Pass Obama’s Jobs Bill .The American JobsAct.It Has Been Blocked By The House GOP Long Enough
The American People Need Jobs. So The American People Need Congress To Pass Obama’s Jobs Bill. The American Jobs Act Has Been Blocked By House Republicans For Way To Long. This Bill Would Put Americans Back To Work. So Pass This Bill And Put Americans Back To Work.
We ALL can have a wonderful, happy & safe Holiday Season if we ALL have jobs.
America has never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.”
America to Celebrate the Careers of Seven Extraordinary Artists, Sunday, December 2, 2012. Gala will be broadcast on CBS on December 26, 2012 at 9:00-11:00 p.m., ET/PT
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has announced the selection of the seven individuals who will receive the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors. Recipients to be honored at the 35th annual national celebration of the arts are: bluesman Buddy Guy, actor and director Dustin Hoffman, comedian and television host David Letterman, ballerina Natalia Makarova, and rock band Led Zeppelin.
While Led Zeppelin is being honored as a band, keyboardist/bassist John Paul Jones, guitarist Jimmy Page, and singer Robert Plant will each receive the Kennedy Center Honors.
“With their extraordinary talent, creativity and tenacity, the seven 2012 Kennedy Center Honorees have contributed significantly to the cultural life of our nation and the world,” said Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein.
“Buddy Guy is a titan of the blues and has been a tremendous influence on virtually everyone who has picked up an electric guitar in the last half century;
Dustin Hoffman’s unyielding commitment to the wide variety of roles he plays has made him one of the most versatile and iconoclastic actors of this or any other generation;
David Letterman is one of the most influential personalities in the history of television, entertaining an entire generation of late-night viewers with his unconventional wit and charm;
Natalia Makarova’s profound artistry has ignited the stages of the world’s greatest ballet companies and continues to pass the torch to the next generation of dancers;
Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant transformed the sound of rock and roll with their lyricism and innovative song structures, infusing blues into the sound of rock and roll and laying the foundation for countless rock bands.”
The annual Honors Gala has become the highlight of the Washington cultural year, and its broadcast on CBS is a high point of the television season. On Sunday, December 2, in a star-studded celebration on the Kennedy Center Opera House stage, produced by George Stevens Jr. and Michael Stevens, the 2012 Honorees will be saluted by great performers from New York, Hollywood, and the arts capitals of the world.
Seated with the President of the United States and Mrs. Obama, the Honorees will accept the thanks of their peers and fans through performances and heartfelt tributes.
The President and Mrs. Obama will receive the Honorees and members of the Artists Committee who nominate them, along with the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees at the White House prior to the gala performance. The 2012 Kennedy Center Honors Gala concludes with a supper dance in the Grand Foyer.
The Kennedy Center Honors medallions will be presented on Saturday, December 1, the night before the gala, at a State Department dinner hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Honors Gala will be recorded for broadcast on the CBS Network for the 35th consecutive year as a two-hour primetime special on Wednesday, December 26 at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT).
George Stevens, Jr. will produce and co-write the Honors for the 35th year. Stevens and his Honors producing partner, Michael Stevens, have received three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Television Special for the Honors and are nominated again for the sixth consecutive time.
The Honors telecast has also been recognized with the Peabody Award and seven awards from the Writers Guild of America. Between them, the Stevenses have received 19 Emmy Awards and 51 nominations for their work in television. George Stevens will receive an Honorary Oscar from the Motion Picture Academy for his lifetime achievement in December. Nick Vanoff was co-creator of the Honors with George Stevens in 1978.
Past Honors recipients, as well as members of the Kennedy Center’s national artists committee, made recommendations of possible 2012 Honorees. Artists making recommendations included: Alan Alda, Joshua Bell, Stephen Colbert, Renée Fleming, Kris Kristofferson, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Mark Morris, Lionel Richie, Frederica von Stade. Previous Kennedy Center Honorees, including Edward Albee, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Kirk Douglas, Angela Lansbury, Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand, and Oprah Winfrey, also made nominations.
2012 Kennedy Center Honoree Natalia Makarova, front row, second right, reacts to all the photos being taken during a group photo after the State Department Dinner for the Kennedy Center Honors gala Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012 at the State Department in Washington. From left are former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Paul Johns, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Page, Makarova, Robert Plant, Dustin Hoffman and David Letterman. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) (AP2012)
The Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those in the performing arts for their lifetime of contributions to American culture. The Honors have been presented annually since 1978 in Washington, D.C., during gala weekend-long events which culminate in a performance honoring the Honorees at the Kennedy Center Opera House.
