The infamous and ingenious Ho Chi Minh Trail - Cameron Paterson
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The Ho Chi Minh Trail not only connected North and South Vietnam during a brutal war but also aided Vietnamese soldiers. The trail shaved nearly five months of time off of the trip and was used as a secret weapon of sorts. Cameron Paterson describes the history and usage of the infamous trail.
Lesson by Cameron Paterson, animation by Maxwell Sørensen.
Racism, School Desegregation Laws and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955--1968) refers to the social movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against black Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South. The emergence of the Black Power Movement, which lasted roughly from 1966 to 1975, enlarged the aims of the Civil Rights Movement to include racial dignity, economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from oppression by white Americans.
The movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955--1956) in Alabama; sit-ins such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina; marches, such as the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities.
Noted legislative achievements during this phase of the Civil Rights Movement were passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964, that banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in employment practices and public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. African Americans re-entered politics in the South, and across the country young people were inspired to action.
Desegregation busing in the United States (also known as forced busing or simply busing) is the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools in such a manner as to redress prior racial segregation of schools, or to overcome the effects of residential segregation on local school demographics.
JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theories: John F. Kennedy Facts, Photos, Timeline, Books, Articles
There has long been suspicion of a government cover-up of information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. About the book:
Numerous conspiracy theories regarding the assassination arose soon after Kennedy's death and continue to this day. Most put forth a criminal conspiracy involving parties as varied as the CIA, the KGB, the American Mafia, the Israeli government, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, sitting Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Cuban president Fidel Castro, anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, the Federal Reserve, or some combination of those entities. In 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Kennedy's assassination was likely the result of a conspiracy.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he traveled in an open-top car in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas at 12:30 PM,CST (1:30 PM EST) November 22, 1963; Texas Governor John Connally was also injured. Within two hours, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit and arraigned that evening. At 1:35 AM Saturday, Oswald was arraigned for murdering the President. At 11:21 AM, Sunday, November 24, 1963, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald as he was being transferred to the county jail.
Immediately after the shooting, little information was available and many people suspected that the assassination was part of a larger plot. Ruby's shooting of Oswald compounded initial suspicions. Mark Lane has been described as writing the first literary shot among conspiracy theorists with his article in the December 19, 1963 edition of the National Guardian, Defense Brief for Oswald. Published in May 1964, Thomas Buchanan's Who Killed Kennedy? has been credited as the first book alleging a conspiracy.
In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone and that no credible evidence supported the contention that he was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the president. The Commission also indicated that Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State; Robert S. McNamara, the Secretary of Defense; C. Douglas Dillon, the Secretary of the Treasury; Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General; J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI; John A. McCone, the Director of the CIA; and James J. Rowley, the Chief of the Secret Service, each independently reached the same conclusion on the basis of information available to them.
In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, but concluded that the Commission's report and the original FBI investigation were both seriously flawed. The HSCA also concluded that at least four shots were fired with a high probability that two gunmen fired at the President, and that a conspiracy was probable. The HSCA also stated that the Warren Commission failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the president.
The Ramsey Clark Panel and the Rockefeller Commission both supported the Warren Commission's conclusions, while New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison unsuccessfully prosecuted Clay Shaw for conspiring to assassinate Kennedy.
According to John McAdams: The greatest and grandest of all conspiracy theories is the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. Others have frequently referred to it as the mother of all conspiracies. The number of books written about the assassination of Kennedy has been estimated to be in the range of one thousand to two thousand. According to Vincent Bugliosi, 95% of those books are pro-conspiracy and anti-Warren Commission.
Kennedy assassination enthusiasts have been described as belonging to conspiracy theorists on one side and debunkers on the other. The great amount of controversy surrounding the event has led to bitter disputes between those who support the conclusion of the Warren Commission and those who reject it or are critical of the official explanation, with each side leveling accusations of naivete, cynicism, and selective interpretation of the evidence toward the other.
Public opinion polls taken after the assassination have indicated that a large number of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A 2003 Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. That same year an ABC News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected that the assassination involved more than one person. A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy while 74% thought there had been a cover-up.
First Premier of the People's Republic of China: Zhou Enlai Interview (1965)
Zhou Enlai (周恩来 pinyin: Zhōu Ēnlái; Wade-Giles: Chou En-lai; IPA: [tʂóʊ ə́nlǎɪ]; 5 March 1898 -- 8 January 1976) was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. More:
Zhou served under Mao Zedong and was instrumental in consolidating the control of the Communist Party's rise to power, forming foreign policy, and developing the Chinese economy.
A skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with the West after the stalemated Korean War, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and helped orchestrate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. He helped devise policies regarding the bitter disputes with the U.S., Taiwan, the Soviet Union (after 1960), India and Vietnam. Zhou is best known as the long-time top aide to Mao Zedong, specializing in foreign policy. Their contrasting personalities made them an effective team, according to Henry Kissinger, the American diplomat who had extensive dealings with both men:
Mao dominated any gathering; Zhou suffused it. Mao's passion strove to overwhelm opposition; Zhou's intellect would seek to persuade or outmaneuver it. Mao was sardonic; Zhou penetrating. Mao thought of himself as a philosopher; Zhou saw his role as an administrator or a negotiator. Mao was eager to accelerate history; Zhou was content to exploit its currents.
Largely due to his expertise, Zhou was able to survive the purges of other top officials during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. His attempts at mitigating the Red Guards' damage and his efforts to protect others from their wrath made him immensely popular in the Revolution's later stages. As Mao Zedong's health began to decline in 1971 and 1972, Zhou and the Gang of Four struggled internally over leadership of China. Zhou's health was also failing, however, and he died eight months before Mao on 8 January 1976. The massive public outpouring of grief in Beijing turned to anger towards the Gang of Four, leading to the Tiananmen Incident. Although succeeded by Hua Guofeng, it was Deng Xiaoping, Zhou's ally, who was able to outmaneuver the Gang of Four politically and eventually take Mao's place as Paramount leader by 1977.
