Is this an RIP or more a "good riddance, don't let the door hit your arse on the way out"?
It's the perfect opportunity to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens again, who said about the death of Jerry Falwell: "If his family had given him an enema you could have buried him in a matchbox."
As well as: "It's a pity there isn't a Hell for him to go to."
Is this an RIP or more a "good riddance, don't let the door hit your arse on the way out"?
It's the perfect opportunity to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens again, who said about the death of Jerry Falwell: "If his family had given him an enema you could have buried him in a matchbox."
As well as: "It's a pity there isn't a Hell for him to go to."
Is this an RIP or more a "good riddance, don't let the door hit your arse on the way out"?
It's the perfect opportunity to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens again, who said about the death of Jerry Falwell: "If his family had given him an enema you could have buried him in a matchbox."
As well as: "It's a pity there isn't a Hell for him to go to."
Jings, they're falling like flies - Lord James Douglas-Hamilton has died.
For all he was a Conservative, he was well liked. Story has it, that when a Scottish Office minister, he was being briefed on the Scottish islands - Hebrides, Shetland, Orkney. 'What about the Faroes?' 'Er, Denmark look after those, Lord James'.
I think it was "satire" that Lehrer pronounced dead after the 1973 Peace Prize announcement. And satire would fit his point more than parody, since the latter involves copying songs, whereas the former just means topical ridicule.
I'll also say that on at least one occassion(a performance of the jukebox musical Tomfoolery, I think), the quote was rendered as being about Israeli and Palestinian politicians getting the Nobel in the early 90s. So I'm wondering if the quote is maybe apocryphal.
The general(and hopefully fading) respectability of Henry Kissinger, even among liberal 1960s types, can be illustrated by the repeated joke from Fawlty Towers...
SYBIL: Is it the health inspector who just arrived, Basil?
BASIL: Well, who do you think, you stupid woman, Henry Kissinger?!
The joke not being intended as dark political humour about a mass-murdering politician, but just a litttle bit of absurdity built upon the implausibility of Kissinger being at the hotel, and maybe his having an odd-sounding name and goofy visual image.
Eric Idle's song Henry Kissinger, released by Python a few years later, was pretty much the same deal, with accompanying borschty jazz. Granted...
All right, so people say that you don't care
But you've got nicer legs than Hitler
And bigger t*ts than Cher.
...does conjoin Kissinger's name with that of a recognized genocidist, though even that is possible to interpret as generic absurdity.
Actress Brigit Forsyth at age 83
Most recently in Open All Hours, but probably best remembered by us of a certain generation as Thelma, wife of Bob (played by Rodney Bewes) in Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads.
Indeed. Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, has died.
My mother attended Stanford University with her.
Unlike many justices who die in office, she retired from SCOTUS to take care of her husband, who was suffering from dementia.
Her husband did have dementia, but O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term. She took senior status and went to be Chancellor of William and Mary College, replacing Henry Kissinger (of all people) in that post. Maybe someone should do a wellness check on Robert Gates. (O'Connor's replacement as Chancellor and the current incumbent of that post.)
Indeed. Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, has died.
My mother attended Stanford University with her.
Unlike many justices who die in office, she retired from SCOTUS to take care of her husband, who was suffering from dementia.
Her husband did have dementia, but O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term. She took senior status and went to be Chancellor of William and Mary College, replacing Henry Kissinger (of all people) in that post.
Though as I understand it, the office of Chancellor of the College of William & Mary, unlike the role of chancellor in many if not most other US universities, is purely ceremonial, and pretty much only requires showing up for specific occasions like commencement. That kind of thing isn’t inconsistent with retirement as I think of the term.
Her husband did have dementia, but O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term. She took senior status and went to be Chancellor of William and Mary College, replacing Henry Kissinger (of all people) in that post.
Though as I understand it, the office of Chancellor of the College of William & Mary, unlike the role of chancellor in many if not most other US universities, is purely ceremonial, and pretty much only requires showing up for specific occasions like commencement. That kind of thing isn’t inconsistent with retirement as I think of the term.
