musical heart to the world of Star Trek. I feel that if you were to strip away everything, bit by bit, in order of importance, the last thing you would be holding in your hands would be the sheet music for the opening fanfare to the Star Trek main theme. To me, that small piece of music is and always shall be Star Trek."
Categories: Alexander Courage, Gene Roddenberry, Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Music, Star Trek, Video, YouTube
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Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. She conceptualized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages. She is credited with popularizing the term "debugging" for fixing computer glitches (motivated by an actual moth removed from the computer). Because of the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as "Amazing Grace." The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) was named for her. (Wikipedia)
Rear Admiral Hopper was profiled on CBS' 60 Minutes in 1982, a year after the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer, but before microcomputers were in widespread use.
A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.
For the rest of your life, every time you say “We've always done it that way,” my ghost will appear and haunt you for twenty-four hours.
It's much easier to apologize sometimes than it is to get permission.
Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems.
You cannot manage a man into combat; you must lead him. You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership.
It's something you learn in your first boot camp or training camp. If they put you down somewhere with nothing to do, go to sleep.
Categories: 60 Minutes, Computers, Grace Hopper, Morley Safer, Video, YouTube
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Calvin Trillin (b. December 5, 1935):
Americans drive across the country as if someone's chasing them.
As far as I'm concerned, “whom” is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.
Health food makes me sick.
I don't care where I sit, as long as I get fed.
I never did very well in math- I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.
If Lincoln freed the slaves and preserved the Union, how come “Lincolnesque” just means tall?
In modern America, anyone who attempts to write satirically about the events of the day finds it difficult to concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while the article is still on the presses.
(Daily Show: Trillin demonstrates how bizarre, concocted satire can become reality.)
Marriage is part of a sort of 50s revival package that's back in vogue along with neckties and naked ambition.
Not as bad as you might have expected.
(his suggested state motto for
New Jersey)
The price of purity is purists.
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served us nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
When someone reaches middle age, people he knows begin to get put in charge of things, and knowing what he knows about the people who are being put in charge of things scares the hell out of him.
Categories: Calvin Trillin, Daily Show, Jon Stewart, Quotes of the day, Satire, Video
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YouTube video: Madeline Kahn (September 29, 1942 – December 3, 1999) as Lili con Shtupp in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974). Kahn received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Categories: Blazing Saddles, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, Passages, Video, YouTube
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Paul Shaffer (b. November 28, 1949) is perhaps best known as late night talk show host David Letterman's band leader, a position he's held since the show's original premiere on NBC in 1982.
That year, a song Shaffer co-wrote in 1979 with Grammy and Academy Award winning composer Paul Jabara was recorded by a duo of plus-sized black women originally called Two Tons o' Fun. To tie in to the theme of the song, the group renamed themselves The Weather Girls. The recording, a disco tune with a driving beat and unusual minor chord progression, was It's Raining Men.
The rest, as they say, is history.
In 1982, I was working as the second-shift supervisor of a financial printing company on the fringes of downtown Pittsburgh, and I always tried to make it home in time to catch Letterman's show.
I vividly remember the night Men made its appearance. Letterman had repeatedly razzed Shaffer about his new disco tune, and when the two huge black women in glittering evening gowns appeared as the now-iconic intro began, I expected a clever disco parody sketch.
Instead, Shaffer's band and the vocalists gave a raw, spontaneous performance that had the audience clapping along and cheering wildly. Letterman admitted they'd "ripped the roof off the joint."
The original performance is here, and it's definitely worth watching. (The video's owner prohibits embedding it here.) It's a rare opportunity to watch the birth of a pop culture phenomenon.
Shaffer gives the history of the song in this interview,
and introduces it at the 2011 Tony Awards, where it's the opening number in the Broadway music adaptation of the film Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Categories: Broadway, It's Raining Men, Music, Paul Shaffer, The Weather Girls, Video, YouTube
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A Thanksgiving tradition since 1978!
Click here.
While recovering from tryptophan poisoning, we recommend watching this great PBS special:
Watch My Life as a Turkey on PBS. See more from NATURE.
Gobble, indeed.
Categories: Holidays, PBS, Video, WKRP in Cincinnati, YouTube
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Born November 23, 1925, Johnny Mandel's original compositions include the themes to two iconic motion pictures: "Suicide is Painless" from M*A*S*H, and "The Shadow of your Smile" from The Sandpiper.
YouTube video: opening credits to "M*A*S*H."
YouTube video: Barbra Streisand's recording of "The Shadow of Your Smile."
Categories: Barbra Streisand, Birthdays, Johnny Mandel, Movies, Video, YouTube
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Robert
F. Kennedy
(November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968)
No politician today is capable of this. No notes, no teleprompter- and he quoted Aeschylus.
I'm a firm believer in not second-guessing the past. But when I see this clip, I can't help but wonder, "what if..." And what has happened to the nation that once produced great men like Bobby? It seems the killers have remained, but, for the most part, the Bobbys and Martins are nowhere to be found.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some- some very sad news for all of you- Could you lower those signs, please?- I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black- considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible- you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.
We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization- black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poem, my- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King- yeah, it's true- but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past, but we- and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Thank you very much.
Categories: Aeschylus, Martin Luther King, Jr., Questions for the Ages, Quotes of the day, Robert F. Kennedy, Video, YouTube
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Remembering the great Cab
Calloway
(December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994)
Cab Calloway as Curtis in The Blues Brothers (1980)
"Boys, you
got to learn not to talk to nuns that way."
