I don't know that this is especially the funny fare you are used to with a post like this, but I have a few headlines to get off my chest. They're making me itch like scabs that have spent too much time on me, so now I pass them unto you.
HEADLINE: Court victory for Trump White House in fight over CFPB boss
I thought CFPB was the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, so this one threw me a small loop. Apparently it was part of the treasonous legislation known as Dodd-Frank, and has become another liberal bureaucracy running around like a chicken sans head. Barney Frank provide again backing for the aphorism, the evil that men do live on forever, whilst the good is interred with them.
HEADLINE: Trump humiliates Pelosi, Schumer with empty seats at meeting they boycotted
Pelosi says they didn't show up because, "the big meany said on Twitter that we'd never vote for tax reform." Well, guess what? We ALL know you won't vote for anything that doesn't come out of your own bankrupt heads. If the GOP passed a law that said that Jesus was coming back with a million bucks for each American, you'd vote against it as a party block, claiming that Jesus doesn't represent the poor, discriminated-against denizens of Hell. Act like children, get treated as such. And BTW, NONE of you get any originality points. Maybe Pelosi et al should have came in and took a knee. Oh, wait...
HEADLINE: CNN calls for scrapping phrase made famous by President Trump
And of course, that phrase is "fake news". This has to fit into the "self-fulfilling prophecy" category somehow...
HEADLINE: 'Sopranos' actor reveals he's undocumented in order to shine a light on the benefits of DACA
And hopefully shined a light for INS to send yer ass back to ... where, Oh, yes, Ivory Coast. Give my best to the International Bank Distribution of Settlements folks down there for me.
HEADLINE: Argentine woman used garden scissors to cut man's penis off, reports say
Again, no points for originality. So this was either a response to sexual assault (she says) or a sex game gone wrong (he says). Um, two words here: SAFE WORD.
HEADLINE: 'White Racism' course at Florida university teaches that America is 'white supremacist society'
But of course, academia has NOTHING to do with the hate and division we have in society right now. Dr Ted Thornhill of FGCU, claims “Too many Americans, especially whites, are cocooned in a ‘bubble of unreality’ as it concerns racial matters” ... Listen, Doc, I work in a mixed plant with Blacks, Hispanics, Laotians, Burmese, and Thais, and we have NO (zero) problems. Why is it inside the ivory towers you see what we don't?
HEADLINE: Chicago woman dies days after found with head stuck in fence
Yep, 64-year old woman found with her head, apparently accidentally, stuck in a fence. Geez, did you never watch Leave It To Beaver?
Yeah, nice job, ya little goon. Now you got old ladies doing it!
HEADLINE: Viagra can be sold over the counter
Good news, Bobby G ! No more spam Viagra ads in your inbox! Oh, wait, UK only...
HEADLINE: Radioactive playing cards found in Berlin
A new way to find the town's "hot game", I guess. They were traced down to a club that isn't authorized for gambling, but that's a helluva step to take to prevent it...
And finally, from the "You Can't Make It Up" stack...
HEADLINE: Massive meatball accident closes Swedish road
From the BBC report: Swedish meatballs are always a welcome sight on the dinner table, but less so when 20 tonnes of them block the road in front of you.
Apparently the truck hit an ice patch, and while the truck itself said upright, the trailer slid into a ditch and had to be unloaded to get back on the road. Various comments asked if a truck of spaghetti was to follow.
Hello everybody, Scrappy here. Say, Daddy has been a little lax at putting up any pictures, so I'm gonna sneak into the wayback while he's not looking and bring up all the beautiful snaps he took of me... oh, and some other things.
This was one day early in the month. The soccer fields are closed for the season, so a mushroom invasion took hold. Next day, they were all mowed down.
These kinda give you the feel of Fall colors hereabouts- 99% yukk-yellow, a handful of orange once in a great while to break it up. Just not a real good palette this year.
The last ducks we saw this year- and it was a cold, miserable day to see them.
Next day was a little better, so we climbed the big pile of stones that AEP left after putting in the new trail.
Daddy got his usual case of height-fright up at the top, I just got bored.
Wasn't in the mood for a selfie at the top of the pile, sorry.
About ten days ago, it turned nice again, and I led Daddy to something that smelled good (to me) in the woods. He had to climb across this log to follow me, lol!
And this is what I found- a tarp that Daddy thinks may have once wrapped a family pet, now consumed.
The woods was full of water. Daddy was not all that happy.
Then this Saturday we started out with a walk, and we saw this young lady and a few friends.
Cold night- the south canal had some ice on it!