Does this mean that modern British monarchs are all "retired", regardless of age?
Her husband did have dementia, but O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term. She took senior status and went to be Chancellor of William and Mary College, replacing Henry Kissinger (of all people) in that post.
Though as I understand it, the office of Chancellor of the College of William & Mary, unlike the role of chancellor in many if not most other US universities, is purely ceremonial, and pretty much only requires showing up for specific occasions like commencement. That kind of thing isn’t inconsistent with retirement as I think of the term.
Does this mean that modern British monarchs are all "retired", regardless of age?
Well, they never had any other job to retire from. I guess you could arguably say that Edward VIII retired from being king, and then took up a job as Governor Of Bermuda(or whatever it was), but that would probably sound a little strange, mostly because leaving the position isn't really an expected part of the job.
Her husband did have dementia, but O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term. She took senior status and went to be Chancellor of William and Mary College, replacing Henry Kissinger (of all people) in that post.
Though as I understand it, the office of Chancellor of the College of William & Mary, unlike the role of chancellor in many if not most other US universities, is purely ceremonial, and pretty much only requires showing up for specific occasions like commencement. That kind of thing isn’t inconsistent with retirement as I think of the term.
Does this mean that modern British monarchs are all "retired", regardless of age?
Of course not, unless you can convincingly argue that “isn’t inconsistent with,” which is what I said, means the same thing as “is an indication of.”
Holding a largely ceremonial position isn’t an indication of retirement—otherwise most if not virtually all retired people would hold ceremonial positions, and those who aren’t retired generally would not. But holding largely ceremonial position that doesn’t require real, regular work on your part generally doesn’t translate into “you’re not really retired.”
In any event, the statement you seemed to take issue with was:
. . . O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term.
O’Connor’s appointment to the position of Chancellor of the College of William & Mary had no effect on whether she could be considered retired “from SCOTUS.”
Also I don't think the chancellors of US universities are constantly scrutinised by the press like a goldfish in a bowl; they could probably wear whatever tie they liked without causing a diplomatic incident.
Also I don't think the chancellors of US universities are constantly scrutinised by the press like a goldfish in a bowl; they could probably wear whatever tie they liked without causing a diplomatic incident.
It depends on the university. In many US universities, the chancellor is the chief executive officer of the university.
. . . O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term.
O’Connor’s appointment to the position of Chancellor of the College of William & Mary had no effect on whether she could be considered retired “from SCOTUS.”
I also noted that she took senior status, which allowed her to sit as a judge on federal appellate courts (which she did from time to time), keep an office in the Supreme Court building, and have a staff of clerks there. For most jobs if you're still showing up at the office and have people working under you then you're really not "retired" in the sense most people think of the term. As I noted elsewhere, O'Connor did finally fully retire in 2018, but this was nine years after the death of her husband John.
. . . O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term.
O’Connor’s appointment to the position of Chancellor of the College of William & Mary had no effect on whether she could be considered retired “from SCOTUS.”
I also noted that she took senior status, . . . .
Yes you did, and I didn’t question, challenge or disagree with that observation.
Actress Brigit Forsyth at age 83
Most recently in Open All Hours, but probably best remembered by us of a certain generation as Thelma, wife of Bob (played by Rodney Bewes) in Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads.
I loved her prickly character in The Likely Lads. Though the scenes when she was at work in her library were rather ‘unlikely’.
Also I don't think the chancellors of US universities are constantly scrutinised by the press like a goldfish in a bowl; they could probably wear whatever tie they liked without causing a diplomatic incident.
It depends on the university. In many US universities, the chancellor is the chief executive officer of the university.
I think US state university systems have active Chancellors who manage multiple campuses within the state system (presidents head individual campuses such as UC Berkeley within the UC system). Private universities like William & Mary (or Stanford) have less active chancellors who have little in the way of duties (Stanford hasn't even filled the position since its last chancellor died back in 1985 [the position there had always been filled by a retired university president]). UK universities IIRC also have chancellors who do little (the vice-chancellor is the power at Cambridge and Oxford) though theoretically have a bit more power than W&M's chancellor. I note that Margaret Thatcher was chancellor of W&M from 1993-2000; I doubt sh was expected to put in many hours.