Wealth and Power in America: Social Class, Income Distribution, Finance and the American Dream
Wealth in the United States is commonly measured in terms of net worth, which is the sum of all assets, including home equity, minus all liabilities. More on the topic:
For example, a household in possession of an $800,000 house, $5,000 in mutual funds, $30,000 in cars, $20,000 worth of stock in their own company, and a $45,000 IRA would have assets totaling $900,000. Assuming that this household would have a $250,000 mortgage, $40,000 in car loans, and $10,000 in credit card debt, its debts would total $300,000. Subtracting the debts from the worth of this household's assets (900,000 - $300,000 = $600,000), this household would have a net worth of $600,000. Net worth can vary with fluctuations in value of the underlying assets.
The wealth—more specifically, the median net worth—of households in the United States is varied with relation to race, education, geographic location and gender. As one would expect, households with greater income feature the highest net worths, though high income cannot be taken as an always accurate indicator of net worth. Overall the number of wealthier households is on the rise, with baby boomers hitting the highs of their careers. In addition, wealth is unevenly distributed, with the wealthiest 25% of US households owning 87% of the wealth in the United States, which was $54.2 trillion in 2009.
When observing the changes in the wealth among American households, one can note an increase in wealthier individuals and a decrease in the number of poor households, while net worth increased most substantially in semi-wealthy and wealthy households. Overall the percentage of households with a negative net worth (more debt than assets) declined from 9.5% in 1989 to 4.1% in 2001.
The percentage of net worths ranging from $500,000 to one million doubled while the percentage of millionaires tripled. From 1995 to 2004, there was tremendous growth among household wealth, as it nearly doubled from $21.9 trillion to $43.6 trillion, but the wealthiest quartile of the economic distribution made up 89% of this growth. During this time frame, wealth became increasingly unequal, and the wealthiest 25% became even wealthier.
According to US Census Bureau statistics this Upward shift is most likely the result of a booming housing market which caused homeowners to experience tremendous increases in home equity. Life-cycles have also attributed to the rising wealth among Americans. With more and more baby-boomers reaching the climax of their careers and the middle aged population making up a larger segment of the population now than ever before, more and more households have achieved comfortable levels of wealth. Zhu Xiao Di (2004) notes that household wealth usually peaks around families headed by people in their 50s, and as a result, the baby boomer generation reached this age range at the time of the analysis.
Turning trash into toys for learning | Arvind Gupta
At the INK Conference, Arvind Gupta shares simple yet stunning plans for turning trash into seriously entertaining, well-designed toys that kids can build themselves -- while learning basic principles of science and design.
NYSTV - Nostradamus Prophet of the Illuminati - David Carrico and the Midnight Ride - Multi Language
Nostradamus is the most well known prophet of the millennium because his predictions came true. What was the true source of his visions? How deeply ingrained in the occult was he? What was his medical background? What innovations did he use to fight the Black Plague that was rampant at the time? Was he a puppet working for the Illuminati? Or were they working for him?
Now the real question is, was Nostradamus just a psyops planned hundreds of years ago and the demonic forces are just controlling events as Nostradamus predicted?
Some deep insights into the life and times of Nostradamus with David Carrico of The Midnight Ride.
In depth information you'd have to watch like 8 documentaries about Nostradamus to get.
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Afrikaans: gevalle engel
Arabic: ملاك ساقط
Azerbaijani: düşmüş mələk
Belarusian: Палы анёл
Bulgarian: паднал ангел
Bengali: পতিত দেবদূত
Bosnian: pali andjeo
Catalan: Àngel caigut
Cebuano: napukan nga anghel
Czech: padlý anděl
Welsh: angel syrthio
Danish: falden engel
German: fallen angel
Greek: έκπτωτος άγγελος
English: fallen angel
Esperanto: fallen angel
Spanish: Ángel caido
Estonian: Langenud ingel
Basque: Aingeru eroria
Persian: فرشته افتاده
Finnish: langennut enkeli
French: Ange déchu
Irish: aingeal tar éis titim
Galician: Anxo caído
Gujarati: ઘટી દેવદૂત
Hausa: mala'ika ya fadi
Hindi: गिरी हुई परी
Hmong: fallen angel
Croatian: pali anđeo
Haitian Creole: tonbe zanj
Hungarian: Bukott angyal
Armenian: ընկած հրեշտակ
Indonesian: Malaikat yang jatuh
Igbo: mmụọ ozi dara ada
Icelandic: fallinn engill
Italian: Angelo caduto
Hebrew: מלאך שנפל
Japanese: 堕天使
Javanese: widodari tiba
Georgian: დაცემული ანგელოზი
Kazakh: құлаған ангел
Khmer: ទេវតាធ្លាក់ចុះ
Kannada: ಬಿದ್ದ ದೇವದೂತ
Korean: 타락한 천사
Latin: fallen angel
Lao: fallen angel
Lithuanian: kritęs angelas
Latvian: kritušais enģelis
Malagasy: anjely nianjera
Maori: anahera hinga
Macedonian: паднат ангел
Malayalam: വീണുപോയ ദൂതൻ
Mongolian: унасан тэнгэр элч
Marathi: पडलेला देवदूत
