Monday, February 28, 2011

MASH and white scholarships

February 28, 2011
BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND
The news as I see it and the views as I want them.
February 28 is … Public Sleeping Day
We don’t use it this year but, February 29 is … National Surf and Turf Day
This is the last day of the second month of 2011. Just 300 shopping days left before Christmas. If you do not go shopping, go to the post office and grab a few winks.

M*A*S*H became the most watched television program in history, as the final original episode of the fictitious, but uncommonly real, 4077th M*A*S*H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit of the Korean conflict aired this night in 1983. An estimated 125-million people in the U.S. tuned in to see the broadcast on CBS. The program earned a 60.3 rating and a 77 percent share. According to Nielsen Media Research, the 60.3 rating was the average audience rating or the percent tuned to M*A*S*H during the average minute, while the share measured the percentage of TV households whose sets were turned on that night and were tuned to the 2 1/2 hour special of M*A*S*H. Goodbye, Farewell and Amen (the title of this last original episode) was a fitting farewell to Capt. Benjamin Franklin Pierce (Hawkeye, played by Alan Alda), Maj. Margaret Houlihan (Hot Lips: Loretta Swit), Cpl. Maxwell Klinger (Jamie Farr), Capt. B.J. Hunnicut (Mike Farrell), Col. Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan) and the rest of one of television’s most endearing ensembles. Audience's other favorite regular M*A*S*H players, Capt. John McIntyre (Trapper John: by Wayne Rogers), Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville), Cpl. Walter O’Reilly (Radar: Gary Burghoff), and Lt. Col. Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) bid adieu between 1975-1977. Radar, Blake and Trapper were discharged, Major Burns was transferred after being AWOL. The TV version of M*A*S*H first aired on September 17, 1972 and followed the popular movie of the same title. Gary Burghoff was the only actor to take his movie role to TV. The movie had followed the novel, also of the same name, by author Richard Hooker, a doctor who had actually served in an M.A.S.H. unit in Korea. The 251 episodes of M*A*S*H will always be regarded as eleven years of television’s finest moments.

I wonder how the NAACP, the White House and the United Negro College Fund are going to like this scholarship program? A new non-profit group in Texas is offering college scholarships to a demographic it says has fewer scholarship options than other groups: white men. The group, called the Former Majority Association for Equality, was started by a Colby Bohannon, a student at Texas State University. He's an Iraq war veteran who decided to return to school and said he had trouble finding college scholarships for which he qualified. He said he found many programs willing to grant money to female or minority students, but not white males like him. "I felt excluded," Bohannan told The Austin American-Statesman. "If everyone else can find scholarships, why are we left out?" So Bohannan and some friends founded the FMAE group, which plans to begin handing out $500 scholarships this summer. Only white men with at least a 3.0 grade point average can qualify.

This has been tried before but not in Texas. It was tried for a brief period of time in 2004-6 in the liberal northeast. It may get a different reception in Texas.

The only Oscar nominated movie I saw from 2010 was True Grit and I only saw that because I like John Wayne and westerns in general. Jeff Bridges did a fine job but you cannot beat the best. Bridges was in a no win situation. Apparently, so was True Grit. It did not win any awards. In looking at a list of the winners, I realize how old I am. I barely recognize any of the names and none of the faces that go with them. Life goes on.

A little senior humor;

No one believes seniors . . . everyone thinks they are senile.
An Elderly couple was celebrating their sixtieth anniversary. 
 The couple had married as childhood sweethearts and had 
 moved back to their old neighborhood after they retired. 


Holding hands they walked back to their old school.
I t was not locked, so they entered, and found the old desk 
 they'd shared where Andy had carved 'I love you, Sally.' 


On their way back home, a bag of money fell out of 
 an armored car, practically landing at their feet.
Sally quickly picked it up, but not sure 
 what to do with it, they took it home. 
 There, she counted the money:  
fifty-thousand dollars! 

Andy said, 'We've got to give it back.'  


Sally said, 'Finders keepers.'  


 She put the money back in the bag and hid it in their attic.
The next day, two FBI men were canvassing the neighborhood 
 looking for the money and knocked on the door.

'Pardon me, but did either of you find a bag 
 that fell out of an armored car yesterday?'
 
Sally said, 'No.'  


Andy said, 'She's lying. She hid it up in the attic.'  


Sally said, 'Don't believe him, he's getting senile.'

The agents turn to Andy and began to question him.  


One says:  'Tell us the story from the beginning'  

Andy said, 'Well, when Sally and I were walking home from school yesterday’

 The first FBI guy turns to his partner and says, 'We're outta here.' 

Slaughter in America, Chicago style; A fight inside a club in south suburban Richton Park led to a shooting late Saturday that injured four people, including a juvenile, police said. At 11:28 p.m., Richton Park police responded to a shooting at Kingdom Cafe, 22119 Governor's Highway, a police statement said. The shooting was preceded by a fight, witnesses told police. A man left the club, returned with a gun and began firing, police said. When officers arrived, three men and a boy were found shot and in serious condition. The victims were taken to St. James Hospital and Health Centers in Olympia Fields and Chicago Heights, the release said. The Kingdom Cafe is a nonalcoholic club, according to a sign posted on the front door. A neighboring business owner said it had been open for about a year and catered to teenagers

BRUCE A. BRENNAN
DEKALB, IL 60115
COPYRIGHT 2011

VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.
Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book should be available later this year, in late 2011. More information will be forthcoming.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ (do a quick search, Title, my name)
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“The heart is wiser than the intellect.”

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