Edward Kennedy 1932-2009

Not a fan of Sen. Kennedy's politics or the man himself but I always watch funerals of high profile individuals with great interest . I have taped the funerals of Presidents Reagan and Ford and Sen. Kennedy's was even more fascinating for the Catholic Mass that is rarely seen on television. The networks seemed to give us plenty of closeups of the family including the last surviving sibling Jean, and closeups of President Obama, Carter and Clinton.
As always I found the work of the Honor Guard, carrying the casket to the hearse, fascinating. The precision and look is incredible and I know from past funerals that to be a member of the guard for a funeral like this is a very high honor and they practice hours everyday for the job.
Later today will be the funeral procession through Washington DC then onto Arlington National Cemetery for the burial. It will be emotional to see the last of the fabled Kennedy men laid to rest next to his brothers, President John Kennedy and Sen. Robert Kennedy.
The New York Times obituary for Senator Kennedy.
More on the Kennedy funeral.

Here is a tremendous article on the history of State Funerals in the United States.

Tarzan Day

Happy Tarzan Day!!
On this day in 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published "Tarzan of the Apes".
He gave the world one of its most enduring icons of literature, movies and television.
I own all of the books in paperbacks and I discovered them around the same time I saw my first Tarzan movie on Ch 4 out of Indianapolis about 1974. It starred Johnny Weismuller and I became instantly hooked and couldnt wait for the next movie to show up on tv. My dad gave the background on Johnny and his incredible Olympic career before he went to the movies and he remains my favorite of all the Tarzans.
My dad was a fan of Ron Ely who played Tarzan on TV in 1966.

Here is a "condensed classic" showing all the movie Tarzans from the beginning with Elmo Lincoln all the way to Casper Van Dien from the 1998 "Tarzan and the Lost City".



My favorite little tidbit about all the different movie Tarzan's regards former NFL player Mike Henry who played the title role in 3 movies from 1966 to 1968. He went on to play Major Penobscot, "Hot Lips" Houlihan's husband, in the "Olympics" episode where the MASHers held their own Olympics competition to go along with the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

Welcome to the Machine - Joe Posnanski - SI.com

I am not a big fan of the Cincinnati Reds but this will be a welcome addition to the library next month.

Welcome to the Machine - Joe Posnanski - SI.com

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Netflix

Here is a movie I am getting from Netflix this week, Sunshine Cleaning.
It has great buzz on the net and it does looks funny and just enough emotion for my wife to watch too. Of course it doesnt hurt to have the great comedic actor Alan Arkin as the dad.