Logic & reason are orphans once again in Hallandale Beach - In bad economy, 10% wage increase for HB city employees. The Day of Reckoning is Here!

CBS News Sixty Minutes: State Budgets: Day of Reckoning
December 19, 2010 4:59 PM
Steve Kroft reports on the precarious financial conditions many states are facing and what they're doing about it. Length 13:50

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7166293n&tag=related;photovideo


In the City of Hallandale Beach, it just never ends...

Agenda for Wednesday morning's Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting is at: http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2011-01-05%20Regular/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202011-01-05%2010-00.htm

Below, my good friend and Hallandale Beach civic activist Csaba Kulin gets some things off his mind -and hopefully into yours- about the city's budget problems, which in the opinion of many well-informed people in this community are directly attributable to the benefits paid by city taxpayers to city employees, many of whom, in my opinion, fail to deliver a dollar's worth of service for a dollar's worth of salary.

There's an entire forest of deadwood in this city that needs to be clear-cut.

The Sixty Minutes video above is referenced in his email to the powers-that-be at Hallandale Beach City Hall.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Csaba Kulin
Date: Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 3:24 PM
Subject: Ten (10% wage increase for HB employees

Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, Members of the City Commission and City Manager Mark Antonio,

Every time the Hallandale Beach City Commission meets it is a "clear and present danger to the financial well being of the residents of Hallandale Beach".

It is no different tomorrow when you will vote on a total on 10 % wage increase to the Local 2009, Florida Public Employees Council #79 members. The 10% is made up of 3% Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) effective July 8, 2010, 3% COLA effective October 1, 2010 and 4% ratification bonus. This contract will expire September 30, 2011.

I do not blame the union for trying to get the best deal for their members and the City Manager (CM) was not in a very strong bargaining position. First, he has to work with the effected employees, second, the City Manager just got a 10% salary increase himself. Why would the union agree anything less than 10%. Remember when I argued for a "symbolic" pay freeze of the CM, you did not listen to me. The CM could have taken the "high road" during negotiations and argue that "I did not get a pay increase either". You have contract negotiations coming up for the fire and police unions. What makes you think they will take anything less than Local 2009 got?

A few weeks ago "60 Minutes" had a segment on it, the Wall Street Journal had two articles (December 23 and 24) about it and the Mayor's last article in the South Florida Sun Times talked about public employee compensation, benefits and pension benefits and the need to control it. Bloated salaries and "gold plated" benefit packages are bankrupting local governments. According to some experts, State, County and City financial difficulties will dwarf the housing crisis in magnitude. Everyone talks about it but nobody is willing to do anything about. We all know it is coming but no one has the backbone to say "STOP". Every journey starts with the first step. You missed the last opportunity to say "NO" when you hired the CM, will you miss this opportunity to say "NO again"?

The Federal Government froze wages for two years, Social Security recipients did not get a COLA for the second year in row and everyplace you look private employers introduce new "compensation plans" which is pseudonym for cut in pay. Is there any reason the City could not freeze wages for a couple of years?

The COLA's and the 2.5 salary reduction re-reinstatement in the Budget Amendments added a little over 1 million to the 2010/2011 Budget.

Now I like to get an answer to a couple questions I have.

• How much this new contract will cost the City in the 2010/2011 Budget?
• Is this 10% on top of the COLA already approved in the Budget Amendments?
• With the original Budget Amendments and this latest one, how much is the deficit in the General Fund Budget?
• Where is the extra money is coming from?

Sincerely,

Csaba Kulin

President, Fairways North, Inc.

VP, United Condominium Associations of Hallandale Beach

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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: Day of Reckoning
Governor Christie speaks on accountability at a Town Hall meeting in Perth Amboy, N.J., June 15, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evtt-R7Rmdw

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UnsuckDCMetro's post on poor management of D.C.'s Metro system and its parallels to our part of South Florida are hard to miss. Accountability is MIA.