(YouTube video: Audio track of Calloway's
"Minnie the Moocher"
from "The Blues Brothers")
Categories: Blues Brothers, Cab Calloway, Music, Video, YouTube
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"They can't stand that a black man, much blacker than Obama, and a real American black, is this right-winger."-Ann Coulter
"Even I'm offended by that, and I'm a racist."-Jon Stewart
("The Daily Show" video, in which Donald Trump expresses outrage at Jon Stewart's racist impression of Herman Cain, and Ann Coulter notes Republican blacks are better than Democratic blacks.)
Categories: Ann Coulter, Conservatives, Daily Show, Donald Trump, Fox News, Herman Cain, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Race, Republicans, Rick Perry, Samantha Bee, Video, Wyatt Cenac
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The cynic in me sometimes thinks candidates and politicians behave this way because they know the game is rigged, the process is a charade, and it just doesn't make any difference who gets elected.
"All of this back and forth debate implies that there are really
choices in this country- that we really have choices. It’s an illusion.
There is no real choice... Americans are meant to feel free by the
exercise of meaningless choice. You know what the choices are in this
country? Paper or plastic, aisle or window, smoking or no smoking.
These are your real choices. You don’t get to choose anything."
-George Carlin
Categories: Daily Show, George Carlin, Herman Cain, Jon Stewart, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Rick Perry, Video
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John Candy, (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994)
(YouTube video of John Candy in a classic SCTV bit.)
Categories: John Candy, SCTV, Video, YouTube
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(YouTube video: Marshall McLuhan's classic cameo from "Annie Hall".)
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century.
All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perception and arbitrary values.
Art at its most significant is a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.
Art is anything you can get away with.
Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity.
Computers can do better than ever what needn’t be done at all. Making sense is still a human monopoly.
Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior.
Good taste is the first refuge of the non-creative.
I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
Money is a poor man's credit card.
One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There's always more than you can cope with.
Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.
Only the vanquished remember history.
Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's jobs with yesterday's tools.
School is the advertising agency which makes you believe you need the society as it is.
Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America- not on the battlefields of Vietnam.
There are no passengers on spaceship Earth. We are all crew.
We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror.
What disqualifies war from being a true game is probably what also disqualifies the stock market and business- the rules are not fully known nor accepted by all the players.
World War III is a guerrilla information war, with no division between military and civilian participation.
Bonus video: Speaking of Annie Hall, here's a favorite scene, featuring an absurdly young Christopher Walken.
Categories: Annie Hall, Christopher Walken, Diane Keaton, Marshall McLuhan, Movies, Quotes of the day, Video, Woody Allen, YouTube
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(Daily Show video: Back in Black-Indoctrinating America's Children)
I'll have to remember to set my DVR... to explode!-Lewis Black
Categories: 9/11, al-Qaeda, Children, Conservatives, Daily Show, Glenn Beck, Hippies, Hunger, Ideologies, Indoctrination, Lewis Black, Mike Huckabee, Occupy Wall Streeet, Poverty, Sesame Street, TV, Video
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Michael Landon and Whit Bissell in I Was a Teenage Werewolf
(1957), and Bissell as Mr. Lurry, manager of tribble-infested Deep
Space Station K-7 in the original Star Trek episode The Trouble
With Tribbles (1967).
(YouTube video: Trailers from Whit's teenage monster classics.)
As old-time O'Brien and Garry listeners know, today is an auspicious date: Whit Bissell's birthday.
Whit (October 25, 1909-March 6, 1996) was an alumnus of the Carolina Playmakers, the prestigious amateur theatrical arm of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
He entered films with 1943's Holy Matrimony, instantly establishing his standard screen characterization of fussy officiousness. Twice as busy on TV as he was in theatrical films, Bissell had a minor role in the 1960 George Pal classic The Time Machine, starred as Woodrow Wilson on a 1965 episode of the Profiles in Courage anthology, and co-starred in Irwin Allen's futuristic adventure series The Time Tunnel.
Lovers of low-budget 1950s horror films have a special place in their hearts for Whit Bissell's brace of "mad scientist" portrayals in I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957); it was in the latter film that the admirably straight-faced Bissell uttered the immortal line:
"Answer me! I know you have a civil tongue in your mouth-I sewed it there myself!"
For his contributions to science fiction films, Bissell received a life
career award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror
Films in 1994. He served on the Screen Actors Guild board of directors
for nearly two decades.
-Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Categories: Irwin Allen, Michael Landon, Movies, Star Trek, The Time Tunnel, TV, Video, Whit Bissell, YouTube
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(You Tube video: Bob Dylan performs his "Political World")
We live in a political world
Love don’t have any place
We’re living in times where men commit crimes
And crime don’t have a face
We live in a political world
Icicles hanging down
Wedding bells ring and angels sing
Clouds cover up the ground
We live in a political world
Wisdom is thrown into jail
It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell
Leaving no one to pick up a trail
We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank
Life is in mirrors, death disappears
Up the steps into the nearest bank
We live in a political world
Where courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted, children are unwanted
The next day could be your last
We live in a political world
The one we can see and can feel
But there’s no one to check, it’s all a stacked deck
We all know for sure that it’s real
We live in a political world
In the cities of lonesome fear
Little by little you turn in the middle
But you’re never sure why you’re here
We live in a political world
Under the microscope
You can travel anywhere and hang yourself there
You always got more than enough rope
We live in a political world
Turning and a-thrashing about
As soon as you’re awake, you’re trained to take
What looks like the easy way out
We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all
It’s turned away from the door to wander some more
Or put up against the wall
We live in a political world
Everything is hers or his
Climb into the frame and shout God’s name
But you’re never sure what it is
Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music
Categories: Bob Dylan, Music, Video, YouTube
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Gene Roddenberry attends the 25th Anniversary Gala
for Star Trek
at Paramount Studios in Hollywood
on June 6, 1991.