Then that darn baby that hogs all my attention came over. But we had a lot of food!
Okay, Dad's here and he wants to talk for a while. Daddy?
Thanks, Boofus, nice job! I did want to interject that the one bad thing about Thanksgiving was that at the last minute, the grandpa of Peanut's Big brother decided he wanted him for the day. BB's dad is a frequent resident of the county jail of whatever county he may be in at the time, and his dad is an enabler IMHO. Aaron was disappointed, to put it one way- even tried to cut a deal where he made a brief appearance and then joined us. Because he and I had already planned the Great Chocolate Eclair Raid II for the day, so I made sure he got some when he got home.
And I have just a couple pictures from today, to round out the tale. The first one below is kind of a funny story. When we go off in the woods, I HATE coming across runners/joggers. Scaring everything away, never stopping to see the beauty in what they run past. And I will confess that there are times that I wish them an early blow-out or something near to- I always take it back right after, that the Broccoli Gods don't actually answer me once. But I fear I might have been too late one day. When we got to the Duck Pond, I noticed a blue object just in the water- it was a blue Igloo mug, in nice shape, but for the snap on top had gone awol. This, I guessed, is why it got discarded, and I went to set it aside. But when I did, I set it by something else very curious... (Check out the picture now...)
Nearby, not ten feet from where I found the mug, was a blown out spiked shoe. As in the rest of the shoe ripped almost completely away from the plastic spikes. I deduced that the shoe came apart in mid run, the runner fell, and the mug went lid first into the mud, and the lid remained once it was fished out. Can't prove it, didn't mean it, but if that's the way it happened, maybe one jogger will take a little more time when running in nature. Or at least question Nike quality next time he buys running shoes.
And we saw a deer in the woods behind the Swamp. Nice focusing, Camera!
This week, at a bored point, I was on StumbleUpon, that lovely random-site generator, and I have to say that the first two sites it took me to were anything but random. God had a reason for me hitting them at that time. This week's story is about the first one.
Now those of you that follow these posts know that I have had "experience" in the runes and the Tao, both pagan new-agey philosophies. But I have learned several valuable lessons from them, probably first on the list being that when pagans get spiritual, they begin to see the framework that God built into this world- a physical/metaphysical framework that can guide us to Him if we let it, and we accept the guidance of the Holy Spirit to get there. And so it was when I was deposited on my first stop on someplace called CollectivelyConscious.net and read an article called 12 Little Known Laws of Karma That Will Change Your Life. Well, they weren't going to change MY life- because I knew them all very well from the Bible. I don't want to go into the whole list, and I'm not going to play 'where this is in the Bible" with it, though being that analytical type it was my first instinct. Instead, I want to show you the overview of the thing, and what it will help us see in the coming weeks.
Basically, all twelve of these laws tell a story with three main points. And the first contains this concept: The universe of this existence is a closed system, as science teaches to and extent. Energy and matter cannot just be destroyed, they just take different form. And that means "you reap what you sow." That is both Law #1 and Galatians 6:7 BTW. What you put into the universe, be it energy, intent, love, is what you will get out of it. Thus, life requires our participation.
And our interaction with that concept brings us into the second set of concepts. These concepts I can explain more simply by showing you what it said in the article:
– Whenever there is something wrong in my life, there is something wrong in me. – We mirror what surrounds us – and what surrounds us mirrors us; this is a Universal Truth. – We must take responsibility what is in our life.
That is their "Law of responsibility".
– If you believe something to be true,then sometime in your life you will be called upon to demonstrate that particular truth. – Every personal contribution is also a contribution to the Whole. – Lack luster contributions have no impact on the Whole, nor do they work to diminish it. – Loving contributions bring life to, and inspire, the Whole.
And that is a combination of much of the last 4 laws that point out our actions- responsibility and putting into practice.
Together, these sets of concepts go hand in hand, and if we ran the world With them, everything would be cool.
But, we injected something into the closed system right at the start. That is SIN.
Imagine the world as a clear, cool bowl in which we could all live in contentment, able to see, to one extent or another, the Creator who filled the bowl. But sin is like filling the solution with mud and dust. It obscured our ability to see the Creator and live in contentment. And the Laws talk about these things I'm calling sin that we injected. They include:
Negative thoughts and emotions. From Law #3:
– If what we see is an enemy, or someone with a character trait that we find to be negative, then we ourselves are not focused on a higher level of existence.
And that tells us one of the concepts we need to combat the "mud" of sin- focus. Focus, as I have often said, on the bigger picture. From Law # 7:
– When our focus is on Spiritual Values, it is impossible for us to have lower thoughts such as greed or anger. Or lust, or sloth, or any of the other deadly sins.