On Monday, UnsuckDCMetro blog had the latest in a series of amazing (and sometimes downright scary) stories about the poor government management, oversight and public outreach being done by WMATA, i.e the Washington Metro, the Washington, DC-based multi-jurisdictional agency that manages and operates the Metro train system that links Washington, D.C. to suburban Virgina and Maryland. http://www.wmata.com/

It's a story that was first picked up by WTOP Radio in Washington, the All-News station, and then picked-up in turn and linked to on The Drudge Report.

http://www.wtop.com/
Listen live at: http://www.wtop.com/?sid=599366&nid=162
The one and only Drudge Report: http://www.drudgereport.com/

It lays out for all to see the sort of incredibly irresponsible behavior and CYA attitude of both
both its employees and management and the sort of nonchalance that has plagued WMATA for years, part of the reason, undoubtedly, that UnsuckDCMetro came into existence.

When you're a transportation agency that has recently seen people die, needlessly, it would seem to me that half-assed doesn't really cut it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro

My comments continue after the post:

Monday, January 3, 2011
How 'bout some iPotties Instead?

There was a lot of Metro news over the holidays.

Metro started random bag screening, they paid a communications firm $1.2 million to help market themselves through "guerrilla marketing," they managed to get the government to give them $150 million with no apparent additional oversight, and they doled out cash and iPads to executives on the finance team.

Read the rest of the amazing post at:
http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-bout-some-ipotties-instead.html

Having taken the Metro into downtown D.C. for work for almost 15 years from my home on Capitol Hill, then Tenleytown and finally Arlington County for 13 years, this story is NOT exactly Breaking News, per se, to most observant transit riders standing at underground train stations.
In fact, I think I can pretty well guess where the worst offenses took place.

UnsuckDC Metro http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com/, the insightful and observant blog that this story originally appeared in before being picked-up nationally, ran an amazing
story on Dec. 16th that is scary as hell, and will ring familiar to anyone living in South Florida who is observant in the ways that government works -or doesn't.

For those of you living in South Florida who have been following my thoughts in this space for four years, tell me that the actions described in the above post don't sound EXACTLY like the sort of obtuse thinking coming out of Hallandale Beach City Hall for years under the Joy Cooper and Mike Good/Mark Antonio regime, where their primary goal has always been to obfuscate, and to look at everything BUT the real problem here -genuine lack of accountability and ZERO punishment for continual, unsatisfactory performance:

Thursday, December 16, 2010
Mystery Worker Removed Barrier at Tenleytown

So much for taking some time off for the holidays.

On Nov. 16, several Metro riders were greeted with a scary sight at Tenleytown.

As they climbed what appeared to be a run of the mill broken escalator, they arrived near the top to see a gaping hole where some steps were missing because the escalator was under repair.

Read the rest of this jaw-dropping story at:
http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com/2010/12/mystery-worker-removed-barrier-at.html

If you read that post, too, it's hard not to think about all the many, many longstanding issues and problems around HB that have NEVER been 'fixed' or resolved to anyone's satisfaction, least of all, ours, even while city tax money continues to flow out to sleep-walking contractors and city employees, but where are the tangible results?
Where's the accountability?

More proof of THAT lack of accountability to the hard-working citizens of this community comes via an email that soon will be going to two of Tallahassee's newest residents, Rick Scott and Pam Biondi, the new Florida governor and attorney general, both of whom I voted for.

In the weeks and months ahead, they are going to know EXACTLY what has been going on for YEARS in Hallandale Beach, Florida.

Amazing N.Y. Post exclusive: "Sanit bigs boozed amid snow chaos." Go-slow a union tactic or just a few malcontents?

Red Eye: New Yorkers rip Bloomberg over Snow Removal,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlUR2u63atQ

Red Eye airs on Fox News Channel Monday-Friday at 3 a.m. and is hysterical.





A Slow NYC Snow Cleanup - New York Post
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEdZA7u545Q

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New York Post
Sanit bigs boozed amid snow chaos: witnesses
By Reuven Blau and Brad Hamilton
Last Updated: 9:19 AM, January 2, 2011
Posted: 2:10 AM, January 2, 2011

EXCLUSIVE
Instead of plowing, they got plowed. A group of on-duty Sanitation supervisors is under investigation for allegedly buying booze and chilling in their cozy department car for hours Monday night after the blizzard stranded a bus and three snowplows blocks away.

