Don't Cry For Me, Blogentina

Ain't we just funny, with that really cute title at the top. That was inspired by a guy I found in the blogosfeer who said his favorite book was Finnegan's Wake, so I though a strange Jim Joyce-type phrase might be in order as an eye catcher. I looked into Finnegan's Wake one time and put it away. Somebody somewhere understands it, but I could not. Neither could Joyce's wife.

Finally we are getting some rain today, but as usual with the local weather I am complaining about it. Whatever the climate is I seem to get gripey about it; 2 cold, 2 windy, 2 cloudy, 2 icy, 2 dry, 2 hot (when it finally does get warm). Some people ain't happy with nuthin.

The big news story around here will probably be the college kid who spent 3 days living in a west-side of Des Moines Wal Mart (See Drudge for the story). I was in that Wal Saturday night and may have seen him, but there were so many people in the store crashing carts into each other and letting their kids run wild, that I just got some socks and a coffee pot and some body wash and got out of the place as soon as I could.. The story mentions that some birds flew into the produce area and were eating grapes out of a box. That should shoot the Walton family into space if they read Drudge or the Des Moines Register.

Moussaoui got up in court today and announced that he and Reid the shoe bomber were planning to crash a plane into the White House. The discussion on afternoon Fox News is about Mousaoui is a lier and or just crazy, and you can't believe a word he says.

Not fun being an Iraqi right now. Forty people killed in one car bombing, and a pile of headless bodies found in one room around Sadr City. And more GIs dead. Saturday night all the talk shows on cable took up most of prime time with new news about Natalie and whether Sloot killed her or she died from a drug overdose.

No one on cable has yet noted that the preacher murder took place in Selmer, Tennessee--which is where Buford Pusser kept law and order with his club years ago. Way back in the 1920s there was a once-famous case in Connecticut where a preacher and his girl-friend were found murdered, and the wife was put on trial. The once-famous "pig woman trial." The wife was found innocent, and no one still knows who did the murders.

NewsMax has the transcript of a Sunday night radio brawl on WABC between Alec Baldwin and Sean Hannity. Sean called the station and accused AB of supporting terrorists, and AB, before he walked off the show, was calling SH of being a former "construction worker hack..and Long Island house builder." So much for Alec Baldwin's view of blue collar workers. The yelling also got into Baldwin's weight and Kim Bassinger.

A golden day yesterday for C-Span 1 and 2 devotees. A panel on Vietnam with Dan Rather and others telling stories about how the news back then was reported. Then Chief Justice Roberts was on giving an interesting speech. Then David Horowitz taking on a bunch of college lefties, and then Wesley Clarke talking about Patton, and Tony Blair having a wild Question Time.

Fox is covering a situation in LA involving a bunch of ant-immigration bill school kids blocking a downtown freeway in the afternoon rush hour.

More later. You all take care for now. Di di mau!

A Blog of Ramblingness

This blog may be dated for Fri. 3-24, but I did not get it finished, and wiped away what I had in my draft, and so this is actually being typed on Saturday night.

A Saturday of doing errands around the DM metroplex and buying and charging, and listening to some of the Met opera of Luisa Miller (La Cieca and his band of opera queens did not like the cast). Then took a nap and piddled around on Sat. night, and read and listened to talk shows on the tube and radio.

Buck Owens passed away. He is now with most of the Hee Haw gang--Grandpa Jones, Minnie Pearle, Archie Campbell, Lulu, and Junior Samples.

A Drudge segment the other day was about a honcho of Castro who is now in exile in Miami, and is a local TV star, giving out amazing stories about the Brothers C. Fidel burns his used underwear in case someone tries to smear poison in his drawers, and Fidel and Raul have a large stash of cash squirrelled away.

The Iraq war goes on, and the newest news topic is that the Russians gave Saddam our invasion plans before we went in. And Iran is supposedly in a hurry to get its nuke made and ready. There was a report a while back that they will have the thing ready on April 8.

Some doofus shot up a house full of people partying in Seattle--offing seven people, and then himself.

I have some strong opinions about the anti-immigration reform protests taking place around the US, but I am trying to be tolerant. And that is all I am going to say in this blog being sent into cyberspace.

For the historical record; gas prices in Des Moines are now up to $2.45, and canned soup and frozen entree prices are going up and up.

I am going to terminate this blog entry now, and take a nap. Hopefully I will have a better one on Sunday night, with much more depth and more infobits about the state of the earthly body politik. I need to read some more news websites, and actually read a real newspaper. So, fans and devotees, Di di mau!

Night After the Non-Blizzard

The horrible blizzard we were supposed to get got here last night and was an inch of wet slushy snow and hard winds, but it all stopped about ten a.m this morning and the sun came forth and the slush melted on the streets and the snow evaportated and that was our first day of spring blizzard, at least in the center of the midwest.

