The Huntley-Brinkley Report's final show...

...and how the 60's infantilized American culture.

A casual conversation had me searching for Huntley-Brinkley to satisfy an idle curiousity, and I found this clip of the final sign off from the last episode of the Huntley-Brinkley Report from 1970.  A few observations.

First, notice the language used by the reporters.  The language is formal and complex and strangely beautiful. These were people who expected that their readers expected them to set a standard of professionalism.

Second, notice how both Huntley and Brinkley are frequently looking down.  They are not reading from a teleprompter; they are reading from the papers on their desk.  I suspect that we would find that behavior today to be completely unprofessional.  In other words, we've shifted our standard of professionalism from the content of reporting to the way in which it is presented.  

Third, I remember the sign-off music at the closing credits, which Wiki advises was "the second movement (scherzo) of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, from the 1952 studio recording with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra." It was heavy, ponderous, serious, classical music. It communicated the sense that reporting the news was serious because news was a serious business.

Could you imagine any news show - any show - using such music today?  Seriousness is passe in this day and age.

Fourth, the final broadcast was in 1970, when I was ten.  I would have sworn that it was on well into my teen years, because I remember Huntley-Brinkley and the final music.

Check out the final sign off:

When will the '60s come to an end?

One small part of the '60s has ended.  Marilynn Buck - a former "anti-imperialist freedom fighter" responsible for the death of several police officers in typically loonie radical fund-raising schemes, i.e., the forced expropriation of other people's money - has died of cancer one month after being released from prison 20 years into her 50 year "bit."

Reading the article brings back memories of these narcissistic loons that were once young, and murdered for their cause.

Cats living with Dogs

According to Jonah Goldberg, Coakley has conceded.

Who would have thought that the annointed Senate seat of the sainted "liberal lion" would be lost in one-party Massachusetts?


If true - if not a rumor - how badly have the Democrats miscalculated? What possessed them to double down on socializing 1/6th of the economy in the face of obvious voter hatred for their project? And what is with this perennial Democrat obsession with socialized medicine?

Now is the time that we do the dance of joy.

Politically Correct Apology

Letterman explains that he really meant to smear an 18 year old girl - who was no where near New York - as a rape victim or prostitute:

"We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter, the 18-year-old girl, who is — her name is Bristol, that's right, and so, then, now they're upset with me . . ."

"These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don't think it's funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn't put it in a joke..."

Because it's obviously wrong to joke about sex with a 14 year old, but the moment she turns 18, it's all good.

Classy.

Victor Davis Hanson - grounded in reality - points out:

Third, he strangely amplifies his joke by confessing it really was about "raping" and "having sex of any description," but just not with a "14-year-old girl," suggesting it would have been okay had he just been more explicit and named Bristol, the 18-year-old. In Letterman's world, because Bristol is 18, she is a year past most statuary rape clauses and thus the joke would have only been about "raping or having sex of any description with a [18-year-old] girl."

Sure, so long as it's not technically illegal, it's perfectly alright.

VDH also offers:

The self-serving, creepy apology was as bad as the initial slur. Letterman is emblematic of an aging, baby-boomer culture, that dresses up street vulgarity with a tie and coat. The only thing that saves him is his care to do this with the Palins from Alaska that don't figure into the usual no-go race/class/gender paradigm.

God help us now that they - my deranged, spoiled, unhinged Baby Boomer generation - is in charge.

14 or 18, I can imagine Todd Palin horse-whippin' Letterman for smearing the names of his children, whether or not they are beyond statutory rape charges.

There was a time when we instinctively understood this. As Harry Truman wrote to music critic Paul Hume after Hume gave a particularly bad review of Truman's daughter:

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

Mr Hume:

I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an "eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay."

It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.

Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!

Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.

H.S.T.

The insult that Hume gave was nothing compared to Letterman's classless antics.

Look who is benefitting from bourgeoisie justice and the special advantages given to white wealthy women.

Sara Jane Olson released to serve parole in Minnesota:

Culminating a case that has evoked history and strong emotions, former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson was released from state prison Tuesday and cleared to serve supervised parole in Minnesota after completing a seven-year sentence for bank robbery and attempting to kill Los Angeles police officers.

Who is Sara Jane Olson?

Olson was one of five SLA members -- including Emily Montague-Harris, William Taylor Harris, Michael Alexander Bortin and James William Kilgore -- who pleaded guilty in Sacramento County to second-degree murder in the death of Myrna Opsahl during the April 21, 1975, robbery of Crocker National Bank in suburban Carmichael.

Then known as Kathleen Soliah, Olson was inside the bank and armed at the time Opsahl, a 42-year-old mother of four, was fatally shot. The case took on added notoriety because kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst said she was the getaway driver and described in a book how the robbery and killing took place. Hearst was not charged in that case, but served a two-year federal prison sentence for a San Francisco bank robbery.

Olson cold-bloodedly murdered the mother of small children - who the SLA viewed as an expendable "bourgeois pig" - but was allowed a very lenient plea bargain.

At the sentencing, the Opsahl family showed commendable sympathy for the fact that Olson had remade her life, but - ironically - she was able to remake her life because she came from the white privilege that she allegedly murdered to end.

Ultimately, this is another Boomer story - spoiled children who scamper back to the security of their elite position when forced to face the consequences of their actions.

Who Obama's friends really are

Those '60s Leftists are so cute and cuddly. All they wanted was peace, love and understanding.

And to murder 9 year olds.

This is an essay by John Murtagh worth reading so that we don't forget who these people really were.

Here's the opening:

During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in early 1970. I was only nine then, the year Ayers’s Weathermen tried to murder me.

The specious wheeze that tries to exonerate Ayers and Obama because Ayer's involvement in an organization that would have murdered a child on the grounds that it all happened so long ago is despicable. The actions of these 60's Liberals-in-a-hurry have long, long effects on peoples lives, such as John Murtagh and the children of Myrna Opsahl.

Myrna Opsahl, lest we forget, and we should not forget, was a victim of that other band of pragmatic Marxists, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Myrna Opsahl was a housewife and mother with young children who got in the way of the SLA one day in the '70s. Murdered by them, the SLA expressed no regret for murdering a "bourgeousie pig."

Like Ayers, the murderers of Myrna Opsahl escaped justice. They hid out for years and when they were discovered, they were given light sentences because it was all so long ago.

But however long ago it was, the effects of the crimes of the SLA and Weathermen persist in the lives of children who grew up without a parent and grandchildren who never had an opportunity to know their grandparent.

Please, Lord, let the 60's end sometime in my lifetime.

Obama is definitely a "Herbert"!

Mark Shea - who still has me banned from his comments - makes an important cultural connection between Star Trek's "space hippies":



And Obama's "Sign of the Circle":



I am sure that it is not important that this latest bit of overwheening Obama symbolism is being put out by a group that calls itself "The Loyalty" and wants Obama supporters to practice making the "Sign of the Circle."

This is right up there with the Obama Presidential Seal.