Also I don't think the chancellors of US universities are constantly scrutinised by the press like a goldfish in a bowl; they could probably wear whatever tie they liked without causing a diplomatic incident.
It depends on the university. In many US universities, the chancellor is the chief executive officer of the university.
I think US state university systems have active Chancellors who manage multiple campuses within the state system (presidents head individual campuses such as UC Berkeley within the UC system).
It’s the other way around in the University of North Carolina system—there’s a system president, while chancellors are the chief executive office of each individual university in the system.
Private universities like William & Mary (or Stanford) have less active chancellors who have little in the way of duties (Stanford hasn't even filled the position since its last chancellor died back in 1985 [the position there had always been filled by a retired university president]).
William & Mary is a public university, not a private one. But its charter dates back to the colonial period, and as a result its chancellor functions differently from the chancellors of many other public universities in the US, whether the model used in the UC system or the model used in the UMC system.
The University of California has one president, with a chancellor for each campus. The idea is that there is a single University of California with multiple campuses. The California State University system has one chancellor, with a president for each campus, and historically was more decentralized than the UC in a lot of ways. But I'm not sure that "president" and "chancellor" convey much to most people other than "executive officer."
It is in the UK - I suppose he/she is in effect the "CEO". The Chancellor is an honorary position and is usually taken from the Great And The Good, people in public life, etc.
For some of the time I worked at the University of Ulster the Chancellor was Rabbi Julia Neuberger.
In no particular order, a list of sociopolitical issues I first learned about from watching Norman Lear sitcoms.
(Non-All In The Family entries indicated by the name of the show. The rest are from AITF. Some plotlines may be considered EPIPHANIC.)
Jewish Defense League terrorism. (It was, at the time, rather unusual to see Jews qua Jews featured in TV plots as villains).
The Ku Klux Klan(Archie was tempted to join in one episode. Not sure how plausible klan activity in NYC at the time was).
The concept of "tokenism" in relation to minority recruitment(The Jeffersons; A country club wanted George to join in order to have a Black member).
Thomas Jefferson fathering children with his slave Sally Hemmings. (The Jeffersons; George was trying to drum up business for his dry-cleaning shop during the Bicentennial by claiming to be Jefferson's descendant).
Sexual surrogates(The Jeffersons; George went to a sex therapist who suggested the idea to him, but he refused).
Swinging(Archie and Edith meet a couple who unsuccessfully try to involve them in wife-swapping. Also the first time I heard mirrors on ceilings referenced in pop culture. Sorry, Eagles).
The general concept of an "Uncle Tom" (AITF episode in which Ron Glass plays three roles, as per Michael's, Archie's, and Edith's respective perceptions of him).
Minstrel shows. (Archie was supposed to be in one with his buddies. I think their performance got cancelled, though Carroll O'Connor did appear "in costume" at one point.)
Cost Of Living Adjustmemts in labour contracts. (Yes, AITF did a whole episode on that, in an episode in which Archie's union went on strike.)
I'm pretty sure I had long been aware of the notion that minorities moving into neighbourhoods lowers the property rate, but I don't think I knew about "block busters", until I saw an AITF re-run in the early 2000s. (A Black real-estate agent makes an offer on the Bunkers' house, as part of a scheme to move more Blacks into the area, with the intention of lowering the rates so he can sell to low-income Blacks, whose new homes will become increasingly less valuable.)
Obviously, I quite liked Lear's shows, though after awhile you started to notice that the characters' lives seemed to revolve around getting mixed up with some topical issue every week. It was kinda like the NYT editorial page in sitcom form.
I'm assuming that 'Til Death Do Us Part" focused on more plausible, everyday scenarios, as per the tenets of kitchen-sink realism?
