The Day the Seventies Died: Stuck in the Middle with You? Baker Street? Oh, now you remember.

Gerry Rafferty dies aged 63 [Guardian UK]

“Health officials say hundreds of people may have been exposed to hepatitis A while receiving communion on Christmas Day at a church on Long Island, N.Y.” [AP/WaPo; image via Worth1000]

“Twain himself defined a ‘classic’ as ‘a book which people praise and don’t read.’ Rather than see Twain’s most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the ‘n’ word (as well as the ‘in’ word, ‘Injun’) by replacing it with the word ‘slave.'” [Publishers Weekly]

• 40 years ago: Dad finally relents and lets us read Mad magazine. Worst parenting mistake he ever made.
• 38 years ago: Do you do the Rich Little Nixon or the David Frye Nixon?
• 37 years ago: Fucking Watergate hearings. Bring back the Match Game!

Read more »

The college football game tonight pits Virginia Tech against Stanford at the Orange Bowl in Miami. Bettors are giving The Tree a 3-1/2 point edge over Los Hokies.

Not taking the field tonight is The Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB), described by the Miami Herald as the “most outrageous marching band in the land,” as Orange Bowl organizers decided they didn’t want to risk the band doing something scandalous at the halftime show.  Instead, the band will be limited to a six minute pre-game show, which LSJUMB has announced is entitled “Recent Events in the Pro Sports World in Miami.”

Kick off is at 8:30 pm Eastern, but it’s unclear whether the networks will show the performance beforehand.  LeBron James may be breathing a sigh of relief.

[MSNBC: Stanford Band Banned from Halftime Tonight]

By all rights, the dude should be on our Wingnut Watch: “There is an infiltration of the Sharia practice into all of our operating systems in our country as well as across Western civilization. So we must be willing to recognize that enemy.” But no, he still just bores us. [ThinkProgress]

“Austerity is the theme of Boehner’s ascendancy to House speaker this week, placing the start of this new Congress in stark contrast to the more lavish festivities that accompanied Democrat Pelosi’s swearing-in four years ago.” [WaPo]