Finding Their Own Paths

In a quite thorough piece for Salon, historian Glenn W. LaFantasie compares failed half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin to the Republican Party’s first presidential candidate, John C. Frémont--another blunder-prone, maverick-y, “celebrity as well as a politician” (though Frémont actually did heroic things to earn his celebrity)--and finds the former wanting. But he does identify one clear commonality between the two:

... they are both American originals. They stand out for being different and remarkable. American originals, like Frémont and Palin, always march to a different drum, constantly find themselves in scrapes and controversy, make headlines and great news copy, prefer always to face West (or northwest), and spring up without warning out of the nation’s rich soil, like a rare Jack-in-the-Pulpit in the middle of a dense forest. They amaze us and befuddle us. American originals have left indelible marks on our nation’s fabric; sometimes those marks are stains, sometimes they form intricate, captivating designs. Whether you love or hate her, Sarah Palin--like John C. Frémont--is a true American original.

It’s just a little too easy for progressives to make fun of Palin, dismissing her malapropisms, questioning her intelligence, making fun of her Fargo accent (but, gosh, she does sometimes sound like Margie, the lovable cop in the Coen brothers’ movie), gloating as her popularity tanks in the polls, and predicting that she can’t possibly capture the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. I, for one, am reluctant to write her off. Yet, like Frémont, she frequently is her own worst enemy. Trying to emphasize how much she truly loves the Alaska outdoors, she said on her reality show: "I’d rather be doin’ this than in some dusty old political office. I’d rather be out here being free." If she’s not careful, she just might get her wish.

You can read the full article here.

Ruffling Feathers

This news comes from Entertainment Weekly:

With Comcast officially taking control of NBC Universal this week, the corporate office has unveiled a new company logo [left] that seems to be missing something. Actually, it’s missing just about everything. It’s just text. And, most strikingly: There’s no peacock.

Yikes! The peacock has been a part of NBC-TV’s logo ever since the 1950s, demonstrating the network’s commitment to color broadcasting. There was an earlier time when it disappeared, during the mid-1970s--which I recall as the high point of my boob tube viewing--to be replaced by a stylized “N” logo made up of two trapezoids. But the faithful peacock was restored to branding dominance in the fall of 1979, and has continued to symbolize the network ever since. That Comcast should choose to jettison that heritage in favor of an extremely boring new logo just demonstrates its disregard for the rich history of what used to be (in my opinion) America’s best source of nighttime entertainment.

Below are NBC logos dating back to the “microphone logo” of the 1940s and continuing up to the pre-Comcast version.

(Hat tip to Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine.)

READ MORE: “The History of the CBS Eye Logo,” by Dan Wagstaff (The Casual Optimist).

The People Have Spoken

Inspired by the recent release of O: A Presidential Novel, penned by the no-longer-anonymous author, Anonymous (actually Mark Salter, a former adviser to Republican U.S. Senator John McCain), and in anticipation of President Barack Obama’s second State of the Union address, Slate’s chief political correspondent, John Dickerson, wondered in print last week, “Why isn’t there a great novel about political Washington?”

He listed his own favorite works of D.C.-rooted fiction--Gore Vidal’s Washington, D.C. (1967) and Allen Drury’s Pulitzer Award-winning Advise and Consent (1959)--but threw it over to his audience for more suggestions.

So which novel about the political machinations of the U.S. capital wins the most votes from Slate readers? By a long shot, apparently, the choice is Democracy, by Henry Adams. “Written in 1880, it proves my point that we must reach pretty far back into history to find a decent tale about Washington,” writes Dickerson. “Readers said that the book captures the conflict of interests and struggle for power that has the city locked up so tight to this day.”

You’ll find more about Democracy, as well as a list of Slate readers’ runner-up choices, here.

Vintage Views: Hollywood in the 1920s

The peaceful reaches of Barcelona, Spain, our previous stop on Limbo’s video excursion through history, seem a world away--instead of merely half a world away--from bustling, bumptious Prohibition-era Hollywood, this week’s focus.

Over blues singer Victoria Spivey’s rendition of “Hollywood Stomp,” a popular tune of the early 20th century, we’re offered a mix of black-and-white newsreel footage introducing some of the largest studios and most sumptuous movie theaters, as well as other popular sites around Los Angeles, including the Hollywood Bowl, the Brown Derby restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard, and hectic Sunset Boulevard. Although the first motion picture made in the L.A. area was not actually shot in the formerly tranquil agricultural suburb of Hollywood, it certainly didn’t take long for that now-renowned neighborhood northwest of downtown to corner the film-production market. By the 1920s, it was awash in swank cars, spotlight-enhanced movie premieres, and celebrities made to believe that they could outshine the stars in the night sky.

