​There was a significant story yesterday, and it got next to no attention because – well, Trump is in office so “significant stories” get understandably pushed to the side when you’re dealing with debacles like attacking another country and claiming you’re in charge, the Epstein files, 20 million Americans on the verge of losing their healthcare, arresting legal Americans to deport them without due process and so much more.  But still, this is a significant story and deserves important notice.  Hopefully, the media will make some time to do so.
 
Until then, we shall jump in here.
 
Yesterday, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced that after 58 years it was shutting down, due to Trump’s relentless attacks and the MAGOP Congress vote to defund it.
 
That’s how massive all the other current Trump debacles are.  A story this meaningful, most especially in light of Trump's attacks against the media in his attempts to control it, barely squeaked in the news.  I only read about the announcement in Daily Variety and subsequently saw an article in the New York Times.  Nothing thus far on TV.

If there is anything even remotely “positive” in the news about the CPB, it’s that this
isn’t because of lack of all funding and being out of money -- the Corporation still has money and continues to do private fundraising, though of course the lack of government funding was a massively powerful blow.  However, the action to pull all federal funding put the CPB into a position which its board found untenable.
 
In a statement from the organization, president/CEO Patricia Harrison explained the board's reasoning:
 
“When the Administration and Congress rescinded federal funding, our Board faced a profound responsibility: CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks.”  As such, she explained, its board of directors voted to close the organization after 58 years, rather than continue and put the CPB at ongoing risk of “future political manipulation or misuse.” 
 
In some ways, that’s an uncommon and surprising decision, though somewhat understandable (kind of) in a way that makes a very loud, important and high-profile public statement.
 
The Corporation of Public Broadcasting was created by Congress in 1967 to support the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting.  As Ms. Harrison noted, “For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans—regardless of geography, income, or background—had access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling.”  In recent years, however, the CPB has come under particularly harsh attack from the right, outraged whenever that balanced and trusted news coverage and programming -- which covered all spectrums (not only praising but criticizing any side when deserved) -- wasn’t always aligned solely with it's conservative views, and therefore painted public broadcasting as supposedly "biased."

How this will affect current programming and PBS stations across the country (some of which are critical in rural areas) is uncertain.  Private individual and corporate funding will likely allow much to go on as before, but "much" is an extremely flexible term.
 
There was though, one other positive note in Patricia Harrison’s statement from the CPB.
 
 “I am convinced,” she said, “that public media will survive, and that a new Congress will address public media’s role in our country because it is critical to our children’s education, our history, culture and democracy to do so.” 
 
If the CPB can, in fact, be reformulated easily in three years by a new administration, that’s encouraging – since the way public approval polls and Special Election results have been going -- there will be a new administration.  Whether it can be reformulated “easily,” I have no idea.  But if the Corporation of Public Broadcasting thinks that this is a very real likelihood, then they know a whole lot more about it than I do.
 
As such, as sad, pathetic and dismal as this story is, I do like that the CPB appear to be making a loud public statement with this decision, and are not going quiet into that good night.  The shutting down of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting won’t be a campaign issue – but it would seem to be another brick that will add to Trump’s low approval.
 
Hopefully the media will pick up on the story and report it.  Ultimately, though, it’s absence will be noticed.  And, I feel very certain, missed.

At least, for the next three years, 'til we meet again.
​

I haven't had a "50 People Try to…" video from Epicurious for a while, so let's correct that.  These are the videos where Epicurious magazine sets a pretty basic cooking task and brings 50 people into their kitchen to see if they can accomplish it.  And since none of the people tend to be accomplished with cooking, the results tend to be entertaining.  Then, at the end, an Epicurious chef comes in to show how it's done.

This time, they try to slice and core an apple for making an apple pie.

