Andy was likely the first observational-humorist that I ever encountered when watching 60 Minutes each Sunday evening with my father. He's become a cliche, but he earned it.
Also, anyone know why there were two adding machines up on the podium? They could have at least torn the tapes off before the service.
A few years ago while visiting my wife's grandparents in Minnesota, I was forced to sleep in their basement, where a copy of Andy Rooney's "My War" was all by itself on a shelf. I usually never have time to read, but out of boredom, I started to read it, and I could not put the damn book down. Sure, his TV bits about the frustrations of opening produce bags, or cotton in pill bottles are cliché, but that book really resonated with me.
It's about his time at the Stars & Stripes (as he mentions in the clip), and how he was there at D-Day and covered all of the shitstorm.. How almost daily, he'd notice pilot friends missing from the lunch table as they died on their respective missions.. His whimsical observations, in this context, are actually quite fascinating, as the man saw a lot of shit. If you're ever in the mood for a WWII book, I recommend it. It's the last book I've finished in full and that was 10 years ago :[]
@Artie Fufkin: Well, that tells you some'pin, doesn't it?? If a book over 200 pages was able to captivate an ADD-riddled mind, it must be worth a shit. Plus, if I read all the time, how the hell would there be time for Gawker? C'mon, team player..
As much as I loved Walter Cronkite, it's not as if he was snatched from us in the bloom of youth. Andy had several decades to prepare himself for this eventuality. And by the looks of him, he's preparing to throw his own feet in the air any minute.
@scroll_lock: "You know what gets me? Me. I mean, who else but me would know about the contents of my kitchen drawers, and would know to write a whole segment about spatulas? Me, you make you laugh."
@Aaron Altman: "Y'ever notice how I can go on and on about nothing and make you think to yourself that you never looked at nothing in quite so much detail?"
@scroll_lock: Awww, I kinda like Andy. After nine-minute segments about how radioactive material is leaking from North Korea into a lake where Gary Hart fished from a boat that killed Princess Diana while she was delivering blood diamonds to help restore democracy in Honduras by putting Sgt. James Crowley on desk duty while the US Attorney's office arrests 44 people in New Jersey for shipping substandard body armor to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, a little self-absorbed nitpicking ain't such a bad thang.
@Aaron Altman: Especially after watching all of that when I was 9 years old. Andy was like dessert after your mother forced you to finish the over-cooked chicken. See my 10:58 comment above.
It seems to me that Sonia Sotomayor is a shining example of how AA is supposed to work. Sure, affirmative action may have helped her get into Princeton and Yale, and also may have helped her pay for the education, however, Justice Sotomayor still had to do the work to graduate at the top of her class and receive the honors she received. She still had to practice law exceptionally well to become a judge in the first place, and she still had to judge in a consistent and reasoned manner in order to be named to the 2nd circuit and now to the Supreme Court. In other words, affirmative action doesn't mean that the individual in question is somehow absolved of doing any of the hard work to get ahead, but rather gives them the opportunity to excel when they might not have had it in the first place. For centuries we squandered the intelligence and industriousness of underprivileged men and women, and affirmative action is one way, maybe imperfect, but a way nonetheless to tap into the vast unused potential within this country. I hope that one day we won't need affirmative action, but after watching the hearings I sadly realize we aren't there yet.
i have to take issue with some of the finer points. e.g. for yale law review to say that sotomayor's appointment having something to do with affirmative action is buchannan's "opinion" is not really a refutation of his statement. ideally, i would like to see this taken further. as constructed, this was a bit of a stretch, and this and a few other minor points weren't really necessary to make the obvious point, that pat buchannan is a buffoon.
HOWEVER, big picture, buchannan, despite his credentials, merits, experiences, insights etc. (let's give the devil his due), really screwed the pooch on this one and maddow called him out on it eloquently.
I think the thing that gets lost in Affirmative Action discussions is the acknowledgment that minorities rarely have any network in the job market.
My brother in law is ready to get into his field, having completed his education and the family quickly composed a list of contacts of people that would hire him because of their personal relationship.
I don't have that or anything like that. In my family, I'm only the second person to have finished my college education. My parents didn't pay for it, I worked in a factory and got some grants. I couldn't find work, and when I did, I was usually immediately mistrusted by some members of the staff.
At one job, in my first week, I overheard some employees saying they didn't trust me and wouldn't work for me. Most critics don't anything about going through this.
When I worked for a southern newspaper in the late 1970s, the company repeatedly refused to hire black reporters, even if they were the most qualified applicants, saying a black reporter could not do the job in their community. That's the sort of thing Affirmative Action helped redress.
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
Also, anyone know why there were two adding machines up on the podium? They could have at least torn the tapes off before the service.
07/24/09
Minus re-stocking fees, of course.
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
Still sad though...
07/24/09
It's about his time at the Stars & Stripes (as he mentions in the clip), and how he was there at D-Day and covered all of the shitstorm.. How almost daily, he'd notice pilot friends missing from the lunch table as they died on their respective missions.. His whimsical observations, in this context, are actually quite fascinating, as the man saw a lot of shit. If you're ever in the mood for a WWII book, I recommend it. It's the last book I've finished in full and that was 10 years ago :[]
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
Seriously, though, it was a great book :[]
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/24/09
07/21/09
07/21/09
07/21/09
07/21/09
HOWEVER, big picture, buchannan, despite his credentials, merits, experiences, insights etc. (let's give the devil his due), really screwed the pooch on this one and maddow called him out on it eloquently.
i think i'm in love
07/21/09
My brother in law is ready to get into his field, having completed his education and the family quickly composed a list of contacts of people that would hire him because of their personal relationship.
I don't have that or anything like that. In my family, I'm only the second person to have finished my college education. My parents didn't pay for it, I worked in a factory and got some grants. I couldn't find work, and when I did, I was usually immediately mistrusted by some members of the staff.
At one job, in my first week, I overheard some employees saying they didn't trust me and wouldn't work for me. Most critics don't anything about going through this.
07/21/09
Couldn't that be a socio-economic difference rather than a race one?
07/21/09
07/21/09
07/21/09