(Source: www.film.com)
Since his death on October 24, 1991, a half-dozen authorized and unauthorized biographies and tell-all books indicate that Gene Roddenberry was a serial adulterer, somewhat two-faced, and not above claiming credit for all things Star Trek, ignoring the considerable contributions of others who created many of the most iconic elements of the franchise.
Indeed, the majority of the more than 700 hours of television episodes and motion pictures with Star Trek in the title were either produced after Roddenberry's death or with little input from him. Paramount "promoted" him to executive consultant of the Trek films after the disaster that was Star Trek: The Motion Picture and handed the actual production responsibility to Harve Bennett, Ralph Winter, Leonard Nimoy, Rick Berman, and others.
Consider the Trek-based gizmos that are now commonplace. The communicator (cell phone), the tricorder (smartphone), the prehistoric "bluetooth" earpieces worn by Spock and Uhura- while Roddenberry had final approval, these were all the creations of designer Matt Jeffries, who's virtually unknown outside the Trek universe.
To which I say... so what?
The fact remains that whenever and wherever Star Trek appears, you'll see the credit "Created by Gene Roddenberry" somewhere. And his creation is one of remarkable cultural influence, far beyond "Beam me up, Scotty" and that great Vulcan pon farr battle music that should, by federal law, accompany all fights at hockey games. Much of the technology we use today was inspired by that kitschy 1960s show with the plywood and styrofoam sets.
Think I'm kidding? Watch:
(YouTube video of Steve Jobs explaining the driving force behind his design philosophy.)
That's why Roddenberry- and Star Trek- will never fade from our collective consciousness.
-----
(I vividly recall Roddenberry's death, mainly because it was the first time I used e-mail to tell a friend breaking news. I dialed into DEC Professional magazine's VAX system and sent a VMS mail message to my editor, Lou Pilla. It would be two years later- 1993- before I connected to the Internet. Egads. I'm ancient.)
Categories: Apple, Passages, Star Trek, Steve Jobs, Video, YouTube
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"It's gotta be tough [for Republicans] to love America so much, but to
hate almost three-quarters of the people living in it."
-Jon
Stewart
("The Daily Show" assembles yet another brilliant set of hypocrisy-laden clippage.)
Categories: Allen West, Americans, Chris Christie, Class warfare, Climate Change, Congress, Conservatives, Corporate Welfare, Corporations, Corruption, Daily Show, Devin Nunes, Economy, Education, Eric Cantor, Family Research Council, Heritage Foundation, Hypocrisy, Jim DeMint, John Carter, John Thune, Kevin McCarthy (Representative), Lawyers, LGBT, Liberals, Louie Gohmert, Marco Rubio, Media and Advertising, Michele Bachmann, Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Norm Coleman, Occupy Wall Streeet, Paul Ryan, Phil Gingrey, Planned Parenthood, Politics, Progressives, Public Employees, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Scott Brown, Steve King, Taxes, Teabaggers, Tea Party, Ted Poe, Unions, Video
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S.J. Perelman, (February 1, 1904 - October 17, 1979)
Fate was dealing from the bottom of the deck.
For years I have let dentists ride roughshod over my teeth; I have been sawed, hacked, chopped, whittled, bewitched, bewildered, tattooed, and signed on again; but this is cuspid's last stand.
I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws.
I loathe writing. On the other hand I'm a great believer in money.
Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin- it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring.
Philadelphia, a metropolis sometimes known as the City of Brotherly Love, but more accurately as the City of Bleak November Afternoons.
The dubious privilege of a freelance writer is he's given the freedom to starve anywhere.
The main obligation is to amuse yourself.
(YouTube video of a 1973 S.J. Perelman interview.)
Categories: Quotes of the day, Satire, Video, YouTube
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(YouTube video: 2008 version of Barry McGuire's classic.)
Barry McGuire is 76, Eve of Destruction is 46, and they're both still valid.
Categories: Barry McGuire, Birthdays, Eve of Destruction, Music, Video, YouTube
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aka John Denver, (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997)
(YouTube video of John Denver and Lene Siel performing "Perhaps Love".)
My favorite John Denver song. I prefer the simple acoustic versions to the hit arrangement with Placido DOmingo.
Categories: John Denver, Music, Video, YouTube
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The Phantom of the Opera officially premiered October 9, 1986 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London's West End. It opened in New York in January, 1986, and it's still playing- making it the longest-running musical in Broadway history.
The 25th anniversary performance at Prince Albert Hall was filmed- which means a complete recording of the show will finally be available on DVD and Blu-Ray. Here's hoping they collect and destroy the remaining copies of the 2004 film, which was nothing short of an abomination.
Categories: Broadway, Cameron Mackintosh, Music, Phantom of the Opera, Video, YouTube
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Forty-two years ago today, the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus was aired on the BBC, and humor was forever changed.
(YouTube video: The Philosophers' Drinking Song)
Categories: Monty Python, Video, YouTube
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Warning: contains vulgar but entirely appropriate language.
