1. There is no part of a pig you can’t love when handled skillfully.
2. Vegans should not be sent to concentration camps. Under the right circumstances, however, they could be forced into reeducation camps.
3. Anyone can love. If it’s not the love of your life, you can love someone who understands you in hard times. You can love a relative who has no choice but to love you. You can love a pet or a piece of meat. Love something.
4. Life is a journey on a hardscrabble road and it leaves marks on you. Some of those marks are scars. Some are ink buried in your skin. Some are claw imprints on your soul. Don’t judge people by their marks.
5. One man’s bait is another woman’s sushi.
6. The people who look like the “other” may keep you alive some day.
7. If you chase your dreams you may end up in the gutter. You meet the nicest people in gutters.
8. The world is a big place, but try not to take up too much space.
9. Foreign people are funny. Now you funny too.
10. Order up. The kitchen may close sooner than you think.
As a budding internet journalist, I have a love - not so love relationship with my PC. For those of you who make your living interfacing with this lovely piece of modern technology, you know exactly what I am talking about.
I found this clip on YouTube and it is “Family Guy” at its satirical best; appreciating the world we live in while poking a bit of fun at it.
This is a Guest Voice original-report post is by journalism professor and author Walter Brasch who is also an award-winning syndicated newspaper columnist and radio commentator, and president of the Pennsylvania Press Club.
Geo Beach:
A Swamp Yankee in the Last Frontier
by Walter Brasch
When Geo Beach looks you in the eye and says that Tougher in Alaska, his 13 week series on the History Channel, isn’t Reality TV, you believe him.
It might be the sincerity seen in his penetrating blue eyes.
It might also be that not many will challenge a bald-headed 6-foot-3, 225 pound man who looks like he could have been a pro football linebacker, but was really a firefighter/medic, logger, and commercial fisherman.
But, it’s probably because, above everything else, Geo Beach, an award-winning journalist, knows the media. And right now, he knows that his series definitely, absolutely, is not Reality TV.
“Reality TV isn’t real but something that a Hollywood producer has come up with to make money,” he says, with the raspy staccato voice of authority that perfectly depicts the life of a blue-collar journalist.
To Geo Beach, what is called Reality TV is really Orwellian doublespeak.
“This,” he says about his own series with absolute honesty and conviction, “is non-fiction documentary journalism,’ one that puts him into the story to experience the life of the people he reports about.
Tougher in Alaska, an in-depth look at a variety of people, was shot between April 2007 and March 2008.
Once called “Seward’s Folly,” Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the sale of Alaska from the Russians for $7.2 million in 1867. The 570,000 square mile arctic wilderness attracted thousands of prospectors, and led to the development of hundreds of settlements and the creation of cities, when large deposits of gold was discovered near Dawson City in the late 1890s.
Appropriately, the first episode of Tougher in Alaska is one that looks at the life of the modern gold miners. With the price of gold going over $1,000 an ounce, there’s been a new gold rush, a new chapter in Alaskan history, says Beach. One of the purposes of the series, he points out, is to show the links between the historical and the present, and look to the future as tied to the past.
In the second episode, Beach went salmon fishing on Bristol Bay, one of several thousand fishermen awaiting the annual run of millions of sockeye salmon to their spawning grounds. In another episode, shot mostly in the summer months, Beach and his crew went into nearly inaccessible forests, steep valleys, and coastal mountains to work alongside loggers who had to build roads to get to the timberlands, and then use trucks, barges, and helicopters to remove the fallen trees, some more than 100 feet high.
In later episodes, Beach traveled with scientists who track glaciers, erosions, volcanoes and avalanches, worked in shipwreck salvage operations, and with postal carriers who could deliver mail only by using hovercrafts.
Unlike Reality TV, there aren’t thousands of people desperately trying to do anything to be on camera and become almost-famous. They aren’t willing to humiliate themselves by eating live bugs, swapping wives, exposing their weak vocals to snippy judges, jumping off buildings, or plotting intricate revenge schemes. To get Alaskans even to agree to be on television often took a bit of an effort, says Beach. He says the people just did their jobs. They didn’t think anything they did was special or newsworthy; certainly not entertaining. Read the rest of this entry »
Poor Jesse Jackson. It’s tough enough being caught with your verbal pants down in an unscripted moment using bad language about Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama, and then apologizing for it. And it’s even more of a downer when it later leaks out that, in an un-aired part of the off-the-air tape, you used the hated “N word” that you campaigned against anyone ever using again.
