WilliamPitt
WilliamPitt's JournalSo Awesome: ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ gets a singalong salute for its 40th anniversary
Back in the heyday of Saturday mornings, back when cartoon viewing was a scheduled date for 8-year-olds and their cereal bowls, back before Nickelodeon made animation into a 24-hour buffet, there arose a phenomenon that was good and pure and true. It was called “Schoolhouse Rock.”
“I still play the songs in my jazz jobs,” says Bob Dorough, who wrote and voiced much of the original “Schoolhouse” canon. “I used to play very hip songs, but then one of the waiters — who would be 25 or 30 — would say to me, ‘your voice sounds familiar.’ ” Dorough would reveal why. The waiter would get excited. “Oh!” he would say. “Can we have one, please?”
Bob Dorough just turned 89. “Schoolhouse Rock” turns 40 next week: On the morning of Jan. 13, 1973, a three-minute animated video called “My Hero, Zero” materialized on ABC, sandwiched between programs such as “Superfriends” and “Yogi’s Gang” and “The Roadrunner Show.”
“Schoolhouse Rock” wasn’t a show. It was the thing between the shows — two to three insterstitial, educational minutes about math or grammar or science. It was “Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here,” teaching young viewers how to modify verbs in a jaunty, helium-induced ditty (“Slowly, surely, really learn your adverbs here. You’re going to need ’em if you read ’em”). It was “Naughty Number Nine,” accompanied by a bluesy video depicting a feline pool shark. No video was ever longer than a potty break, but somehow “Schoolhouse Rock” became a totem pole around which children of the 1970s have chosen to gather and reminisce.
The rest: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/schoolhouse-rock-at-40/2013/01/04/0679e738-5699-11e2-a613-ec8d394535c6_story.html?hpid=z4
My favorite:
The final floor speech from Dennis Kucinich (text)
“I want to begin by thanking my wife Elizabeth, who is here in the gallery, for her constant support during my service in the United States Congress, and to thank the people of Ohio’s 10th Congressional District for their constant support, as well as a great Congressional staff, both at the district and the DC level.
“I also, before I make further remarks, want to express my support for my colleagues from New York and New Jersey, in their tireless efforts on behalf of their constituents who have suffered so grievously from Hurricane Sandy.
“We must unite for the people.
“And that is really the idea of the United States. It’s the Unity of States. But it’s even deeper than that. It’s expressive of the Unity of People, that it’s all for one and one for all. Our nation’s first motto, E pluribus unum, out of many we are one, stresses the power of unity.
The rest: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/dennis-kucinich-gives-his-final-floor-speech-of-the-112th-congress-we-must-unite-for-the-people/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DandelionSalad+%28Dandelion+Salad%29
A few things to remember about Chris Christie
...from the peerless Charlie Pierce:
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Nevertheless, the storm has been a godsend to Christie. Unlike public school teachers and veterans, the storm was an enemy that actually was worth bullying. He got great credit for "working with" the president, as if he had any choice. What was his alternative? Leave a couple of million constituents foundering in the surf? He got a ridiculous amount of credit for summoning up the grace to thank the president for helping his state climb out from under the wreckage. (And, yes, it is a measure of how far dow the rabbit hole the national Republican party has fallen that, a) Christie gets credit for doing something that has been obvious to every politician since Pericles, and b) that he took heat within his own party for it.) Now, though, with everyone in the Beltway pretending that a new era of bipartisanship has descended upon the place, and that a new governing coalition has sprung up literally overnight, you can almost see the next part coming.
There always is a serious faction of Democrats who have a sweet tooth for tough-daddy Republicans -- and, yes, I'm looking at you, Matthews, and you, O'Donnell, and you, too, Rendell -- and Christie now fits that bill admirably. You don't have to be clairvoyant to predict that people are going to confront what appears to be yet another field full of extremists contending for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, and then you will have Chris Christie, who "took on his own party" over storm relief, and who "worked with a Democratic president" in the aftermath of a horrendous natural calamity. Plus, he is "honest." He "says what's on his mind." And he likes Springsteen! I can write Mike Allen's piece in Politico for him right now.
The fact is that he's still the same guy he always was. Somebody who would pull the wings off flies if he thought it meant 15 minutes on CNN. Someone who almost never picks on anyone his own size. Someone who kicks down, always. Someone who was OK with federal storm relief, but ostentatiously refused federal money for another tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York. He's still the same megalomaniac who stunned the party in Tampa by giving a keynote address at the Republican National Convention in which he barely mentioned the nominee. He's the guy who put the bully in the bully pulpit. And he has not changed, any more than Washington has. Be advised. The aurora's rising behind him.