Malay: malaikat yang jatuh
Maltese: waqa 'anġlu
Myanmar (Burmese): ပြိုလဲကောငျးကငျတမနျ
Nepali: गिर परी
Dutch: gevallen engel
Norwegian: Fallen engel
Chichewa: mngelo wakugwa
Punjabi: ਡਿੱਗ ਦੂਤ
Polish: upadły anioł
Portuguese: anjo caído
Romanian: inger decazut
Russian: падший ангел
Sinhala: වැටුනාවූ දූතයා
Slovak: padlý anjel
Slovenian: padli angel
Somali: malaa'igtii dhacday
Albanian: engjell i rene
Serbian: пали анђео
Sesotho: lengeloi le oeleng
Sundanese: malaikat fallen
Swedish: fallen ängel
Swahili: malaika aliyeanguka
Tamil: விழுந்த தேவதை
Telugu: స్వర్గం నుంచి పడిన దేవత
Tajik: фариштаи золим
Thai: เทวดาตกสวรรค์
Filipino: nahulog na anghel
Turkish: düşmüş melek
Ukrainian: занепалий ангел
Urdu: باغی فرشتہ
Uzbek: tushgan farishta
Vietnamese: Thiên thần sa ngã
Yiddish: געפאלן מלאך
Yoruba: angẹli ti o ṣubu
Chinese: 堕落的天使
Chinese (Simplified): 堕落的天使
Chinese (Traditional): 墮落的天使
Zulu: ingelosi ewile
Afrikaans: Lucifer
Arabic: إبليس
Azerbaijani: lucifer
Belarusian: Люцыпар
Bulgarian: Луцифер
Bengali: শয়তান
Bosnian: lucifer
Catalan: lucifer
Cebuano: lucifer
Czech: Lucifer
Welsh: lucifer
Danish: lucifer
German: Luzifer
Greek: Εωσφόρος
English: lucifer
Esperanto: lucifer
Spanish: lucifer
Estonian: lutsifer
Fritz Springmeier the 13 Illuminati Bloodlines - Part 1 - Multi Language
The Astor Bloodline, The Bundy Bloodline, The Collins Bloodline, The DuPont Bloodline, The Freeman Bloodline, The Kennedy Bloodline, The Li Bloodline, The Onassis Bloodline, The Rockefeller Bloodline, The Russell Bloodline, The Van Duyn Bloodline, The Merovingian Bloodline
and of course The Rothschild Bloodline
Fritz Springmeir has done much to bring trauma based mind control techniques to the forefront. His presentation on The Illuminati Bloodlines revolutionized the truth movement and cause the powers that be to change their game plan.
Fritz was arrested for being an accessory to robbing a bank despite the lack of evidence and was gone but never forgotten. He was released with a gag order and continues his mission to educate and enlighten.
This is part one of his presentation.
Free Truth Productions
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Afrikaans: Lucifer
Arabic: إبليس
Azerbaijani: lucifer
Belarusian: Люцыпар
Bulgarian: Луцифер
Bengali: শয়তান
Bosnian: lucifer
Catalan: lucifer
Cebuano: lucifer
Czech: Lucifer
Welsh: lucifer
Danish: lucifer
German: Luzifer
Greek: Εωσφόρος
English: lucifer
Esperanto: lucifer
Spanish: lucifer
Estonian: lutsifer
Basque: lucifer
Persian: لوسیفر
Finnish: Lucifer
French: lucifer
Irish: lucifer
Galician: lucifer
Gujarati: લ્યુસિફર
Hausa: lucifer
Hindi: लूसिफ़ेर
Hmong: lucifer
Croatian: Lucifer
Haitian Creole: lucifer
Hungarian: lucifer
Armenian: lucifer
Indonesian: lucifer
Igbo: lucifer
Icelandic: lucifer
Italian: Lucifero
Hebrew: לוציפר
Japanese: ルシファー
Javanese: lucifer
Georgian: lucifer
Kazakh: lucifer
Khmer: lucifer
Kannada: ಪ್ರಕಾಶಕ
Korean: 샛별
Latin: lucifer
Lao: lucifer
Lithuanian: lucifer
Latvian: lucifer
Malagasy: Losifera
Maori: lucifer
Macedonian: луцифер
Malayalam: ല്യൂസിഫർ
Mongolian: Луйварчид
Marathi: लुइसिफर
Malay: lucifer
Maltese: lucifer
Myanmar (Burmese): လူစီဖာ
Nepali: लुगेरिया
Dutch: lucifer
Norwegian: lucifer
Chichewa: lucifer
Punjabi: ਲੇਸੀਫਰ
Polish: Lucyfer
Portuguese: Lúcifer
Romanian: lucifer
Russian: Люцифер
Sinhala: ලූවිෆර්
Slovak: Lucifer
Slovenian: lucifer
Somali: lucifer
Albanian: Afërditë
Serbian: луцифер
Sesotho: lucifer
Sundanese: lucifer
Swedish: djävulen
Swahili: lucifer
Tamil: சைத்தான்
Telugu: లూసిఫెర్
Tajik: lucifer
Thai: ลูซิเฟอร์
Filipino: lucifer
Turkish: şeytan
Ukrainian: lucifer
Urdu: لسیفر
Uzbek: lucifer
Vietnamese: lucifer
Yiddish: לוסיפער
Yoruba: lucifer
Chinese: 路西弗
Chinese (Simplified): 路西弗
Chinese (Traditional): 路西弗
Zulu: i-lucifer
Thelema
babylon working
crowley
parsons
hubbard
H.G. Wells
undead
dracula
vlad the impaler
Illuminati
mk ultra
werewolf
right of the pyramid
kings chamber
ark of the covenant
order of the garter
The Rich in America: Power, Control, Wealth and the Elite Upper Class in the United States
The American upper class describes the sociological concept pertaining to the top layer of society in the United States. About the book:
This social class is most commonly described as consisting of those with great wealth and power and may also be referred to as the Capitalist Class or simply as The Rich. Persons of this class commonly have immense influence in the nation's political and economic institutions as well as public opinion.
Many politicians, heirs to fortunes, top business executives, CEOs, successful venture capitalists and celebrities are considered members of this class. Some prominent and high-rung professionals may also be included if they attain great influence and wealth. The main distinguishing feature of this class, which is estimated to constitute roughly 1% of the population, is the source of income. While the vast majority of persons and households derive their income from salaries, those in the upper class derive their income from investments and capital gains. Estimates for the size of this group commonly vary from 1% to 2%, while some surveys have indicated that as many as 6% of Americans identify as upper class. Sociologist Leonard Beeghley sees wealth as the only significant distinguishing feature of this class and, therefore, refers to this group simply as the rich.
