This is John Hamm, from the AMC series Mad Men. The idea behind the gag is good, but the skull cap could be better.
Month: March 2009
Obama blasts the big bonuses
It’s ridiculous that the President of the United States has to intervene directly with something like the AIG executive bonuses, but if he doesn’t do it, who will…?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090316/ap_on_go_pr_wh/aig_outrage
D.F. Rogers has one of his typically funny comments — “If Obama went to Harvard Business School, instead of Harvard Law School, he’d understand why these bonuses are perfectly legitimate.”
Wall Street, the big bankers, and the rest of them, still just don’t get it. There may be plenty of free beer, fellas, but you can’t drink any more. The party’s over. You have to sober up and face reality.
Enough with the BS excuses that, “Hey, as a percentage it’s not that much money.” Obama is right to say, “This isn’t just a matter of dollars and cents. It’s about our fundamental values.”
The man who (sort of, not really) signed The Beatles
Alan Livingston with The Beatles at the Plaza Hotel, NYC, February 7, 1964
Alan Livingston died a couple of days ago. He was with Capitol Records on-and-off over a period of twenty years, and he happened to be its president when The Beatles were tossed in his lap by EMI, which had bought Capitol in 1955. Many news sources have stated that Livingston signed the Beatles, but that’s simply not correct. The man who best knows the American side of the Beatles saga is Bruce Spizer, and at this link he explains Livingston’s role in their story. The band that Livingston really deserves credit for signing is the Beach Boys.
Parlez-Vous Français — Petula Clark
David Moncour has sent this link to an interview with Petula Clark, in French, including the music clips. Thank you, Davie!
http://franckhermann.spaces.live.com/blog/
The audio is linked on Petula’s name, and it isn’t embedded, so depending on how your file associations are set up it will come up on one local player or another. How about I embed it here, so you don’t have to bother doing that?
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/MAR/PETULACLARK_FrenchInterview.mp3]How about this pair of pictures? On the left is Petula with actor Michael Redgrave in 1942, and on the right they’re together again in 1968, filming Goodbye Mr. Chips.
For many years, Petula has been great pals with Redgrave’s daughter Lynn, who’s about 5’10” tall. As you can see, Pet is petite!
I see that it’s time to renew my subscription to Petula & Company, published by the International Petula Clark Society. There’s all sorts of stuff in there about Pet, facts and photos, that you won’t find anywhere else. I particularly enjoy it for providing so much background about her early years in England. As I keep saying, as far as we were concerned in America, Petula appeared out of nowhere, polished and professional.
Cosmic Comic Coincidence
I happen to have a Jeopardy! header for the blog right now, because of Larissa Kelly’s big return for the Tournament of Champions, and by happenstance today’s Doonesbury refers to Jeopardy!
Does Dick Cheney have Mad Cow Disease?
Dick Cheney once again is saying that he thinks Obama is making the country less safe from terrorists.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney
In reference to the way the Bush administration interrogated detainees, which greatly increased anti-American sentiment not only in the Muslim world but in Europe, Cheney says,
“I think that’s a great success story. It was done legally. It was done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles,” he said.
Yeah, and wiretaps without warrants were a swell idea too. Does this guy have any credibility at all? I think Cheney isn’t all there. Maybe his decades of heart trouble, and all of those times I assume he’s been on a heart-lung machine during surgery, have left his brain oxygen deprived.