When Michael Richards stunned a nightclub audience two years ago by shouting the N-word at a black patron, Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada was quick to join the Rev. Jesse Jackson in calling for a ban on the word’s use.
Now that Jackson has let the word slip out, Masada says he wants the civil rights leader to do what comics do every time they say the word on a Laugh Factory stage — pay a fine.
“Unfortunately, Jesse Jackson has broken his own principles,” Masada told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Jesse embraced the notion of fining talent for using such a word and he should be held to his own standards.”
What? Holding someone to their own rhetorical standards?
If this standard was imposed on everyone, it could obliterate many talk show discussions, limit Obama’s and Republican presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain’s rhetoric, eliminate Democratic and Republican political party spin-masters on TV, curtail many partisans’ blog posts and shorten debates in the upcoming political campaign to a just few minutes. What a terrible idea.
Jackson’s latest attempt to defuse the deconstruction of the self-destruction of his decades-in-the-making image came after it was revealed by a website that the un-aired portion of the Fox News tape showed Jackson using the word N-word that Jackson so passionately and publicly had campaigned against being used.
The Laugh Factory owner said he fines comedians $50 each time they use the word in their act so he wants Jackson to cough up the same amount, which he says would be given to the Museum of Tolerance in LA. He told the AP that he banned the use of the word shortly after the Richards’ fiasco and that some comics do use the word, but quickly pay the fines.
June 29th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
As a young journalist I was once reminded that a journalist could either be a watchdog or a lapdog, can’t be both. Journalism, like other professions, has undergone a visible “change” in the past three decades. There was a time when many considered it a vocation (a calling), but now it is being increasingly treated as a mere job in any other industry.
Shaun Mullen’s earlier post on TV personality Tim Russert evoked interesting comments in TMV. Who is a real journalist? Can he survive in the changed world and the present media industry/culture? I have to battle with these tough questions often during my lectures on media/journalism.
A friend in India, Sanjay Sethi, draws my attention to a piece by Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, who is a Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute. Hedges latest book is Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians.
To take the discussion further, let’s see what Hedges wrote: “The past week was a good one if you were a courtier. We were instructed by the high priests on television over the past few days to mourn a Sunday morning talk show host, who made $5 million a year…No journalist makes $5 million a year.
“No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that acting as a conduit, or a stenographer, for the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike real journalists. Ask Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman how often Bush or Cheney has invited them to dinner at the White House or offered them an interview.
“All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, and it is the job of the journalist to do the hard, tedious reporting to shine a light on these lies. It is the job of courtiers, those on television playing the role of journalists, to feed off the scraps tossed to them by the powerful and never question the system…” More here…
In keeping with the changing times, who knows journalists may soon be known as media workers (belonging, as they do, to the second oldest profession in the world). This would be in line with the change in name in the oldest profession in the world — from prostitute to sex workers….
Most young cartoon buffs just learning about animated cartoon history know the name Bob Clampett as belonging to the late cartoon genius who worked on and created many of the beloved Warner Brothers cartoons and some of their key characters. Cartoon fans consider the Warner Brothers school of cartoons the “anti-Disney”: with the focus on laughs versus being cute. Clampett had an incredible bio.
But he also had a TV LIFE. In the 60s, he had a TV animated cartoon show on ABC. It was called Beany and Cecil.
But that been actually based on a legendary puppet show he created (and largely wrote) the TV’s earliest days. And here is an INCREDIBLE CLIP of a special skit done with the characters.
It shows you puppet material considered risque at the time (1950) — and it is more PG than G.
But just listen to the incredible voicing. Note the comedy writing (filled with satirical references to 1950s culture) and especially watch the incredible puppet manipulation. In fact, when you watch it, it has the feel and comedy content of — a Warner Brothers cartoon.
One of the many places where people are chattering about the possibility of an Obama presidency is in the tiny West African island-nation of Cape Verde.
According to this editorial from the newspaper Liberal, those who expect major change from a Barack White House could be sorely disappointed - but the fact that he has a shot at the White House shows something significant has changed in the United States:
“This may come as a bucket of cold water for the many who today think Obama will be what he objectively cannot be: there will be no disruption in the United States’ establishment. He will obviously have the consent of the Pentagon and Wall Street, both still bursting with the apparent narcissism of George W. Bush, who led the country into the quagmire of war for which there is no plausible solution and to the edge of an abyss of serious economic crisis.”