The city Department of Investigation is probing the incident after witnesses said four snow blowers blew off their duties to get blitzed, buying two six-packs of beer from a Brooklyn bodega. The workers then walked five blocks to their car, which was in 20 inches of snow in the middle of 18th at McDonald avenues near the F train entrance, passing the stuck bus and idle plows on 18th Avenue between Third and Fourth streets.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/slushed_sloshed_fX907nPJIEevDILBvlYAtK

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Did Unions Intentionally Delay Snow Cleanup in NYC?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9skEQJzGHUo
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RedEye Recap YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RedEyeRecap

Fox News Channel's YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/FoxNewsChannel

New York Post YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NYPost

And they called it Puppy Love... Anorak News & NewsWhip have the odd story of the year, so far: "Peta Model Breastfeeds Dog For Charity Calendar"

ASH On TV3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btYUkMOk5VU


The odd little story that you may've missed while watching the minor football bowl games on ESPN and pondering whether the Hurricanes and Dolphins would both play lethargic and uninspired football in their last ballgames of the year.
Well, I did and they DID.

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Anorak News (U.K.)
Peta Model Breastfeeds Dog For Charity Calendar

CAN Melissa Hayward’s Puppy Love calendar teach us that a puppy is not just for Christmas – it is also for St Valentine’s Day and possibly a mini-break in Bruges or a night in the Darren Day Suite at the Alfreton Travelodge.

The calendar fast forwards to March model, where Agata Dembiecka – Peta member (so look out for her here) – spends the month appearing to breastfeed her puppy.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.anorak.co.uk/269483/strange-but-true/peta-model-breastfeeds-dog-for-charity-calendar.html

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NewsWhip (Ireland)

Very important poll: Yea or Nay to the calendar with a model “breastfeeding” a puppy?
December 30, 2010 by Paul Quigley

Did you hear? A new animal welfare charity calendar includes an image of a model simulating breastfeeding a puppy. We can’t agree whether this is awesome or awful, so we decided to ask our readers. The Puppy Love calendar is the brainchild of model Melissa Hayward and proceeds will be donated to the Ash Animal Rescue centre in Co. Wicklow.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://newswhip.ie/national-2/very-important-poll-yea-or-nay-to-the-calendar-with-a-model-breastfeeding-a-puppy

2011 Puppy Love calendars are available at http://www.puppylove.ie/

The Ash Animal Rescue facility in Wicklow is at:
http://www.ashanimalrescue.com/ash/

Agata Dembiecka's website at: http://www.dembiecka.cdx.pl/

http://newswhip.ie/

Video: Washington Post columnists Michael Gerson and E.J. Dionne define the year 2010 in American Politics on the PBS NewsHour

Washington Post columnists Michael Gerson and E.J. Dionne Define the Year 2010 in American Politics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RsWIm3scPg

Michael Gerson's columns and archives are at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2007/09/26/LI2007092601982.html

E.J. Dionne's columns and archives are at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/22/LI2005042201099.html

Washington Post website:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

PBS NewsHour Rundown blog, a recent addition to my reading list
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/

PBS NewsHour YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/PBSNewsHour

Hipper-than-thou Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein finds the U.S. Constitution musty and uncool. It's so 1776!

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=hd6UkU6UaG

Posted by Larry O'Connor Dec 30th 2010 at 11:31 am at
http://bigjournalism.com/sright/2010/12/30/which-part-of-the-constitution-is-confusing-ezra/


And when that something tends to re-confirm your own seasoned intuition about why the American mainstream media has lost SO much credibility, respect and just plan eyeballs/readers the past 10-15 years, it makes you wonder if in the year 2010, reasonably smart print reporters STILL don't understand that when the red light is on, the TV camera is actually ON and that you are being broadcast for everyone to see; and some people record that for posterity. 

