Quote of the Day (Charles Osgood, on the Fiscal-Cliff Congress)

“Call them irresponsible.

Isn’t it demonstrable?

Throw in great self-righteousness, too.”—Charles Osgood, The Osgood File, January 2, 2013 WCBS Radio Network Broadcast (to the tune of “Call Me Irresponsible”)

In the late Seventies, Charles Osgood came out with a book puckishly titled, Nothing Could Be Finer Than a Crisis That Is Minor in the Morning. That’s one way of viewing the fiscal cliff—invariably described since New Year’s Day as “averted”—except, as the veteran CBS newscaster noted in his deadly hilarious spoof of the situation several days ago, all our nation’s representatives have done is kick the can down the road.

Let the yahoos on Capitol Hill bray on. If there’s any pleasure to be derived at all from the agony they’ve just put us through (and will do again—just you wait), it’s a reminder of the pleasures of listening to the whimsical, wise Mr. Osgood, who turns 80 today. I haven’t had a chance to watch CBS’ television news show Sunday Morning as much as I’d like in recent years, but whenever I have tuned in, I see that the program that Charles Kuralt started more than 30 years ago remains in good hands with his replacement.

I have more than a passing interest in this fine longtime newsman. He not only came from my hometown of Englewood, N.J., but studied drama with John Travolta’s mother at my alma mater, the late, much-lamented St. Cecilia High School.

Over the years, Osgood has appeared as a guest on the annual Christmas show of another radio legend, WNYC –FM deejay Jonathan Schwartz. It’s somehow appropriate, as both are throwbacks to a more civilized time—so it’s doubly hard even to conceive of anyone filling their respective niches.

Quote of the Day (Charles Kuralt, on New Orleans Names)

“After you get over the disappointment of the few numbered blocks, it slowly dawns on you that New Orleans rejoices in the most lyrical street names in the world. Where else can you take a walk down Narcissus Street, or Venus, Adonis, or Bacchus? Not only are the gods so honored, but also all the best human impulses, Community, Concord, and Compromise. On my way to the Pontchartrain lakefront one day, riding with a cab driver who blessed himself with the sign of the cross as we passed each Catholic church (but not the other churches), I took note of the names of the streets we crossed: Abundance, Treasure, Pleasure, Benefit, and Humanity. Then I remembered the name of the wide thoroughfare on which we were traveling, a boulevard so familiar that nobody thinks any more about the meaning of its name — Elysian Fields! The paradisiacal home of the blessed after death is best known, in temporal New Orleans, as the fastest way to get from the river to the lake.”--Charles Kuralt, Charles Kuralt’s America (1996)