Ran around this afternoon and this evening and did not catch a lot of the news, exept that W and Helen Thomas had a heated discussion at his press conference. The big news that the basketball coach from Northern Iowa is going to take over at Iowa State took up more local news time than the blizzard.

I rented a dvd of March of the Penguins this afternoon and hope to slide it into the slot after I get done watching Fellini Satyricon, which is a really weird movie--supposed to be a satire on ancient Rome and the decadence of the modern world in the 1960s, I think. I got 45 minutes of it watched in one sitting, and wonder how anyone in '69 sat through 2 hours of it at one stretch. The last really strange art movie I got through was The Tin Drum several years ago. Maybe I am not as attuned to European art movies as I thought I would be. I did like Danton, one of the great political movies. A French-Polish colaboration, the movie is about the French Rev. leader Danton, who I guess would rather make a speech than run the Revolution. He ends up on the guillotine in a harrowing depiction of what it was like to get your head chopped off. A movie which should be seen by all gabby politicians. And Depardieu does a great job as Danton.

Went to my vets club meeting tonight, and a guy in our group who is in the Nat Guard and is in his late 50s is due to be sent to Iraq for 18 months in June.

That is about all for tonight. Lots of stuff going on on earth, but Drudge does better at selecting important news than I can summarize in a blog. I should get a little sleep, so I need to make my nest and turn around three times before I nestle down in my nest--just like a doggie does. You all take care. Maybe a deeper blog next time I face the keyboard. Di di mau!

A Sunday Night in March in the 21st Century

Bits and pieces about a disorganized weekend. Broke a piece of a tooth, and the dentist is not in till Tuesday. I fasted yesterday and a lot of today to protect Tommy Tooth (I needed to not eat to use up some lard on my handles.) Last night watched the Iowa basketball championships on tv; very actually exciting basketball; the kids played amazing ball. This morning I watched Chris Wallace and his gang on Fox, and it looked like Britt Hume and Juan Williams and Bill Crystal were going to get up and slug one another before the show was over; very intense argument over the war.

After the talking heads were done I slid in a vhs I rented of Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway. Really bad movie, but one you keep watching to see what is going to happen next. Supposed to be a satire I guess on the Theatre in the 1920s, or a satire on sacrificing Art for Money, or a satire on Woody's problems in getting movies made, or some other message Woody wants to send. Real mess of a plot, and John Cusack is totally lost at sea in this one. Bullets was nominated for a bunch of Oscars, but I do not think I will watch it again for quite a while. So, this afternoon I rented Fellini Satyricon and Spanking the Monkey. Will see what I think of these two opuses (or opii). Tried to find a tape of a quirky movie called Manny and Lo, but a couple of video stores I frequent did not have it. I was going to spend the winter catching up on viewing a lot of movies I had not seen, but now it is coming spring, and I am just getting back into the movie groove, right at the time when soon being outside is what needs to be done. And, another session of watching the news will be necessary, when the paving-over of Iran starts happening. Cheerful, ain't this? And I seem to be using the dative case a lot.

I usually like Cusack as an screen actor, even if he sometimes seems to get by on his quirky mannerisms, but in Bullets he or Woody seems hopeless trying to convey the role of an idealistic playwright getting his play put on. (This is not good prose, but it is now 1 a.m and I am groggy.)

Some time on Monday we are suposed to get a late March snowstorm, but it has not arrived yet.

Found some interesting websites recently: www.mysteriouspeople has a story about Candy Jones, a famous 1950s supermodel with a split personality who was supposedly drugged by the CIA into being a spy. And www.prairieghosts has stuff on D. D. Home, a 19th century medium who supposdly could fly through the air. And the same site has a section on a famous medium named Margery who held seances in the nude and has a feud with Houdini, who tried to prove she was a phony.

After all this I am going to repair to my divan and try to sleep for a while. I hope this blog has been at least minimally interesting to my countless fans and devotees. Di di mau!

A Friday Night in March in the 21st Century

Six weeks have passed since Phil and General Lee came out and saw their shadows or didn't, so winter should be over, but it is still cold, and we badly need moisture to fall from the sky onto our very dry soil. Probably the rain will come in April. A choice between needed rain, and warm weather and shorts and sandals.

Marilyn Monroe would have been 80 years old on upcoming June 1 (born in 1926).

I found at a thrift store a used vhs tape of TV highlites of Ernie Kovacs shows. The guy was a pioneer genius at creating visual TV comedy. A shame that TV Guide regularly ignores him at a TV pioneer and networks like TVland never find the space to fit tapes of his old shows into their schedule. (Come on, TV--give us Percy Dovetonsils, and the Nairobi Trio!)