The members of the tiny capitalist class at the top of the hierarchy have an influence on economy and society far beyond their numbers. They make investment decisions that open or close employment opportunities for millions of others. They contribute money to political parties, and they often own media enterprises that allow them influence over the thinking of other classes... The capitalist class strives to perpetuate itself: Assets, lifestyles, values and social networks... are all passed from one generation to the next. -Dennis Gilbert, The American Class Structure, 1998
Sociologists such as W. Lloyd Warner, William Thompson and Joseph Hickey recognize prestige differences between members of the upper class. Established families, prominent professionals and politicians may be deemed to have more prestige than some entertainment celebrities who in turn may have more prestige than the members of local elites. Yet, contemporary sociologists argue that all members of the upper class share such great wealth, influence and assets as their main source of income as to be recognized as members of the same social class. As great financial fortune is the main distinguishing feature of this class, sociologist Leonard Beeghley at the University of Florida identifies all rich households, those with incomes in the top 1% or so, as upper class.
Functional theorists in sociology and economics assert that the existence of social classes is necessary in order to distribute persons so that only the most qualified are able to acquire positions of power, and so that all persons fulfill their occupational duties to the greatest extent of their ability. Notably, this view does not address wealth, which plays an important role in allocating status and power.
In order to make sure that important and complex tasks are handled by qualified and motivated personnel, society offers incentives such as income and prestige. The more scarce qualified applicants are and the more essential the given task is, the larger the incentive will be. Income and prestige which are often used to tell a person's social class, are merely the incentives given to that person for meeting all qualifications to complete an important task that is of high standing in society due to its functional value.
It should be stressed... that a position does not bring power and prestige because it draws a high income. Rather, it draws a high income because it is functionally important and the available personnel is for one reason or another scarce. It is therefore superficial and erroneous to regard high income as the cause of a man's power and prestige, just as it is erroneous to think that a man's fever is the cause of his disease... The economic source of power and prestige is not income primarily, but the ownership of capital goods (including patents, good will, and professional reputation). Such ownership should be distinguished from the possession of consumers' goods, which is an index rather than a cause of social standing. -Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore, Principles of Stratification.
Witness to War: Doctor Charlie Clements Interview
Charlie Clements currently serves as the Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. From 2003 to 2010, Dr. Clements served as President and CEO of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and before that he was the President of Physicians for Human Rights.
Dr. Clements wrote Witness to War, which was published in 1983. This book chronicles experience as a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Academy who had flown more than 50 missions in the Vietnam War. He decided the war was immoral and refused to fly missions in support of the invasion of Cambodia. Later, as a newly trained physician, he chose to work in the midst of El Salvador's civil war, where the villages he served were bombed, rocketed, or strafed by some of the same aircraft in which he had previously trained.
Suspense: Summer Night / Deep Into Darkness / Yellow Wallpaper
Psychological thriller: In which (until the often violent resolution) the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional, rather than physical. Characters, either by accident or their own curiousness, are dragged into a dangerous conflict or situation that they are not prepared to resolve. Characters are not reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies, but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind. At times, the characters attempt solving, or are involved in, a mystery. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.[37] The Alfred Hitchcock films Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt, and Strangers on a Train and David Lynch's bizarre and influential Blue Velvet are notable examples of the type, as are The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Machinist, Don't Say A Word,[38] House of 9, Trapped, Flightplan, Shutter Island, Secret Window, Identity, Red Eye,[39] Phone Booth, Psycho, The River Wild,[40] Nick of Time,[41] P2,[42] Breakdown, Panic Room,[43] Misery, Straw Dogs and its remake, Cape Fear, The Collector, Frailty,[44] The Good Son and Funny Games.[45]
Spy thriller: In which the protagonist is generally a government agent who must take violent action against agents of a rival government or (in recent years) terrorists. The subgenre usually deals with the subject of fictional espionage in a realistic way (such as the adaptations of John Le Carré). It is a significant aspect of British cinema,[46] with leading British directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed making notable contributions and many films set in the British Secret Service. The spy film usually fuses the action and science fiction genres, however, some spy films fall safely in the action genre rather than thriller (e.i. James Bond), especially those having frequent shootouts, car chases and such (see the spy entry in the subgenres of action film).[47] Thrillers within this subgenre include Spy Game, Hanna, Traitor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Tourist, The Parallax View, The Tailor of Panama, Taken, Unknown, The Recruit, The Debt, The Good Shepherd and Three Days of the Condor.[3]
Supernatural thriller: In which the film brings in an otherworldly element (such as fantasy and/or the supernatural) mixed with tension, suspense and plot twists. Sometimes the protagonist and/or villain has some psychic ability and superpowers. Examples include, Lady in the Water, Fallen,[48] Frequency, Next, Knowing, In Dreams,[49] Flatliners, Jacob's Ladder, Chronicle,[50] The Skeleton Key,[51] What Lies Beneath, Unbreakable, The Gift,[52] and The Dead Zone.
Techno thriller: A suspense film in which the manipulation of sophisticated technology plays a prominent part. There is a bit of action and science fiction.[53] Examples include The Thirteenth Floor, Jurassic Park, I, Robot, Eagle Eye, Hackers, The Net, Futureworld, eXistenZ and Virtuosity.
Legal thriller: A suspense film in which in which the major characters are lawyers and their employees. The system of justice itself is always a major part of these works, at times almost functioning as one of the characters. Examples include, The Pelican Brief, Presumed Innocent, The Jury, The Kappa File, The Lincoln Lawyer, Hostile Witness and Silent Witness.
Exposing the Secrets of the CIA: Agents, Experiments, Service, Missions, Operations, Weapons, Army
Allan James Francovich (March 23, 1941 – April 24, 1997) was an American maker of investigative films, including documentaries on CIA covert operations and the Lockerbie disaster. More:
Francovich suffered a fatal heart attack in a Customs area at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, on April 17, 1997 whilst entering the United States from England; he was 56.
