Events like this put into context Truman’s order to integrate the armed forces in 1948. It was a radical measure, even though implementation was slow -- decades later de facto segregation still existed in a number of areas. Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower were opposed, and Truman fired his Army Secretary for…

He was great in 42. He did an impressive job playing a very controlled, tightly wound guy while still letting Robinson’s humanity come through. He made the movie work. Just a real pro.

If you haven’t seen The Great White Hope, check it out. It’s stagey, since they didn’t do a lot to go beyond the original play, but his performance is incredibly charismatic — Muhammad Ali drew favorable comparisons between himself and Jones — and his romance is a central part of the movie.

James Earl Jones was such an incredibly dynamic, smart actor up until his mid 40s. It’s understandable why he made the transition to more stately, imperial roles after that, but he had a long stretch earlier where he was absolutely electrifying.

That’s interesting. I’m really not sure why they made that decision then. They burned a lot of time on his exile and I don’t think it added much.

Those two episodes were fantastic and really stick to you.

I’ve never read the comics. The one section I thought might have been helped by reading them was the Jeremy Irons/Ozymandias in exile parts. Although as I think back, I don’t think that would have changed my general impression that those were the weakest parts of the show.

That interview went on and on, but in a good way. I love reading all of the details of how decisions are made behind the scenes and what the thought process is behind the writing.

I think maybe the guy who wrote this list had Goethe confused him with someone else. Maybe Wagner? Nietszche? He’s too much of a humanist, too sympathetic to people to fit in with those others.

I thought Post Office had a lot of interesting stuff about how the mail gets delivered at least.

I’m guessing this happens all the time with kids singing Latin lyrics in church.

On one of these Ellen threads, somebody who sounded for real (I know, it’s the internet, who really knows) said that the show had sunk to putting out employment ads that carefully left out the identity of the show. Apparently they were having trouble finding even people desperate for a job in the business.

I saw random hipster doofuses dragging on the Billy Porter stuff, and they were too stuck in their cocoons to realize that the transition from Michelle Obama’s speech to his song was exactly right. The core constituency for Michelle Obama knows and appreciates him. The guy was just on the cover of Essence Magazine,…

I also hope that producers of sports broadcasting learn a lesson from what they’re doing now that gratuitous crowd shots add nothing to broadcasts.

The big reason why the price for things like tongue has gone up has less to do with demand and more about supply. Meatpackers have gotten a lot more sophisticated about shipping all of the parts Americans rarely buy to Mexico or overseas.

It’s a niche thing, but Liederkranz cheese is American and it’s back on the market:

“Bring Band-Aids”

I cringe to think of how many takes they must have needed to sync up the recreators and the original drunken storytelling.

The book is great source material for Del Toro. Lots of really weird, creepy stuff to work with.

Hmm. That Mr. Autumn Man sure looks familiar. I wonder where I’ve seen that picture before. Probably some kind of Photoshop montage. I’m sure nobody looks like that in real life.