Musical Interlude: This Land is Your Land (2009)

 Ahead of President Obama's inauguration in 2009, a concert took place in Washington. From that event, Bruce Springsteen & Pete Seeger cover Woody Guthrie's immortal folk classic, "This Land is Your Land".

Happy Birthday, America!

John Oliver, soap star? (2026)

 John Oliver used his anchor's position on Last Week Tonight to make a public plea for an appearance on a daytime soap.

ABC & Peacock answered. CBS? Who knows?

Oliver made his soap debut Thursday on General Hospital, and will finish there on Monday. Next month, he moves over to Days of Our Lives for three episodes. E! has the scoop.

The self-deprecating humor aside, Oliver, even if it's a small sample, is a natural. I love the fact he's playing a secret agent on General Hospital. The spy game is still a thing there, 45 years later.

Bravo.

Weasel of The Week: Jeannine Pirro

 Jeannine Pirro, former Fox No News whiner, former TV judge, currently the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, can't win a conviction if her life depended on it, and that's not about to change anytime soon.

Photo courtesy MSN.com.

You see, Ms. Pirro has charged former Olympic canoeist David Hearn with felony vandalism just for touching a loose piece of lining at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Initially, Hearn was charged with a misdemeanor, but Ms. Pirro, on orders from President Pampers, and despite a glaring lack of evidence, as per usual, upgraded the charge to a felony.

That this is even happening is another distraction from the myriad of issues facing the White House, including poor attendance at the Great American State Fair at the National Mall. Seems most folks are more interested in watching the World Cup on the big screen, and ignoring everything else. Welp, if the organizers didn't insist on most of the artists having peaked in the 80's or 90's, they wouldn't have that problem, either.

Back to the topic at hand. Hearn will be cleared, Jeannine Pirro, this week's Weasel, will be disgraced yet again, and President Pampers will have egg on his face. Again.

What Might've Been: Call Holme (1972)

 Call Holme was a pilot that went nowhere for NBC in 1972. Writers Gerald Gardner & Dee Caruso had worked on The Monkees & Get Smart, among their credits, and concocted this farce about a PI who's also a master of disguise (Arte Johnson, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In), who somehow gets his job done. In the course of this story, Johnson breaks out some of his characters from Laugh-In for quick cameos.

Our ensemble also includes Reta Shaw (ex-The Ghost & Mrs. Muir), Arlene Golonka (ex-Mayberry RFD), Jim Hutton, and Vic Tayback, plus a brief cameo from Danny Bonaduce (The Partridge Family)

Unfortunately, the credits were edited off.

Years later, Dana Carvey tried mining the same concept with the movie, "Master of Disguise", but that, too, was a dud. Gerald Gardner later became better known for his political satires.

Swinging for tea (1960)

 A year before being cast in The Hathaways, the Marquis Chimps were signed to do a series of ads for Red Rose tea.

Here, the chimps rock out as a jazz band. Like, swing it!

A child passes away, and some idiot decides to play the race card at the wrong time

 For the first time that I can think of, a message flashed across my television screen Sunday night that wasn't warning of inclement weather.

Instead, the message had to do with a young Menands boy who had gone missing. 7 year old Harbe Nagi, diagnosed as being autistic & non-verbal, had wandered off from his parents. Nearly 48 hours later, young Harbe was found dead as a result of drowning in a neighbor's swimming pool.

                                      

Funeral services will take place later this week. While the entire community is mourning Harbe, some goober decided to play Ugly American, and use the tragedy to make some racist statements.

Chuck Miller's take:

A Taste of Italy and its black heart – Chuck The Writer

A Taste of Italy, which has been a sponsor of Siena University basketball, may be losing that sponsorship unless the truth about the social media kerfluffle comes out soon. Redditors are already ripping into the restaurant, and are planning a peaceful protest not too far from the eatery in Latham. I should point out that Jesus taught us to love, not hate, and that he did not have hate in His heart for anyone. To suggest that He "doesn't like ugly" is missing the point by a country mile.

Rest in peace, Harbe.

Wild West Wednesdays: Zorro's Secret Passage (1957)

 It is known that part of the inspiration for Batman came from Johnston McCulley's Zorro, and one example comes in this 1st season episode, "Zorro's Secret Passage". Don Diego (Guy Williams) discovered a secret cave beneath his home, and asserts his grandfather had built it years earlier. Of course, you know that Batman would have a Batcave.......