Big sports debacle in Iowa today. The Hawkeyes screwed up in March Madness and lost their lead in a game with Northwest State, and were humiliated, and the basketball coach and his whole staff at Iowa State were fired.

There may be a nasty scandal due to break at the Metropolitan Opera, dealing with the pedophilia of a famous conductor and a big Met payoff of the Law to keep the matter covered up, ongoing for a number of years. Anyway, this is a hot topic on a prominent opera-gossip website (La Cieca).

The upcoming hot story out of California may be Maria's grab for power behind Arnold's throne. She is already being compared to Evita Peron, (and a similar situation in Arkansas a couple of decades ago.)

After all of these bits, I have ignored Me, but there is not much to tell all my fans and devotees, because I have not done anything personal that is FoxNewsworthy since Monday. So, this will be all for right now till the next I blog. I need to get an oil change tomorrow--which may or may not be newsworthy, and the dirty underwear needs a washing. Take care, and we will return soon. Hand tough, Steve and Beve. Di di mau!

Going Gazhi

Hannity and Colmes and their guests tonight on Fox had a brawl about the Taliban guy attending Yale-why he is in the US anyway and whether he can be trusted not to do something insidious while he is here, and whether seeing American life might make him learn to love Americans and their values.

Some of the old writers from the British Raj era (Halliburton, Roy Andrews, Lowell Thomas) wrote about something colonial honchos had to fear from their Gunga Din-type "boys," called "going gazhi" (sic), a thing where your loyal native Boy might fall under the spell of a mullah and suddenly kill the Infidel at night or when the Brit was peeing facing Mecca or any other offensive thing to set Gunga off in a holy rage. You never could tell what might Gunga snap. A liberal Democrat dude on H&C's panel was convinced that Mr. Taliban would be so mellowed by his time in America and Yale that he would never do anything terrorist again. It did not work that way with Atta and his crew, or in liberal London, Madrid, and Amsterdam.

After a somewhat low-key winter March has turned nasty--a wave of tornadoes in the midwest and tonight a seven-inch blizzard in S. Dakota. Two twisters in a row hit Springfield Illinois yesterday and ripped up the city. No word yet on how Abe Lincoln's house fared. The U. of Kansas got torn up pretty bad.

This is going to be a short blog tonight. I wanted to write something about "going gazhi" and record the record-setting March tornado outbreak, and in a little while I should hit the Sack. I feel like I have all the mucus monsters in my head doing the conga, so I ought to try to get them out of me. They have been partying inside me all winter. No Letterman tonight and I have missed watching the roller derby women reality show. Is the series about the tattoo parlor in Vegas still on the air? Miami Inked is still on, I know. OK, Di di mau!

Counterextrablogerationalistismite

Hello, friends and fans of this blog. Hello Beve and Steve.

I accidently lied in my last blog due to misinformation; Brokenback Mountain did not come out on DVD last Tuesday. Our local newspaper apparently made an error of massive proportions by saying that it would.

This is being written at 1 a.m. on Sunday, which has been a warm shorts and sandals day and has turned cold at sundown, and we are due to have sleet today and warmth Monday. Enough to confuse the pitiful mind.

The news of the world I should report is all in Drudge, which has an interesting article from the NYT on Saadam's war plans before we invaded. He had fooled everyone, including his generals, when he told them he did Not have any wsds, and he was more worried about what the Shiites were up to than what we were planning. I found it interesting that the NYT kept calling him Mr. Hussein throughout the article.

Milosevic has died under maybe mysterious circumstances in his prison cell. (Shades of Goering.)

Anna Moffo has also passed from the earth. She was a good opera singer who actually looked good. There are some catty remarks about her in La Cieca's opera website, and a number of emails saying nice things about her.

WalMart keeps getting itself hated as the days go by. An article in the WSJ the other day reports on Big W's plans to set up its own banking system in its big box stores, and the banking establishment is fearful that the setup will drain all the money in the US out of traditional banks.

North Korea fired 2 missles into the Pacific a couple of days ago, but this made little news in the MSM.

There is a Palestinian website for kids at www.al-Fateh.net, which is in Arabic, but has some colorful graphics, and is dedicated to encouraging Pal. kids to become suicide bombers.

This is going to be all for right now. I need to pass into the kingdom of slumber for a few hours. More next time, when I return to communicate with my many fans and devotees. Di di mau!

Oscar Night '06 blog

I am not watching the Oscars tonight! I have not seen any of the movies up for any award, I cannot stand the Rivers women, and Mizrahi, so there! I usually try to see the bit where they show pictures of the movie people who have died the past year, but this time I will miss it too. A few years ago during the dead actor segment they showed a picture of John Derek; total silence from the audience. I guess he was that unpopular and/or despised.