Such is the case today with this curious video featuring Ezra Klein, which I first discovered on Andrew Breitbart's popular MSM-skewering journalism website, Big Journalism, 
http://bigjournalism.com/, itself, a spin-of of its very popular parent website, Breitnat.com, http://www.breitbart.com/


After reading the accompanying article by Larry O'Connor and re-watching the video, I'm inclined to think that it's very likely that there will be a forthcoming new feature in this space in the new year titled, "Children's letters to liberal WaPo blogger Ezra Klein."

If you believe anything over 100 years old can't be properly understood, then why do we STILL love Shakespeare?

Why do some people -thou not me!- still pay big bucks to hear classical music or opera in concert halls that they've already heard hundreds of times?
Surely cable TV can do 'Better Than Ezra' as an eyewitness to history, but then that's why they're MSNBC, right?

Oddly enough, the U.S. Constitution proscribes the oath of office that the newly-elected President of the United States must utter under oath, and yet the person we were told two years ago was a brilliant constitutional law expert, Barack Obama, had no problem whatsoever understanding what those words meant -and neither did anyone else.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html


Klein seems to have no problem understanding the original part of our Constitution we call the Bill of Rights, and in particular, the First Amendment guaranteeing "freedom of speech"

But then that's part of the current MSM's problem isn't it?
Its very disconnectedness with the majority of the American electorate makes it a poor source to judge anything of note, and when something happens they don't expect, esp. with blue-collar or Southern appeal, they always cast it in negative and even sinister tones, out of habit.

It makes you wonder what would this crop of overly self-impressed reporters and columnists have made of John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams?
And God forbid if Jefferson had been from Georgia, forget about it!

So many current print and TV reporters are forever opining the merits of compromise for others in their columns, blogs and public/TV appearances -that's when you give in and let them have their way, in case you forgot- or trying to make heroes of pols who are unprincipled go-along types.


But when push comes to shove, reality has shown us that despite their talk, they aren't really the compromising type themselves.

Reality has shown us that what they like to do is pick-and-choose from American history and its institutions, as if it were a Chinese takeout menu, and while they are very protective of their own rights. yours? Well, YOURS are up for debate.


This continually shows itself thru their very opinionated screeds and squeamishness about the parts that they personally disagree with, like American's right under the Bill of Rights to bear arms, for example, which they want to do away with.
But you couldn't have one right without the other.


So much of today's MSM don't understand this fact -or want to understand- which is one of the reasons why so many Americans are genuinely repelled by certain of them when they appear on TV chat shows, because while the citizens know their history and what real compromises were made in order for the Constitution to be passed in Philadelphia 234 years ago, many young-ish reporters are clueless, and many of the worst offenders are currently toiling in South Florida.

Ernie Pyle is dead and he isn't coming back.

http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/
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Update of January 2, 2011 at 2:09 p.m.On The Drudge Report this afternoon, http://www.drudgereport.com/ 

Matt has this Klein story featured with the headline
Ernie Pyle is dead and he isn't coming back.

 
http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/


Update of January 2, 2011 at 2:09 p.m.
On The Drudge Report this afternoon, http://www.drudgereport.com/ Matt has this Klein story featured with the headline: WASH POST STAFFER: Constitution Impossible to Understand Because It's Over 100 Years Old...
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Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough on History
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A4Kti0iw3M


See also: American Revolution "1776" - David McCullough
http://www.c-span.org/Events/American-Revolution-1776--David-McCullough/19609-1/
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Below are some prospective issues that may appear in upcoming letters to 'Ezra the Elder':If Tallahassee isn't the most corrupt state capital in the United States -and it isn't Albany, either- what is?
How do you solve a problem like JenJen? (Jennifer Gottlieb)
Can you explain how airplanes don't fall from the sky?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Billy_Goat


What's the reason there's no WMATA pedestrian tunnel connecting the north and south-bound Farragut North train station and the east-west-bound Farragut West Metro train station in Washington, D.C. when they are less than a city block apart, and would obviously make everyone's life easier?