His father, Aldo Francovich, worked as a mining engineer for Cerro de Pasco mining company in Peru; as a child he lived in high altitude mining towns and witnessed the extreme poverty of the miners. He attended an elite preparatory school in Lima then came to the U.S. to attend Notre Dame University, where he completed a B.A. He lived in Paris for several years, studying free-lance at the Sorbonne before coming to Berkeley. There he finished an M.A. in Dramatic Arts at UC, Berkeley; he also studied film briefly at Stanford and received a grant to study film from the American Film Institute in 1970. He and translator and writer Kathleen Weaver were married in 1970; the two separated amicably and were divorced in 1986. She collaborated on his films during the time of their marriage.
His films and papers are archived by the Pacific Film Archive, in Berkeley, California.
Victor L. Marchetti, Jr. (born December 23, 1929) is a former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a prominent paleoconservative critic of the United States Intelligence Community and the Israel lobby in the United States.
While serving as an active-duty American soldier, Marchetti was recruited into the intelligence agencies in 1952 during the Cold War to engage in espionage against East Germany. Marchetti joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1955, working as a specialist on the USSR. He was a leading CIA expert on Third World aid, with a focus on USSR military supplies to Cuba after the end of the Kennedy administration.
In 1966 Marchetti was promoted to the office of special assistant to the Chief of Planning, Programming, and Budgeting, and a special assistant to CIA Director Richard Helms. Within three years Marchetti became disillusioned with the policies and practices of the CIA, and resigned in 1969, writing an exposé of the CIA in a book published in 1971 entitled The Rope Dancer.
Later Marchetti published books critical of the CIA with author John D. Marks. The books included, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (1973). Before this book was published, the CIA demanded that Marchetti remove 399 passages, but Marchetti stood firm and only 168 passages were censored. It is the first book the federal government of the United States ever went to court to censor before its publication. The publisher (Alfred A. Knopf) chose to publish the book with blanks for censored passages and with boldface type for passages that were challenged but later uncensored. The publication of this book was one of the events that led to the establishment of the Church Committee by Frank Church.
In 1976 Marchetti published Foreign and Military Intelligence and in 1978 he published an article about the JFK assassination in the far-right newspaper of the Liberty Lobby, The Spotlight. Marchetti, a proponent of the organized crime and the CIA conspiracy theory, claimed that the House Select Committee on Assassinations revealed a CIA memo from 1966 that named E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis and Gerry Patrick Hemming in the JFK assassination. Marchetti also claimed that Marita Lorenz offered sworn testimony to confirm this.
In 1981, sued the Liberty Lobby and Marchetti for defamation and won $650,000 in damages. Liberty Lobby appealed the case with lawyer, Mark Lane. Marchetti, Liberty Lobby and Lane won the appeal in 1995. Lane wrote a book, Plausible Denial, to describe the unfolding of that historic trial.
The Great Gildersleeve: The Matchmaker / Leroy Runs Away / Auto Mechanics
The Great Gildersleeve (1941--1957), initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, first introduced on Oct. 3, 1939, ep. #216. The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest success in the 1940s. Actor Harold Peary played the character during its transition from the parent show into the spin-off and later in a quartet of feature films released at the height of the show's popularity.
On Fibber McGee and Molly, Peary's Gildersleeve was a pompous windbag who became a consistent McGee nemesis. You're a haa-aa-aa-aard man, McGee! became a Gildersleeve catchphrase. The character was given several conflicting first names on Fibber McGee and Molly, and on one episode his middle name was revealed as Philharmonic. Gildy admits as much at the end of Gildersleeve's Diary on the Fibber McGee and Molly series (Oct. 22, 1940).
Premiering on August 31, 1941, The Great Gildersleeve moved the title character from the McGees' Wistful Vista to Summerfield, where Gildersleeve now oversaw his late brother-in-law's estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie (originally played by Lurene Tuttle and followed by Louise Erickson and Mary Lee Robb) and Leroy Forester (Walter Tetley). The household also included a cook named Birdie. Curiously, while Gildersleeve had occasionally spoken of his (never-present) wife in some Fibber episodes, in his own series the character was a confirmed bachelor.
In a striking forerunner to such later television hits as Bachelor Father and Family Affair, both of which are centered on well-to-do uncles taking in their deceased siblings' children, Gildersleeve was a bachelor raising two children while, at first, administering a girdle manufacturing company (If you want a better corset, of course, it's a Gildersleeve) and then for the bulk of the show's run, serving as Summerfield's water commissioner, between time with the ladies and nights with the boys. The Great Gildersleeve may have been the first broadcast show to be centered on a single parent balancing child-rearing, work, and a social life, done with taste and genuine wit, often at the expense of Gildersleeve's now slightly understated pomposity.
Many of the original episodes were co-written by John Whedon, father of Tom Whedon (who wrote The Golden Girls), and grandfather of Deadwood scripter Zack Whedon and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog).
The key to the show was Peary, whose booming voice and facility with moans, groans, laughs, shudders and inflection was as close to body language and facial suggestion as a voice could get. Peary was so effective, and Gildersleeve became so familiar a character, that he was referenced and satirized periodically in other comedies and in a few cartoons.
U.S. Economic Collapse: Henry B. Gonzalez Interview, House Committee on Banking and Currency
Henry Barbosa González (born Enrique Barbosa González; May 3, 1916 -- November 28, 2000) was a Democratic politician from the state of Texas. He represented Texas's 20th congressional district from 1961 to 1999.
González was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Mexican-born parents Genoveva (née Barbosa) and Leonides Gonzalez (from Mapimi, Durango), who had immigrated during the Mexican Revolution. He attended the University of Texas at Austin and San Antonio College, earning his undergraduate degree. Later, he received a Juris Doctor from St. Mary's University School of Law. Upon graduation, he became a probation officer, and was quickly promoted to the chief office of Bexar County, Texas. In 1950, he was Scoutmaster of Troop 90 of San Antonio, of which his son was a member.
