by John Walters
Starting Five
The Confederacy formally surrendered less than one week earlier
1. The Greatest
On this day, 150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated (he was shot on the night of the 14th and formally pronounced dead on the 15th). The six-foot-four native of Kentucky is for my money –and that money would be $5 bills and pennies–the greatest Commander in Chief the country has ever had.
It’s not even simply about the ethics of ending slavery. It’s about seeing a practice that was short-term profitable (for Southern land owners and for all who purchased their products) but long-term toxic and taking whatever steps necessary to stop it. Who in politics has the balls to do that these days?
Notice: slavery ended, and people didn’t stop buying cotton, etc.
2. Aloha Means “This Better Be Good”
“Hey, you went to a Catholic high school (Xavier Prep) and I went to a Catholic college (Georgetown). Cool.”
Thanks to Cameron Crowe, we have Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. Okay, also Vanilla Sky and Elizabethtown, which I never saw. Have you seen We Bought a Zoo? It’s actually better than you’d think. I hadn’t realized he’d done it until after I watched it. It had enough Crowe-ish touches.
Anyway, his new film is Aloha and it has quite the cast: Bradley Cooper (so, “American Aloha?”), Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers reunion!), Bill Murray, John Krasinski, Alec Baldwin, Danny McBride and Jay Baruchel. And, as my good friend Chris Corbellini notes, the prettiest cast member of all: Hawaii.
The plot revolves around pilots and redemption, so it’s a little bit Airplane!, a little bit Magnum, P.I. How can this possibly fail? Here’s hoping there’s a Larry Beil cameo.
p.s. The song in the trailer is Rocks by Imagine Dragons.
3. Her Many
Rausging was born just five years after Hitler died. She’ll be great help on history papers.
This lady is causing quite a, um, furor. This is Annegret Raunigk, a 65 year-old Berlin elementary school teacher who is already a mother of 13. And now she just traveled to Ukraine for a procedure in which she was artificially inseminated. Raunigk is expecting quadruplets. Currently, her oldest child is 44 and her youngest is nein!
4. Capped in Phillips
I mean, when Christian Peter isn’t even the worst person on your team…
Former Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips, who at one time was the baddest and best running back in college football, is suspected of killing his cellmate, Damion Soward, in a California prison. When Phillips was a sophomore for the Huskers, he was charged with assault and vandalism in November dating back to an incident that happened the previous March. But the trial was delayed until after Nebraska faced Oklahoma and then played (and won) its first national championship under Tom Osborne and no, this story doesn’t sound familiar at all to me, either. Why? Does it to you?
5. The “O” Is Implied
Or as Andrew Dice Clay would pronounce it, “Marco Rubi…OH!”
Yesterday, Florida senator Marco Rubio (R), who sometimes finds the need to slake his thirst at inopportune moments, announced that he was running for president. So what better time to inform you that there is a male actor who does gay porn named Marco Rubi?
Music 101
Call Me
Call me/On the line/Call me, call me/Any, any time
Before there was Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe, there was Deborah Harry and Blondie leaving no ambiguity about what she expected at all. Released in 1980, this was Blondie’s breakout hit as it spent six weeks at No. 1 back when people cared about that. Looks like a supermodel; sings like a rock star. Why don’t they make Deborah Harry types any more?
By the way, Ms. Harry was somewhat passive aggressive when it came to Alexander Graham Bell’s invention. In one tune she is ordering someone to “Call Me” and yet in another she entreats, “Don’t Leave Me Hanging on the Telephone.” Women!
Remote Patrol
Real Madrid at Atletico Madrid
FOX Sports 1 2:30 p.m.
This UEFA Champions League quarterfinal (first leg) is a rematch of last spring’s Champions League final. In that contest between the two Madrid-based clubs, Atletico led 1-0 after 90 minutes, but then Real scored an equalizer in the third minute of stoppage time. In extra time, Real won 4-1. Heartbreaker for the canines of under.
1. Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
To add insult to injury, President Lincoln lost his life while watching a ‘creaky farce’ titled “Our American Cousin”.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2009/02/our_american_cousin_revisited.html
2. Annegrets, she’s had a few!
I agree that Lincoln was one of if not the greatest US President. (I believe TR & FDR are co-#1 “seeds”. Hmmm, WHO is the 4th?). However, as I’m sure you are aware – the Emancipation Proclamation did not “end slavery”; at the time it was done for military purposes & not for any “ethical” reasons. Maryland – a SLAVE state which partly surrounds D.C. did not secede (not for lack of trying but as Union troops were stationed throughout & the suspension of habeas corpus, it was impossible ) did not see their slaves freed until after the Civil War and actually after Lincoln’s death.
For the last 150 years it has been debated how Lincoln’s death affected the South’s “Reconstruction”. Most historians (myself included) believe it would have been MUCH better as Lincoln could have reigned in those determined to “punish” the south. Instead, except for a few (the original “1%”?) it was misery for decades for both white & black. Another school of thought believes Lincoln would have angered & divided Congress for being “too soft on those who almost destroyed our nation”. And he would have left office a frustrated failure. Either way, Booth is the true “epic-fail”; not only did he kill the ONE man who could have made things easier & better in his beloved/post-war South, he is at least partially responsible for the hero status of a man he hated more than a hundred years later.