1. Yes, we talked about movies and other interests we share. On ZOOM today, though, Diane, Bill, and I eventually got right into the meat of our lives as we discussed our thoughts and frustrations with aging and the pros and cons of medical intervention. All three of us are leery about getting too involved in the medical industrial complex, leery about the vortex of procedures, prescriptions, and appointments, of a life dominated by staving off death. It was a superb discussion.
2. After enjoying the delicious meal Debbie created out of our leftovers, combining spaghetti, sauce, and beans in a pot with freshly browned ground beef, we settled into a couple of strong episodes of Columbo. The first featured Ruth Gordon as a murdering mystery writer, a criminal Lt. Columbo grew to feel affection for, but whom he had to put under arrest. The second featured Louis Jourdan as a murdering food critic, a criminal Columbo didn't like at all. On the positive side, Columbo's investigation of this homicide included him savoring one elite serving of food after another and we got to see Columbo exercise his talent as a cook.
3. Debbie didn't have to go to bed when we finished watching Columbo. President's Day is a holiday in the local school district. So, we stayed up another 90 minutes. I punched the YouTube app on the Vizio, got properly signed up to broadcast it, and, thanks to Diane's recommendation, we watched a panel discussion put on by the University of Texas' Harry Ransom Center (where the All the President's Men papers are archived). The LBJ Presidential Library hosted the event.
The panel featured Robert Redford, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein. The name of the program was "The Legacy of All the President's Men".
Redford, Woodward, and Bernstein discussed when Redford first got interested in making a movie about Woodward and Bernstein, the obstacles he faced trying to get this project off the ground, how Bernstein and Woodward got involved in the project, and what Redford's hopes were for the movie. They told fascinating stories and, in wrapping up the evening, talked about the decline in the quality of investigative journalism from 1972 to the present day. This panel was given in 2011, the 35th anniversary of the movie's release.
It seems hardly a week, and sometimes day, goes by when Debbie and I don't watch something or listen to a podcast having to do with the break-in at the Watergate Complex and the repercussions of the Nixon Administration's efforts to cover it up as a part of a larger cover up of covert actions designed to undermine the Democrats, covert actions that had been going on for at least a year before the break-in at the Watergate.
This panel discussion was fascinating, thoughtful, provocative, and, at times, very funny.
All three panelists offered cogent insight into the movie and into the practice and decline of investigative journalism.
If this discussion sounds interesting to you and you'd like to watch it, just click here.
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