The year I was born, Charlie Chaplin filmed a classic scene in “The Gold Rush,” boiling and eating his shoe while snowbound. This month, as driveways are piled high, I know just how he felt, consuming not footwear but an overdose of many movies made since then. In the grip of cabin fever, the mind reels at thoughts of lowering the deficit, Winning the Future or understanding Egypt or Tunisia and...

Authorship is the issue as the President is accused of State of the Union plagiarism, a McCain aide is unmasked for writing an anonymous novel about 2012, and Republican economists boycott a news conference on publication of their own 576-page volume about the financial meltdown. “Some on Wall Street and Washington with a stake in the status quo,” the chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission,...

by Walter Brasch The $50 million Burton Family Football Complex at the University of Connecticut may be nameless soon. Robert G. Burton, who had donated about $3 million to help fund the stadium, wants his money back and his family’s name erased from UConn football. He also informed UConn he will cancel his $50,000 a season suite in the stadium. What upset Burton, who had donated about $7 million to...

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard During The State of the Union Address by J. Thomas Duffy News Item: Obama’s Second State of the Union (Text) 10. “We should pass a bill that mandates the SOTU be like Twitter – 140 characters, or less …” 9. “I see that Kucinich brought his own sandwich tonight …” 8. “Being the Bears fan that he is, I heard he might give Jay Cutler...

Last year, I joined one of the zillions of reading challenges in book blogging circles. The idea is you commit to reading a certain minimum number of books by the end of the year. I, quite ambitiously, committed to read 100 books by the end of 2010. You can see how well THAT went, here. (That page was formerly titled “The 100 Books Reading Challenge.” Not wanting to be constantly reminded of how...

“We have met the enemy,” the comic strip character said four decades ago, “and he is us,” but a new generation of politicians is making that look like an understatement. As the President rules out immediate Social Security cuts, Rep. Paul Ryan, head of the Ayn Rand caucus, prepares to answer the State of the Union with his plan to scale back benefits for what his guru called “moochers”...

“World Turning,” by Fleetwood Mac

I know I’m going out on a limb with that title, given that we’re still in the first month of the year, but I can’t imagine anything topping this one for sheer guffaw power for at least the next 12 months. You know how Palin supporters are always complaining about how the media is obsessed with Sarah Palin? Well, now they’re mad because Dana Milbank wrote a column pledging NOT to write...

Just something for us all to enjoy, one of the legends of stage and film Pay attention to the unbelievable performance of Spoonful of Sugar in part 2. WOW

Keith Olbermann announced Friday night on his “Countdown” show, that this would be his last televised show for MSNBC. UPDATE Saturday January 22, 2011. Word from cable channel pundits and hosts speculate that Mr. Olbermann had been in process of a buyout of his contract… whether jumping or being pushed… perhaps both. There appears to be much talk about him signing what sounds like a...

I can never get enough of this song.

And boy, am I glad I didn’t scroll down to see who #1 was. Phew!

The trip of China’s leader brings to mind a great piece — or two great pieces — of comedy. First, watch Abbott and Costello’s classic “Who’s on First” routine so you get the joke context (if you’re a younger TMV reader and have never seen this routine which is immortalized by a copy at the Baseball Hall of Fame): And now watch the parody “Hu’s on First”...

Comedian and “The Office” creator Rick Gervais raised some eyebrows and downright upset some people due to his pointed monologue at the Golden Globe Awards. Here it is: UPDATE: This version has a bit more: Here’s a version that collects all his best jokes from the broadcast including him introducing presenters with zingers and two zingers aimed at him from two clearly unpleased celebrities:

Today is a day for celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King and so I thought I’d share one of my favorite stories about his impact on our society. It’s being reported a lot today but is well worth hearing. Star Trek was on the air in the late 1960s and one of the performers on the show was Nichelle Nichols AKA Lt. Uhura. Nichols liked the part well enough but was planning to leave at the end...

“What’s Going On?” by Marvin Gaye: April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984

Watching him has always been a guilty pleasure, like taking your id out to the park for a backed-up dump of anger and hostility, but Bill Maher’s season premiere at the end of a traumatic week persuades one watcher to take a small step for Mankind’s civility by clicking off the remote forever. All that hyperbole now induces more guilt than pleasure in a time when point-scoring seems more beside the...

Sam Cooke:

Old black and white footage creates its own imagery and world. It’s like a dream sequence. But what if you saw it in color? Would it look more like day to day reality? Here’s a treat: black and white footage of a 1951 “I Love Lucy” Episode intercut with COLOR footage taken from the audience during the filming (you can see the mikes and all). Don’t Lucy and Desi seem more like “real”...

Just watch and listen to 10 year old Kayla Starr:

When you think you’ve had enough of this life, hold on:

It’s a cold, drizzly Saturday afternoon here in Austin, Texas. Perfect for doing some “deep” thinking. Perfect for looking back at all the years that have gone by. And along comes an e-mail that puts it all in perspective. It did it for me—hopefully it will do the same for you. Enjoy! Graceful Aging The only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re...

A special contestant (?): That was, of course, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, the original Alfalfa from The Little Rascals who had such a sad life (he died after being shot in the late 1950s). Here’s a special You Tube tribute to him: And here’s the same song segment in the original black and white version. It’s a wonderful number — and I always feel so sad when I think of what...

Carrie Fisher defies genetics. How did this witty, wonderfully talented, albeit seriously troubled, woman emerge from the union of a lecherous moron and, to put it kindly, a bubbly but intellectually challenged Barbie doll? Fisher tries to explain in the scathingly revealing and very funny one-woman show, “Wishful Drinking” on HBO. If you don’t subscribe, manipulate a friend to invite you over...

I meant to post this yesterday, but it’s certainly still relevant, sad to say: