On eve of its birthday, America loses an icon
As we slide out of a Tuesday and prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, that quintessential American holiday, we also say goodbye to a quintessential American in Andy Griffith. The 86-year-old actor and national icon died today at his home in North Carolina, the state of his birth and the inspiration for much of his career.
As Andy Taylor, the wise and kindly sheriff of Mayberry, Griffith and his cast captured something about small-town America that even back in the ’60s had begun to fade, a fact that made audiences treasure it all more. TV at the time was dominated by cornpone comedies such as “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Petticoat Junction,” “Green Acres” and “Hee Haw,” but Griffith’s show treated its characters and the community they shared with a respect that other shows never even tried to attain.
Anybody who ever watched more than two or three episodes, for example, will smile at the following exchange among Sheriff Andy, his hapless and overeager deputy Barney Fife and the town drunk Otis Campbell:
Barney Fife: Andy, I’ve this one dead to rights! Otis was drunk. I even gave him a test. I drew a line on the sidewalk and told him to walk it. You know what he said?
Andy Taylor: What?
Barney Fife: He asked me what line. I’ve got this one right, Andy. Otis was drunk!
Andy Taylor: That right, Otis? Did you ask Deputy Fife what line?
Otis Campbell: Yeah; but I didn’t have my specs on and drunk or sober, I can’t see much without my specs.
Andy Taylor: Otis, three hours ago when Deputy Fife arrested you were you drunk?
Otis Campbell: I don’t know; I wasn’t wearin’ my glasses.
Happy Fourth of July everyone, and to serenade us into the holiday, here’s Andy himself, singing a tune you might recognize:
– Jay Bookman
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531 comments Add your comment
Stevie Ray..Clowns to the left and Jokers to the right..here I am...
July 5th, 2012
9:26 am
Romney is a dope if he doesn’t release detail of his wealth….Obama and Holder should release whatever information is requested….both are hiding something.
stands for decibels
July 5th, 2012
9:26 am
Anyone else now aware of Journatic’s outsourcing/offshoring of local news reporting, after hearing the most recent episode of This American Life?
I really didn’t know that they had people in the Philippines and several other continents, writing American budget meeting stories, obits and such.
another blogger’s take:
http://gigaom.com/2012/07/04/the-uncomfortable-truth-behind-the-journatic-byline-scandal/
The uncomfortable reality, however, is that the Tribune and other newspapers started using Journatic because it was a lot cheaper than generating that kind of content with staff reporters, and newspapers have been scrambling to cut costs as their print-advertising revenue continues to free fall. The Tribune, for example, laid off 22 employees when it outsourced its hyper-local content to Journatic — and while GateHouse says it plans to create similar content in-house, it is still centralizing the production of that content somewhere else (although it may be closer than the Philippines).
Adam
July 5th, 2012
9:27 am
ADAM,
We are already spending a trillion or more per year than we take in… (Wingut misinformation about deficits and causes of deficits clipped)
You are right about our spending exceeding our revenue. The solution to that is to bring Revenue back up and spending back down. Both have to be done responsibly WITHOUT hack and slashing the things that keep our citizens alive and healthy. If that means more cuts to a defense budget that already exceeds the defense spending of the next 26 nations combined (25 of which are allies) then so be it.
If we are already spending more than we are taking in, where is the money gonna come from? The idea that we have to borrow more money to keep afloat would quickly sink (and has) any family budget don’t you agree?
First of all, the money comes from allocating resources, not from actual dollar amounts. I’m afraid any effort I’ve tried to make to explain this has fallen on deaf ears on both sides of the aisle. THERE IS NO FINANCIAL CRISIS. There is only fear. And to your household budget comment – the US budget isn’t a household budget.
St Simons
July 5th, 2012
9:27 am
ah its morning off the coast of new somalia, and i am closer
to Mitts money than Mittens is…
here’s a joke – a ‘libertarian’ ran for president
Uh Oh
July 5th, 2012
9:27 am
“those of you who are defending OBAMA would be attacking Bush with same vigor…”
And it wont take you long to show a post where I have defended Obama and Holder, correct?
Assume much?
DebbieDoRight - A Do Right Woman
July 5th, 2012
9:28 am
If that’s the case, why hasn’t he been rung up on these 14 charges?
You can’t even ASK about an account in the Cayman Islands without incurring jail time. The US does not have any type of pull over the Caymans, like how we had over the Swiss to make them turn over their information on US accounts, to sway them.
That’s why thousands of US Multimillionaires took their money OUT of Switzerland about 3 years ago and headed for the Caymans.
stands for decibels
July 5th, 2012
9:28 am
President Trillions also spent a trillion on failed stimulus
this BS again?
Stevie Ray..Clowns to the left and Jokers to the right..here I am...
