The Who2 Blog

We’ve just had an interesting exchange with Who2 reader Martin Bennett about the birth name of baseball legend Willie Mays. We had it listed as William Howard Mays, Jr., but Mr. Bennett wrote:Willie Mays was my boyhood hero and remains my all-time fave, so I’m writing this kind of in defense of him. You have his real first name as William… [but] he was actually named Willie (Howard Mays Jr.), not William.Upon further review, we think Mr. Bennett is right.

But if [George had] hung out for a while, had a few drinks in the Indian Club, dropped a couple dimes in the dance hall, maybe checked out the action at the burlesque, he would have gotten a whole new take on the situation. Pottersville has its problems… but compared to the snooze-inducing Bedford Falls, it jumps.Why Pottersville beats Bedford Falls in It’s A Wonderful Life.

…Emily Brontë, you one-novel-writing genius!

Mark Felt, the Watergate informant known as “Deep Throat” who helped uncover the lies and lawbreaking of Richard M. Nixon, has died. “Secret Tips Toppled Presidency” is how The Washington Post subheads its six-page obituary. The Post also has awesome Watergate story archives.

Best description yet of the hair of Rod Blagojevich.

Quite a story from ESPN about Julius Erving and tennis pro Alexandra Stevenson — his daughter from an affair with a sportswriter in the 1970s.

Is it Jerry Lewis’s Auschwitz tale The Day The Clown Cried? Or Sylvester Stallone’s planned biopic of Edgar Allan Poe?The Guardian adds ’em up.

Boy, this new Will Smith movie, Seven Pounds. The trailer surely is one of the more unsatisfying promos of 2008. And the title ain’t much help.Now I read the review and I still can’t tell what’s going on.

“Obama emerges as a liberal Reagan who can reunite America.” (Andrew Sullivan)”The similarities between Carter and Obama are considerable.” (NYO)”…arouses memories of a liberal Democratic president whom conservatives remember all too well — Woodrow Wilson.” (Human Events)From Bus Your Own Tray (via Wonkette).

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Voiced by Canadians, filmed in Japan.So popular there, they put his nose on the flag!

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of an American political dynasty, has decided to pursue the United States Senate seat being vacated by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. The decision came after a series of deeply personal and political conversations, in which Ms.

A warm-hearted revue by David Perdue.How else would we know that Charles Dickens “had more influence on the way that we celebrate Christmas today than any single individual in human history except one”? Or that Tiny Tim probably had a kidney disease that made his blood too acidic? Or that Ebenezer Scrooge has been played by both Mister Magoo and Scrooge McDuck?

Shrek the Musical.Broadway’s getting a “make-ogre.” Har.

Earlier we met the designer of the Obama campaign logo.Now here are the logo rejects.

The angel Gabriel is our newest profile, courtesy of editor Hans Holznagel. One surprising revelation: Gabriel had no trumpet.

Forget Poland — President Bush isn’t getting much love in Iraq, either.[Update: Shoe-tossin’ video from the BBC.]

Not much love for President Bush at UN climate change talks in Poland…Asked to sum up Bush’s record on the issue, France’s climate ambassador Brice Lalonde chose instead to pass on a story he had heard.A man comes to the White House asking to see Bush. “He doesn’t live here anymore,” he is told. The next two days he comes again asking the same question, and receiving the same answer.

That’s the wonderful title of a poem by Amiri Baraka, just profiled by Beat Poet Desk editor Paul Hehn.Baraka is a Marxist, an academic, the former poet laureate of New Jersey, and “has been railing against The Man his entire career, in university classrooms and in essays, poems and plays.”