(YouTube video of John Cleese, Michael Palin, and Eric Idle speak at Graham Chapman's memorial service.)
Categories: Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Monty Python, Video, YouTube
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(YouTube video: "Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die)
By now you must know there is always a goodbye hovering in the shadow of a dog. We are never here for long, or for long enough. We were never meant to share all of your life, only to mark its passages. We come and we go. We come when we are needed; we leave when it is time. Death is necessary; it defines life. I will see you again. I will watch over you. I hope in your grief and loneliness, that you will consider how sad it would have been, had we not had this time together; not had the chance to give each other so much. I do not mourn or grieve. But I will miss standing beside you, bound together on our walk through life. Even as I know, there is a long line of others waiting to take my place and stand with you. Thank you. It was nothing but a gift.
Remembering Deja, Sasha, Quark, and Beanie.
Categories: Animals, Cats, Dogs, Passages, Video, YouTube
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"You had your shot, guys. For one shining moment, you weren't the biggest boobs on television."
(The Daily Show video: Nancy's wardrobe malfunction, Fox and Friends' seventh grade hazing of Chaz Bono continues.)
Categories: Brian Kilmeade, Chaz Bono, Daily Show, Dancing with the Stars, Fox and Friends, Fox News, Gretchen Carlson, Jon Stewart, Nancy Grace, Steve Doocy, Video
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(YouTube video of trader predicting European economic collapese.)
Categories: BBC, Financial Melt Down, Video, YouTube
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(YouTube video: Weird Al Yankovic's "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me")
Oh the sand keeps falling through the hourglass And there's no way you're going to slow it down You say we gotta treasure each moment Who knows how long we're gonna be around Yeah you keep on telling me life is short And its hard to disagree with what you say But if time is so precious why ya wasting mine 'Cause I'm always reading, always deleting Every useless piece of garbage that you send my way Every stupid hoax All those corny jokes Stop forwarding that crap to me Well I don't need tons of cringe-inducing puns Stop forwarding that crap to me No it isn't okay if you brighten my day With some cut-and-pasted hackneyed Hallmark poetry And I didn't request a personality test Stop forwarding that crap to me Ahhhh... You're sending virus-laden bandwidth-hogging attachments To every single person you know You're passing around a link to some dumb thing on YouTube That everybody else already saw three years ago And wacky badly Photoshopped billboards Were never that amusing to me And I just can't believe you believe those urban legends But I have high hopes Someone will point you toward Snopes And debunk that crazy junk you're spewing constantly No I don't want a bowl of Chicken Soup for the Soul Stop forwarding that crap to me Send more top 10 lists and I'll slash my wrists Please stop forwarding that crap to me Well I'm sorry i can't accept your paranoid rant And I don't want the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe Won't you kindly refrain 'cause it's hurting my brain Stop forwarding... that crap to me Like glittery hearts and unicorns And pictures of somebody's cat Now tell me, in what alternate reality Would I care about something like that? And by the way, your quotes from George Carlin Aren't really George Carlin Mr. Rogers never fought the Viet Cong And Bill Gates is never gonna give me somethin' for nothin' And I really doubt some dead girl is gonna kill me If I don't pass her letter along Well now I know you're wishin' I'll sign your petition But stop forwarding that crap to me And I don't want to read your series Of conspiracy theories Just stop forwarding that crap to me And your two million loser friends All have my address now, 'Cause you never figured out the way to BCC Now I gotta insist Take me off of your list Stop forwarding that crap to me (Stop forwarding that crap to me) (Stop forwarding that crap to me) (Stop forwarding that crap to me) (Stop forwarding that crap to me) Just stop it now (Stop forwarding that crap to me) Oh, no (Stop forwarding that crap to me) Ohhh... (Stop forwarding that crap to me) I can't take it (Stop forwarding that crap to me) Aw, please (Stop forwarding that crap to me) (Stop forwarding that crap to me) You gotta stop (Stop forwarding that crap to me) Right now (Stop forwarding that crap to me) (Stop forwarding that crap to me) I'm not kidding! (Stop forwarding that crap to me) At the risk of being slightly repetitious Gonna ask you now to stop! (Stop!) Sending me that... (Crap!) I don't want it! Don't send it to me Now don't send it to me! (Stop forwarding that crap to me) Just stop! (Stop forwarding that crap to me) Ohh... Stop forwarding that crap to me To me
Categories: Music, Parody, Video, Weird Al Yankovic, YouTube
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You can't think of Bob Fosse (June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987) and not remember "Bye Bye Life," the spectacular ending of his semi-autobiographical All That Jazz (1979).
(YouTube video of the "Bye Bye Life" finale. Warning: contains brief nudity.)
When it's time to shuffle off this mortal coil, most just limp into an ill-defined tunnel with a light at its end. Fosse's Joe Gideon character does it with a Palme d'Or-winning Broadway finale.
The ending is abrupt and unsettling. Only Fosse could blend body bags and Ethel Merman and make it work.
Categories: All That Jazz, Bob Fosse, Broadway, Ethel Merman, Music, Video, YouTube
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Trying to get today's Republican to accept basic facts is like trying to get your dog to take a pill. You have to give them the truth wrapped in a piece of baloney, hold their snouts shut, and stroke their throats. And even then, just when you think they’ve swallowed it, they spit it out on the linoleum.
(YouTube video in which Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann explain the density of Republicans.)
