A little while ago at a speech, Donald Rumsfeld got into a verbal bout with an audience member. Here's the video and here's a transcript.
I'm pleased when any public official — even the ones I grudgingly support — are called out for inconsistent statements or apparent lies but I think this kind of thing misses the point. Rumsfeld and others said they knew where Saddam had his chemical weapons. There were no chemical weapons to be found at those locations. The question to them should not be, "Why did you lie?" The question should be, "Why should anyone who was so wrong about something so important still be calling the shots?"
There was much ancillary damage on 9/11. Apart from the people who were killed or injured and the buildings that were destroyed, there were lesser but significant losses such as impacted many businesses. One was Broadway where attendance immediately plunged to a ghastly low. Five shows posted closing notices and there were many others that were in imminent danger because the cash flow dropped to a trickle.
To remind people that they were still performing, the stars of every show then playing got together and made an amazing commercial — amazing because of the logistics involved. Pulling it all together at all was impressive. Doing it so soon after September 11, in a city still in shock and at its busiest intersection, was close to impossible...but it was done. The audio was pre-recorded on September 27 and the scene in Times Square was shot the following day with an amazing cast. Just in the front row in the photo above, we see Bebe Neuwirth, Susan Lucci, Joel Grey, Michele Lee, Valerie Harper, Bernadette Peters, Betty Buckley, Elaine Stritch, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Elsewhere in the spot, visible in quick flashes, are Alan Alda, Harvey Fierstein, Brooke Shields, Adolph Green, Glenn Close, Brian Stokes Mitchell and quite a few other stars. (Dick Cavett's in there somewhere but I don't see him.)
Today's featured video is the 30 second version of that commercial. There was also a longer one — 60 seconds, I assume. And there was a little 3-4 minute featurette that was kind of a "making of" video. It used to run often on the Trio network and I somehow failed to save a copy of it. If you have it (or the minute-long version), please drop me a line.
Someone at a watch-making company sat down, I'm convinced, and said, "You know what's wrong with our watches? It's too easy to tell what time it is. How can we make it somewhat difficult?" Here's what they came up with.
May 3, 2006