González served on the San Antonio City Council from 1953 to 1956, when he was elected to the Texas Senate, having defeated the Republican candidate, Jesse Oppenheimer. He remained in the Senate until 1961 and set the filibuster record in the chamber at the time by speaking for twenty-two straight hours against a set of bills on segregation. Most of the bills were abandoned (eight out of ten). He ran for governor in 1958, finishing second in the Democratic primary (the real contest for governor in a solidly Democratic state) to Price Daniel. In January 1961, González ran in the special election for Lyndon Johnson's Senate seat, finishing sixth. However, in September, 20th District Rep. Paul J. Kilday was appointed to the Court of Military Appeals. González ran in the special election for the San Antonio-based district in November and defeated a strong Republican candidate, John Goode. He was unopposed for a full term in 1962 and was reelected seventeen times. He never faced truly serious or well-funded opposition, having been unopposed in 1970, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1982, and 1984. In fact, the 20th was (and still is) became so heavily Democratic that González faced GOP opposition only five times and handily won each time.
González became known for his liberal views. In 1963, Rep. Ed Foreman (R-Texas) called González a communist and a pinko and González confronted him. González was referred to as a communist in 1986 by a man at Earl Abel's restaurant, a popular San Antonio eatery. The 70 year-old representative responded by punching him in the face. González was acquitted of assault for this incident.
González chaired the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations that investigated the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. He introduced legislation calling for the impeachment of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. González also blocked hearings into Whitewater until finally agreeing to hold hearings in 1994. In 1997, González fell ill and was unable to return to the House for over a year. Finally, he decided not to run for a 19th full term in 1998. He had long groomed his son, Charlie, to succeed him. Charlie Gonzalez won easily in 1998 and still holds the seat; between them, father and son have served 50 consecutive years in Congress (as of November 2011). He was an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve System and in 1993 proposed an audit of the central bank.
According to Gretchen Morgenson's book on the 2008 financial meltdown, Reckless Endangerment, while head of the House Banking Committee, Gonzalez invited the organization ACORN to help legislators define the goals when they were devising the new legislation covering Fannie and Freddie.
On October 24, 2006, it was announced that Rep. González's personal notes, correspondence and mementos would become part of the Congressional History Collection at the University of Texas at Austin's Center for American History.
On the Run from the CIA: The Experiences of a Central Intelligence Agency Case Officer
Agee stated that his Roman Catholic social conscience had made him increasingly uncomfortable with his work by the late 1960s leading to his disillusionment with the CIA and its support for authoritarian governments across Latin America. About the book:
He and other dissidents took encouragement in their stand from the Church Committee (1975-76), which cast a critical light on the role of the CIA in assassinations, domestic espionage, and other illegal activities.
In the book Agee condemned the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City and wrote that this was the immediate event precipitating his leaving the agency.
While Agee claimed that the CIA was very pleased with his work, offered him another promotion and his superior was startled when Agee told him about his plans to resign, the anti-communist journalist John Barron claims that Agee's resignation was forced for a variety of reasons, including his irresponsible drinking, continuous and vulgar propositioning of embassy wives, and inability to manage his finances.
Agee was accused by U.S. President George H. W. Bush of being responsible for the death of Richard Welch, a Harvard-educated classicist who was murdered by the Revolutionary Organization 17 November while heading the CIA Station in Athens. Bush had directed the CIA from 1976 to 1977.
Inside the Company identified 250 alleged CIA officers and agents. The officers and agents, all personally known to Agee, are listed in an appendix to the book. While written as a diary, it is actually a reconstruction of events based on Agee's memory and his subsequent research.
Agee writes that his first overseas assignment was in 1960 to Ecuador where his primary mission was to force a diplomatic break between Ecuador and Cuba, no matter what the cost to Ecuador's shaky stability, using bribery, intimidation, bugging, and forgery. Agee spent four years in Ecuador penetrating Ecuadorian politics. He states that his actions subverted and destroyed the political fabric of Ecuador.
Agee helped bug the United Arab Republic code room in Montevideo, Uruguay, with two contact microphones placed on the ceiling of the room below.
On December 12, 1965 Agee explains how he visited senior Uruguayan military and police officers at a Montevideo police headquarters. He realized that the screaming he heard from a nearby cell was the torturing of a Uruguayan, whose name he had given to the police as someone to watch. The Uruguayan senior officers simply turned up a radio report of a soccer game to drown out the screams.
Agee also ran CIA operations within the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and he witnessed the events of the Tlatelolco massacre.
Agee stated that President José Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica, President Luis Echeverría Álvarez (1970--1976) of Mexico and President Alfonso López Michelsen (1974--1978) of Colombia were CIA collaborators or agents.
Following this he details how he resigned from the CIA and began writing the book, conducting research in Cuba, London and Paris. During this time he alleges he was being spied on by the CIA.
Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise: Richard Linklater Interview, Filmmaking Education
Richard Stuart Linklater (born July 30, 1960) is an American film director and screenwriter. Link to his films:
Linklater was born in Houston, Texas. He studied at Sam Houston State University and left midway through his stint in college to work on an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. While working on the rig he read a lot of literature, but on land he developed a love of film through repeated visits to a repertory theater in Houston. It was at this point that Linklater realized he wanted to be a filmmaker. After his job on the oil rig, Linklater used the money he had saved to buy a Super-8 camera, a projector, and some editing equipment, and moved to Austin. It was there that the aspiring cineaste founded the Austin Film Society and grew to appreciate such auteurs as Robert Bresson, Yasujiro Ozu, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Josef Von Sternberg, and Carl Theodor Dreyer. He enrolled in Austin Community College in the fall of 1984 to study film.
Since his early 20s, Linklater has been a vegetarian.
Linklater founded the Austin Film Society in 1985 together with his frequent collaborator Lee Daniel, and is lauded for launching and solidifying the city of Austin as a hub for independent filmmaking.