Categories: Barack Obama, Fox News, Keith Olbermann, New Rules, Republicans, Tea Party, Video, Winston Churchill, YouTube
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Former Vice President Dick Cheney garners sympathy from an unusual source: The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.
("The Daily Show" clip: citing Obi-Wan.)
Categories: Alec Guinness, Barbara Walters, Carrot Top, Daily Show, Darth Vader, Dick Cheney, Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, Late Night TV, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars, The View, Video
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The Daily Show remembers 9/13... the day we started forgetting...
Categories: 9/11, ACLU, Al Madrigal, al-Qaeda, Americans, Anderson Cooper, Ann Coulter, Atheism, Brit Hume, Campaign Funding, Christians/Christianity, Church and State, CNN, Conservatives, Daily Show, Democrats, Faith, First Amendment, Fox News, Freedom, Glenn Beck, God, Government, Ground Zero, Homeland Security, Hypocrisy, Islam, Jason Jones, Jerry Falwell, Jon Stewart, Katie Couric, Lies, Media and Advertising, Middle East, Moral Majority, MSNBC, Neal Asbury, News Corporation, New York, Olivia Munn, Painful, Pat Robertson, Politics, Pundits, Radical Islam, Religion, Roger Ailes, Rudy Giuliani, Rupert Murdoch, Samantha Bee, Stupidity, Terrorists, U.S. Constitution, Video, Wahhabists, WTF?, Wyatt Cenac
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You may not know his name, but you've heard his music.
Hoyt Curtin (9/9/1922-12/3/2000) wrote most of the now-iconic music for all of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series from Ruff and Ready in the 50s through The Smurfs in the 70s- 145 themes in all.
Curtin is perhaps most remembered for his themes to The Flintstones and The Jetsons, but his music for Jonny Quest is perhaps the best example of great 60s jazz:
Categories: Animation, Birthdays, Cartoon, Hanna-Barbera, Hoyt Curtin, Jonny Quest, Music, Video, YouTube
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..but I'm pretty certain the "you can't wear white after Labor Day" meme didn't become widespread until Kathleen Turner killed Patty Hearst(!?) for committing the offense in John Waters' 1994 cult favorite, "Serial Mom:"
(YouTube video: "Serial Mom" excerpt)
Categories: Fashion, John Waters, Kathleen Turner, Movies, Patty Hearst, Satire, Serial Mom, Video, YouTube
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Happy 82nd birthday to the incomparable Bob Newhart.
(YouTube video of Bob Newhart and Dean Martin in "The Hairpiece Sketch.")
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do.
And for the people who like country music, denigrate means "put down."
-Bob
Newhart
Categories: Birthdays, Bob Newhart, Dean Martin, Quotes of the day, Video, YouTube
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(You Tube video)
Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag
on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands
free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget's stretched
so thin
And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war
We can't
make it here anymore
That big ol' building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it
paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We
can't make it here anymore
See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock?
They're just
gonna sit there till they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing
to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts
around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You
don't come down here 'less you're looking to score
We can't make it
here anymore
The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the
register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular
crowd gets thinner each day
Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs
and living in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a
drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how
far five fifteen an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your
stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore
High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the
magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with
kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do?
Forget
the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High
on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You
can't make it here anymore
Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we
made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't
make it here anymore
Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of
their eyes or the shape I'm in?
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs
today?
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all
now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've
never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and
their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the damn little war
And
we can't make it here anymore
Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us
the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor
get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let
'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join
the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore
And that's how it is
That's what we got
If the president wants to
admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear
it on the wind
If you're listening at all
Get out of that limo
Look
us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why
In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the
great high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And
the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday
heat
There's rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang
graffiti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore
Music and lyrics © 2004 by James McMurtry
Categories: Civil Rights, Class warfare, Conservatives, Consumerism, Corporate Jet Class, Corporations, Deficit, Drugs, Economy, Education, Federal Budget / Spending, Financial Melt Down, Government, Immigration, In the news, James McMurtry, Jesus, Liberals, Libertarians, Middle East, Military, Music, Politics, Poverty, Progressives, Religion, Republicans, Signs of the Apocalypse, Taxes, Teabaggers, Tea Party, Unemployment, Veterans, Video, Wall Street, Wal Mart, Wealth, Welfare, Women, YouTube
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Amanda Tapping ("Stargate," "Sanctuary") is 46 today.
(You Tube video: Outtake from "Stargate SG-1," in which Ms. Tapping loses it with Richard Dean Anderson.)
Categories: Amanda Tapping, Birthdays, Stargate, Video, YouTube
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Widespread property rearrangement.
Is it over?
Eyewitness Action Breaking NewsTeam footage of official response.
Categories: Earthquake, Photo of the day, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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Whoopi Goldberg, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Ben and Amy Stiller, Lewis Lapham, Kevin Smith, Dylan Brody, Kelly Carlin, Tony Hendra, Patrick Carlin, Floyd Abrams, and Louis C.K. eulogize Geoege Carlin at a New York Public Library event celebrating the release of his autobiography, "Last Words."
It's well worth the hour and 44 minutes of your time. There's an accurate transcript also available here.
"Sliding headfirst down a vagina with no clothes on and landing in the
freshly shaven crotch of a screaming woman did not seem to be part of
God’s plan for me, at least not at first."