Based on YouTube comparions, Jean Stapleton copied her physical portrayal of Edith Bunker very closely from the original actor on TDDUP. (I think what I saw was actually In Sickness And In Health, but I'm assuming the character had the same mannerisms as in TDDUP. Maybe some of our resident limey bums, as Bunker would put it, can offer some insight here.)
And Jean Stapleton, in intellect, mannerisms, and speaking style, was very different from Edith, and based on a few interviews I've seen with her, didn't have very much emotional investment in the character. In one chat, she seems rather bemused in recollecting that when leaving the show, she told a distraaught Norman Lear that Edith was "just a character", and Lear replied, choking up, "Not to me!"
Oh, and I first learned about Franklin Delano Roosevelt being a liberal icon from one of the AITF episodes featuring Edith's left-leaning cousin Maude, who eventually had her own show. She argued about his merits with Bunker, who prefered Douglas MacArthur as a hero.
Maude covered alot of topical issues in its heyday, most of which I was aware of by the time I got around to watching it in re-runs. One episode that sticks in my mind is where a Black church of mod's patronage is excited about
helping an Ethiopian to immigrate to the USA, only to be outraged when the orphan turns out to be a full-blooded Italian, born to the colonial diaspora and speaking his native tongue. Lear did like to cover examine rather niche issues sometomes.
@stetson, to add to your list of things learned, I vividly remember watching, with my parents, the episode where Edith went started menopause. That episode aired a week before I turned 11. It made for interesting conversation with my parents.
@stetson, to add to your list of things learned, I vividly remember watching, with my parents, the episode where Edith went started menopause. That episode aired a week before I turned 11. It made for interesting conversation with my parents.
And, also in the area of women's health, I THINK I might have first become aware of
lumps as a symptom of breast cancer in the episode in which Edith had a cancer scare.
I vaguely remember the episode around menopause. Doesn't Edith abruptly and uncharacteristically tell Archie off at one point?
I never watched more than a handful of episodes each of Good Times(Maude spinoff) or One Day At A Time. Anyone?
@stetson, to add to your list of things learned, I vividly remember watching, with my parents, the episode where Edith went started menopause. That episode aired a week before I turned 11. It made for interesting conversation with my parents.
I vaguely remember the episode around menopause. Doesn't Edith abruptly and uncharacteristically tell Archie off at one point?
@stetson, to add to your list of things learned, I vividly remember watching, with my parents, the episode where Edith went started menopause. That episode aired a week before I turned 11. It made for interesting conversation with my parents.
I vaguely remember the episode around menopause. Doesn't Edith abruptly and uncharacteristically tell Archie off at one point?
Thanks! Now I'm not sure if I ever saw that one. I think second-hand descriptions might have merged in my mind with the aforementioned Ron Glass episode, where in Archie's self-pitying version of the incident, he's a victimized, hen-pecked husband, and Edith yells "Get it yourself! when he asks for dinner(or some such).
I always watched One Day at a Time. I had quite a crush on Valerie Bertinelli.
She wasn't really my "type", but a talented actor, in any case. That show was less focussed on topical issues, and more with imparting "life lessons" to teenagers, eg. "Burning down Schneider's trailer is a bad thing to do."
And did you know Pat Harrington was also the guy who voiced The Inspector on the Pink Panther cartoons?
Kudos to Lear for setting a sitcom in Indianapolis, one of the lowest-profile, least-iconic of American cities, as far as public perception goes.
Comments
Busy day for it.
It's the perfect opportunity to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens again, who said about the death of Jerry Falwell: "If his family had given him an enema you could have buried him in a matchbox."
As well as: "It's a pity there isn't a Hell for him to go to."
Mr F and he had a friendly chat one time they were both waiting to be interviewed at the BBC.
A good man and an excellent chancellor.
Rolling Stone's obit is the best I've seen so far: Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies.
Thank you, @Ruth !!!
For all he was a Conservative, he was well liked. Story has it, that when a Scottish Office minister, he was being briefed on the Scottish islands - Hebrides, Shetland, Orkney. 'What about the Faroes?' 'Er, Denmark look after those, Lord James'.