The Honors were created by George Stevens, Jr. and the late Nick Vanoff. As of 2010, Stevens remains involved as producer and co-writer for the Honors Gala. From 1978 until 2002, the ceremony was hosted by Walter Cronkite; since 2003, it has been hosted by Caroline Kennedy. It is also one of two holiday specials from Stevens’ production company (the other being Christmas in Washington).
Letterman, Led Zeppelin Hoffman, Guy & Makarove receive Kennedy Center Honors
David Letterman’s “stupid human tricks” and Top 10 lists are being vaulted into the ranks of cultural acclaim as the late-night comedian receives this year’s Kennedy Center Honors with rock band Led Zeppelin and three other artists.
Stars from New York, Hollywood and the music world gathered Sunday in Washington to salute the comedian and the band, along with Dustin Hoffman, Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy and ballerina Natalia Makarova.
The honors are the nation’s highest award for those who influenced American culture through the arts. President Barack Obama will host the honorees at the White House before they are saluted by fellow performers in a show to be broadcast Dec. 26 on CBS.
Meryl Streep introduced the honorees Saturday during a dinner at the U.S. State Department and noted Letterman had surpassed his mentor, Johnny Carson, in sustaining the longest late-night television career for more than 30 years.
Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel joined in celebrating his influence on many other comedians.
“I knew Johnny, and I loved Johnny. Johnny was beyond reproach,” Colbert said in a toast to Letterman. “Dave was stupid. Dave was ours. Dave was like us.
“We wanted to throw things off of buildings. … We would love to stick our heads out the window of 30 Rock and yell at passers-by, `I’m not wearing any pants!”‘
Colbert marveled at Letterman receiving such an award after he “corrupted the minds of a generation.”
Paul Shaffer, Letterman’s longtime band leader, said he knew his boss was uncomfortable hearing such accolades, but that he was also enjoying every second of it.
Big names from the rock world dressed in black tie for the occasion to honor their heroes in Led Zeppelin as a string ensemble played “Kashmir” and other tunes at the State Department.
Foo Fighters singer Dave Grohl said he never took any music lessons when he was starting out because “my teachers were Led Zeppelin. … They were the most powerful thing in my life.”
Lenny Kravitz said their music was special and became a lasting part of the culture of rock and roll.
“It’s very difficult,” he said. “You get four guys that come together and make something so much more powerful than they all are.”
Zeppelin front man Robert Plant said he was flattered and overwhelmed in receiving the American culture prize. He said he was glad to see his former band mates, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page, using good table manners.
The trio is scheduled to appear Monday on CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman.” They are often asked if they’ll reunite.
Plant told The Associated Press he plans to continue traveling the world and wants to make new music along the way.
“If anybody wants to write some new songs, I’m game to write songs,” he said.
Hoffman was honored for charting his own path after taking a junior college class in acting that “nobody ever flunks.” Streep said it became a pilgrimage with Hoffman waiting tables and typing for the yellow pages.
“He’d do anything if it meant at night he could find himself on the stage,” she said.
Glenn Close toasted him for defining the character actor as leading man and as an artist who insisted on setting the highest standards for himself
President Bill Clinton saluted Guy, the Chicago bluesman who was born into a family of sharecroppers with no electricity or running water in Louisiana. He went on to pioneer the use of distortion and feedback with his electric guitar.
“Buddy Guy’s life is a miracle,” Clinton said. “Just imagine you want to be a guitar player and you get your first strings by tearing off the screen door. … He came from that to this.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the ballerina Makarova “risked everything to have the freedom to dance the way she wanted to dance” when she defected from the Soviet Union in 1970.
Makarova quickly made her debut with the American Ballet Theatre and later was the first exiled artist to return to the Soviet Union before its fall to dance with the Kirov Ballet.
Clinton also took special note of Letterman, saying he must be wondering what he’s doing in a crowd of talented artists and musicians.
“Dave and I have a history,” she said. “I have been a guest on his show several times, and if you include references to my pant suits, I’m on at least once a week.”
The crowd of artists and entertainers gave Clinton a standing ovation as she hosted her final salute to the nation’s artists as secretary of State.
Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein gave her a subtle nudge to run for president in 2016, saying there’s another room at the State Department to name after a secretary who later becomes president.
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