-George
Carlin, "Last Words"
Categories: George Carlin, Video
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"How did Libertarian Ron Paul become the thirteenth floor in a hotel?"-Jon Stewart
(The Daily Show video: "Even when the media does remember Ron Paul, it's only to reassure themselves that there's no need to remember Ron Paul."(04:20))
Categories: Chris Wallace, Daily Show, Gary Busey, Iowa, Jon Huntsman, Jon Stewart, Media and Advertising, Meet the Press, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Mormons, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Video, WTF?
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(Daily Show video, in which Jon Stewart again highlights conservative hypocrisy.)
The Daily Show's crack research team comes through again. Don't those idiots at Fox realize they save the tapes?!
The full hypocritical comment Kelly made was:
"The United States is the only country in the advanced world that doesn't require paid maternity leave. Now I happen to work for a nice employer that gave me paid leave. But the United States is the only advanced country that doesn't require paid leave. If anything, the United States is in the dark ages when it comes to maternity leave. And what is it about carrying a baby for nine months, that you don't think deserves a few months off so bonding and recovery can take place, hmm?"
As Jon Stewart noted, "This is the problem with entitlements. They're really only entitlements when they're something other people want. When it's something you want, they're a hallmark of a civilized society, the foundation of a great people. I just had a baby and found out maternity leave strengthens society. But since I still have a job, unemployment benefits are clearly socialism. To put it more simply, [cut to George Carlin clip] Have you noticed their stuff is sh*t, and you sh*t is stuff?"
Mrs, "It's not an entitlement if I want it" is right about one thing: the way the United States treats parents is barbaric, compared to other countries.
Categories: Chris Wallace, Conservatives, Daily Show, Family and Medical Leave Act, Fox News, George Carlin, Jon Stewart, Megyn Kelly, Mike Gallagher, Rachel Maddow, Republicans, Video
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"I'm going to virtualize you fools."
There is nothing Mr. T can't sell.
Categories: Media and Advertising, Mr. T, Video, YouTube
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The Daily Show was 15 years old this past Thursday, and for the past 12 years it's been The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Since then, the program has won over a dozen Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards, and 44% of those participating in a 2009 Time magazine online poll voted Stewart "America's most trusted newscaster," 15% ahead of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.Stewart calls his show "fake news," and while the segments feature biting satire and over the top delivery, it often reports stories with far more impact and context than corporate media outlets. It's particularly incisive when the show's staff of researchers assembles clips of politicians contradicting or denying prior statements. "What is it with you guys?" Stewart once asked after one the damning compilations. "Don't you realize we save the tapes?"
The most egregious example was Senator John McCain. The Arizona Republican's self-deprecating style and maverick persona had been a Stewart favorite, and McCain appeared 15 times between 1999 and the start of his 2008 presidential campaign. But the senator's prevarications and backtracking finally prompted The Daily Show to produce one of its sharpest, most scathing segments:
While other media outlets did cover McCain's brain-detonating "I'm not a maverick" claim, only The Daily Show and, later, David Letterman, excoriated McCain for his reversals and outright lies.
Some claim Stewart's incessant, near-religious hammering of disingenuous, dishonest leaders and media figures increases the level of cynicism in the country and causes diminished participation in elections and other civic functions. I disagree. Unlike "real" news and commentary shows, Stewart's idealism has a sharp, deadly edge that is enervating.
Take MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews' appearance on the show to promote his book "Life's A Campaign." While a smart, personable guy, I've never cared for Matthews. He's a professional cynic whose take on government and politics reduces them to the level of professional sports. The effect of an election or Congressional vote on the United States or its citizens? Who cares? What's important is the game, a game to be won through strategy and manipulation. I could only read a few chapters, and tossed it aside in disgust. Matthews' advice bordered on the sociopathic. He advocated using the same exploitative and Machiavellian techniques politicians employ to win elections to succeed in day-to-day life. It should cause the superego of any decent human being to recoil in distaste and horror.
Stewart dived in with guns blazing. "You're trashing my book!," Matthews complains in the clip below. "I'm not trashing your book," Stewart explains. "I'm trashing your philosophy of life."
Matthews called it "the worst interview of my life." Well, at least it was the most honest.
Anyway....
During his tenure as host, Stewart's delivered some rather memorable quotes, and I've collected here the ones I most like.
Happy Birthday, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We've been through a lot. I can't imagine making it through the 2012 election without you.
-----
Quotes by Jon Stewart:
Arizona is the meth lab of democracy.
As someone who is not Christian, it is hard for me to believe Christians are a persecuted people in America... maybe, God willing, one of you will rise up and get to be President of this country; or maybe 44 in a row.
Even the Stock-Pickin' Chicken is right some of the time.
Every country has at least one museum that says "Here's why we chased you out."
Everyone knows if a Republican comes out of the closet and sees a gay shadow, it means six more years of a Democratic administration.
I know the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, but what I didn't realize is that those people are assholes.
I view America like this: 70 to 80 percent [are] pretty reasonable people that truthfully, if they sat down, even on contentious issues, would get along. And the other 20 percent of the country run it.
If I'd only followed CNBC's advice, I'd have a million dollars today. Provided I'd started with a hundred million dollars.
If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.
If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values- they're hobbies.
If you have too many white people at a rally, then your cause is racist. And if you have too many people of color at a rally, you must be asking for something.
It does not matter what we say or do; it matters only what is reported about what we say or do.
It doesn't make it a gotcha question just because it got ya.
It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
No one's going to march in the streets carrying a sign that says "Be Reasonable!"
Religion is kinda like nuclear power: you split the atom this way, you get electricity; you split it that way, you get an atomic bomb.
Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion. If America leads a blessed life, then why did God put all of our oil under people who hate us?
The congressman had a sex scandal and had to apologize to Bill Clinton? For what? Copyright infringement?
The wisdom of the masses is not always... wise.
They always throw around this term "the liberal elite." And I kept thinking to myself about the Christian right. What's more elite than believing that only you will go to heaven?
We need religion to give grace and comfort to a world torn apart by religion.
You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: It wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by The Macarena.
Categories: Chris Matthews, Daily Show, John McCain, Jon Stewart, Video
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Kim Carnes, b. July 20, 1945.
(YouTube video of Kim Carnes singing "Bette Davis Eyes")
Truth be told, I prefer Eddie Murphy's version (stick around to the end of this short video). "Once Buckwheat sings a song, it's eternally his:"
(YouTube video of Eddie Murphy as Buckwheat singing a medley of his hits.)
Categories: Eddie Murphy, Eligible for Social Security, Kim Carnes, Music, SNL, Video, YouTube
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"Sometimes I get this crazy dream that I just take off in my car, but
you can travel on ten thousand miles, and still stay where you are."
Harry
Chapin (December 7, 1942 - July 16, 1981)
Categories: Harry Chapin, Music, Passages, Video, YouTube
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(YouTube video of "Real Time with Bill Maher", 8/7/2009)
Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. Now, a couple of weeks ago, I was asked on CNN if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected President, and I said, "I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country." Well, the station was flooded with emails and the Twits hit the fan. And you could tell these people were really mad because they wrote ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL LETTERS!
Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a "pinhead." Which, a) proves my point and b) is really funny coming from a "doody-face" like him!
Now, before I go about demonstrating how sadly easy it is to prove the dumbness that is dragging us down, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq war, 70% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Six years later, 34% still do.
Or, look at the healthcare debate going on now. At a recent town hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare." Which is kind of like driving cross-country to protest highways.
This country is like a college chick after two Long Island ice teas. We can be talked into anything. Like wars. And we can be talked out of anything. Like healthcare.
We should forget the town halls and replace them with study halls.
Listen to some of these statistics. A majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. Twenty-four percent could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade; two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does.
Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, the way the "Slumdog" kid knew about cricket?
But, not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators. And more than half can't name their congressman. And, among Republican governors, only three got their wife's name right on the first try.
People bitch and moan about taxes and spending. They have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than one percent. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen. And a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Which is an absurd sentence, because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."
Sleep tight, batshit.
Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America, even though a Gallup Poll says 18% of us think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid; they're "interplanetary mavericks."
And I haven't even brought up religion. But, here's one fun fact I'll leave you with: Did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right. Half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament, and cannot figure out which one came first.
I rest my case.
---
When "debating" someone whose source of history and current events is Fox News, I recall Maher's editorial and derive what little solace I can from it. Very little, in fact. As one of the X-Men observed in a comic I read a while ago, "Stinks to be sentient, sometimes, don't it?"
It's like the Coyote getting a few additional seconds of warning that the boulder's going to hit.
Categories: 9/11, Americans, Barack Obama, Bill Maher, Bill O'Reilly, Christians/Christianity, Education, Federal Budget / Spending, Fox News, George W. Bush, Stupidity, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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If you can look at a crime where everything points to one answer and not
see it, you're a dumbass. And if you can look at the deficit and not see
that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you're a
Republican.
-Bill Maher
(YouTube video of latest "New Rules")
Categories: Bill Maher, Quotes of the day, Video, YouTube
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Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress,
On July 4, 1997, Charles Kuralt died. A journalist for CBS, he had a passion for America and American history. During the Bicentennial in 1976, he prepared a segment for The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite that remains the best "news report" of what happened in Philadelphia 200 years earlier:
Another wonderful interpretation of the tensions before the vote is the song Is Anybody There? from the award-winning Broadway musical 1776, which airs at 2 pm today on Turner Classic Movies:
Is Anybody There?"
From the musical "1776"
Music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards
John Adams:
Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?
They want to me to quit.
They say, "John, give up the fight."
Still
to England I say:
Good night, forever, good night!
For I have crossed the Rubicon,
Let the bridge be burned behind me,
Come
what may, come what may.
Commitment!
The croakers all say we'll rue the day,
There'll be hell to pay in
fiery purgatory.
Through all the gloom, through all the gloom,
I
can see the rays of ravishing light and glory!
Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?
I see fireworks!
I see the pageant and pomp and parade!
I hear the
bells ringing out!
I hear the cannons' roar!
I see Americans - all
Americans.
Free forevermore!
How quiet, how quiet the chamber is.
How silent, how silent the
chamber is.
Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?
Categories: 1776, Americans, Broadway, Charles Kuralt, Congress, Declaration of Independence, History, John Adams, Movies, Music, TV, Video, YouTube
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In this YouTube video from Jimmy Kimmel Live, Michele Bachmann explains American history:
Categories: Jimmy Kimmel, Michele Bachmann, Video, YouTube
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(You Tube Video)
Lucy (aka Lady Lucia), our 13-year-old Sheltie, is one tough little broad. Unlike the other lesser mammals in the house, she loves being vacuumed. In fact, you have to vacuum her first, before she'll give you access to the rug. It doesn't appear to be genetic; her offspring all remain terrified of vacuums. So at least one threat to humanity has been thwarted.
Categories: Animals, Dogs, KGB Family, Video, YouTube
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Recent late-night political jokes, from Daniel Kurtzman's Political Humor Blog on About.com.
