Monday Night Football started in 1970 and when it started it was something extremely special because sports had not been aired in prime time. So it was a novelty and a lot of people thought it wouldn't work and of course it worked spectacularly well.

For the past two years President Obama has promised our children the moon stars rainbows unicorns and universal health care for all. But the White House Santa's cradle-to-grave entitlement mandates are a spectacularly predictable bust.

I have made a film about jazz that tries to look through jazz to see what it tells us about who we are as a people. I think that jazz is a spectacularly accurate model of democracy and a kind of look into our redemptive future possibilities.

After its hothouse incubation in the seventies appropriation breathed important new life into art. This life flowered spectacularly over the decades - even if it's now close to aesthetic kudzu.