(punch-line explained)
I'll also say that on at least one occassion(a performance of the jukebox musical Tomfoolery, I think), the quote was rendered as being about Israeli and Palestinian politicians getting the Nobel in the early 90s. So I'm wondering if the quote is maybe apocryphal.
SYBIL: Is it the health inspector who just arrived, Basil?
BASIL: Well, who do you think, you stupid woman, Henry Kissinger?!
The joke not being intended as dark political humour about a mass-murdering politician, but just a litttle bit of absurdity built upon the implausibility of Kissinger being at the hotel, and maybe his having an odd-sounding name and goofy visual image.
Eric Idle's song Henry Kissinger, released by Python a few years later, was pretty much the same deal, with accompanying borschty jazz. Granted...
But you've got nicer legs than Hitler
And bigger t*ts than Cher.
...does conjoin Kissinger's name with that of a recognized genocidist, though even that is possible to interpret as generic absurdity.
Indeed. Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, has died.
My mother attended Stanford University with her.
Unlike many justices who die in office, she retired from SCOTUS to take care of her husband, who was suffering from dementia.
Most recently in Open All Hours, but probably best remembered by us of a certain generation as Thelma, wife of Bob (played by Rodney Bewes) in Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads.
Her husband did have dementia, but O'Connor didn't retire in the way most people would think of the term. She took senior status and went to be Chancellor of William and Mary College, replacing Henry Kissinger (of all people) in that post. Maybe someone should do a wellness check on Robert Gates. (O'Connor's replacement as Chancellor and the current incumbent of that post.)
Does this mean that modern British monarchs are all "retired", regardless of age?
Well, they never had any other job to retire from. I guess you could arguably say that Edward VIII retired from being king, and then took up a job as Governor Of Bermuda(or whatever it was), but that would probably sound a little strange, mostly because leaving the position isn't really an expected part of the job.
Holding a largely ceremonial position isn’t an indication of retirement—otherwise most if not virtually all retired people would hold ceremonial positions, and those who aren’t retired generally would not. But holding largely ceremonial position that doesn’t require real, regular work on your part generally doesn’t translate into “you’re not really retired.”
In any event, the statement you seemed to take issue with was: Your response was O’Connor’s appointment to the position of Chancellor of the College of William & Mary had no effect on whether she could be considered retired “from SCOTUS.”
I also noted that she took senior status, which allowed her to sit as a judge on federal appellate courts (which she did from time to time), keep an office in the Supreme Court building, and have a staff of clerks there. For most jobs if you're still showing up at the office and have people working under you then you're really not "retired" in the sense most people think of the term. As I noted elsewhere, O'Connor did finally fully retire in 2018, but this was nine years after the death of her husband John.
I loved her prickly character in The Likely Lads. Though the scenes when she was at work in her library were rather ‘unlikely’.
I think US state university systems have active Chancellors who manage multiple campuses within the state system (presidents head individual campuses such as UC Berkeley within the UC system). Private universities like William & Mary (or Stanford) have less active chancellors who have little in the way of duties (Stanford hasn't even filled the position since its last chancellor died back in 1985 [the position there had always been filled by a retired university president]). UK universities IIRC also have chancellors who do little (the vice-chancellor is the power at Cambridge and Oxford) though theoretically have a bit more power than W&M's chancellor. I note that Margaret Thatcher was chancellor of W&M from 1993-2000; I doubt sh was expected to put in many hours.
William & Mary is a public university, not a private one. But its charter dates back to the colonial period, and as a result its chancellor functions differently from the chancellors of many other public universities in the US, whether the model used in the UC system or the model used in the UMC system.
For some of the time I worked at the University of Ulster the Chancellor was Rabbi Julia Neuberger.
So she has.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/03/glenys-kinnock-former-minister-and-proud-democratic-socialist-dies-aged-79
RIPARIG.
Sorry, I can’t work out how to do links on the new ship.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67630264
In 2018, Laine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues.
In no particular order, a list of sociopolitical issues I first learned about from watching Norman Lear sitcoms.
(Non-All In The Family entries indicated by the name of the show. The rest are from AITF. Some plotlines may be considered EPIPHANIC.)