Inspiration for Linklater's work was largely based on his experience with the film Raging Bull, Linklater told Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life.
It made me see movies as a potential outlet for what I was thinking about and hoping to express. At that point I was an unformed artist. At that moment, something was simmering in me, but Raging Bull brought it to a boil.
For several years, Linklater made many short films that were, more than anything, exercises and experiments in film techniques. He finally completed his first feature, the rarely seen It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (which is now available in the Criterion Collection edition of Slacker), a Super-8 feature that took a year to shoot and another year to edit. The film is significant in the sense that it establishes most of Linklater's preoccupations. The film has his trademark style of minimal camera movements and lack of narrative, while it examines the theme of traveling with no real particular direction in mind. These idiosyncrasies would be explored in greater detail in future projects.
To this end Linklater created Detour Filmproduction (an homage to the 1945 low budget film noir by Edgar G. Ulmer), and subsequently made Slacker for only $23,000. The film is an aimless day in the life of the city of Austin, Texas showcasing its more eccentric characters.
In 1995, Linklater won the Silver Bear for Best Director for the film Before Sunrise at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival.
While gaining a cult following for his independent films, such as Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, and A Scanner Darkly, his mainstream comedies, School of Rock and the remake of Bad News Bears, have gained him wider recognition. In 2003, he wrote and directed a pilot for HBO with Rodney Rothman called $5.15/hr, about several minimum wage restaurant workers. The pilot deals with themes later examined in Fast Food Nation. In 2004, the British television network Channel 4 produced a major documentary about Linklater, in which the filmmaker frankly discussed the personal and philosophical ideas behind his films. St Richard of Austin was presented by Ben Lewis and directed by Irshad Ashraf and broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2004 in the UK. In 2005, Linklater was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his film Before Sunset.
Many of Linklater's films take place in one day, a narrative approach that has gained popularity in recent years. Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Tape, Before Sunrise, and Before Sunset are examples of this method. Two of his recent films, (A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life), used rotoscoping animation techniques. Working with Bob Sabiston and Sabiston's program Rotoshop to create this effect, Linklater shot and edited both movies completely as live action features, then employed a team of artists to 'trace over' individual frames. The result is a distinctive 'semi-real' quality, praised by such critics as Roger Ebert (in the case of Waking Life) as being original and well-suited to the aims of the film.
Fast Food Nation (2006) is an adaptation of the best selling book that examines the local and global influence of the United States fast food industry. The film was entered into the 2006 Cannes Film Festival before being released in North America on 17 November 2006 and in Europe on 23 March 2007.
The Great Gildersleeve: Marjorie the Actress / Sleigh Ride / Gildy to Run for Mayor
The Great Gildersleeve (1941--1957), initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, first introduced on Oct. 3, 1939, ep. #216. The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest success in the 1940s. Actor Harold Peary played the character during its transition from the parent show into the spin-off and later in a quartet of feature films released at the height of the show's popularity.
On Fibber McGee and Molly, Peary's Gildersleeve was a pompous windbag who became a consistent McGee nemesis. You're a haa-aa-aa-aard man, McGee! became a Gildersleeve catchphrase. The character was given several conflicting first names on Fibber McGee and Molly, and on one episode his middle name was revealed as Philharmonic. Gildy admits as much at the end of Gildersleeve's Diary on the Fibber McGee and Molly series (Oct. 22, 1940).
He soon became so popular that Kraft Foods—looking primarily to promote its Parkay margarine spread — sponsored a new series with Peary's Gildersleeve as the central, slightly softened and slightly befuddled focus of a lively new family.
Premiering on August 31, 1941, The Great Gildersleeve moved the title character from the McGees' Wistful Vista to Summerfield, where Gildersleeve now oversaw his late brother-in-law's estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie (originally played by Lurene Tuttle and followed by Louise Erickson and Mary Lee Robb) and Leroy Forester (Walter Tetley). The household also included a cook named Birdie. Curiously, while Gildersleeve had occasionally spoken of his (never-present) wife in some Fibber episodes, in his own series the character was a confirmed bachelor.
In a striking forerunner to such later television hits as Bachelor Father and Family Affair, both of which are centered on well-to-do uncles taking in their deceased siblings' children, Gildersleeve was a bachelor raising two children while, at first, administering a girdle manufacturing company (If you want a better corset, of course, it's a Gildersleeve) and then for the bulk of the show's run, serving as Summerfield's water commissioner, between time with the ladies and nights with the boys. The Great Gildersleeve may have been the first broadcast show to be centered on a single parent balancing child-rearing, work, and a social life, done with taste and genuine wit, often at the expense of Gildersleeve's now slightly understated pomposity.
Many of the original episodes were co-written by John Whedon, father of Tom Whedon (who wrote The Golden Girls), and grandfather of Deadwood scripter Zack Whedon and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog).
The key to the show was Peary, whose booming voice and facility with moans, groans, laughs, shudders and inflection was as close to body language and facial suggestion as a voice could get. Peary was so effective, and Gildersleeve became so familiar a character, that he was referenced and satirized periodically in other comedies and in a few cartoons.
Dragnet: Big Cab / Big Slip / Big Try / Big Little Mother
Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes its name from an actual police term, a dragnet, meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Scripts tackled a number of topics, ranging from the thrilling (murders, missing persons and armed robbery) to the mundane (check fraud and shoplifting), yet Dragnet made them all interesting due to fast-moving plots and behind-the-scenes realism. In The Garbage Chute (December 15, 1949), they even had a locked room mystery.