Why are all the press hangouts near the Washington Post on 15th so very, very lame, unlike the way press bars always appear in films, hence one of the reasons so  much of DC's media drinks and eats between K Street and DuPont Circle.
Those cool images oif what life could be like are precisely why so many college students put up with crap while working for the student college newspaper, because they can picture that idealized life and can imagine making it a reality?

How will it all end for Daniel Snyder and the Washington Redskins, with his wife inheriting the team and running it after he sticks his foot in his mouth one time too many and suffocates, or with him selling the team to be rid of the headache and universal criticism of him and his grating personality, and the new team owner raising the Vince Lombardi Trophy within three years?


The extra-hard sports imponderable:
The sports teams I root for most fervently have had the following people associated with them over the past few years since I returned to South Florida from the Washington, D.C. area:
Dave Wannstedt (Dolphins football coach),
Mike Davis (IU basketball coach),
Randy Shannon (University of Miami Hurricanes),
Tony Sparano (Dolphins football coach),
Peter Angelos (Orioles owner),
Stephen Ross (Dolphins owner).
Hoosier head basketball Tom Crean seems to have gone a long way in solving IU's personnel problem, but the pious Dolphins and Hurricanes seem almost oblivious to the longstanding problems that have bedeviled them for years, despite the self-evident nature of those problems.
Why?

Big Ten Network's Mary-Rachel Dick is in Bloomington for the announcement of Indiana's new head basketball coach Tom Crean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szn0VqSa61Q


Timeout during 2007 IU Basketball game against Kentucky at Assebly Hall, Bloomington, (IN), featuring the "William Tell Overture" and "Indiana Our Indiana" - the Indiana University Pep Band and IU Cheerleaders


See also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVpstk3WBk4
http://www.youtube.com/user/breitbart

Article: Which Part of the Constitution is ‘Confusing’ Ezra?

Sometimes, when you least expect it, say at the end of the year when you have a million things on your mind, something falls into your lap.

Yes, hipper-than-thou Uncle Ezra, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/ will ruminate on all matter of imponderables, but first, back to this video above.

Surely it must be more than the exposed cleavage everywhere, right?
So why is Uncle Ezra so confused?


Delicious!!!
Can you name the 7 'extra' U.S. states that Obama refers to when he says that there are 57 states? (Is one of them the State of South Florida?)


What's the point of two Carolinas and two Dakotas?

Will the curse on the Baltimore Orioles only end upon the death of Peter Angelos, or will it have staying power like the curse of the billy goat on the Chicago Cubs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3_eozGUays

Jeremy Hunt discusses the next phase of the U.K.'s ambitious superfast broadband plan and why it's necessary

Jeremy Hunt announces next phase of superfast broadband http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdXkPPi5GU

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Ambitious new plans for Britain's broadband
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoXO-ph5tQg

Earlier this month, British Culture, Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt, the former shadow Home Secretary, followed-up his earlier statements this summer on U.K. super broadband policy by announcing more specifics about what the British government plans on doing to increase not only the speed of Internet connections, but to greatly increase Internet usage in Britain, as currently, up to nine million Britons have NEVER used the Internet.
Out of a population of over 62 million.

The aim is to have every community in the U.K., no matter how small, to have "access" to superfast broadband by the end of 2015. As you might've guessed, they're particularly keen to close the gap with many other Western nations -Ye Olde Digital Divide!


DCMS Press release: Next phase of superfast broadband plans announced
http://www.culture.gov.uk/news/media_releases/7619.aspx-


Britain's Superfast Broadband Future
http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/business-sectors/docs/b/10-1320-britains-superfast-broadband-future




BT and the MIT Media Lab
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuLczb_nS74

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For more information, see:

http://www.innovation.bt.com/financialservices/

BT Global Banking & Financial Services YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/btgbfm

DCMS YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dcms

http://www.youtube.com/user/mrsite

Sweet justice! paidContent.org: Court To Agence France-Presse: Pics Aren’t Free Just Because They’re On Twitter

My Blogger Dashboard brought me this bit of good news about thirty minutes after it was first posted online at must-read paidContent.org.