July 5th, 2012
9:28 am
DEBBIE,
My point is not that folks like Romney, you or me don’t take advantage of every tax break available. My point is that it is too complex to administer effectively by a government agency or any agency for that matter. If we eliminate the holes and ambiguity of the laws, we will collect more and remove shadow of doubt as to who is evading….
stands for decibels
July 5th, 2012
9:28 am
godless, I too saw your missive from yesterday evening.
my heartfelt sympathies.
Rightwing Troll
July 5th, 2012
9:29 am
“Republicans believe in limited government”
That’s correct… they believe in limiting government to keeping an eye on your bedroom and starting (but not finishing wars), they believe in limiting the government to doing only the things they believe in like subsidizing big oil, wall street, agri-business, the industrial defense machine, big pharma and a myriad of other industries that are racking in record profits on top of the billions and trillions they collect in subsidies from our tax dollars. They believe in limiting knowledge and learning, as do they believe in limiting social safety nets, while they believe in extending welfare to foriegn countries and expanding corporate tax breaks. They believe in preemptive programs like “abstinece only” and preventing “voter fraud” (an unverifiable “problem” that needs fixin), and they also believe that programs aimed at teaching the underprivileged and work to get people off drugs and back into a productive society shouldn’t exist.
Thier beliefs go on and on…
Stevie Ray..Clowns to the left and Jokers to the right..here I am...
July 5th, 2012
9:30 am
STANDS,
Just because your blind dogma hasn’t accepted the fact that that stimulus created zippo and that no bona fide evidence exists to the contrary, doesn’t mean this failure is forgotten or dismissed.
Brosephus™
July 5th, 2012
9:31 am
Stevie Ray
Ok, I misunderstood you a bit. I’d counter that we don’t know if he’s really been vetted as there’s little to no information that has been released for us to know. By this time in 2008, we knew of Tony Rezko, Rev. Wright, Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers, and everything else on Obama that could be dug up. We can’t quite say the same about Romney. I think he only recently released his tax returns. That’s how the WaPo was able to put their story out about the offshore accounts.
I think that both cases are simply people withholding information to avoid being embarrassed. Romney would be shown as completely out of touch if we knew he used every legal loophole to hide his wealth from taxes while claiming to understand what everybody else goes through. Obama and Holder would be embarrassed to show the public that the heads of the agencies DON’T know every operational detail about everything going on in the government. That, in turn, feeds the myth of government being “too big”. That’s just my theory.
gadem
July 5th, 2012
9:31 am
http://www.kvor.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=112&itemid=29873252
Mitt is one rich dude…
stands for decibels
July 5th, 2012
9:33 am
the fact that that stimulus created zippo
you can’t even get the AMOUNT right, fercryinoutloud.
and you’re not very good at avoiding direct questions put to you. I’ll ask a third time–if Obama is so ghastly, so spendy–what kind of debt load would we be looking at if the other guy had won in 2008?
Because if you can’t come up with a reasonable answer to that, you have little-to-no leg to stand on bitching about current debt, now, can you?
JamVet
July 5th, 2012
9:34 am
heathen, thanks. I just called my HVAC buddy and he agreed…
DettafromATL
July 5th, 2012
9:34 am
My favorite memory was the town kids poem about Barney. I don’t remember everything, but it went a little like this:
There once was a deputy name Fife,
Who owned a gun and a knife,
The gun was all dusty and the knife was all rusty,
Because he never caught a crook in his life!
I loved that show.
godless heathen
July 5th, 2012
9:35 am
Thanks, Stands, Bro
Brosephus™
July 5th, 2012
9:36 am
dB
I didn’t know about the outsourcing of journalism, but that doesn’t surprise me given the cost-cutting nature of our businesses nowadays. I don’t think anybody has yet made the connection that stifling wages for 30-40 years has led to people having less money to spend. People with less money to spend leads to decreased revenues. Decreased revenues leads to cutting costs, which usually means cutting labor costs. Then it’s simply lather, rinse, and repeat. By the time people figure it out, I imagine we’ll be borderline 3rd World status.
Adam
July 5th, 2012
9:36 am
Stevie Ray: I’m going to tell you what I told the paid blogger projector a few blogs back:
Employment in January 2009: 133,561,000
Employment in February 2009 (after Obama’s policies had any marginal chance of taking effect): 132,837,000
Employment May 2012: 133,009,000
Compared to January 2009: -552,000
Compared to February 2009: +172,000
I can’t wait till Friday’s report!
stands for decibels
July 5th, 2012
9:39 am
I’m going to finish what I started @ 9.33, even though I’ve posted some variant of this one before, just for SR.