I am a bit surprised not to see in these clips the Hollywood Sign (which at the time read “Hollywoodland”). But maybe in those days, not long after the sign had been erected as a real-estate promotion in 1923, it wasn’t considered the landmark that it is today.

From here, we head next to the ambitious and fast-expanding Cuban capital, Havana, in the 1930s.

Pulling a Boner

I’m glad to know that I was not the only person who noted that the perpetually tanned John Boehner’s pick to be the next head of the RNC failed to win that job. From Slate:

The Republican National Committee ousted Michael Steele and elected Reince Priebus, who previously led the Wisconsin Republican Party, as its new leader. With the vote, RNC members sent a message that “there’s at least one corner of the Republican Party that’s beyond House Speaker John Boehner's reach,” writes Politico. Boehner was a big advocate of veteran operative Maria Cino. Despite Boehner’s efforts, “an aggressive and assertive collection of RNC insiders” ended up getting their way pushing for Priebus as a compromise candidate. The RNC prides itself in being independent from leaders in Washington. Committee members see themselves more as “an extension of the grass roots,” explains Politico and some weren’t happy about all the influence peddling. Boehner wasn’t the only big name who tried to get Cino elected. Former Vice President Dick Cheney also pushed for Cino and his daughter, Mary Cheney, even helped launch her campaign.

You’ll recall that Boehner passed up attending this last Wednesday’s memorial service at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and therefore missed being in the audience to hear President Obama’s roundly applauded address, because he was attending a fundraiser for Cino in Washington, D.C. So let me see if I’ve got this straight: Boehner opened himself to criticism because he eschewed a national “healing” event, following the mass shooting in Tucson last weekend ... and then the woman for whom he ditched said event didn’t even win. Heck, Cino didn’t even come in second.

It seems Boehner might just be in the market for some better political advice in the future.

Remembrance of Hits Past

Thanks to Spinetingler Magazine for reminding me that it was 30 years ago tonight that the Steven Bochco-created cop drama Hill Street Blues began its seven-year run on NBC-TV.

Know-It-Alls

In addition to today marking what would’ve been the 82nd birthday of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (he was assassinated in 1968), “It’s the 10-year anniversary of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which was launched on this day in 2001,” according to The Writer’s Almanac. The Almanac goes on to explain:

[Wikipedia] was co-founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales. Sanger was a philosopher who specialized in epistemology, which is the study of knowledge itself--how it works, how we learn, how knowledge is spread and why we believe what we do. Wales was an entrepreneur who started out on a more traditional career path, working at a futures and options trading firm in Chicago, before deciding that the Internet was the way of the future. First Wales created a Web domain called Bomis, cater[ing] toward men. There were Web rings like “babe,” “sports,” and “adult."” Bomis didn’t really take off, but it did make enough on advertising to fit the bills for Wales’ next project, Nupedia.

For Nupedia, Wales recruited Sanger, who was a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy. They were both interested in open-source software, and were excited by the idea of creating an online encyclopedia that anyone could contribute to. They decided that articles would go through a rigorous peer-reviewed process to make sure they were as accurate as those in any other encyclopedia. So they launched Nupedia in March of 2000. Unfortunately, it didn’t work very well. Writers would get critiqued so intensely by scholarly reviewers that they were too afraid to write more articles. After six months, only two articles had made it through the peer-review process. Larry Sanger was talking to a programmer, Ben Kovitz, who explained the concept of a wiki and suggested using wiki software for an encyclopedia, so that anyone could write and anyone could edit, making the encyclopedia truly collaborative. Sanger brought the idea to Wales, and they decided to give it a chance. They kept it separate from Nupedia, in case it was a failure. Instead, they called their new venture Wikipedia.

And in almost no time Wikipedia became far more popular than Nupedia. In 2009, the English-language version of Wikipedia hit the 3 million-article mark when someone wrote an article on the Norwegian actress Beate Eriksen. Since then, the number has continued to rise, and there are about 3.5 million articles in English. Overall, there are more than 17 million articles in more than 270 languages.

It’s astounding, really, how quickly Wikipedia has become an essential resource. Unfortunately, it has also become an easy fallback for students too lazy to do research on their own. But while Wikipedia is a font of information, much of it esoteric and unlikely to have ever been included in a conventional, print encyclopedia, its openness has resulted in many accidental errors and intentional pranks. Schoolchildren and anyone else who uses Wikipedia would do well to double-check its facts before repeating them. That isn’t a knock on Wikipedia, just a recognition of any collaborative site’s faults.