OBL's number #2 has a new video out ranting about the West and Jews and Bush and the Mohammed cartoons et al. From a little bit I read once of one of the main surrahs in the Koran Muslims are supposed to make some effort to convert infidels they come in contact with, and if the infidels do not become converts to the True Faith they can be killed, because they rejected the Word. A lot of Islamic nastiness toward unbelievers was also once a part of Christianity during the pre-death- of- Hitler millennia. OK, you can have at me on that statement, but that is something I hold to.

I got around to watching Groundhog Day on DVD Saturday night. Bill Murray was great in it, but the movie was a little too cute and clever for its own good, especially the happy ending. American Spectator a few months ago had an article on how Grounhog Day is a favorite movie of intellectuals, who like to analyze its inner philosophical meanings.

If Bush had ordered everyone in New Orleans to get out of town before Katrina hit, and all those cars and buses had got hit by the winds while on the roads would he have been blamed for all the deaths. When everyone was ordered out of Houston many of the cars ran out of gas and one side of the freeways was not used for at least a day. What would the New Orleans evacuation have been like if a lot of people tried to use the Lake Ponch. bridge going east, or headed south into Plaqueman parish, which got smashed badly?

I have lots of things I would like to ponder upon (split infinitives all over the place tonight), but I need to do more research into the news. So, this will be all for right now. I will try to blog more for my many fans and devotees in the future. S0, Di di mau! for now.

( Here is a later posting; Crash has won the Best Picture Oscar Award, whupping Brokendown Mountain! Not to worry though; BMt. is due out on DVD this Tuesday. A film of the way people behave in the checkout line at WalMart with their copies of the thing might be interesting to view, as a study of human behavior. Allan Funt, where are you when we need you?)

(To bring us back to Reality--NewsMax has a piece reporting that Iranian leaders are saying that they plan to unveil their nuke on April 8!)

One Month in Human History

This February of 2006 will be remembered throughout what is left of the duration of human history as the month in which: VP Cheney buckshotted an elderly lawyer in a field in Texas while quail hunting; the Dems became patriotic and raised loud beejeezers over the W peoples' plan to let a company from Dubai mangage a number of US port facilities (a lot more noise than they raised over what the story was about the '93 Trade Center bombing); and Iraq finally fell into a civil war after the Shiite Golden Mosque was destroyed; and Iran kept building its nuke weaponry. Also, in one week Don Knotts, Darren McGavin, and Dennis Weaver passed from the earth. And the really strange Turin Winter Olympics were held. Also, Jimmy Johnson won the Daytona 500.

The Oscar ceremonies are upcoming this Sunday night, but I do not care, and have not seen any of the movies, and have no plans to watch the things. Does anyone remember that one year The English Patient was The Movie?

I became fascinated with looking at blogger.com/start to see all the blogs that were coming online minute by minute. In 24 hours 86,4oo blogs (one each second) can come online just on blogger.com., and supposedly there are about 24 million blogs out there.

Is there any point to this blog tonight I am sending out to my countless fans? Just that I hope that you are trying to stay happy and not catatonic with worry over the massive black hole in the center of the galaxy, in Sagittarius, which is sucking up all the matter being pulled into it. So far no one has blamed W for not trying to keep the earth from being sucked into the BH. They will, eventually.

This will be all for right now. Di di mau!

Short-Titled Blog

There is a hole in the world tonight; Don Knotts has left us. I can't think of anyone who ever had anything bad to say about him in public, and it seems that he has been around forever. Barney Fife and Ralph Furley will be remembered for a long time. There was a fabulous chemistry between Knotts and John Ritter when Furley was trying to teach Tripper about women (Jack was not really gay and Furley could not get laid with a gun to his head), that I have always thought was a high point of TV comedy. One of Knotts' interesting efforts was The Shakiest Gun in the West, where he took a character first done by Bob Hope in Pale Face and made it his own. This is rambling, and everyone will have memories of Don Knotts, but these are some of mine. He will be sorely missed as a man and as an actor.

At least 200 people in Iraq have been killed by other Iraqis or foreign insurgents since the Golden Mosque was destroyed Wed. That many people killed in four days in domestic violence in a country must be a sign of a society gone totally to Hell, and no one anywhere else took to the streets to protest the killing the way they did when the Mohammed cartoons came public.

The Winter Olympics are over. The human drama of who screwed up and who was feuding with who may end up overshadowing the athletic records. Maybe one of the problems with the whole show was that the competitors were all professionals who had another competition to go to if they hashed their olympic program; losing was not that important. Avery Brundage must be spinning in his grave. I thought it was interesting that Bob Costas admitted in TV Guide that he really know very little about olympic sports. I always suspected that. He was kept at a desk in NY.