Do you really think that McCain wouldn’t have done something remarkably similar to the Recovery Act, which you insist on calling a “Trillion Dollar Stimulus” like some FoxNews-infected zombie? Do you think McCain would’ve watched state after state default on its obligations and say “welp, nothin’ we can do here to help ya, sorry”?
I’ll tell you what he, or any other sane President would’ve done. He would’ve passed something like the Recovery Act. It might’ve had more direct tax credits for individual Americans than Obama’s but he still would’ve sent hundreds of billions of dollars to states to fund projects. Because that’s what a sane person does.
And the only difference would be, it’d be not the least bit controversial.
Sheesh.
Mighty Righty
July 5th, 2012
9:43 am
Adam
July 5th, 2012
9:27 am
I seldom agree with you but you are dead on right that we must reduce spending and increase revenue. Problem is we are able to find excuses to increase spending because spending is popular. We just increased spending with Obamcare. Some estimate are two trillion in new spending over the next ten years with only partial offset by increase in revenue. It is clear there is no stomach to reduce spending or increase revvenue until the whole thing just blows up and we will be forced to make cuts. Right now our wizards in Washington are advertising for new government dependants. The only thing they are good at is giving money away. Operate a budget? Clueless.
stands for decibels
July 5th, 2012
9:43 am
Eric Blair SHEETZ.
Adam
July 5th, 2012
9:45 am
We just increased spending with Obamcare. Some estimate are two trillion in new spending over the next ten years with only partial offset by increase in revenue.
That’s actually incorrect. The much maligned taxes your brethren keep bringing up pay for that amount of spending and more.
Hmm
July 5th, 2012
9:46 am
Why were there no Black people in Mayberry?
Mighty Righty
July 5th, 2012
9:51 am
Adam
Even the CBO disagrees with your assertion and they are well known for underestimating the cost of the program.
Mighty Righty
July 5th, 2012
9:56 am
Some of you are getting TARP and Stimulous mixed up. TARP was signed into law by Bush and administered by Obama. Stimulous was Obama’s jobs program which he guaranteed would reduce employment. Each cost around a trillion dollars. TARP was supposed to be a break even when we the “loans” ware repaid. LOL! Stimulous did result in a few jobs but mostly it was a slush fund to repay Obama’s donors. I think you lefties call it “crony capitalism”.
kayaker 71
July 5th, 2012
9:57 am
Lies, deception, broken promises, incompetency, amateur leadership, rigid ideology, narcissism off the charts….. all paint a picture of a person out of his league, in over his head without a clue. Unemployment still over 8% officially, more like 12 or 13%, record foreclosures, record debt, no jobs, opening our borders to anyone who wants to enter, punishing the very states that are trying to protect their citizens, pandering to those who want handouts to survive and ignoring the working class Americans who are the backbone of our economy, our economy still in the tank after 3 and one half years of this insanity…… and you liberals are still going to vote for this social experiment that you call a president. And I thought Bozo was ignorant.
Adam
July 5th, 2012
10:18 am
Mighty Righty: Actually the CBO agrees with me:
From Jay earlier: In its March 2012 update — http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-13-Coverage%20Estimates.pdf — it notes that “CBO and JCT (Joint Committee on Taxation) have previously estimated that the ACA will, on net, reduce budget deficits over the 2012–2021 period; that estimate of the overall budgetary impact of the ACA has not been updated.”
Jay
July 5th, 2012
4:31 pm
OK, Joseph, I’ll see what I can do.
Bill Orvis White™
July 6th, 2012
8:42 am
Not one new net job since this failed “president” took over. This “man’s” record is pathetic in addition to Bill Ayres, Solyndra, Rev. Wright, Fast and Furious, credit downgrades, cap and trade, Father Pfleger, high taxes, anti-life agendas and so much more. WHEN WILL YOU LIBERALS WAKE UP AND REALIZE THAT YOU INSTALLED SOMEONE WORSE THAN YOUR OLD COMMUNIST ANTI-SEMITIC HERO, JIMMAH CARTER? I’m sorry, but WE NEED to rightfully elect Gov. Mitt Romney now to quickly end this nightmare. It’s the economy stupid and you stupids need to learn basic economics! If this once-free nation re-elects this Marxist, then yes, me and millions of job creators and doctors ARE GETTING OUT! GOOD NIGHT!
Adam
July 8th, 2012
10:24 am
Mighty Righty: The CBO AGREES with me and I have told you this already previously. As I said before:
Jay posted earlier:
In its March 2012 update — http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-13-Coverage%20Estimates.pdf — it notes that “CBO and JCT (Joint Committee on Taxation) have previously estimated that the ACA will, on net, reduce budget deficits over the 2012–2021 period; that estimate of the overall budgetary impact of the ACA has not been updated.”