“It may be said that the candidacy of an African-American for the White House was carefully prepared by the media. What was unthinkable for years (’I have a dream’ said Martin Luther King) became something consciously acceptable by the vast majority of North Americans - ‘Whites’ included - ever since television series began in which the protagonist is a ‘Black’ president. A premonition? Evidently not. The Democratic political machine worked on and prepared the way which has permitted the ‘politically incorrect’ to become the ‘politically correct.’”
Translated By Brandi Miller
EDITORIAL
June 4, 2008
Cape Verde - Liberal - Original Article (Portuguese)
It’s Practically certain. With the already-counted delegates for the Democratic Convention, Obama’s candidacy for President of the United States is nearly official. Obama has already said that he is the inevitable winner of that Convention, and even his great rival Hillary Clinton has already thrown in the towel. She admitted defeat and congratulated Barack Obama.
It may be said that the candidacy of an African-American for the White House was carefully prepared by the media. What was unthinkable for years (“I have a dream” said Martin Luther King) became something consciously acceptable by the vast majority of North Americans - “Whites” included - ever since television series began in which the protagonist is a “Black” president. A premonition? Evidently not. The Democratic political machine worked on and prepared the way which has permitted the “politically incorrect” to become the “politically correct.”
This may come as a bucket of cold water for the many who today think Obama will be what he objectively cannot be: there will be no disruption in the United States’ establishment. He will obviously have the consent of the Pentagon and Wall Street, both still bursting with the apparent narcissism of George W. Bush, who led the country into the quagmire of war for which there is no plausible solution and to the edge of an abyss of serious economic crisis. G. W. Bush confined himself to being a useful tool of the oil cartels, who have never been as fat as they are today; and to the military industry, which has also been enriched by lucrative profits. All in the name of “freedom,” “democracy,” and the jingoism of the moment.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of Barack Obama’s victory and the U.S. election.
I’ve been watching for the fun mashups of the three speeches from the other night that are bound to come. If someone spots a good one, please point me to it.
May 26th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
The 1997 movie Titanic, the highest-grossing film of all time, became popular worldwide for its powerful depiction of romance and pathos. Now The Times of London reports that “the man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines.” More here…
Titanic: The Final Secret will be shown on the National Geographic Channel at 9pm on June 8.
It’s now deeply embedded in our culture. “Flintstones, meet the Flintstones…” But that wasn’t the original opening that appeared in the program’s first two high-rated seasons on ABC. In fact, the 1960s-popular-culture-laced cartoon (un-admittedly based on Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners — Fred was drawn to look like Gleason and Wilma looked like Gleason’s wife on the classic show, Alice, as played by Audrey Meadows) had a different theme.
It was a bouncy show-biz style tune called “Rise and Shine.” It vanished by 1963, although it would occasionally appear as background music. Here’s the original opening (link to first season DVDs is below):
A young TMV reader emailed me asking about a series of You Tubes I ran more than a year ago, wondering who the moustachioed comedian in it was because he had been so impressed. In fact, the comedian was Ernie Kovaks, a 1950s to early 1960s television comedy performer who was WAY ahead of his time.
I was a huge fan of his when I was in elementary school and still remember January 13, 1962 when I learned he died in a car crash, apparently while reaching to light his famous cigar. I was grief stricken and my classroom show and tell the next day was on a news article about his death. I also learned a lesson: I thought Well, he’s gone but his show and comedy will continue with someone else doing it! but in fact it didn’t. Just as in politics, in show biz someone who brings something personal to the table takes a lot of that something from the table when they leave the scene.
Kovaks was a HUGE influence on many comedians who later used irony in their comedy. His show was not typical 1950s-1960s adapted vaudeville, or adapted radio, or adapted night club comedy. It was highly visual, used existing television technology (and tried to expand it) took its time to build to a punch line, and was filled with irony and shocking-for-its time black humor. His death was a loss to the comedy world and if he is not totally forgotten today, he is barely known (at all) among many young students and consumers of comedy.
Here are two samples of his work. First, this calssic Dutch Masters commercial, written and starring Ernie. Aside from the fact it advertises tobacco, you could not see something like this on TV today:
Kovaks loved to experiment with visuals and ancient and bad music (he was a 1960s Dr. Demento), as well as zippy catchy music. Look at this almost surrealistic, famous, partly-silent skit that he taped on a tilted set — complete with sound effects, old music, and visuals (be sure to watch it after it ends since there is another cigar commercial).
