Kennedy’s Casket: Arrives in Boston.

At Least Some Unions Like Him: Seattle police, firefighter unions endorse Mallahan.

Unions Probably Don’t Like This, Though: Fourteen unions representing city employees accept ten unpaid furlough days in 2010.

Violent Night: One man stabbed near Victor Steinbreuck Park, and two arrested in Northgate following I-5 closure after gunfire heard late last night.

Is This Really A Bad Thing? Economic recovery slowed as people still unwilling to buy shit with money they don’t really have.

Doomed State Parks Could Stay Open: But only if drivers pay a semi-voluntary $5 registration fee.

Because We Needed Another Sign We’re Getting Dumber: Reading Rainbow reaches its end as kids tragically can no longer be assumed to know how to read well enough.

Don’t Worry, Iran’s Still More Fucked Up: Ahmadinejad wants opposition leaders arrested.

Meanwhile, In Utah: Texting drivers who cause fatalities can now spend 15 years in the slammer.

And The Robots Take Over A Little More: Researchers have figured out how to reproduce handwriting from electrical impulses in the arm.

I Would Have Cared In 1995: Noel Gallagher says he’s leaving Oasis. Still hates his brother apparently.

Because why stop the State videos now?

16 replies on “The Morning News”

  2. Hearing about “Reading Rainbow” breaks my heart. I adored that show as a kid -even before I could read on my own. I think it had a profound influence on encouraging my own love of books growing up. Experts are always telling people to start reading to children on a regular basis from the time they are babies. (you know -small people who can’t read) And you can get kids excited about books even before they can read on their own. (I used to work in a library and saw examples of that all of the time) Some kids become determined to master the skill so they could read a favorite story on their own.
    It just seems like the Dept. of Education is missing something here.

  3. It’s a sad day what with Teddy gone.

    He stood up for us. He didn’t always win. He never quit. He has lots of victories from the ADA to ending racism in our immigration laws, to promoting health and the minimum wage, and in his just saying it’s god dammed mean and immoral to leave people out and the big heart of liberalism is what counts.

    It’s also sad that he has no replacement.

    I guess Caroline just isn’t into it, she could move to Masschusets where she has her summer home anyway and walk into the senate seat then serve about six years and be credible for president.

    There’s a few other Kennedy’s doing great work, males, who could do the same thing.

    I wish one of them would step up and do it.

    Nothing against Markey, but heck, Kennedy is a hell of a name.

    1. Change the Mass. law.
    2. Put Kerry in the cabinet. OR ambassador to Russia.
    3. Appoint Markey to his seat.
    4. Appoint Caroline to Teddy’s seat.
    5. After Deval is done with governor, appoint him the head of the national public option agency or something.

  4. That article about reading rainbow bums me out big time. I used to love that show. Besides a general desire to be a mini-genius I would credit that show with being a big reason why I was so hellbent on learning to read long before I even hit kindergarten. So sad that kids these days won’t get to experience the same thing. God that made me sound old…

  7. Everything I heard and read about Reading Rainbow said that the show was being canceled because the focus is now on teaching reading instead of teaching love of reading. I did not understand the reason to be that “kids tragically can no longer be assumed to know how to read well enough.”

    Also, our economy is based on consumer consumption so if we want it to recover people are going to have to start buying shit again, whether you like it or not.

  8. During summer, my library used to have a Reading Club for kids. You would get a book each week, read it, then fill out an index card summary. In return you would get a stamp to put on flyer.

    That was enough to keep us reading.

    We didn’t need a TV show.

  9. You can thank George Dubya Bush for the demise of Reading Rainbow. The Shrub’s administration altered how the Dept of Education funded children’s educational programming on PBS and so PBS changed what shows that went on the air. I guess the fundies didn’t want their spawn becoming too educated with this science and history stuff and start questioning the legitimacy of the “Baybul”. The man truly did manage to fuck up and ruin everything he touched. I’m sure his wife the former school teacher and librarian must sure be proud.

  12. Actually, Reading Rainbow probably got the axe because it didn’t inspire much of any collateral merchandising. No Tickle Me LeVar dolls or Reading Rainbow on Ice…

  13. as barack hussein obama (‘s team of writers) prepares his “very personal” eulogy for senator kennedy, we should take a moment to remember the man for who he truly was.

    the spiritual leader of the democrat party. the mighty liberal lion of the senate.

    http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing…

    “The Kennedy brothers always perpetuated their own glorious images, but over the years the last brother has built an imagenot glorious at allof his very own. For his hard public drinking, his obsessive public womanizing and his frequent boorishness, he has become a late-century legend, Teddy the Terrible, the Kennedy Untrammeled. In Washington, it sometimes seems as if everyone knows someone who has slept with Kennedy, been invited to sleep with Kennedy, seen Kennedy drunk, been insulted by Kennedy. At Desirée, a private Georgetown club where well-heeled fat men mingle with society brats and party girls, Kennedy is known as a thrice-a-month habitué and remembered by at least one fellow customer for the time he made a scene with his overenthusiasm for a runway model during a club fashion show. In a downtown office, a former congressional page tells of her surprise meeting with Kennedy three years ago. She was 16 then…”