Pindar wrote an ode dedicated to a champion boxer, who was short and ugly and fought dirty.

I have finished watching a rented DVD of Lord of War. Nick Cage plays a free lance arms dealer who sells guns all over the world. Interesting but slow moving and heavy handed movie. Some great quotable dialogue and several powerful scenes, but just not quite as good as it could be.

Interesting that Blogger is now running a list of each blog as it is published. One blog after the other continually. A way to learn how many bloggers there actually are in the world as they come online one after the other.

This is going to be all for right now. Di di mau!

Bloggerizationalistismationate

Cyberspace has been waiting for me to return to the keyboard to send a message to all my fans who have been waiting since last Sunday on pins and needles to read what I have for them--which may not be a Beethovenesque storming of the gates of the Universe, but may end up being a Marymargaretmcbride-like adventure in blogging.

The Olympics have provided a view of the varieties of human nature under pressure, more than a view of great athleticism. Feuding speedracers, angry ice dancer partners, injured skaters, hotdogging snowboarders, Bodie, snippy announcers, and some actually spectacular achievements. And Earl should be back on NBC next week.

(The rest of this blog is being typed on Friday night) Went to bed early last night and missed the figure skating, but here it is Friday night and I am watching the Games and trying to keep all the names straight of who was supposed to be Great and the who crashed and burned and who actually shined.

I suppose what was really important on earth today was the Quaeda attack on the main Saudi oil terminal, which failed, but sent oil prices into orbit. In Iraq sunnis and shiites went on a killing rampage yesterday after the golden mosque bombing, but the country is locked down today to let everyone cool off.

The mayor of London was suspended for a month after he called a reporter a concentration camp guard.

Temperature in the midwest today got up to the high 50s--in February.

This is not a great blog tonight. I am just noting what I thought was interesting on Drudge, but some time when I look back on my blogs, I might remember what happened recently. Lots of stuff going on that in the near future may suck us all into History, but trying to absorb it all and learn more details than just headlines can wear you out. Probably someone at any time in human history somewhere has said that about whatever was going during his lifetime.

More next time when I have soaked up more world events and learned more about what has gone on today. Di di mau!

A Sunday in Human History

Is there something in the aether that has made so many humanbeins have a strange day today? Iranian college students are signing up to be suicide bombers. The drivers at the Daytona 500 spent most of the race crashing into one another. The ice dancers at the Olympics were falling down all over the place. American speed skaters Davis and Hedrick are feuding with one another. Bodie got disqualified again yesterday. The ground in DC around the Jefferson Memorial is overrun with Canada geese that are ripping up the grass. (But the Italian cross country ski team, under the leadership of Zorro, won the gold in an exciting race, so something successful actually happened at Turin.) So far tonight in the ice dancing the Russian and American dancers were the only ones not to fall down. The bird flu is thought to have reached England. If they have to kill all their chickens it will a replay of a few years ago when the Brits had to kill all their cattle in a hoof and mouth disease epidemic.

The news and sports is all I have to report tonight. I didn't do anything personal that was interesting. Tomorrow is Presidents' Day, and we have the day off from work, but I have no idea how to celebrate the day. Which president should I select to honor? I like Gerald Ford because he was a fresh spirit after Nixon's dismal aura. JFK was the prez through my high school years, but I have developed some doubts as to his accomplishments. Kennedy's essence was that he was a breathe of fresh air by being fairly Young. Ike had been old, and most of the people in the 50s we were supposed to admire were old; Albert Schweitzer, Adlai Stevenson, Bernard Baruch, Harry Truman, Helen Keller, Eleanor R., Winston Churchill, et al.

This is not a very lengthy blog tonight. What has been going on somewhere else in the world is more interesting than what I have been doing today. You all take care. Di di mau!

Quit Whining or You'll Go Blind

It is 10 below tonight in lovely Des Moines and I am sitting up keeping an eye on my heating system so it does not go defunct in the middle of the night. A guy in Wyoming called KOA in Denver and said it was 25 below where he was. This cold snap is not quite as bad as the awful winter in Iowa in 1856, but it is unenjoyable. Russians supposedly love very cold weather, but I will let them have their little customs and folkways. One time in Nam in '71 the temp fell to 70 and everyone in the Mekong delta was freezing. Make sure your little calves and pigs and parakeets are warm tonight.

Much news today, but a lot of it is covered by Drudge. The old guy who got buckshotted by Cheney put his suit on and held a press conference, and is not mad and seems to be in good shape. CBS last night did a segment on Cheney's custom-made Italian rifle. At least one person on the planet must have said to someone that Lee Oswald also owned an Italian rifle, but so far I have not heard any jokes about that angle of the shooting event. And probably 1800 people were killed in the Phillipines on Leyte when a mudslide wiped out their village.