A Kovaks show was written and directed (including camera angles) by Kovaks and starring Kovaks, so when his life ended on that road in 1962, he was gone from the scene in more ways than one. FOOTNOTE: He was way ahead of his time and did his comedy in his own universe at his own pace. So when you view it today, some holds up, some doesn’t, and some is puzzling — but Kovaks never meant his comedy to be like anyone else’s.
April 14th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Today Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert kicks off his Pennsylvania coverage with a guest: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. But is this symbolic for Campaign 2008 and journalism’s future? What’s the most effective way to deliver news to people on the Internet and to appeal to younger American voters? Video and web producer Joe Windish. offers this compelling original interview on the decline of traditional news an across-the-generations political information delivery system and the ascent of vehicles such as Comedy Central’s news-based comedy shows:
Stephen Colbert: A Media Maestro Plays Philly
by Joe Windish
The New York Times Sunday Magazine cover story this weekend was The Aria of Chris Matthews. Released to the web last Tuesday, bloggers had been baffled by it all week. Even Mark Leibovich, who wrote the story, noted that “three network officials asked me why I was writing about Matthews and not [Keith] Olbermann.”
The gist of the piece was that Matthews is an anachronism likely to be downsized when his $5 million a year contract is up next year. MSNBC’s now betting on Olbermann and David Gregory. Why the paper of record deemed it necessary to devote 8,000 words to that observation, I’ll never know.
Meanwhile, the whole way these guys are playing the cable news game seems a little passé to me. The big questions today are: how are we going to profitably port news over to the Internet, and how are we going to make it appealing to a younger demographic? Indications are that by either of these measures the leader in the cable news game right now is in not to be found at NBC, CNN, or FOX.
The hands-down champ is Comedy Central, whose Daily Show and Colbert Report have been playing by the fast and loose rules of comedy to beat journalism at the news game as far back as Indecision 2000. Since then Jon Stewart’s won two Peabody Awards for his election coverage, and he was joined just last week by Stephen Colbert when The Colbert Report won a Peabody of its own.
Today Stephen Colbert and his 80 staffers kick off a week of Colbert Report coverage of the Pennsylvania Primary from the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. As it happens, Chris Matthews, a Philadelphia native, is slated to be Stephen’s first guest.
JW: You’ve referred to comedy as The Fifth Estate. Can you explain?
BT: I started calling comedy the 5th Estate to keep the 4th Estate of journalism in check several years ago… I think this whole notion of comedy as the Fifth Estate really, in many ways, is more important in these new shows that are actually doing parodies of news shows because it’s the idea that the Fourth Estate is keeping those first three in check. The idea of what’s going on in Colbert and The Daily Show and even some of what Saturday Night Live and shows like that, is that it’s not only dealing with the political issues but it is dealing with the way in which the mainstream news operations are covering the issues.
Let’s take, for example, the classic example of what Jon Stewart did in the lead up to the war, when he was really examining that issue in a way that a lot of reporters were not for fear of being called unpatriotic and all the rest of it. The whole Dixie Chicks phenomenon. I think there Jon Stewart was a lone voice crying in the wilderness that this was the stuff that ought to be covered. And he was really making fun of – with evidence, showed the clip and that kind of thing – of how this was being inadequately covered by the traditional journalist operation. So there, I think, what Jon Stewart was doing was a really important message about the lead up to the war, but about the way it was being inadequately covered.
JW: What’s your take on Colbert’s Peabody?
BT: Certainly the Peabody is another feather in the cap of respectability that Comedy Central’s hour-long block in late night television has been garnering. That Peabody just goes on the mantelpiece right next to the invitation to speak at the Washington Correspondents Association Dinner, and all kinds of other things that have just been being heaped upon these shows. So, the Peabody is another example of how these late night comedy shows that Comedy Central are doing are really being taken very seriously by a whole range of people… Now we should remember that it also says something about the Peabody Awards. The Peabody Awards are one of my favorite of the awards given because they really don’t operate on the traditional criteria of what we think would be good. Let’s remember that Colbert got a Peabody I believe at the same time that Project Runway got a Peabody. Project Runway is not the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth estate! However, it’s a really good show and I think it deserved its Peabody as did Colbert, but for different reasons. When you think of when Comedy Central first started, and when you think of a lot of the other shows that are on Comedy Central, and you think of how Colbert does that whole act when he dances across the stage when he’s about to interview someone, it’s really pleasing to think that this is now the Peabody Award winning Stephen Colbert!
