Gorf_the_Magnificent

Gorf_the_Magnificent t1_jaazwwi wrote

Man, I’m glad to hear that. I lived in D.C. in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, and I called the non-emergency number on two occasions (one hit-and-run - minor car damage, but I was driving a government vehicle - and one illegal parker who had impossibly blocked my car when I needed to be somewhere). When the police arrived, they literally whined about how much work I was creating for them and encouraged me to drop it. There were also multiple WaPo stories about ambulances that took 20-30 minutes to get to their destination. It soured me against living in D.C. ever since. But I must say I’ve been hearing better things lately.

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Gorf_the_Magnificent t1_j9d45p0 wrote

The claim that the Republicans blamed the killer rabbit for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was made by Carter’s own Press Secretary, Jody Powell. There is no other substantiation for that claim in the Wikipedia article.

I saw Jody Powell speak at a business conference in 1981, and he was so unimpressive that almost the entire audience was shocked that he had been a senior White House official.

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Gorf_the_Magnificent t1_j8hnw0y wrote

I was a kid when Ozzie and Harriet was a hit TV show. Although they played a middle-aged couple-next-door, in real life Ozzie Nelson was a popular band leader and Harriet Nelson, formerly Harriet Hilliard, was a well-known actress.

The Nelsons pushed their son Ricky’s singing career relentlessly on that show. It got to the point where they would race through the story line, so that Ricky had five minutes at the end to sing his latest song. As a kid, that was my least favorite part of the show, frankly.

Ricky’s death in an airplane crash was a public relations nightmare. The crash, which was caused by a fire started by a faulty in-cabin heater, was initially and erroneously reported to have resulted from Ricky and the other passengers freebasing cocaine on the plane - an unfounded rumor so widely reported in the national media that some people probably still believe it. Also, Ricky’s ex-wife filed an ugly lawsuit for a piece of Ricky’s estate, which Ricky had bequeathed entirely to his children.

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Gorf_the_Magnificent t1_j5i2cx7 wrote

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