Disorganized evening this evening in my apartment. Tried to watch some of the Olympic snowboarding, and found a Marx Brothers website that has the lyrics to Lydia the Tattooed Lady. Found a World War I website that had an account I had never known before: the Germans built an electric fence clear across the northern border of Belgium. People fried themselves trying to get through the fence to get into Holland and a Belgian army stuck in Holland could not through the fence to get back into Belgium. Interesting historical account I had never heard of before. Amazing what you can read when browsing websites.

Cartoon riots are going on now in Libya (probably encouraged by Muammar K.) and a mullah in Pakistan has put a million dollar bounty on the head of the Danish cartoonist.

Watched a little of Passions this afternoon.Liz confessed to Julian that she is the one who shot him, before he went on the run with Timmy, and Tabitha has put her magic bowl away and is now using a magic laptop, and her way of pounding on the keyboard is very peculiar. And on General Hospital everyone is still sick from Luke's chimp. I haven't checked out Y and R to see if Jack has discovered that Nick has been boffing Phyllis.

This is going to be all for right now. More next time we blog. Stay warm; spring will be here in a few weeks, maybe. Di di mau!

(Di di mau is Vietnamese for Move out fast, or Let's go.)

Whine and Blog and Moan and Groan

The predicted cold weather came in this morning. Buckshot snow and big winds and ice on the streets and slippin' and slidin'. Could have been worse (a New York City type blizzard) but generally miserable, and the mess is due to last for several more days. Not as bad as what the Wermacht went through in front of Moscow in 41-42, but in a couple of weeks March will get here and maybe spring will start emerging, and someday April will arrive.

NewsMax says that the liberals are just waiting for the rich old guy Cheney shot to die. And now the story is that Dick and his entourage had been drinking before the hunt. I don't remember a big press campaign to find out what had really been going on at Greg Normann's place when Clinton fell downstairs and bunged up his leg.

On General Hospital everyone is down with a deadly flu they all got from Luke's chimp. And Tracy has promised God she will become Good and not be a snake anymore. Luke doesn't think she can pull it off.

The Olympics are beginning to heat up. Lots of stuff to watch in the next week. The hot Russian kid is due to skate in a little while. Must watch this one.

This is going to be all for right now. The wind is moaning outside and I have to go to work at 2 a.m. My many fans are demanding that I blog more frequently, but, fans, I have not been Inspired by my muse this week. I know she will appear from her mist when the weather gets more pleasant. Di di mau!

Bloggin Alive

Record setting snowfall in the eastern US.

Fox News this morning did a fast showing of some of the Mohammed cartoons, which were also on a blogspot I saw the other night and forgot to bookmark; the guy with his eyes blanked out with 2 women in burkas behind him, the Arab with a bomb in his turban, and the suicide bombers lined up at the gates of Heaven as Mohammed or the gate keeper saying " we've run out of virgins, " the star and crescent moon in a guy's face. I wish someone showing the cartoons would interpret them so we could know what we are seeing.

(The rest of this blog is being typed on Love Day Fed 14, because I had to leave the blog the other night, and then I got partially sick with the flu which is going around the heartland, and I still have some of it. Sinus plug-up and drainage and a woosiness and total tiredness.)

The Saturday snowfall on the east seaboard dumped 26 inches of snow on the Big Apple--an all-time record. (Wonder how it compares with the blizzard of 1888? ) Airports totally shut down in DC, and about every other metroplex in the east, but at last report things were getting back to the normal routine. It is supposed to be 50 degrees in Des Moines today, with heavy snow and nasty winds tonight. Very clear sky at 3 p.m. as I type.

Iran and everything else has taken a backseat to Cheney spraying a guy with buckshot on a quail hunt in Texas Sunday. Drudge now reports that the old guy has had a mild heart attack. The media has gone nuts over this affair because Cheney waited a day before calling W to tell Him what had happened. Jokes all over the place about Cheyney and Quail and every angle you could think of. More as this goes along.

I watched some of the Olympics last night, but have not been able to get fired up about the thing. Did catch a womens' hockey match between Finland and Switzerland, and the women were very rough to each other. This evening I may watch more stuff and eventually I will fire up and get absorbed in the games. (Later: Bodie messed up and got disqualified from the skiing.)

This will be all for right now. I am going to smear me with Vicks and take a nap. I know you wanted to know that. Di di mau!