JW: Colbert is a really tough interview. There’s not a lot of fluff on his show. He brings on hugely complex topics and seems to help his interviewees make their point. And the arc of the show through a season is almost like a college course, he is educating his audience. I come away blown away sometimes. It seems like to me a very high-brow news show. Bring me back to earth Bob. Read the rest of this entry »
April 13th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
How far will the staff of some shows go to get big ratings? This far:
The TV talk show Dr. Phil McGraw confirmed on Saturday the fact that its staff bailed out of Florida jail one of the girls involved in the violent video posted on YouTube. The video depicted several teen girls beating one of their classmates while filming her.
Mercades Nichols is one of the eight teen girls who face charges in the case of the vicious beating posted on YouTube. She was bailed out by a representative of the show on Friday night, MyFOXTampaBay.com reported.
The bails for the violent girls were set on Friday and they are ranging from $30,000 to $37,000. The girls are aged from 14 to 18.
The bailing out was confirmed via E-mail by Terri Corigliano, a show spokeswoman. In his E-mail, Corigliano explained that the show has previously helped other “guests and potential guests” of the show with different needs, but in this case “certain staff members” who were in the process of booking guests for the Dr. Phil McGraw show went a bit too far and broke the rules of the show.
“These staff members have been spoken to and our policies reiterated. In addition, we have decided not to go forward with the story as our guidelines have been compromised,” Corigliano wrote in the statement.
Keep this post and bookmark this story. Will the girl eventually appear on Dr. Phil’s show? If so, the show’s explanation will prove to be….inaccurate.
In an earlier story TMZ noted that when it comes to jumping into big stories, Dr. Phil is a serial offender:
Apparently Dr. Phil didn’t learn much from his interference with Britney Spears. Paging Dr. Fame whore.
The talk show host has allegedly posted bond, which was set at $33,000, for one of the eight teens that was arrested for severely beating another teenager in Florida. The highly publicized case has been in the news for over a week now, and Dr. Phil must want some of that action.
A bail bondsman told several local media outlets that Mercades Nichols, who has been widely reported as the alleged “ringleader,” had her bond paid by the show’s producers. When Nichols left the jail, a man who claimed to be a producer for the Dr. Phil show helped escort Nichols and her mom.
Mercades’s grandmother recently told local reporters that she didn’t have the money to bail her granddaughter out.
According to reports, the producer then told reporters to leave the jail because the Dr. Phil show had exclusive rights to the delinquent’s story. He did not comment on if Dr. Phil had helped pay for her bond.
This was how another earlier story by Fox News described how it was known Dr. Phil’s people bailed the girl out:
Mercades Nichols, one of eight teens charged in the brutal attack which was captured on a YouTube video, was bailed out by a representative of the show on Friday night, according to a report from MyFOXTampaBay.com.
A judge on Friday set bails ranging from $30,000 to $37,000 for the teenagers.
The Dr. Phil representative was waiting by the jail’s exit, and when Nichols walked out, he tried to block Tampa TV station camera people from getting video of Nichols and her family leaving jail.
TV news and TV talk shows are always focused on “the get” which is getting the big news makers who are at the center of flavor-of-the-week huge news stories. The clear reason: to attract big audiences with guests that won’t and can’t appear on other competing shows.
So remember this story — and the show’s statement that it won’t do it now.
But here is the bottom line: when shows get sensational guests, they usually get the ratings, which increases ad revenues…so their behavior (even in bailing out teens accused of beating up another teen) is rewarded when people tune in.
Democrats need to factor into their calculations the fact that presumptive GOP President nominee Senator John McCain is totally relaxed and comes across as quite likable in front of the TV cameras.
Just watch this exchange from a few days on David Letterman’s Show. First, Letterman delivers his zingers and then McCain. The jokes are obviously prepared but note (a) the pizazz with which McCain delivers his opening line, delivered as well as any actor can do it. (b) the ease with which he reads the teleprompter, not looking into it all the time.
March 9th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Set your recorder, or watch in person: Joe Gandelman, our Editor in Chief of The Moderate Voice, will be on television at approximately 6:30 PM EST today, Sunday March 9, 2008.
That’s 6:30 PM Eastern Time
5:30 PM Central Time
4:30 PM Mountain Standard Time
3:30 PM Pacific Time
CNN is doing a segment called Blog Buzz, and they’ve selected a blogger on the right, on the left, and in the center… which is where Joe will be as he is formally an Independent, like Dr. E and a few others here at TMV are also.
The CNN segment will last about 4 or 5 minutes. Joe makes no bones about being fed up with negative campaigning and has done posts on that — and that’s said to be one of CNN’s main topics for this evening.