I’ve made a few contributions of my own to that site over the last couple of years, writing about the 1976-1977 TV series City of Angels, the recently deceased crime novelist Joe Gores, TV writer and producer William Link, and other subjects. There are a few more pages I would like to beef up, when I find some extra time. I figure that making such additions helps pay back Wikipedia for my repeated blog references to its millions of pages. Were Wikipedia to go out of business (as was rumored a year or so ago), my various blogs would be plagued by dead connections.

Here’s wishing Wikipedia another decade of information overload!

READ MORE: “Jesus of Wikipedia: Using Christ’s Page as a Guide to the Online Encyclopedia’s 10-Year History,” Chris Wilson (Slate).

History Reloaded

Much has been said (and probably remains to be said) about failed former half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s offensive “crosshairs” map of the Democratic U.S. lawmakers she thought, in her infinite wisdom, deserved ouster because they’d supported President Obama’s historic health-care reform legislation last year. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona), who was critically wounded this last weekend during a deadly shooting in Tucson, was among the people pinpointed on that map.

Now, The Stranger--the marginally less boring of two “alternative” weekly newspapers serving Seattle--has come up with its own version of Palin’s chart, substituting for her “targets” the names of political figures who were, indeed, assassinated over the last century and a half, or who survived assassination attempts.

Palin’s map is on the left, The Stranger’s is on the right. Click on either image to open a larger version in a new window.



(Hat tip to Salon.)

READ MORE: “Half-Term Governor Breaks Her Silence” and “Those Who Justify Anti-Government Violence,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “Playing Politics with the Tucson Tragedy,” by Nicholas Wilbur (The Reaction).

Motor (City) Mouths

One of the few new crime dramas I’ve enjoyed since September has been Detroit 1-8-7, a gritty but multi-textured police procedural, set in Michigan’s largest city, that obviously wants to appeal to old NYPD Blue fans--and seems to be winning many of them over. So I’ve been pleased to see Collider.com’s recent interviews with members of that ABC show’s cast. Michael Imperioli, James McDaniel, Natalie Martinez, Erin Cummings, Jon Michael Hill, D.J. Cotrona, and creator-lead writer Jason Richman all submitted to questioning on camera by Bill Graham.

Holy Bativersary!

It was 45 years ago today that the classic American TV series Batman, starring Adam West, Burt Ward, and later Yvonne Craig as Batgirl, debuted on the ABC network. I had much to say about the program on its 40th anniversary. But this time, I just want to offer a collection of clips I found showing “Window Cameos” from that show.

Anyone who watched Batman, as I did in my far-off youth, remembers Batman and Robin periodically scaling the precipitous heights of Gotham City buildings with the help of their Batarangs and evidently super-strong Batropes. Those “Batclimbs” were enlivened with special guest appearances by entertainers and other notables of the day, including Jerry Lewis, Dick Clark, Sammy Davis Jr., Don Ho, Art Linkletter, fellow crime-fighters the Green Hornet and Kato, Edward G. Robinson, and others who would open windows and chat for a while with the Dynamic Duo during their slow ascents.

The gags seem a bit stiff now, but nonetheless charming.



READ MORE: “Batman Anniversary,” by Jason Whiton (SpyVibe); “Read the 1966 Adam West Batman TV Show Life Magazine for Free!” and “The Evolution of the Batmobile” (Bat-Blog).

Hate Talk Has Consequences

Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg writes that “There’s something offensive, as well as pointless, about the politically charged inquiry into what might have been swirling inside the head of Jared Loughner,” the man who allegedly tried to assassinate U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) last Saturday in Tucson, but wound up killing half a dozen other people and wounding 14 more. Nonetheless, Weisberg contends, the “inflammatory language” used by Tea Party types and other right-wingers over the last couple of years certainly “increased the odds of something like [that shooting] happening.” More perspective here.

READ MORE: “The Right’s Role in the Arizona Massacre,” by Dan Fejes (The Reaction); “‘Promoting a Paranoid Culture,’” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “The Amazing Recovery of Gabrielle Giffords,” by Michael J.W. Stickings (The Reaction).

Why Does This Not Surprise Me?

From The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen: “In their very first week as the new House majority, the Republican leadership has decided to abandon all of the legislative principles they claimed to support up until very recently.”