One more for Paul– I was a fan since first grade. I hated going to school but there was one consolation and that was Paul’s morning news broadcast on the car radio. Even as a kid, I was drawn to that dry, Dragnet delivery of his with that twist of inflection –the comment — that made additional words superfluous.
There was something quintessentially American about the man. Economical in word, forthright in speech, positive in outlook, and devoted to God and family.
Comic impressionists could never quite get Paul Harvey down well enough to make the impression funny. Lots have nailed Walter Cronkite, I’ve heard a number of good Tom Brokaws and Dan Rathers, but whenever I heard an impressionist attempt Paul Harvey, I get the same reaction I get whenever I hear Bugs Bunny being done by someone other than Mel Blanc. Or Kermit by someone other than Jim Henson. I think, “that ain’t it.”
I note with sadness that Michael Crichton, the MD turned novelist, turned businessman, turned director, turned television producer, turned global warming whistle blower, turned naturalist and who-knows-what-else, passed away. (more…)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn died yesterday. His novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, was in fact up for consideration for the Lenin prize in 1964 during the Khruschchev period of de-Stalinization. But an unfavorable editorial in The New York TimesPravda, killed its chances. Its editorial declared the work unworthy because it failed to distinguish between “honorable and good people” in the gulag versus the “criminals and traitors,” something Pravda was always scrupulous about.
To bring up Scott McCellan at this time proves I am exceedingly petty. Tony Snow, however was less so. He even found a way to say a few nice words about cancer, calling it a “blessing in an unexpected package.”
Senator No is dead. He was hated by all the right people– communists, the press, pornographers, performance artists, Loudon Wainwright III… A revolutionary force, he changed the politics of the Republican party, the politics of the South, and he defended the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic with moral clarity, direct language, and steadfast courage.