Another thing we let in is harmful patterns, "of thought, of behavior, of dreams..." But we have a weapon against this as well; it's called CONTROL:
– For us to GROW in Spirit, it is we who must change – and not the people, places or things around us. – The only given we have in our lives is OURSELVES and that is the only factor we have control over. – When we change who and what we are within our heart our life follows suit and changes too.
And the final thing we let in is the desire for results without effort. As you might guess, the Laws are full of references to fighting this. From Law # 11:
– All Rewards require initial toil. – Rewards of lasting value require patient and persistent toil. – True joy follows doing what we’re suppose to be doing, and waiting for the reward to come in on its own time.
And the Laws give us one other very Biblical rule to help with this:
– Whenever there is something wrong in my life, there is something wrong in me. – We mirror what surrounds us – and what surrounds us mirrors us; this is a Universal Truth. – We must take responsibility what is in our life. (From Law # 5)
– BE yourself, and surround yourself with what you want to have present in your Life. (From Law #2)
And to be spiritual, one must surround themselves with the spiritual... to be a Christian, you must surround yourself with CHRIST.
Focus-Control-Surround. These are the actions you need to see through the mud to our Creator and true contentment. And if you slack on them, the Laws have one further warning for you- the "Law of change":
– History repeats itself until we learn the lessons that we need to change our path.
Now I'm going to make one big bad note from what has gone before to what will come next week- notice I said, ... to be a Christian, you must surround yourself with CHRIST. I did not say "with Christians" though that would help as well. The reason why I bring that up is because next week I am going to share with you the second article- 21 Things Jesus Wants Every Sinner To Know... Right Now. In that article, we'll see that while the above analogy is useful, it is NOT complete- and God is more than just the distorted face on the other side of the bowl. Until then...
Today we go to November 24, 1963- just in time to see Jack Ruby blow away Lee Harvey Oswald...
That don't look like it felt too good... and sorry to say, my sympathies are minimal. Whether he was the killer of a good man or not, he was yet another brainless animal that thought a godless, monolithic, you-make-no-choices society was better than the one we have. Happy Thanksgiving, Lee!
A-HEM... now that I have that out of my system, let's move onto the music shall we? And I did a little "holiday research" on the Martin Era 2.0 the other day, and we'll be bringing you those results, along with not one but TWO live videos for two M10 debuts, and the Four Seasons come on to do a BIG list of contestants! Let's fire away!
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First up this week is the first of our two debuts- from an act posting their FOURTH M10 hit! This one actually goes back in time (imagine that) to before the first hits- I was listening to another potential's song when I clicked on their personal Spotify list, and found this! Anyway, at #10- POWERS....
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So, I was thinking of some imaginative ways to celebrate Thanksgiving in song, and the first one was, "What is the biggest hit of Thanksgiving week, on the ME2.0?" So I came up with a quite arcane point system trying to take in all factors, blah blah blah... and what I got was this:
(Note: this first list only includes songs that were #1 Thanksgiving week. But by a combo of weeks at #1 before and after, how many weeks it was on when it hit, the size of the song it knocked out, and how far it jumped to get there, this was the ten biggest #1 Thanksgiving songs from 1955-76:)
TIED FOR 8TH: Supremes and Baby Love (1964), the New Vaudeville Band and Winchester Cathedral ('66), and Isaac Hayes with the Theme From Shaft ('71).
7- Rod Stewart, Tonight's The Night ('76).
6- Tennessee Ernie Ford, Sixteen Tons ('55).
5- Elvis, Jailhouse Rock ('57).
4- Our guests the Four Seasons, with Big Girls Don't Cry ('62).
3- Jimmy Dean, Big Bad John (61).
2- Elvis again with Are You Lonesome To-Nite? ('60).
1- And why not, Elvis once more with Love Me Tender ('56)!
So if nothing else, we know Elvis and Thanksgiving go hand in hand!
Today, the Four Seasons come in to help out with the Panel Picks! An honor, gentlemen!
Bob: Our pleasure. Nick: Where's the buffet? Elvis said there's a buffet....
Elvis is like the Doctor- he lies. So anyway, we have this week 50 stations and a whopping 19 candidates, so let's get started.
