{"id":11787,"date":"2010-06-27T14:09:23","date_gmt":"2010-06-27T12:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mono-1en-2518"},"modified":"2010-06-27T14:09:23","modified_gmt":"2010-06-27T12:09:23","slug":"how-we-got-to-sesame-street-tim-madigan-remembers-tim-cooney-1930-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/2010\/06\/27\/how-we-got-to-sesame-street-tim-madigan-remembers-tim-cooney-1930-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Got To Sesame Street: Tim Madigan remembers Tim Cooney (1930-1999)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\t\t“My ideas evolved from long hours in local bars, talking, talking,
\n\t\ttalking, always about morality. People were always asking ‘Who do you
\n\t\tthink you are, Socrates?’ They said it with contempt, but I would smile
\n\t\tand say, ‘Thank you.'” \u2013 Tim Cooney\n\t<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tThe television show Sesame Street<\/em> recently celebrated its
\n\t40th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion there have been a host of
\n\tevents, including the publication of several books. A review of one of
\n\tthem, Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street<\/em> by
\n\tMichael Davis, caught my eye when I saw a mention in it of the late
\n\tTimothy J. Cooney, ex-husband of Joan Ganz Cooney, the creator of Sesame
\n\tStreet<\/em>. Tim was a fascinating person in his own right, and I
\n\timmediately bought the book to see what it had to say about him, for I
\n\thad gotten to know Tim in the last decade of his life, well after his
\n\tmarriage had ended.<\/p>\n

\tI first met Tim a few years after the publication of his book Telling
\n\tRight from Wrong<\/em> (Prometheus, 1985). It had generated a great deal
\n\tof publicity, not primarily because of its content (it’s an extended
\n\targument as to the importance of differentiating matters of opinion from
\n\tmatters of fact) but because of the controversy over how the book came
\n\tto be published. Cooney had held governmental jobs as a speech writer
\n\tand as a member of the administration of New York mayor John Lindsay. He
\n\tand Joan Ganz had been very active in causes connected with President
\n\tLyndon Johnson’s ‘Great Society’, and one of Tim’s main intellectual
\n\tconcerns was to understand the relationship between theory and practice.
\n\tHow to Tell Right from Wrong<\/em>, as our opening quote makes
\n\tclear, came about after extended late-night Socratic barroom dialogues
\n\tand discussions with assorted friends, social activists, and general
\n\tmembers of society. An avid reader of philosophers both historic and
\n\tcontemporary, Cooney felt a need to develop an argument against ethical
\n\trelativism which would have as its highest concern a defense against
\n\tpolitical thinking and practices which could ultimately lead to the
\n\tdestruction of humanity.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“My ideas evolved from long hours in local bars, talking, talking, talking, always about morality. People were always asking ‘Who do you think you are, Socrates?’ They said it with contempt, but I would smile and say, ‘Thank you.’” \u2013 Tim Cooney The television show Sesame Street recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. To commemorate the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"koromo_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-blog","koromo-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/11787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/11787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}