Lucy versus Minnesota.

 

Today's Tids Issue 4,888

I'd rather be frivolous:

 

There is nothing like great old friends. Period.

 

It won’t be long now until we learn the fate of Minneapolis and beyond. The Chauvin verdict may be in before I press send later.  I think we’ll have a summer of burning and riots regardless, because that’s what people who march in streets seem to do. And, it is all very organized.

 

If you don’t pay your exorcist, do you get repossessed?

 

The Question:

In what year and to how many viewers did Judy Garland “The Wizard of Oz” movie make its national TV debut?

 

The Headlines:

--All Three Major Indexes Fall For Second Day.

--Verdict Coming Down In Chauvin Trial.

--Worldwide Covid Deaths Accelerating; Most Cases Ever In Single Week Just recorded.

--Biden Taking Aim At Corporate Tax Loopholes.

--Trump Says Biden Withdrawal From Afghan “Wonderful” and “Positive” Thing To Do; Criticizes Time Line.

--Liberal Media Downplays Rep Water’s Incendiary Comments In Minn; Judge Disagrees With Waters; Could Affect trial Verdict..

--Chad’s President Idriss Deby Dies During Clashes With Rebels; Government And Parliament Dissolved; Military Council To Govern For Next 18 Months; Deby Came To Power In 1990 Armed Uprising.

 

Baseball experts are now telling me that player batting averages no longer count. It sure seems to me that that a guy batting 117 is less reliable than a guy batting 310. We should be using the OPS (On Base Percentage plus Slugging Percent). That stat includes getting on base in all forms and power measured by slugging means getting more than a lot of singles. Better than that, they say, is OPS + and wOBP (Weighted On Base Percentage) which includes data on “How the batter gets o base. So basically, the guy in the stands who thinks he knows a lot about the players mainly because he sees them with his eyes, all of a sudden doesn’t know much because it’s all in a bank of computers somewhere. So, if you think lineups and tactical moves look odd these days, it’s because use sabermetrics are in control. But I’ll take a good ole hunch every once in a while.

 

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck…, Department:

Maxine Water’s comments in Minnesota sound a lot like jury intimidation to me: "Stay on the street and get more active, more confrontational" (if Chauvin is not found guilty}). Judges have long been telling public officials to stop mouthing off during a trial by jury procedure, lest the poison the minds of the jurors. The first person I remember being blasted for speaking out an opinion on an ongoing case was President Richard Nixon.

 

I didn’t pay much attention to the trial in Minn. I figured somebody is going to tell me about it regardless if whether or not I’m interested.

 

I heard today that Joe Bide is going to ban the word Illegal” with respect to immigration. I’ll just call them Crooks.

 

The Answer:

The Wizard of Oz came to TV in almost all of its glory on November 3, 1956. (There wasn’t a lot of color TV around then, so not everybody saw the transition from the B&W Dorothy’s farm into the colorful OZ land. It was viewed by 47millon which was a 33.9 Rating and 53% share, super high numbers. The Super Bowl now one of the highest rated programs annually had average viewer over 100 Million and ratings of about 45.

 

FYI: The top rated sows of all time are Lucy (1953) 67.5, Texaco Sar Theater [1951 (Milton Berle] 61.6, Lucy (1954) 58.8, Arthur Geoffrey’s Talent Scouts 53.8, Lucy (1955) 49.3, 64,000 Question (1956) 47.5, Lucy (1957) 43.7 and #’s 8-9-10 -- Gunsmoke 1958, 60,  59  ( 43.1,40.3, 39.6) ( Want to see the top 100? Go to https://www.tvguide.com/galleries/most-popular-tv-shows-of-all-time-ranked/62/ 

 

I learned in my ePublishing days never to put a link in the middle of a story because most will never return to my priceless words, or are they typos?

 

Pretty much a crammed day.