The rest: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Chris_Christie_Is_The_Same_Chris_Christie
Resolve to Remember the Butcher's Bill
Resolve to Remember the Butcher's BillBy William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed
Tuesday 01 January 2013
It was my intention, with this final article of 2012, to make some sort of grand and sweeping assessment, a capstone argument, a clear-eyed statement of purpose in which...
Nope. Nothing there. I tried. I failed.
The well is dry, the socket has no charge, Casey has no bat. The Mayans were wrong; that's all I can muster.
(snip)
So, yeah, if you're looking for something to hang your hat on, a proclamation of hope, a way to put the gruesome year 2012 in perspective, don't look to me.
All I have is the butcher's bill.
In, if you can believe it, severely abbreviated form.
On January 5th, bombings in Baghdad and Nasiriyah killed 73 people and wounded 149 others. On the 14th, bombs in Basra killed 53 and wounded 151. On January 25th, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) stepped to the floor of the House of Representatives to formally announce her resignation from that legislative body in order to focus on her rehabilitation. Nearly a year ago to the day, Rep. Giffords was shot through the skull by Jared Lee Loughner as she met with constituents. In the end, six people were killed and 19 were wounded, along with Rep. Giffords, in that attack.
On February 22nd, five people were shot and killed in a Korean health spa in Georgia, victims of what police later described as a domestic violence-related attack. On February 23rd, attacks across Iraq killed 83 people and wounded 250 more. On February 26th, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman as he walked home from a local store in Florida. On February 27th, three students were shot and killed by a classmate at Chardon High School in Ohio.
On March 8th, a gunman opened fire in a Pittsburgh hospital, killing two people and wounding seven more. On March 11th, a US soldier in Kandahar Province went on a house-to-house shooting spree, killing 17 people and wounding five; among the dead were nine children and three women. On March 20th, a series of attacks in Baghdad and Karbala killed 52 people and wounded 250 others. On March 31st, a gunman opened fire at mourners in a funeral home in North Miami, killing two and wounding 12.
The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13637-resolve-to-remember-the-butchers-bill
A short note to the nation from the state of Massachusetts.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2013/01/01/senate-closes-agreement-stave-off-fiscal-cliff-tax-hikes-spending-cuts/qQ31yJ3abKIFtutfb4zs0I/story.htmlThe story isn't even worth linking too, just more boilerplate about waiting to see if/when the House will call a vote...but it's the Boston Globe, and they do have the local angle to consider...so, yeah, I just read this in my local paper about the Senate vote:
"Both Bay State Senators John F. Kerry, a Democrat, and Scott Brown, a Republican, backed the compromise. For Brown, it was probably his last significant act as senator before he is replaced by Democrat Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday."
Read that second sentence twice.
Happy New Year, America. Sorry about Scott; here's Liz to make up for it.
Sincerely, Massachusetts.
P.S. You're welcome. Again.
Oh, P.P.S., stop freaking out about the Kerry appointment. Ed Markey has an army of old friends not even Martha Coakley has heard of. He's got Kerry and the Kennedy family behind him, and Menino's machine in 617...and Scott Brown lost once, and that was without all this going against him. Just sayin'.
A toast...
For my wife, my daughter to come, my mother, my father, my friends who are brothers and sisters, for all of us everywhere, I offer a toast:
CAN WE FUCKING DO BETTER, PLEASE?
An old toast, to be sure, but always appropriate. For all of us.
Cheers.
Happy New Year
A toast to Andy Reid
So ESPN just had footage of Andy Reid giving his "final remarks" to the team he's coached for 14 years.
Heh. "final remarks," my ass.
I hate - and I mean seethingly, unequivocally, venomously, and incoherently fucking HATE - every sports franchise out of Philadelphia...but none more than the Eagles. My hate for the Eagles so completely colors my perspective that my otherwise-indifference towards the Phillies has darkened into loathing for loathing's sake. I hate the Phillies because somewhere, somehow, someone who roots for the Eagles also roots for the Phillies, so fuck you, too. That's why.
But here's to Andy Reid.
Coached a pro team in fucking Philly for fourteen years - Bill Clinton still had two years to go when he started - and lived to tell the tale.
Can't wait to hear it.
Here's to ya, sir. Quite sincerely. The rest of us will amount to a few yards of fill and a headstone if we're lucky enough. You held arguably the hardest post in sports for more than five thousand long days.
Profile Information
Name: William Rivers PittGender: Male
Hometown: Boston
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 58,179
