The Information Super-Frog

Entertainment recently borrowed from library includes "The Secrets We Keep". Rather dark film about a Holocaust survivor who encounters a Nazi criminal living under an assumed identity in their home town. I saw some of the set filming in suburbs of New Orleans, and one of my pix is in the Wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secrets_We_Keep#Production

This was at Rio Vista Park in Old Jefferson, used as the home of the protagonist - for exterior shots only. Inside, the house has a basement, clearly not set in South Louisiana.

Other locations I recognized included McDonough Park in Algiers and along Lafayette Street in the old part of Gretna.

While well acted, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not interested in the film locations - pretty dark and IMO not satisfying.

In other entertainment set in post-WWII US, we've also been watching "Masters of Sex", lightly based Masters & Johnson. I've previously expressed being somewhat frustrated by how commonly real life good historical stories are adapted into entertainment with little fidelity to facts. This certainly applies here. Entertaining, mix of comedy, soap opera, and sex, with soap opera of largely fictional characters becoming more dominant as it progresses.

That and our usual Saturday night watching Svengoolie - most recently "The Gorgon", if one likes Hammer Horror films, it was one of those.

Fox News had Bill Nye on to talk about volcanoes on the Moon. Host tries to connect story to some "climate change" spin. Big mistake -- Bill Nye "the Science Guy" has experience explaining basic science to small children and people of similar educational attainment.

Video

I doubt Fox News will have Bill Nye on again, but fun while it lasted.

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Meanwhile, "The Onion" headline again sums things up:

"Congress Continues Debate Over Whether Or Not Nation Should Be Economically Ruined"

"The Onion" also offers a reasonable solution:

"Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington"

"Faubourg Treme - The Untold Story of Black New Orleans", award winning documentary film, will be broadcast in New Orleans this Sunday, February 21 at 7pm on WYES, tv 12.

Documentary website

Vimeo video: Harry Shearer on confronting Brian Williams about the levee disaster. Big TV news: About sharing emotions, not facts.

Editor B: Four Years Post-Katrina

[edited to add]

New York Times: In New Orleans, Recovery Is Not Enough


( text mirror )

tv show "Cracking the Maya Code" schedualed to air on the PBS network tonight as part of the "NOVA" series. (Here in New Orleans, 7pm Central Time, rebroadcast at 1am)

A couple of good ones from yesterday's Times-Picayune editorials:

James Gill: Creationists are Vitter's latest hookup

John Maginnis about "K-Ville": State will pay to have its name trashed.

The second episode of "K-Ville" was worse than the first. Even the accents got worse. The scene with the local cop eating OATMEAL with hot sauce created a universal "WTF?!?" reaction locally -- word since is supposedly that was some sort of bet or inside joke among the cast and crew that got used in the show. Heck of a job, editors!

In other news, pentomino is visiting town. mshollie and I plan to visit the World War II museum with him later.

Plorkwort mentions the film "In the Shadow of the Moon" about the Apollo moon missions.

In my teens I was surprised to find out that I was the only one of my high school class to have memories of watching the moon landing on tv. Little Froggy evidentally thought it more attention worthy than his peers.

I recall feeling some disappointment while watching the returned astronauts' ticker-tape parade through Manhattan on t.v.; Walter Cronkite mentioned that it was the second largest turnout for such a parade in history, after Lindbergh's. Up to that point, I'd been feeling pride in having lived through a moment of history equal to those experienced by my grandfather, but that statistic gave me doubt.

Wikipedia has an article on ticker-tape parades, according to which the largest was actually that for General Douglas MacArthur in 1951. Apparently they still have "ticker-tape parades" on occasion, but as ticker-tape is no longer used, I don't see how that could be considered authentic. What would a good 21st century equivilent be?

Did AOL stop sending out those cds, or is that just one of the the things that the Post Office no longer gets to New Orleans post-K?

For the 4th day in a row, the Senator David Vitter prostitute scandal is on the front page above the fold of today's Times-Picayune. Alas, none of the headlines has read "Vitter Resigns" yet.

Additional revelations have appeared each day, confirming Vitter's involvement with prostitutes both in the D.C. area and Louisiana going back to the '90s, including stories which came out as allegations before elections years ago and which Vitter denied. Once the first story became significant news, reporters apparently started doing a bit of investigating on some of the older stories.

I haven't seen some of the more sorid details confirmed in the mainstream media yet, though Vitter's diaper fetish, a few days ago dismissed as a rumor on the blog-0-sphere, was referenced by Jay Leno on the Tonight Show last night.

Some of the local Republican Right have been defending Vitter. I'm all for the proposition that what adults do with their genitalia is nobody else's business, but that's exactly contrary to what Vitter and his supporters have been pushing for years. I think it would be on the whole better if prostitution were legalized and regulated, but the fact is that in pretty much all of the USA other than some counties in Nevada, it's illegal. Vitter pledged to uphold the law, but Vitter is a criminal.

Vitter's been absent on the Senate floor, and is said to be in an undisclosed location (hiding in the Cheneybunker?). One internet rumor I'm not putting any stock in at this point is that he's in the hospital after his wife really did follow through with her threat to his Senatorial Staff. Though of course Vitter's real problem is between his ears, not his legs.

Speaking of COX (Haw!) I'm supposed to get cable hooked up today. I thought I was done with ATT years ago, but they bought out my local phone company, so I'll shell out some more money and get high speed internet and transfer my phone to Cox Cable. While I'm at it, I'm finally stepping boldly into the 1980s and getting a cable tv hookup as part of the package. Broadcast tv already had more television than I cared to watch, but now Ms. Hollie and I will be able to watch "Countdown" or "The Daily Show" together rather than on YouTube.

In other news, City Council member Shelley Midura has called on District Attorney Eddie Jordan to resign. Give 'em hell, Shelley.

Television "news" show presenter Mika Brzezinski refused to read Par*s H*lton related stories, finally tearing up and setting fire to her script on air.

Story via BBC

"American Creole: New Orleans Reunion" is airing nationwide on PBS tonight. It was first shown last week here in New Orleans. It follows New Orleans musician Papa Don Vappie, his family, and musical colleages, making the best of life in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Froggy says check it out.