    “Kennedy regularly finds himself in unseemly scenes. One East Coast playboy recalls an incident a few years ago in a popular Palm Beach bar when a definitely drunk Kennedy shoved him against the bar and spilled his beer as the senator rushed out the door with a blonde so young, the man at first mistook Kennedy for an angry father come to take home an underage daughter. Dropping in for a 2 A.M. drink in the Manhattan bar American Trash in January 1989, Kennedy reportedly got into a shouting match with an obnoxious (and possibly intoxicated) off-duty bouncer, which climaxed with the senators throwing his drink in the other fellows face. Unkind Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr writes of Kennedy as Fat Boy and says it isnt really considered summer in Cape Cod until the senator drives on the sidewalk for the first time. Reporters wonder at his behavior. He really will do anything at all, says veteran Washington gossip columnist Diana McLelan, I think hes mad. Says Bill Thomas, writer of the Heard on the Hill column for Roll Call, the well-regarded newspaper of Capitol Hill, Hes off the reservationout of controlHe has no compunctions whatsoever. Thomas likens Kennedy and Dodd to two guys in a fraternity who have been loosed upon the world.

    http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columni…

    “Chappaquiddick, of course, never went away. But sometimes Kennedy could seem oblivious even to that ultimate blemish on his career. In 1974, when President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his Watergate crimes, Kennedy issued this thundering statement:
    Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?

    “And yet he was always protected by most of the media, who shared his views on just about everything. In 1962, at the behest of President Kennedy, the Boston Globe played the story of his expulsion from Harvard below the fold on the front page. To the very end the Globe did its best to shield him — last week the struggling Times-owned broadsheet broke the story of his deathbed attempt to change the Massachusetts law on Senate succession, without mentioning that he himself had lobbied in 2004 to enact the law he was now denouncing as undemocratic. Only then, he was for stripping the governor of his right to fill a Senate vacancy, because, you see, that governor was a Republican.”

    what a guy. he was even able to form a great alliance with the soviet union during the cold war.

    “Kennedy believes that, given the current state of affairs, and in the interest of peace, it would be prudent and timely to undertake the following steps to counter the militaristic politics of Reagan and his campaign to psychologically burden the American people. In this regard, he offers the following proposals to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Y.V. Andropov:

    1. Kennedy asks Y.V. Andropov to consider inviting the senator to Moscow for a personal meeting in July of this year. The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA. He would also like to inform you that he has planned a trip through Western Europe, where he anticipates meeting Englands Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Mitterand in which he will exchange similar ideas regarding the same issues.
    If his proposals would be accepted in principle, Kennedy would send his representative to Moscow to resolve questions regarding organizing such a visit.
    Kennedy thinks the benefits of a meeting with Y.V.Andropov will be enhanced if he could also invite one of the well known Republican senators, for example, Mark Hatfield. Such a meeting will have a strong impact on American and political circles in the USA (In March of 1982, Hatfield and Kennedy proposed a project to freeze the nuclear arsenals of the USA and USSR and pblished a book on the theme as well.)

    2. Kennedy believes that in order to influence Americans it would be important to organize in August-September of this year, televised interviews with Y.V. Andropov in the USA. A direct appeal by the General Secretary to the American people will, without a doubt, attact a great deal of attention and interest in the country. The senator is convinced this would receive the maximum resonance in so far as television is the most effective method of mass media and information.
    If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interview. Specifically, the president of the board of directors of ABC, Elton Raul and television columnists Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters could visit Moscow. The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side.”

    and, of course his sense of humor was legendary.

    according to ed klein, he was a regular henny youngman:
    ” Well y’know, he, I don’t know if you know this or not but, one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, “have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?”

    I mean, that is just the most amazing thing. It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne (background music begins building), but that he still always saw, um, the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaiTipTtb…

    i look forward to our discerning president’s remarks.

    here’s to the great face of american liberalism. the man of the people, ted kennedy.

    a real prince.

  14. @ Lord Basil,

    The “Chappaquiddick incident” wasn’t scandalous because Ted Kennedy killed somebody while drunk driving. Back then drunk driving accidents were viewed as….just accidents. Bad luck because everyone drove while intoxicated. If you were falling down drunk, the cops would let you sleep it off in the drunk tank (maybe you’d get a ticket), but most of the time if you were vertical and not slurring your words you’d be considered good to go. Hence the song lyrics, “One more for my baby, one more for the road” and “Tie one on.”

    It wasn’t until MADD was formed in 1980 and tough anti-drunk driving laws and awareness campaigns came along did drunk driving become a ‘real’ crime. Before that it was like getting a parking ticket.

    The “Chappaquiddick incident” was scandalous because Ted Kennedy was believed to have been fooling around with Mary Jo Kopechne or another ‘Boiler Room Girl’. The “Chappaquiddick incident” was a sex scandal. I know it seems hard to believe, but back then if a married man got caught fooling around, it would be the end of their career. Which is why the press of the day went out if it’s way to not expose JFK’s philandering. He was a good president, why ruin his career because he liked to play hide the salami with the secretary pool? Don’t ask, Don’t tell.

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