In unadulterated good news, Tom Scola has reported elsewhere that Ben Browder will be on Doctor Who.

And that right there is what it took to get me interested in watching again.

Are you of Irish descent, Sue?

Half. But that was not the rumrunning side. My grandfather was from St. Pierre and worked as an agent for the Bronfman family selling booze to rumrunners.

Heh. I asked because my Irish great-grandfather was successful (until he was gunned down) during Prohibition (that's right, the IRISH invented the drive-by - Represent!) Of course, I'm also told my paternal great-grandfather on the non-Irish side ran "all the beer in New Jersey", so I guess it was good times for all of the enterprising types.

Nor does it require one to have a radio show. If no one wants to pay him to have a radio show, he's free to hold up signs at funerals and such, like the Phelps family does.

I was gonna say, because if Rush's first admendment rights are being violated, I want to know where I get my nationally syndicated, mult-million-dollar-salaried radio show is where I get to spout any gibberish that comes into my head as long as I don't say the wrong naughty word (slut apparently not being one of them)?

Condolences, brenda. I remember that time, and I'm glad you were here.

Congrats, Hayden!

During prohibition, half my family weren't here yet, and thus weren't prohibited. The other half probably just drank their way through the whole decade, from what I knew of them.

unrelatedly (maybe?) Hayden! Congrats on the gainfulness, and have fun with a leg possibly even more dysfunctional, but way less colorful than your previous one!

Congrats Hayden!

Two essays about gender and tv writing:

Jane Espenson is the first.

[link]

[link]

I have no Al Capone stories--one set of grandparents was busy farming during the Depression, and ...I have no idea what my grandmother on the other side was doing (mostly "growing up") and my grandpa on that side was working in his dad's restaurant (and was disappointed when he joined the navy and they told him since he had experience he could be a cook)

Of course, I'm also told my paternal great-grandfather on the non-Irish side ran "all the beer in New Jersey", so I guess it was good times for all of the enterprising types.

My great-grandfather's first cousin was the first person in NJ convicted under Prohibition. The conviction was overturned, in what seems from all the records to be a case of someone bribing the judge, when it was ruled that, although he owned a tavern and had a basement full of alcohol, no one had actually proven that he intended to distribute it.

He was also a witness in the Lindbergh Baby trial, testifying that he'd seen a man carrying the baby the night of the kidnapping, and pretty much all the other evidence says that he was lying.

yay for a job , hayden !