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paid Content
http://paidcontent.org/
By Joe Mullin twitter @joemullin
Dec 29, 2010 8:08 PM ET

Agence France-Presse stunned the Twitter-sphere last month when the wire service defended itself against a copyright claim brought by Daniel Morel, a photographer who captured iconic images of the Haiti earthquake, by saying that the photos were essentially free for the taking because they’d been shared over Twitter and TwitPic. Tweeting photographers can rest easy, because now a court has ruled that AFP isn’t off the hook, and will have to answer for its unauthorized use of Morel’s images.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-court-to-afp-pics-arent-free-just-because-theyre-on-twitter/

See also:

http://twitter.com/photomorel

http://newsweek.tumblr.com/post/332342634/scenes-from-haiti

http://www.afp.com/afpcom/en/

Must-read reader responses to fiscal questions re the Hollywood-based Holocaust Documentation and Education Center and its desire for MORE public $$$

This is the latest information that Sara Case & Co. have posted at their Hollywood-based website, Balance Sheet Online, http://www.balancesheetonline.com/ as a candid response to the long-overdue questions that were first raised here about the Hollywood-based Holocaust Documentation and Education Center.
http://www.balancesheetonline.com/money.htm

I urge you to read it and become familiar with the information and the public policy that's at stake: the public treasury is NOT an all-you-can-eat trough for feel-good or pet projects that lack BOTH public accountability and common sense.
Even in South Florida!

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 2:57 PM

Subject: Balance Sheet Update - Reader Responses

We received a number of interesting responses to our recent article about the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center. We have posted some of them and they can be viewed at the link below.

http://www.balancesheetonline.com/hdec_response.htm

Remembrance of things present & past: Avi Buffalo - What's In It For?; Herman's Hermits -No Milk Today

Avi Buffalo - What's In It For?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evu_MqAZpC0

The Long Beach, California band that you'll be hearing a lot about in the future, unlike those semi-melodic bands that for years MTV seemed to want to will to popularity by playing their music on their reality shows -to death!

When I listen to this, I hear 1968, a seven-year old kid at a children's daycare facility in Memphis, Tennessee, where the teenage son of the owner plays British Invasion and Stax tunes, esp. Merseybeat songs, on an old boxy institutional record player in order to get thru the day working there, and bored silly, and not at all interested in taking a nap like all the other kids my age, I pay close attention to what I hear -and it imprints on me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_music
As a result of that, I take the Ferry Cross the Mersey with my eyes closed, by osmosis.

Because of all that, this song by this band, Avi Buffalo, seems instantly familiar to me.

NME Introducing - Avi Buffalo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdsI_7oXYAA

Named to NME's COOL LIST 2010

http://www.nme.com/list/cool-list-2010/194775/page/1
http://www.nme.com/artists/avi-buffalo

Now, I'll end this post with a song that I seem to have been singing for as long as I can recall... No Milk Today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Milk_Today
When I was at school at IU, circa 1980, I'd often play my many record albums featuring bands from the 1960's British Invasion era, including Herman's Hermits and assorted compilation albums, and make a point of leaving my dorm room door open a bit or tilt one of my stereo speakers out the window towards the intersection of 17th Street & Fee Lane, as well as the IU outdoor swimming pool. http://www.britishinvasionbands.com/
You wouldn't believe the number of people -especially female students I'd never met before!- who made a point of finding my dorm room at Briscoe Quad Building A up on the fourth-floor, Room 427 to commiserate, and tell me that they too had grown-up loving them and singing them, usually because of their parents.
And, of course, hadn't heard some of the songs in many, many years.
There's nothing like a melody with a hook!


Herman's Hermits -No Milk Today
https://youtu.be/DMkFY-6tT-I

The use of bells in this song -like a door bell- used to knock me out for its ingenuity, presaging my appreciation for ABBA.

I not only knew all the lyrics to Herman's Hermits songs, but have also seen all the films that Peter Noone and the rest of the band appeared in, which is how and why I happen to know that the famous "Mrs. Brown" from the song Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter was really a greyhound.

Watch this film trailer from that eponymous film:http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=81814&titleId=2811