It's My Blog and I'll Cry If I Want To

Cold today but tolerable, but for some reason I am very frantic for spring, if though so far we have not had a classic old time winter like the grandfolks used to talk about. I still have a photo the folks sent me in early 1970 of Pa standing beside a snow drift as high as the pickup roof and the brown doggie was standing on top of the snow. At Long Binh at the time the temp was in the high 80s and the noonday sun was a bitch to be out in. (The old Brit colonials were right about the noonday sun.)

The news of the evening I suppose will be the story W revealed about how we had info that the qaeda creeps were planning to crash a plane into the highest building in LA. More in another blog as I find out the full story; have just heard the Cavuto account. And Drudge has a story that Michael Brown may be about to tell hot stuff about how Washington handled the Katrina disaster.

I did not watch the Grammies last night because I was not in the mood to listen to rockers expound their political views.

(This next section is being typed on Friday night because blogger shut down last night.) I spent a lot of this evening sleeping. This seems to have been a slow news day in the world; it wasn't probably, but Drudge does not have a whole lot on it very gripping. More cartoon riots and Mike Brown supposedly was feisty at the congressional hearing he was hailed into. I missed watching the Olympic opening ceremonies. I am having trouble getting worked up for the show this year. Will probably kick in at some time and start watching. I found a website called 7sasha.com which is an Iraqi satire-chatroom site--graphics are clever, with pictures of Timon and Pumba as decorations. What a lot of rambling I am doing. It is a chilly friday night and I do not feel good. Letterman is going to have Martha Stewart on in a little bit. Anyone in the future wanting to use this blogsite to check the historical record may be disappointed because I do not have much Deep to say about the nature of the Universe. That may come up in a future posting. Meanwhile I am taking up space in cyberspace. So, nite! Di di mau!

Let's Blog It Nice and Easy

Hello, Steve. How are you?

Ronald Reagan would have been 95 on his birthday, February 6.

We got Snow early this morning, but it was gone from the roads by afternoon. The temp. is supposed to go down to 8 degrees tonight. I am ready for spring already. Please let it be spring soon.

The Grammys are on CBS tonight and TV Guide and the local newspaper say that it is supposed to be a blockbuster, with hoardes of stars on hand, but I do not really want to see Kanye West so maybe I will watch O'Reilly, or Inked to see what Dizzle is up to. Or read some news websites-which might be the most useful for my mind. (A terrorism news website at homelandsecurityus.com had a news bit the other night that there is info that Iran is going to test its nuke bomb in March.)

I have opinions on the show at Mrs. King's funeral yesterday, but all I should say is that I did like most of what I saw. (Not one of the people who trashed Bush even remembered that he sent troops to Liberia to get Charles Taylor out of power.)

The Des Moines Register (our state Gannett newspaper) has for 2 days been running the thoughts of various Iowa Muslim spokesmen, who have been explaining that Islam "is a religion of Peace." A couple of these fellows today got around to stating that freedom of the press and other Western freedoms are not a part of Islam, and Muslims do not want any of them, because Islam is based on the Sharia, which is a system incompatible with Western values. So much for the freedoms we have developed since the Renaissance. The Register, which falls all over itself to be understanding of diversity is in a pickle trying to be understanding of a world view that wants nothing to do with individual freedoms in a society.

In 1964 the liberal media fell all over itself to explain that when Goldwater said that moderation in the defense of liberty is no vice he was wrong because liberty was a relative thing and was not absolute. Very interesting reading for anyone wanting to dig into the views of liberals during the 64 campaign.

This is going to be all for right now. I have not watched the Grammys because I have become old and what is today's hot music is beyond me. I wouldn't have thought that some time ago, but I am an old Boomer and just do not get these modern things. Di di mau!

Blogger, It's Cold Outside

Baby It's Cold Outside was composed by Frank Loesser, and Esther Williams sang it in Neptune's Daughter with Fernando Lamas, or Red Skelton. OK, it Is cold outside now. Feb has started off cold and windy, right after Phil in Punx and General Lee in Georgia and Polk County Paul in Des Moines were hauled out of their dens to see their shadows. I want more 50 degree January temps, but we may not get that this month. Oh well, that is Nature.

I was disappointed in the Super B yesterday. I thought both teams played like dorks. I liked a few of the commercials, especially the one with the nude truck mudflap girl who rode away in a pickup with Yosemite Sam. More nakedness there than Janet showed a couple of years ago, even if the mudflap girl was metal and in profile. I surfed from the Super to Animal Planet and watched a chunk of the Puppy Bowl. Cute little puppies and a cute concept. Bring the puppies back next year, unless The Bears are going to be winning in the big game on another channel. The Rolling Stones did a good 12 minute show of three of their old songs. Al least we got to see them on TV live and they showed that you can be in your 60s and not be ready to die in five minutes. I Got To See Keith!

