Good evening, welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) edition of Late Nite Radio. Tonight we present a song from The Producers, the Mel Brooks musical in which a Broadway producer named Max Bialystock and his accountant Leo Bloom come to the excited, if nervous, realization that they could – theoretically – reap a one-time financial windfall by staging a lavish, guaranteed flop, and then, after the enterprise has collapsed on opening night, pocketing all the money raised for its production.
The two men find what they believe to be the most unimaginably bad play extant — “Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden” — but their carefully chosen worst-ever director, Roger Elizabeth De Bris, considers the play’s ending to be not quite cheerful enough for his tastes, and initially refuses to direct the production even when promised complete artistic freedom to do whatever he wishes with the script and the staging. Eventually his susceptibility to flattery and his desire for a Tony Award gets the better of him and he relents, breaking into song at the very prospect of a Broadway juggernaut in bright lights having his name on the side. When he decides to rewrite the ending so that the Germans win in the end, no moral judgement whatsoever is involved: in De Bris’ happy mind, snappy production values — form, line, and gaiety — will trump the unappetizing facticity of war, destruction and dysentery. And it will work.
In tonight’s selection we see the very moment where the eager yet uncontrollably self-equivocating De Bris is finally convinced to direct the play. Here it is then, without further ado, the cast members of the Broadway production of The Producers — including Gary Beach as Roger De Bris, and Nathan Lane and Mathew Broderick as Bialystock and Bloom respectively — performing the nimble and humorous Keep It Gay.
Your Reader Tips — keep it light, keep it bright — are welcome, as always, in the comments.
Good article.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/07/22/bia.education.success/index.html
“In our school, it’s college prep for everybody; it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white. They can see that it’s OK for them to be smart and black,” says Perry.”
City to be renamed Mississauga on the Ganges?
Members of the South Asian community in Mississauga and across Ontario can now scatter the ashes of loved ones on Crown lands and waterways . . .
Several years ago, residents living along the Credit River in Mississauga and Brampton voiced concerns about debris, including plastic statues, contaminating the river. . .
According to a 2006 census, Peel is home to about 300,000 South Asians, a large number of whom believe in cremation.
======
The Credit River, Bronte Creek, etc: goodbye salmon, hello Salman!
Uh-oh – the foxes guarding the henhouse are furious that the farmer shows up every morning:
“Jason Kenney has compromised his position as immigration minister by repeatedly slamming the validity of various refugee claims and blatantly undermining the independence of Canada’s refugee tribunal, legal and immigration experts, including former IRB chairman Peter Showler, are charging…”
(Yesz, we can’t have an elected representative getting involved in, or making any comments about, the workings of the government department he’s been elected to oversee….)
“Over the past several months, Mr. Kenney has publicly declared asylum claims by U.S. war deserters to be ‘bogus,’ accused would-be Mexican refugees of systematically abusing the system, and questioned the legitimacy of refugee claims by Roma from the Czech Republic.
“Mr. Kenney has said that the Roma face no state persecution in the Czech Republic—where attacks on their communities by radical groups are said to be on the rise — in spite of the fact that the Immigration and Refugee Board has approved nearly all such claims….” (emph. mine)
“There are a lot of concerns here,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Max Berger.
(…)
“The Refugee Lawyers’ Association of Ontario has also spoken out against Mr. Kenney’s comments, which they say undermines the IRB’s independence and tarnishes its integrity.
“‘The Canadian public should be shocked that a minister would interfere so blatantly in the work of an independent body,’ Geraldine MacDonald, president of the association, said in a July 13 press release.”
Remarkable, that last one: apparently, important issues regarding immigration — who immigrates, and in what numbers, and on what grounds, i.e. what is and isn’t a legitimate claim, etc. — are strictly a matter for embedded lawyer-crats, and are nobody else’s concern. Furthermore, according to the *Refugee Lawyers Association of Ontario*, Canadians would be shocked to think that the minister of immigration — an elected MP — might have any ideas or opinions about the immigration bureaucracy. Yep, it’s “yooz people and your representatives, geddouda here. We got business to do.”
http://embassymag.ca/page/view/political_interference-7-22-2009
Honour killing in Kingston?
Three members of the Montreal family in which three sisters and their aunt were found dead in their car that plunged into Kingston’s Rideau Canal late last month were arrested today. . .
The three suspects were apprehended this morning while heading to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, possibly to flee the country . . .
The Shafi sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, all died along with their aunt Rona Amir Mohammed. . .
While the family claimed one of the older sisters might have taken the car out in an ill-fated attempt to practice driving, the circumstances were always uncertain. The car, for instance, would have had to traversed numerous obstacles to make it into the water.
Brooks is the most irreverent and Un-PCee Hollywoodist. A tale in this regard:
Gene Wilder … once recounted in an interview an episode he experienced while palling around with Mel Brooks in NYC.
They left a bar early in the morning and cut across Central Park …. remarking to Mel on how quiet it was in the park and the apparent absence of thugs or muggers… Gene was surprised to find himself suddenly accosted by Brooks. Wilder was according to the story pretty well pummled.
