Tag Archives: Paul Ford

Found! A “worthy successor” to Mayor Shinn.

 

Mayor Shinn (Paul Ford in “The Music Man”

“You know, the thing about the Voting Rights Act it’s, you know ? there’s a lot of different things you can look at it as, you know, who’s it going to help? What direction do we need to go with it? I think it’s important that everything we do we keep secure. We keep an eye on it. It’s run by our government. And it’s run to the, to the point that we, it’s got structure to it. It’s like education. I mean, it’s got to have structure. Now for some reason, we look at things to change, to think we’re gonna make it better, but we better do a lot of work on it before we make a change.”

— former Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville, responding to a question from a caller about his support for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020

Tuberville, a Republican, is running against Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones for election to the US Senate. He was asked his view on the Voting Rights Act during a Zoom meeting with the Birmingham Rotary Club on September 1, 2020.

 

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The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The story takes place in River City, Iowa.

The town’s Mayor, George Shinn (played by Paul Ford in an unforgettable performance in the movie version), is a pompous local politician given to making rambling speeches that go nowhere.

 

posted by Roger W. Smith

   September 2020

“I feel really great.”

 

“I feel really great,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s going to be a great discussion and, I think, tremendous success. I think it’s going to be really successful, and I think we will have a terrific relationship. I have no doubt.”

 

Donald Trump: windbag. One in a long line of them.

I was talking recently to someone I met in a Manhattan diner whose native language is not English. I said to her that it was a blustery day and asked if she knew what it meant. She said she didn’t.

It means very windy, I explained. One of those great words in our language for expressing a precise shade of meaning — it was indeed a blustery day.

I went on to explain, which amused my interlocutor, that blustery can also be used with the connotation of a kind of talk. The dictionary definition is as follows:

Bluster (noun): loud, aggressive, or indignant talk with little effect.

And, used as a verb: to talk in such a manner.

 

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Famous blusterers of yore (including fictional characters):

Branch Rickey, the legendary General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. As Fritz Knapp related in his book Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey: Nobility, Rickey’s office was known to sportswriters (was so called by them) as “the cave of winds” because “he was so fond of pontificating on baseball and life.”

George Shinn, the mayor in The Music Man. Played unforgettably by the actor Paul Ford.

Phineas T. Bluster. A puppet character on the children’s television program Howdy Doody, which was required viewing for my friends and me in the 1950’s. Phineas T. Bluster, side-whiskers and all, the orator who never stopped his bluster, was one of my favorite characters.

Can you think of others? Shouldn’t be hard to.

 

— Roger W. Smith

    June 2018