On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is bagpipe superstar (and yes, that’s a thing) Ally the Piper, who was an award-winning bagpiper before she started posting TikTok videos playing covers of songs by Metallica and Iron Maiden. Her conversation with host Peter Sagal is absolutely wonderfully entertaining.  Her stories about getting into bagpiping are very funny, as is her tale that relates to posting Metallica video on Facebook – which brought out both hate from a Metallica fan and love from Metallica -- but best is her dry sense of humor and total acceptance of how improbable the success of her career has been.
 
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts a bit after the 20:45 mark.
 
And of course I have to post a video of her performing.  Two, actually.  One because it’s a great example of her heavy metal work, and the other because it’s just too joyful, of a popular piece of music.
 

​
First, this is her official music video of Ozzie Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.”
 

We’re back with the sixth compilation of Broadway musicals numbers that were performed on The Ed Sullivan Show,  during the show’s 23 years as a remarkable archive of musicals whose original cast performances would almost all otherwise be lost.
 
I try to post these on the first Sunday of every month.  If you miss any, just do a search for the word "Edstravaganza".
 
We start today with the continuation of  The Most Happy, that was interrupted at the end of the previous compilation.  (As a refresher, you can check out that December Edstravaganza again here.)
 
This is followed by a performance of Lerner & Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon, with one of the hit songs, “I Talk to the Trees,” from the original cast member Tony Bavaar.  In the somewhat-odd, 1969 movie adaptation of the show, it was sort of, kind of sung by Clint Eastwood.  From this clip, you get to hear it actually sung.
 
In an previous compilation,  we had a song from The Sound of Music.  It was the original production, but from the replacement cast.  This is the original cast, with two songs, including Patricia Neway singing a particularly moving rendition of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”.
 
Next comes another song from Destry Rides Again, for which we also had a clip in an earlier compilation.  The musical starred Andy Griffith, though this is a dance production number.  Worth noting is that the first outlaw who enters is introduced as Marc Breaux.  He went on to have a very successful career as a choreographer for movie musicals, most famously Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
 
A wonderful treat comes next.  Two songs from the hit musical Carnival! featuring the show's two stars – Anna Maria Alberghetti and (for those who still might not know what a truly major Broadway star he was) Jerry Orbach.  I’ve never understood why Carnival! has never been made into a movie (or TV musical, which I tried to push once, suggesting it to someone who had a deal with Disney TV) – after all, it was nominated as Best Musical and is based on a classic dramatic movie, Lili, with Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer.  It's seemed ideal for a film version.  So, all the more a joy to have this footage preserved.  (Fun Fact:  Carnival! was very loosely inspired by Kukla, Fran and Ollie.  The original short story by Paul Gallico which is the basis of the show, was set in a TV studio and about a shy puppeteer whose characters talk with a woman out front.  When Gallico later expanded it into a novella that takes place in a European traveling circus, he dedicated the book to Burr Tilllstrom, who created KF&O.)
 
Then comes Anthony Newley from the show he co-wrote with Leslie Bricusse, The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd.  Long ago, I posted his performance of one of the show’s big hits, “Who Can I Turn To?, but I’d never before seen this number, “Nothing Can Stop Me Now,” which Newley's beaten-down character ‘Cocky’ sings after finally, to his amazement, wins the “game” he’s been playing with the lordly ‘Sir,’ who makes up all the rules.  We get a minute-and-a-half of it here, but it unfortunately cuts off at that point.  However, it concludes and also adds “Who Can I Turn To?” in the next compilation upcoming.  Watch this space.  And as always, to give full credit, these videos were compiled by Jim Berg.

​We have a new one this week.  The contestant is Rachel Hahn from Owasso, Oklahoma.  I didn’t have a clue, but I’m guessing others will get the hidden song – because it’s very well-known, and the contestant got it immediately. (Even when composer Bruce Adolph played the song again, I had a hard time picking it out, even when knowing what it was, but there were a couple of passages where I did hear it.)  I didn’t have an idea on the composer style either, though, but to my surprise I at least got the right country, and the relationship between my guess and the correct answer.  At least I’m comforted by host Fred Childe having a hard time with the composer style, as well – though he did finally get it.