Apparently Mel just wanted to see what it felt like to be the “Mugger”.
What are friends for?
A Brooks quote … “My favorite things in life are warm and wet.”
Forgive me, EBD – keeping it light these days is difficult. I shall take your transgression into politics to excuse my own…
My favourite punk explains the Obama Mystery:
http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchiveV2.php3?a=1827
Tenebris, re your 10:08, IMO Instapunk is equivocating on Obama’s behalf. He says Conservatives (his term) have an untenably schizophrenic view of Obama in that that they (Conservatives) describe Obama (apparently) as being simultaneously “naive, inept, inexperienced, and fumbling” and as a “brilliant political mind who’s working a strategy far beyond what anyone else can even comprehend…”
Frankly I have yet to see one Conservative writer, or to talk to anyone, really, of any political stripe, who describes Obama as being a brilliant strategist. There’s more than a few reasons to believe that he’s a fifth columnist, perhaps, or that he’s a living American tone poem dedicated to the stupidity of mob rule in the specific context of a democracy, but neither of those things takes a whole lot of brilliance, really, on anyone’s part, just cynicism and ignorance and preening and distraction and lying and grinning.
Wrt your transgression into politics: don’t go there, girlfriend. /:>*>
EBD – Though I agree with your assessment of the dominant conservative perception of Obama, IP is likely just employing a sandbox methodology to delineate his playground – establishing the extremes of the argument, if you will. IP doesn’t equivocate (the very thought!), he mythologizes (see his “The Boomer Bible”).
However, let us eschew the madding trompe l’oil of politics and commemorate the life of a true producer…
John Barry, the force behind “water displacement, formulation successful in 40th attempt”, dead at age 84.
Rest in peace, and know that your work lives on after you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/business/22barry1.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
Here’s a game you can play. First of all:
“Government monopsony distorts climate science, says SPPI: The climate industry is costing taxpayers $79 billion and counting”
Never mind oil-company grants; the entire industry’s total is piddling compared to $79 billion. Here’s the game:
What major integrated oil companies, using current market cap, could be bought outright for US$79 billion?
Here’s one answer: Conoco-Phillips. Its current market cap is about $64 billion.
EBD:
precisely.
it aint a goddamn crown corporation. the decisions made by these people will ripple for many generations.
here’s why oversight and involvement by the minister is necessary:
http://www.primetimecrime.com/columns/Columns%201999/19990901.htm
also there was the whatshername liberal minister letting romanian strippers in on visas. etc etc.
due diligence is called for and is being exerted.
Sarah Palin’s still on the job:
“Palin to feds: Alaska is sovereign state. Constitutional rights reasserted in growing resistance to Washington”
New Management = New Alarmism at NSIDC
Press Release: July 22, 2009 Arctic sea ice extent tracking below 2008
“On July 21, Arctic sea ice extent was 8.28 million square kilometers…yet was 2.44% below the same day in 2008…”
Sea Ice Index Page: “Monthly images are more indicative of trends than daily images.”
Apparently one day does make a trend under the new watchful eye of the Climate fearing Administration…
My Blog on Above
No more moose burgers.
http://www.gulfnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=270648&sc=345
I know what I want to type here, but Kate frowns on that kind of language on her site…
Soldier’s grave looted
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1133741.html
Boycott Simon.
Conservative kiosk not allowed at mall
Whatever your opinion, the fact is this: At the end of July, Free Market Warrior will not be allowed at Concord Mills Mall. The kiosk chain’s owner shared e-mail correspondence with NewsChannel 36 that explains that the mall management has decided that the items sold are not “neutral” enough. The lease will be allowed to expire July 31, 2009 without an option to renew.
Spivack, who first leased the space this spring, says the decision came as a shock to him. He says mall management seemed pleased with the kiosk just a few weeks ago.
“Nobody in that mall is selling anything from a conservative perspective. Plenty of people are selling things with a liberal perspective, with a pro-Obama perspective,” he said. “Given that we are in America and not North Korea, we probably should have some stuff on the other side.”
http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/wcnc-072109-mrn-freemarketwarrior.63b5bce2.html
Wow! Surprized no one posted this one yet:
“WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Wednesday that police acted “stupidly” in the arrest of prominent black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and that despite racial progress blacks and Hispanics are still singled out unfairly for arrest…
…Obama called Gates a friend, and said he doesn’t know all the facts of the case. Nonetheless, Obama said, anyone would have been angry if treated the way Gates claims police in Cambridge, Mass., treated him. Gates claims he was arrested in his own home after showing ID to police who responded to a report of a possible burglary.
Police say Gates yelled at the officers and initially refused to show his ID. Gates allegedly yelled “this is what happens to a black man in America” and “you don’t know who you’re messing with” before he was arrested, and police said he was uncooperative…”
http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/obama_cambridge_police_acted_stupidly_072209
Barry shows his true colours: He is a bitter racist, just like his “friend” who’s the subject of this contraversy.