Did you see that video where a crying baby is handed to President Obama?
As soon as the president holds the baby it stops crying. Do you know how
rare that is these days; that a politician is handed a baby from a crowd
and it's not his?
-Jay Leno
(YouTube video: Barack Obama, The Baby Whisperer)
That's pretty amazing. The baby stopped crying as soon as the president
held it. Obama should try that with John Boehner.
-Jay Leno
Sarah Palin has canceled the rest of her bus trip around America. She
had to quit before she got to Mount Rushmore and somebody asked her to
name the Presidents.
-Jay Leno
John McCain made his claim that illegal immigrants started the Arizona
wildfires without doing his research. The last time he did that we got
Sarah Palin.
-Jay Leno
It has now been revealed that Newt Gingrich had a second line of credit
at Tiffany's for up to a million dollars. That sounds like a lot until
you remember that Congress has a line of credit with China for up to
$14.3 trillion.
-Jay Leno
More bad news for Newt Gingrich. One week after his campaign staff quit,
his campaign finance team quit. In fact, Newt was going to pull out of
the race, but today the guy who writes his concession speeches quit.
-Jay
Leno
According to new polls, 66 percent of Americans believe the country is
headed in the wrong direction. But the good news is, gas is so expensive
and traffic is so bad that we won't get there for a long time.
-Jay
Leno
Today Sarah Palin canceled her bus tour, reportedly canceling dates in
Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. When asked why, Palin answered:
'It turns out those places are nowhere near each other.'
-Conan
O'Brien
In a new videotape message, Texas Gov. Rick Perry urges his supporters
to follow him on 'Tweeter.' After hearing about it, John McCain laughed
and said, 'What an idiot! It's 'The Tweeter.'
-Conan O'Brien
Newt Gingrich bragged on his third wife, saying, 'She plays the French
horn.' Then things got awkward when he added, 'If you know what I mean.'
-Conan
O'Brien
Newt Gingrich announced he was running for president. His top advisers
quit, and then his campaign fundraisers all quit. Newt was thinking, 'I
don't need this, I'll just put it all on my Tiffany's credit card.'
-David
Letterman
New Republican Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is fluent in Chinese.
In a short period of time the Republicans have come quite a long way.
The last Republican president wasn't even fluent in English.
-David
Letterman
Bristol Palin released her much-anticipated memoir called 'Not Afraid of
Life: My Journey So Far.' Bristol said that Levi Johnston cheated on her
but then made it up to her by buying designer rain boots. Things are
different up there, I guess.
-Jimmy Kimmel
President Obama will be in New York tomorrow night for a fundraiser at
the Broadway musical 'Sister Act.' Meanwhile, Sarah Palin will be in
town to do some hunting at 'The Lion King.'
-Jimmy Fallon
New York Gov. Andy Cuomo will hold a special election on September 13 to
replace Anthony Weiner. Cuomo said, 'Anyone interested in the job should
e-mail me at... actually, you'd just better call.'
-Jimmy Fallon
Categories: About.com, Andy Cuomo, Anthony Weiner, Barack Obama, Bristol Palin, Conan O'Brien, Daniel Kurtzman, David Letterman, George W. Bush, Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, John Boehner, John McCain, Jon Huntsman, Levi Johnston, Michelle Obama, Newt Gingrich, Political Jokes of the Week, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Video, YouTube
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The tone and content of Sen. Franken's speech pretty much sums up what the Unitarian Universalists are about: be just and good.
(YouTube videos from the UUA General Assembly meeting)
Categories: Al Franken, John Adams, Religion, Thomas Jefferson, Video, YouTube
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(YouTube Video from the now out-of-print CD.)
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesterday, when Larry O'Brien and John Garry ruled Pittsburgh morning drive time radio. In this exciting episode from November, 1981: a simple 30 second live ad turns into three and a half minutes of chaos as Larry loses it completely.
Categories: Nostalgia, O'Brien and Garry, Pittsburgh, Radio, Video, YouTube
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"To balance the system, Fox has to be the purest form of right-wing resin, because of how heavy left-wing America is. Hollywood, comedians, every single news organization, the Internet, facts, history, science- it's all just left-wing bull****, man! Each one of them designed purely to shut down conservatives..."
Categories: Chris Wallace, Daily Show, Fox News, Jon Stewart, Video
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(YouTube video: Brian Wilson sings "God Only Knows from "Live From Abbey Road")
The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson is 69 today, and this is arguably one of his best.
Categories: Beach Boys, Birthdays, Brian Wilson, Music, Video, YouTube
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John Oliver discovers they're back in this Daily Show video.
Categories: Daily Show, Indecision 2012, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Politics, Video
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Before I begin, I must point out that behind me sits a highly admired
President of the United States and decorated war hero while I, a cable
television talk show host, have been chosen to stand here and impart
wisdom. I pray I never witness a more damning example of what is wrong
with America today.
-Conan O'Brien, giving the commencement
address at Dartmouth. Video here.
Categories: Conan O'Brien, Quotes of the day, Video
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Before Hugh Laurie (June 11, 1959) achieved fame and fortune as House, MD, he was well-known in Britain as a comic actor of Pythonesque stature and not a half-bad musician. His parody of 60s protest songs, "All We Gotta Do Is..." is a brilliant take on self-righteous folksingers whose true insight leaves a bit to be desired.
(via YouTube)
Categories: Birthdays, Hugh Laurie, Music, Parody, Video, YouTube
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