Jewish Defense League terrorism. (It was, at the time, rather unusual to see Jews qua Jews featured in TV plots as villains).
The Ku Klux Klan(Archie was tempted to join in one episode. Not sure how plausible klan activity in NYC at the time was).
The concept of "tokenism" in relation to minority recruitment(The Jeffersons; A country club wanted George to join in order to have a Black member).
Thomas Jefferson fathering children with his slave Sally Hemmings. (The Jeffersons; George was trying to drum up business for his dry-cleaning shop during the Bicentennial by claiming to be Jefferson's descendant).
Sexual surrogates(The Jeffersons; George went to a sex therapist who suggested the idea to him, but he refused).
Swinging(Archie and Edith meet a couple who unsuccessfully try to involve them in wife-swapping. Also the first time I heard mirrors on ceilings referenced in pop culture. Sorry, Eagles).
The general concept of an "Uncle Tom" (AITF episode in which Ron Glass plays three roles, as per Michael's, Archie's, and Edith's respective perceptions of him).
Minstrel shows. (Archie was supposed to be in one with his buddies. I think their performance got cancelled, though Carroll O'Connor did appear "in costume" at one point.)
Cost Of Living Adjustmemts in labour contracts. (Yes, AITF did a whole episode on that, in an episode in which Archie's union went on strike.)
I'm pretty sure I had long been aware of the notion that minorities moving into neighbourhoods lowers the property rate, but I don't think I knew about "block busters", until I saw an AITF re-run in the early 2000s. (A Black real-estate agent makes an offer on the Bunkers' house, as part of a scheme to move more Blacks into the area, with the intention of lowering the rates so he can sell to low-income Blacks, whose new homes will become increasingly less valuable.)
Obviously, I quite liked Lear's shows, though after awhile you started to notice that the characters' lives seemed to revolve around getting mixed up with some topical issue every week. It was kinda like the NYT editorial page in sitcom form.
I'm assuming that 'Til Death Do Us Part" focused on more plausible, everyday scenarios, as per the tenets of kitchen-sink realism?
Based on YouTube comparions, Jean Stapleton copied her physical portrayal of Edith Bunker very closely from the original actor on TDDUP. (I think what I saw was actually In Sickness And In Health, but I'm assuming the character had the same mannerisms as in TDDUP. Maybe some of our resident limey bums, as Bunker would put it, can offer some insight here.)
And Jean Stapleton, in intellect, mannerisms, and speaking style, was very different from Edith, and based on a few interviews I've seen with her, didn't have very much emotional investment in the character. In one chat, she seems rather bemused in recollecting that when leaving the show, she told a distraaught Norman Lear that Edith was "just a character", and Lear replied, choking up, "Not to me!"
Maude covered alot of topical issues in its heyday, most of which I was aware of by the time I got around to watching it in re-runs. One episode that sticks in my mind is where a Black church of mod's patronage is excited about
And, also in the area of women's health, I THINK I might have first become aware of
I vaguely remember the episode around menopause. Doesn't Edith abruptly and uncharacteristically tell Archie off at one point?
I never watched more than a handful of episodes each of Good Times(Maude spinoff) or One Day At A Time. Anyone?
RIPARIG.
I always watched One Day at a Time. I had quite a crush on Valerie Bertinelli.
Thanks! Now I'm not sure if I ever saw that one. I think second-hand descriptions might have merged in my mind with the aforementioned Ron Glass episode, where in Archie's self-pitying version of the incident, he's a victimized, hen-pecked husband, and Edith yells "Get it yourself! when he asks for dinner(or some such).
She wasn't really my "type", but a talented actor, in any case. That show was less focussed on topical issues, and more with imparting "life lessons" to teenagers, eg. "Burning down Schneider's trailer is a bad thing to do."
And did you know Pat Harrington was also the guy who voiced The Inspector on the Pink Panther cartoons?
Kudos to Lear for setting a sitcom in Indianapolis, one of the lowest-profile, least-iconic of American cities, as far as public perception goes.