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• I love how this is going to be on primetime but surprised at the number of games that will and may possibly be played. I’m sure everyone is thinking and hoping Alex Trebek will be healthy enough to host, and a part of me believes one reason this came to be was to give him something to look forward to.
• Tuesday, Jan. 7 (8-9 PM)
  Wednesday, Jan. 8 (8-9 PM)
  Thursday, Jan. 9 (8-9 PM)
  *Friday, Jan. 10 (8-9 PM)
  *Tuesday, Jan. 14 (8-9 PM)
  * Wednesday, Jan. 15 (8-9 PM)
  * Thursday, Jan. 16 (8-9 PM)
  *If necessary (all times ET)

• • Cassidy was 6’9″.
  • He played, or shall I say his hand, played “Thing” on the tv series.
  • He was the narrator in CBS’s The Incredible Hulk.
  • In 1979, Cassidy underwent surgery for a non-malignant tumor passed away at age 46 due to complications from the surgery.
  • Without makeup, I think he could pass for Tony Robbins’ father.
    
  • He had a Batman cameo.
    

• My Friend Mister Rogers – I first met him 21 years ago, and now our relationship is the subject of a new movie. He’s never been more revered—or more misunderstood.
  • A long time ago, a man of resourceful and relentless kindness saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. He trusted me when I thought I was untrustworthy, and took an interest in me that went beyond my initial interest in him. He was the first person I ever wrote about who became my friend, and our friendship endured until he died. Now a movie has been made from the story I wrote about him, which is to say “inspired by” the story I wrote about him, which is to say that in the movie my name is Lloyd Vogel and I get into a fistfight with my father at my sister’s wedding.
  • And so I have to start by mentioning that I have begun writing a story about Mister Rogers the day after two young men armed with assault rifles killed a total of 31 people in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
  • When I first visited the Neighborhood 21 years ago, one of his in-house writers, Hedda Sharapan, told me what had happened when he’d enlisted her to write a manual intended to teach doctors how to talk to children. She worked hard on it, using all her education and experience in the field of child development, but when she handed him her opening, he crossed out what she’d written and replaced it with six words: “You were a child once too.”
  • But as a correspondent he was emotionally forthcoming and intimate, closing often with the assurance that he kept me in his thoughts and his prayers—“And, I guess you know, each morning I pray for you; I really do”—and sometimes with ministerial ardor. “You are loved with a greater love than anyone could ever imagine, Tom. I trust that you’ll never ever forget that.”
  • He worked hard on his friendships; he prepared for his friendships; he took notes on his friendships; he even kept files on his friendships, and not long ago I found out that he’d kept a file on me — and in one of those boxes are the names of my wife, my dogs, and one of my nieces, who was facing trouble and for whom he prayed. There are also printouts of our correspondence and notes he took on our phone conversations, written on yellow legal pads in his eerily calligraphic hand.
  • Yet at the heart of the original creation is that Word (call it Love, call it Grace, call it Peace …) that essence which is lodged somewhere within each of us that longs for ultimate expression. If we choose to allow it to grow we’ll be given help. If we choose otherwise we won’t be forced. If there is such a thing as a “dark corner” of God’s nature then I think it’s God’s refusal to go back on the promise of “the creation’s freedom to love or not.”
  • In all the conversations we had over the years, I can remember only one about politics, when in the last year of his life he worried about the inevitable buildup toward the inevitable war in Iraq. In our correspondence, he limited political discussion to a single email about Bill Clinton’s impeachment, which came as an answer to one of my questions:
    • Last week I woke up thinking how I would like to go on the air and say something like “Whoever is without sin cast the first stone” or “The Lord’s property is always to have mercy” or some other outlandish thing, and then ask for a minute of silence to think about forgiveness for those who want it. In fact if our country could dwell on forgiveness for a while I think that would be the one real positive outcome of the pain which must be pervasive in the White House and beyond. I’ve already written letters to both the Clintons and the Gores saying that often “enormous growth comes out of enormous pain.” I trust that will be so for all of us. The attitude which makes me (sometimes physically) sick is the “holier than thou” one.

• On the Musers radio morning show, Junior decided to rank the top five and bottom five people named “Jackson”. I was a little perplexed because back in October 2013 (5:09 mark) I called in asking him to do so and he delivered his ranking the following week, I just can’t find the audio of the latter. I tweeted the morning show about it and they briefly discussed it on air, but Junior said he is certain that he’s never ranked the Jacksons as he had to do research and would have remembered doing so. I’ve been asked to provide proof and haven’t had any luck looking at TheUnTicket.com and elsewhere, so I posted a request on the station’s subreddit. Someone stated they had the audio and thankfully he came through. I do love that someone referenced that this is the example of the Mandela Effect, which is basically when a broad range of people remember something a particular way but it turns out it’s incorrect. For example:
  • “Mr. Monopoly” has never worn a monocle. People appear to be conflating his depiction with that of Mr. Peanut.
  • In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter never said, “Hello, Clarice.” When Clarice first meets Hannibal Lecter, he simply says, “Good morning.” That’s it.
  • The Queen in Snow White never said, “Mirror, mirror on the wall.” The correct line is “Magic mirror on the wall.”
  • Ed McMahon never did a commercial for Publishers Clearing House, he endorsed American Family Publishers, and he never appeared on any doorstep to surprise the winner.
  • Tom Cruise didn’t wear sunglasses in that famous Risky Business dance scene.
  • Curious George never had a tail.

• Bill Clements for Ann Richards 1-15-91
  • Ecclesiastes 3:17 –  I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.
• Ann Richards to George Bush 1/17/95”
  • Amos 5:15(a) – Hate the evil, and love the good,
    and establish judgment in the gate:
    it may be that the Lord God of hosts
    will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
• GW Bush for Rick Perry 12-21-00
  • Isaiah 40:28-31 – Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard,
    that the everlasting God, the Lord,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth,
    fainteth not, neither is weary?
    there is no searching of his understanding.
    ²⁹ He giveth power to the faint;
    and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
    ³⁰ Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
    and the young men shall utterly fall:
    ³¹ but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings as eagles;
    they shall run, and not be weary;
    and they shall walk, and not faint.
• Rick Perry for Greg Abbott 1-19-15
  • Matthew 20:25-28 – But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. ²⁶ But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; ²⁷ and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: ²⁸ even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Nice. Guy has no chance to win so he leaves a nice message for Alex Trebek who's clearly touched by it. #WeLoveYouAlex now trending. #Jeopardy pic.twitter.com/T9XFGJZDaP

— Steve Warne (@TSNSteve) November 12, 2019

• “The Ukrainians never did the investigation. And the president released the funds. I mean, when you look at those, there’s just nothing impeachable there. And more than that, I think the biggest thing that bothers me is the American people should decide this. Why do we have a bunch of people in Congress making that decision?“
  • I have no problem with her thoughts on whether the president should be impeached or not, but it’s that last sentence that bothers me, “Why do we have a bunch of people in Congress making that decision?” Geeze, Hailey, that’s an easy one, because the American people you referenced elect Representatives every two years to represent them in Congress. In essence, the American people are deciding because of the representatives they elected. You know, I think the American people should decide who is elected president, but that doesn’t happen, there’s something called the Electoral College, and Electors mostly are nominated by a state’s political party.

Me trying to avoid a coworker in Target pic.twitter.com/I9xiwrHrS3

— Tiffany M. Graves (@tiffmgraves) November 9, 2019