I have not been keeping up much with Guiding Light lately because the show is the Harley Hour, and I have not got a great enthusiasm for Harley. I know Beth Ehlers is a good actress and has unconventional beauty, but I want more Reva and Jonathan.

I probably should avoid any comment on the Mohammad cartoons riots, because someone on earth may actually find this blog and accuse me of being a bigot.

Al Lewis, who was Grandpa Munster, among other things he did, died last week at 96, and Zsa Zsa Gabor is 89 today, and Fabian is 63.

I looked at some websites that had stuff about The Munsters and Al Lewis, and everybody who knew "Grandpa" seems to have loved him. He was in the Green party, and his politics were way over on the Left, but he must have been a human dynamo up to the very end. I had forgotten that he was also on Car 54, Where Are You? So, he is now in Heaven with Fred Gwynne.

This is going to be all for right now. I need to see if there is breaking news to keep up with (I split an infinitive); there usually is. Di di mau! It is now 2:10 p.m.

( This is a later note I have edited in: Joe Scarborough tonight did an interview with the editor of the Chicago Tribune on why American newspapers would not print the Mohammed the bomber cartoons. The editor hemmed and hawed and at the end Joe called him a "corporate worm." We will see how the Trib and MSNBC deal with that one.)

Blog Upon A Star; Your Blogs Come True

Catchy title ain't it? I slay me with my creativity. Winter of a sort has come to the heartland today; cold wind blowing, and maybe some snow will fall sometime this weekend.

Lots of news in the Drudge site to ponder. Rush, and the Fox News gang were heavy on "important" editorials in the NYT and the WSJ, but I have not had the chance to get and read them. The Egyptian ferryboat sinking with several hundred dead in the Red Sea was the main news topic this afternoon. Supposedly someone High in the Security system has said that Iran may be faking having nukes, or will not have them for ten years. Need to look into this info. The WSJ does have an article on how the whole world power system would change if Iran did have the things. Supposedly alphabetnejad has said that someday Iran will rule the world. Maybe the lessons of Hubris is not in the Iranian psyche.

ESPN Classics tonight showed a kinoscope of the boxing match in 1951 in which Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta pounded each other for the welterweight crown. Sugar Ray pounded Jake's head into a pulp (but did not knock him off his feet) and won the fight in the 13th round. Brutal fight but exciting to see. Now, I should rent Raging Bull, which I have never seen.

I am going to root for the Seahawks Sunday, because I want to see Seneca Wallace at his best. Actually I am still pouting because The Bears will not be in the game. Next year The Bears will be in the Super--just you wait!

I have lots of news events upon which I could opine (I did not split an infinitive) but my head spins and I get crushed by so many issues. (Wimpy attitude, I know.)

This will be all for right now. More next time. Di di mau!

Blog Me To The Moon

Here we are again, on the night before Groundhog Day, and I should be in bed, but my fans are demanding a blogging, so I must serve my public. Windy and chilly but sunny day today. I found a news bit on Drudge via livescience.com that on Jan. 26 Western Union discontinued sending telegrams forever. No TV news mention of that momentous event, but it is interesting. Carol Channing turned 85 a couple of days ago. The nitwits running Iran keep heating up the rhetoric on dont't mess with us and our nukes; the mess has the image of the clock ticking during the Cuban missle crisis, and the start of World War I. Probably vain hope that the US ruling class can deal with the crisis in a non-partisan political way, but that may be very wishful thinking.

I wish I could opine on world events in a deep way, and tell you all What It All Means, but I am less educated than some bloggers I read, and have a knowledge base which is a lot of info scraps and pieces and memories of how a number of crises were handled decades ago.

I have a sense that somewhere in the background of the current crisis are the Chinese, who may be maneuvering to get the US and the Moslems into a blasting war so at the end China is the big Power in Asia and whereever else and they can get control of Iranian oil for themselves. That is a speculation of me, and I have no documented sources for my ideas.

I wish the Bush family would tell Bill Clinton to move out of their house and stop trying to shmooze his way into the family circle.

I found an lp on sale at a thrift store of songs by Joseph Schmidt from about 1930. Schmidt was an incredible tenor in Germany who could sing like a god (he sounded a lot like Richard Tucker) but was only about 5 feet tall. Being Jewish he ended up in a concentration camp in Switzerland (of all places) and died there of "a heart attack" (under mysterious circumstances in about 1940. If some of the poor souls on American Idol could listen to some of his records they would learn the art of how to sing. Of course they could also listen to Frank, Dean, and Sammy to learn how to sing too.

This is going to be It for tonight. I have spent this blog on a quite high horse, but these are my views on various topics. You take care, and pray for wisdom from our leaders. Di di mau!