9 February 2019

♄

 9 February 2019 is the 78th birthday of Sheila James Kuehl, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the first openly gay California legislator. She was the actress who played Max Shulman’s character Zelda Gilroy on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, a rare instance of a positive portrayal of an intelligent girl in the eternal wasteland that was television when I was growing up. On the opposite end of the spectrum it is also the birthday of Garner Ted Armstrong, whose The World Tomorrow was a low point in my week as a kid, forcing me to either get out of bed and turn the radio to something less deranged, or sit through fifteen minutes of excruciating drivel. And it’s also the birthday of Anthony Hope (The Prisoner of Zenda), Samuel Tilden (who won the 1876 U. S. presidential election but wasn’t seated due to election chicanery), Tippecanoe, and Thomas Paine too.

It’s snowing here in Portland, and I’m wondering how, or if, I’m going to be able to take the dog for a walk. I guess I’ll just have to take my chances.