Once upon a time there were a lot of middle-aged men. Nondescript, usually white, always in a suit and tie with polished shoes. What set them apart was their comportment and conversation. They were often on talk shows, or hosted their own. They did no stand up and weren't, in general, comics or comedians. They were intelligent and had vast vocabularies and ideas. They thought about things and said what they thought. They engaged in debate with their subjects, with no teleprompters of jokes and promos. They listened, responded and challenged. These were men like Dick Cavett, David Frost, David Susskind and Kenneth Williams:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0cRolJ_hIw
It has been SO long since I've seen anything on television at this level of forthrighteous opinion and respectful intelligence (until Parkinson opens his mouth, a shade of things to come). Why is everything on the tube so massively dumbed down? Where are the Cavetts and Susskinds and why aren't they on the air? Bring back intelligence!
I've decided to add a Curiousity Question here and there, in the hope that readers will look these things up to satisfy their own curiousity, so here's CQ 1:
How and why did Russia and Greece lose 13 whole days in the 20th century?
MYSTERIOUS GARDEN
10 months ago
Posts
3 comments:
Why did Russia and Greece lose 13 days in the 20th Centuery?
I don't need to look this up, so it is a bit of a guess. They both finally moved from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian?
Did I get it right?
Do I win a prize?
It isn't a competition, and I didn't expect answers to be posted...it is, or I hope it will be, anyway, an encouragement of curiousity. That's kind of the point, to not give the answer.
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