Tom McMahon

A Salute To Professor Michael Eidenmuller Of The University Of Texas At Tyler

Professor Michael Eidenmuller Of The University Of Texas At Tyler

I first discovered Professor Eidenmuller via his terrific Top 100 Speeches page on his very comprehensive American Rhetoric web site. What impresses me about his home page is that it not only contains the C.V. sort of stuff you'd expect on a professor's page, he also posts exemplary student work, including a video of a student speech on how to bag groceries. What a great way to recognize students, eh? You post their work for all the world (including their tuition-paying parents!) to see.

In my opinion, Eidenmuller's web pages are exactly what we should be expecting more of from our professors at public universities: info about themselves, their students, and their subject, made accessible to all.

So Where Is The Outrage From Hollywood?

From Pat Sajak:

Picture this:

Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? It’s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.

So I’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.

The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh's body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van Gogh’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community?

A Tank Silencer

A Tank Silencer

I want one of these for Christmas, in lieu of fruitcake.

Vinko Bogataj

He was the guy who tumbled down the ski jump every week at the beginning of ABC'sWide World of Sports. From Wikipedia:

It is likely that Vinko Bogataj's crash would have remained an obscure sports legend had a film crew from the American sports televsion show ABC's Wide World of Sports not been on hand to record the event. The show featured an opening narration (by host Jim McKay) over a montage of sports clips, and starting from then, coordinating producer Dennis Lewin inserted the footage of Bogataj's tremendous tumble to coincide with the words "...and the agony of defeat!" Throughout the show's long history, various images were used for the other parts of the narration, including for "The thrill of victory...", which directly proceeded the above phrase and was often accompanied by images of the celebrating team at the most recent Super Bowl or Football World Cup. But for those many years after that point, the "agony of defeat" was always illustrated by Bogataj's failed jump.

The melodrama of the narration - which became something of a catch phrase in the U.S. - and the sympathetic pain of watching Bogataj wipe out week after week, transformed the uncredited ski jumper into an American icon of unluck and misfortune. Meanwhile, having retired to his quiet, private life in Slovenia, Vinko Bogataj was unaware of his celebrity, and so was quite confused to be asked to attend an anniversary celebration for Wide World of Sports in 1991 - and stunned when the other, more famous athletes present, such as Muhammad Ali, asked him for his autograph.

The Secret Song In Caddyshack That Nobody Knows

The Secret Song In Caddyshack Is In This Scene

Don't look for it in the credits, because it's not there. But playing in the background of this scene is the song "Flying Man", by Bruce Woolley

In A Perfect Christmas World . . .

From A Small Victory

In a (my) perfect Christmas world, everyone would have oversized, electricity-sucking colored bulbs on their houses. Red, blue, green and yellow. It would be snowing all the time; fluffy, soft snow that piles on the lawn and fences, creating a picturesque scene that is worthy of a Norman Rockwell painting. The glow of the colored bulbs would reflect off the snow, giving the entire street the effect of being bathed in wide swatches of color. We would all don our rubber boots and hooded parkas and trudge through the streets, our feet making crunching sounds as they packed down the foot or more of snow with each step. And that would be the only sound you hear for a while - no trucks or cars or snowblowers, just the crunch, crunch, crunching of snow underfoot and the occasional giggle of a small child who captures a snowflake on his tongue. Later, you would be able to hear the soft, off key voices of those children as they went door to door, serenading the neighbors with Christmas carols in exchange for mugs of hot chocolate, held in hands covered with snow crusted woolen mittens.

Cloudscapes Postage Stamps

Cloudscapes Postage Stamps

Doug Bennett, R.I.P.

He was the lead singer of Doug & The Slugs. Here are 10 Reasons Why Doug Bennett Was Cool.

Articboy's 1950s Nash Rambler Stash

Articboy's 1950s Nash Rambler Stash

Dine Free Unless Delighted, And Let's Recall The Mayor While We're At It

From Varifrank

In one of my after work trips, I saw a building in downtown called “Clifton’s Cafeteria”. It looked like it had been there since the beginning of time. A week later while reading a book about weird things in LA, I came across the story of Clifford Clinton. Clifford Clinton was the owner of Clifton’s Cafeteria, a chain restaurant that started in the 1930’s. What I found most interesting is that this man created a restaurant chain in the midst of the depression that was based on the simple statement of “Dine Free Unless Delighted”. Soup lines, 20% unemployed and this guy decides to open a restaurant that actually dares you to not pay. What was amazing to me was that it apparently worked, because here I was 60 years later looking at the same company, with the same concept still in place.  ...

It turned out I didn’t know the half of it. At a time when LA politics was unbelievably dirty and the police force was in fact an armed gang, Clifford Clinton decides that he’s had enough with the corrupt mayor and starts a campaign to have him recalled. He starts and organization of fellow businessmen, engages the support of some in the media, even though the Mayor and the D.A. call him “public enemy #1”. The LAPD went so far as to bomb his house to stop him.

How did he do? He won! He took on LA City Hall, the LAPD and the LA Times and he won. Mayor Frank Shaw was the first big city mayor to be recalled by special election in a very long time and the entire LAPD was revamped after several of its leading officers were indicted and imprisoned because the corruption that Clifford “Dine Free Unless Delighted” Clinton uncovered and helped put a stop to.