Though rather tame by modern standards, Dragnet—especially on the radio—handled controversial subjects such as sex crimes and drug addiction with unprecedented and even startling realism. In one such example, Dragnet broke one of the unspoken (and still rarely broached) taboos of popular entertainment in the episode .22 Rifle for Christmas which aired December 22, 1949 and was repeated at Christmastime for the next three years. The episode followed the search for two young boys, Stanley Johnstone and Stevie Morheim, only to discover Stevie had been accidentally killed while playing with a rifle that belonged to Stanley—who'd be receiving it as a Christmas present but opened the box early; Stanley finally told Friday that Stevie was running while holding the rifle when he tripped and fell, causing the gun to discharge, fatally wounding Morheim. NBC received thousands of complaint letters, including a formal protest by the National Rifle Association. Webb forwarded many of the letters to police chief Parker who promised ten more shows illustrating the folly of giving rifles to children. (Dunning, 211)
Another episode dealt with high school girls who, rather than finding Hollywood stardom, fall in with fraudulent talent scouts and end up in pornography and prostitution. Both this episode and .22 Rifle for Christmas were adapted for television, with very few script changes, when Dragnet moved to that medium. Another episode, The Big Trio (July 3, 1952), detailed three cases in one episode, including reckless and dangerous (in this case, fatal) driving by unlicensed juveniles. With regard to drugs, Webb's strident anti-drug statements, continued into the TV run, would be derided as camp by later audiences; yet his character also showed genuine concern and sympathy for addicts as victims, especially in the case of juveniles.
The tone was usually serious, but there were moments of comic relief: Romero was something of a hypochondriac and often seemed henpecked; Frank Smith continually complained about his brother-in-law Armand; though Friday dated, he usually dodged women who tried to set him up with marriage-minded dates.
Due in part to Webb's fondness for radio drama, Dragnet persisted on radio until 1957 (the last two seasons were repeats) as one of the last old time radio shows to give way to television's increasing popularity. In fact, the TV show would prove to be effectively a visual version of the radio show, as the style was virtually the same [including the scripts, as the majority of them were adapted from radio]. The TV show could be listened to without watching it, with no loss of understanding of the storyline.
The Great Gildersleeve: Fishing Trip / The Golf Tournament / Planting a Tree
The Great Gildersleeve (1941--1957), initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, first introduced on Oct. 3, 1939, ep. #216. The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest success in the 1940s. Actor Harold Peary played the character during its transition from the parent show into the spin-off and later in a quartet of feature films released at the height of the show's popularity.
On Fibber McGee and Molly, Peary's Gildersleeve was a pompous windbag who became a consistent McGee nemesis. You're a haa-aa-aa-aard man, McGee! became a Gildersleeve catchphrase. The character was given several conflicting first names on Fibber McGee and Molly, and on one episode his middle name was revealed as Philharmonic. Gildy admits as much at the end of Gildersleeve's Diary on the Fibber McGee and Molly series (Oct. 22, 1940).
Premiering on August 31, 1941, The Great Gildersleeve moved the title character from the McGees' Wistful Vista to Summerfield, where Gildersleeve now oversaw his late brother-in-law's estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie (originally played by Lurene Tuttle and followed by Louise Erickson and Mary Lee Robb) and Leroy Forester (Walter Tetley). The household also included a cook named Birdie. Curiously, while Gildersleeve had occasionally spoken of his (never-present) wife in some Fibber episodes, in his own series the character was a confirmed bachelor.
In a striking forerunner to such later television hits as Bachelor Father and Family Affair, both of which are centered on well-to-do uncles taking in their deceased siblings' children, Gildersleeve was a bachelor raising two children while, at first, administering a girdle manufacturing company (If you want a better corset, of course, it's a Gildersleeve) and then for the bulk of the show's run, serving as Summerfield's water commissioner, between time with the ladies and nights with the boys. The Great Gildersleeve may have been the first broadcast show to be centered on a single parent balancing child-rearing, work, and a social life, done with taste and genuine wit, often at the expense of Gildersleeve's now slightly understated pomposity.
Many of the original episodes were co-written by John Whedon, father of Tom Whedon (who wrote The Golden Girls), and grandfather of Deadwood scripter Zack Whedon and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog).
The key to the show was Peary, whose booming voice and facility with moans, groans, laughs, shudders and inflection was as close to body language and facial suggestion as a voice could get. Peary was so effective, and Gildersleeve became so familiar a character, that he was referenced and satirized periodically in other comedies and in a few cartoons.
The Great Gildersleeve: Dancing School / Marjorie's Hotrod Boyfriend / Magazine Salesman
Aiding and abetting the periodically frantic life in the Gildersleeve home was family cook and housekeeper Birdie Lee Coggins (Lillian Randolph). Although in the first season, under writer Levinson, Birdie was often portrayed as saliently less than bright, she slowly developed as the real brains and caretaker of the household under writers John Whedon, Sam Moore and Andy White. In many of the later episodes Gildersleeve has to acknowledge Birdie's commonsense approach to some of his predicaments. By the early 1950s, Birdie was heavily depended on by the rest of the family in fulfilling many of the functions of the household matriarch, whether it be giving sound advice to an adolescent Leroy or tending Marjorie's children.
By the late 1940s, Marjorie slowly matures to a young woman of marrying age. During the 9th season (September 1949-June 1950) Marjorie meets and marries (May 10) Walter Bronco Thompson (Richard Crenna), star football player at the local college. The event was popular enough that Look devoted five pages in its May 23, 1950 issue to the wedding. After living in the same household for a few years with their twin babies Ronnie and Linda, the newlyweds move next door to keep the expanding Gildersleeve clan close together.
Leroy, aged 10--11 during most of the 1940s, is the all-American boy who grudgingly practices his piano lessons, gets bad report cards, fights with his friends and cannot remember to not slam the door. Although he is loyal to his Uncle Mort, he is always the first to deflate his ego with a well-placed Ha!!! or What a character! Beginning in the Spring of 1949, he finds himself in junior high and is at last allowed to grow up, establishing relationships with the girls in the Bullard home across the street. From an awkward adolescent who hangs his head, kicks the ground and giggles whenever Brenda Knickerbocker comes near, he transforms himself overnight (November 28, 1951) into a more mature young man when Babs Winthrop (both girls played by Barbara Whiting) approaches him about studying together. From then on, he branches out with interests in driving, playing the drums and dreaming of a musical career.