BTW, As you read this, the Boston Globe has scrubbed the detailed police report but now is putting it back(?)…Lot’s of dancing it seems. It shows how fearful some medias are towards Barry the Dictator.
Anyway, find the actual police report in the link and be your own judge.
Bravo to Saint George PM Harper.
Saint George* PM Harper has slain the dragon of “recession”.
As PM Harper said: Canada was last into recession and Canada is first out of the recession.
Bravo to PM Harper and Finance Minister Flaherty.
…-
“Recession over, recovery ‘nascent,’ central bank says in new outlook
“Canada’s recession is over, and the country is beginning what will be a long reconstruction of the wealth destroyed by the financial crisis, the central bank said Thursday.”
urlm.in/ctvd
…-
*Saint George slays the dragon:
http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/thumbnail/dragons_7861.jpg
Kate,
I would love it if you did a post on the brave Shona Holmes of Waterdown, ON:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/07/all_i_have_is_a_story_and_an_e.asp
She is testifying against Obamacare in the US.
She was interviewed on Canada AM yesterday (followed by Dosanj the weasel).
(PDF warning) Robert E. Ebel, The Geopolitics of Russian Energy: Looking Back, Looking Forward
Russia is a major player in both oil and gas exports, and much of the country’s current and likely future economic growth is based on the income these exports will generate, particularly when high market prices prevail. When prices and demand decline drastically as they have recently, dependence on export income becomes a burden. Russia knows that oil and gas revenues cannot and should not form the sole foundation for its growth in the coming years, but if not oil and gas, then what?
This video shows us exactly why when towing a barge through the Skookumchuk Narrows, northwest of Sechelt, B.C., to never enter the narrows if you’re late, if you’ve missed the slack tide. This tugboat was heading out of the narrows towards Jervis Inlet on an ebbing tide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEfUblSDzww
Another stake in the heart of AGW.
An research paper from:- Journal of Geophysical Research,(Australia)
“Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling. That mean global tropospheric temperature has for the last 50 years fallen and risen in close accord with the SOI of 5–7 months earlier shows the potential of natural forcing mechanisms to account for most of the temperature variation”
—— ——– ——–
So C02-not the driver of ocean warming causing global warming. For the past 50 years anyway it has natural causes.
Hockey stick graph trashed?
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011637.shtml
Goreacle Report: “unimaginable to the region.”
…-
“Historic snow event in South America
More news from the weather is not climate department. A historic winter storm event in South America is underway (July 2009) meanwhile in the norther hemisphere, fresh snow in the Alps in July. – Anthony
By Alexandre Aguiar / MetSul Weather Center
A major and historic winter storm is underway at this Wednesday morning in Argentina. Snow is falling in many parts of the country and in many areas not used to winter precipitation. Local news reports indicate snow already have been observed in the provinces of Mendoza, San Luis, San Juan, Cordoba, La Pampa and Buenos Aires.
In Bahia Blanca, a coastal city in the Southern part of the Buenos Aires, the snow storm is heavy and local authorities describe it as the worst snow event in 50 years. Roads are already blocked by snow and ice in the regional. TN news channel reports some areas of the Sierra de La Ventana could pick up even 3 feet of snow, unimaginable to the region.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/23/historic-snow-event-in-south-america/
To The Genius of Mozart: A Salute.
…-
“New Mozart piano music discovered
Mozart left more than 600 pieces of music before his death at 35
Two piano pieces have been identified as the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, experts in the Austrian city of Salzburg say.
The compositions have long been in the possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation in the city, the organisation said.
Few details are being released until an official presentation in a week’s time.
In January, a piece by Mozart which had lain undiscovered in a French library for years, had its first performance.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8165645.stm
Labels everywhere
As anyone who has bought groceries will know, there are elaborate labelling requirements for food in this country, as for most other goods. And as anyone who has travelled abroad may have noticed, Canada is not unique in this regard.
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/
A week before Babak Najafi Chaghabouri allegedly kidnapped and killed Vancouver resident Ronak Wagad, the Immigration and Refugee Board gave him one last chance to stay in Canada despite a series of convictions.
Chaghabouri convinced IRB member Renee Miller last Feb. 16 that he was turning his life around even though he had been ordered out of Canada in 2008 because of serious criminality.
On Feb. 23, Wagad disappeared. The remains of the 31-year-old were found near Chilliwack July 8.
…..She said Chaghabouri had demonstrated he deserved another chance even though he had a string of convictions between 2003 and 2007 for possession of a weapon, assault and forcible confinement, uttering threats and aggravated assault.
“Ultimately I was convinced that the appellant’s prospects for rehabilitation are good,” Miller said…..
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Canada+stay+charged+with+murder/1819185/story.html
more climate change , this time maybe methane
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080523.html
O’slammed.
Ass. Press/MSM has “slammed” O.
It’s an O’first.
…-
“Obama slammed for criticizing arrest of black professor
BOSTON — Many police officers across the United States have a message for President Barack Obama: Get all the facts before criticizing one of our own.”
urlm.in/ctwy