If someone knows how to make a video of Joe on CNN (old tech, old school person please apply), please let us know, and we will post it at TMV.
February 22nd, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Jack Benny was one of the 20th century’s most beloved comedians: a star of vaudeville, the golden age of radio, movies and television. He actually invented the situation comedy on radio. And he could milk a laugh by scanning (slowly turning and looking at) the audience — extending a laugh seconds longer than any other comedian. He helped pioneer 20th century comedy that was more attitude than just setup/joke setup/joke.
Mel Blanc was a comedian who became a legend in cartoons. He did the voices for most Warner Brothers cartoons (Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig and more) and later on for Barney Rubble and Dino on The Flintstones. Read the rest of this entry »
February 15th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
When people ask me, as a professional entertainer, who my favorite comedian or entertainer of all time is, they’re surprised by my reply: it’s Lou Costello, the chubby half of the classic Abbott & Costello comedy team.
They’re also surprised to hear me say I’m not talking about Costello as he appeared in the team’s films — but the Costello I watch (and study) on DVDs of the team’s filmed Abbott & Costello Show, a nutty situation comedy that inspired Jerry Seinfeld to create his show. And, especially, the Lou Costello as seen on DVDs in the old Colgate Comedy Hour shows where he and his parter performed live, a zillion things went wrong, and you wondered how Costello could keep the pace up without having a heart attack.
In fact, he died at age 52 of heart disease in 1959. But for students of comedy and aspiring comedians, he left a body of work that can still be studied and enjoyed.
Here’s one of the classic routines the team performed in burlesque, filmed and adapted for their TV show (so they could copyright and own it) — and one where Costello shines.
If you’re a young reader who is studying comedy and never really seen him, note here:
(1) His timing on his key lines.
(2) How he reacts to everything going on around him.
(3) His glances and comments to the audience and his enormous likability.
(4) The appearance of his partner Abbott (with the mustache) and, at the end, the appearance of the most unloved of the Three Stooges’ “Curley replacements,” Joe Besser as “Stinky,” an obnoxious brat (played by a grown man in ridiculous early 20th century kids clothing). Besser’s creation of the bratty kid is a classic.
I was watching PBS NewsHour while eating a hefty salad with lots of garlic when I heard that the McCain and Huckabee campaigns have teamed-up in New Hampshire to knock Mitt Romney out of the race.
January 3rd, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
I come from a long line of old country storytellers; the Magyarok and the meztisos call us, taltos or cantadoras…
In our ethnic family, there’s an old, old story told by our grandmothers about the old bullfrog who tries to fool others into thinking he is naive instead of cunning and deliberate…
“Once there was a large old bullfrog, all spotted with bald forehead and bags under his eyes. This bullfrog really liked to eat mice most of all. But, most mice were too smart to come near him, with his big mouth and long tongue, and all.
“Thus, the old bullfrog had to be discontent to spend his days snapping bugs out of the air, and casting his mouth-net for minnows.
“But, one day, a furry fat mouse with little black eyes and thin white paws found its way to the water’s edge. As soon as the old bullfrog spied him, he said in a voice of innocence and whine…
“”Ah dear mouse, I have heard there is across this deep water, a feast of honor and endless treats awaiting both mice and bullfrogs, if only I can bring a mouse across with me. Consider the waiting feast, dear mouse, for surely if we remain as we are, we must both languish in poverty, eating whatever small dry things we can find.”
“The mouse was wary, but the bullfrog assured he would give the mouse a ride across the deep water ’so the mouse would be safe.’ “I am a strong and tested swimmer,” bragged the old bullfrog…
“”Just to make sure you are safe dear mouse,” the bullfrog continued, “I will tie one of your legs to my legs ’so you wont ‘go astray, or ‘get lost.’”
“And thus, the naive mouse assented to be taken across the water. And the old bullfrog bound one of the mouse’s slender legs to his fatter green leg.
“However, once in the water, the old bullfrog in all his cunning, dove down deep, dragging the mouse with him. The mouse struggled, then drowned.
“The old bullfrog was content to have bagged his prey.
“Thus, he surfaced with the now dead mouse still attached to his leg.
“But for all the bullfrog’s years in the swamp, he still did not realize that there is always a greater consciousness, a greater eye watching… from overhead… one who is wiser, one who sees every small motive and movement.
“So now, from the sky, a black shadow dove and raced across the green water, and suddenly Read the rest of this entry »