Frankie: Okay, so let's just take three at a time guys. I'll go first... Tommy: Don't you always... F: ...and we start with the Beach Boys and Be True To Your School, Cashbox's #26 this week. Then, The Secrets, a girl group outta Cleveland, with The Boy Next Door at #78. This, I am told, is not the same as the Spandells later chart hit that made the M10. And Nino Tempo and April Stevens with Deep Purple at #2. Bob? B: I've got The Singing Nun at #5 with Dominique... Tommy Roe's Everybody at #9... \...and Bobby Rydell's Forget Him at #64 and rising. Nicky? Nick: Gotcha, Roberto, I gots Dale and Grace I'm Leaving It All Up To You at Numero Uno this week... Then, the Impressions with It's All Right at #4.... ...and The Kingsmen with Loo-ieee Loo-ieee at #32. Okay Tommy. T: Yeah, sure last again. Anyway, I got Los Indios Trabajaros with Maria Elena at #8. And I got the Dixiebelles, another girl group out of Tennessee, with (Down at) Papa Joe's at #14. And last for me, the Murmaids at # 88 in their first week with Popsicles and Icicles. Back to you, o lord and master. F: Just kiss the ring and geddouddahere. Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs were at #3 with Sugar Shack... Leslie Gore with She's A Fool at #6... ...and Lenny Welch's Since I Fell For You at #20. Bob? B: Thanks, Frank. Boys, each take one of these last three. I got Rufus Thomas' Walking The Dog at #11. N: I gots Robin Ward and Wonderful Summer at #24. Tommy? T: No. I don't want to. B: Oh, don't be a pip, Tom, just read the damn card. T: Why don't you just have the Boss read it? F: Well, give me the card and I... T: GIT YER HANDS OFF THE CARD! N: Geez Tom... T: That's it, I quit! B: You don't quit for another nine years! N: Hell, I quit before you do! F: Would you PLEASE just read the card? T: Well, since you ask nicely... last one is the Caravelles with You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry at #18. F: How appropriate.
Okay, well, we survived that...
N: Can we get the buffet now? F,B, T: THERE IS NO BUFFET!!!
Sigh... so let me whittle this down a bit for everyone, while my assistant gets them the address for Golden Corral. Choose from Tommy Roe, Dale and Grace, Jimmy and the Fireballs, The Singing Nun, the Kingsmen, and Leslie Gore. That's #s 9,1,3,5, 32, and 6.
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The second thing I did for our holiday fest was to take the weeks between the third week of November and the end of the year- encompassing Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve, and said, "Who has the most holiday weeks at #1? And the list we get THERE is:
Four tunes grabbed 4 of those weeks: Sly and the Family Stone's Family Affair, The Monkees and Daydream Believer, Big Girls Don't Cry (but Tommy does), and the Tokens and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Three songs wracked up 5 weeks for the holidays: Guy Mitchell with Singing The Blues, Dominique, and Tonight's The Night.
And two songs logged six holiday #1 weeks- Sixteen Tons and Are You Lonesome To-Nite.
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And now, our second live debut. Stone Temple Pilots have seen two former lead singers -Scott Weiland and Chester Bennington- die in the last few years. So it might be understandable if no one wanted the job. But they got a guy, and just in time for a new studio lp coming out I believe in February. And that guy is former X-Factor runner-up Jeff Gutt. And their first single with Jeff comes in at #9 this week!
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Stat Pack Time!
I knew 27 this week.
The #63 in '63 was none other than Richard Chamberlain, with a tune called Blue Guitar- not the same as the Moody Blues song. The flip was the FIRST recording of a song the Carpenters would take to the top- (They Long To Be) Close To You.
#101 was Joan Baez live from Miles College in Birmingham, recorded during the massive police actions in the civil rights struggle, with We Shall Overcome.
We had a three way tie for the biggest mover! One was the Chiffons with I Have A Boyfriend, which moved their 24 spots from 96 to 72. It would crap out at 37 for two weeks.
Second we have Shirley (The Name Game) Ellis with The Nitty Gritty, which peaked at #7. It's 24 was from 85 to 61.
And lastly, from 66 to 42, we have Dion's Drip Drop, which peaked at #5.
In the UK, You'll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers was at #1. The Beatles were just breaking there, with She Loves You at #2.
Remember talking about Tony Hatch last time? He was in a band called the Searchers, not best known here for the undercharting #44 Sugar And Spice, which also crapped out for a Chicago band that deserved better from the nation as a whole, the Cryan Shames. The Searchers had their big hit with the #3 cover of Love Potion #9, which was originally a top 25 for the Clovers 5 years before, in 1959. The Clovers had been around a while, and were on their 3rd lead singer, Roosevelt "Tippy" Hubbard when they were known as Tippy and the Clovers and first did the Leiber-Stoller song that was our 6D victim (highest charting w/o a Panel vote)- oh, boy... Elvis with Bossa Nova Baby.
You are really pissing me off today, Martin...
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And I have one last thing for the Holiday Row. How about, "What acts had the most top tens during Thanksgiving week?" Why certainly! There were 185 different acts to have a top ten during Thanksgiving week in ME2.0, and the top ones are:
Fourteen had two hits: Roger Williams, Guy Mitchell, Ricky Nelson, The Rolling Stones, Dion, Jerry Butler, Brenda Lee, Chubby Checker, The Tijuana Brass, Johnny Nash, the Fifth Dimension, the Carpenters, the Spinners, and Elton John.
Three had 3 hits: Pat Boone, the Four Seasons, and the Beatles- with an asterisk, because two of them were the double-a-side Come Together/Something.
I'd have to say, even for the left, I have hit a bottoming out point on this one. Add to the growing list of Democrat Kim Fatty supporters such as Petula Dvorak of the WaPo, the ever-addled Chelsea Handler, Rosie O'Donnell, which I have discovered is just as easily called Rosie OD, Maxine Waters and her runaway dementia, and "prestigious" news sources the NY Times and BuzzFeed, the name Kate Morgan. Who is Kate Morgan? Why, let her tell it:
Kate Morgan — Editor in Chief, Recovering Marketing Blog Editor, and Experimental Scriptwriter
From her blog, Film Will Never Be Dead. Which at this point, ya gotta kinda question. Anyway, here's what SHE tweeted a bit ago:
North Korea is terrible, but so is the U.S. actually. Let’s not pretend we are “oh so much better.”
Really? Hmm. Why don't we start with the guy who was a NorKo border guard that escaped a week or so ago. Shot at 40 times, hit 5- is this a western scene, or a Star Wars episode? Methinks that some people didn't really want to hit him. And because of the lovely state of agriculture in North Korea (fertilizing fields with human feces), he was filled to a degree unseen by the doctor treating him with hookworms, one of which was ELEVEN INCHES LONG.
How about next we reference the state of women in North Korea? From a BBC article published a day or two ago, we learn about the women in the NorKo armed forces- you see, women have a mandatory 7-year hitch in the Army (10 for men), and go through such rigorous training that most lose their periods. A blessing for sure, because "sanitary napkins" are not considered army equipment, and those that do still have theirs have to use the same one over and over, washing it out early in the morning "when out of men's sight." Throw in rape, no privacy in restroom "accommodations", and how about the beds, Lee So Yeon?
"The mattress we sleep on, it's made of the rice hull. So all the body odour seeps into the mattress. It's not made of cotton. Because it's rice hull, all the odour from sweat and other smells are there. It's not pleasant."
Okay, so as we add things up, Kate, so far we have human field fertilizer (bad, not found in the USA), hookworm growth prodigious in both number and size (yukk), women forced into unsafe, unsanitary conditions (unlike punk-lifers like Beth Ditto, who choose it). Sounds pretty good, huh? How about nutrition, besides the worm thing?
On average North Koreans are less nourished than their southern neighbors. The WFP says around one in four children have grown less tall than their South Korean counterparts. A study from 2009 said pre-school children in the North were up to 13 cm (5 inches) shorter and up to 7 kg (15 pounds) lighter than those brought up in the South. (Reuters)
Here's another neat kernel of info from a Korean-Canadian who formerly worked with NGOs acclimating defectors:
But sadly, the defectors I’ve met were in such poor nutritional condition that they could not digest animal protein. Some vomit after eating meat. Many I’ve worked with could not even digest a boiled egg. They prefer plant-based Korean side dishes and white rice as it was so rare to find in North Korea. I also have asked these defectors about dog meat as it was and still is a huge social issue in South Korea. They replied: “There aren’t many dogs where I’m from. People have already eaten most of them a long while ago.”
"I am NOT happy with what I'm reading here."
That person went on to say that there are 2 kinds of defectors: those from well-placed government-official families who can afford to pay a Chinese broker to settle them once they get out, and those in the far north so driven by starvation it's leave or die. Between the two, they manage 1,000 successful defections a year. One source I found suggests that it costs $8,000 to get into China- which would take the average NorKo 4-8 years of spending nothing to save up.
And it's not like it would be the best of places even IF it were free. It has a population just bigger than Houston, an area roughly equal to Pennsylvania- which only has about as much farmland as say, New Hampshire. You could circle Pluto three times with the amount of roads- but only get from New York to Cleveland on PAVED roads. The best job in NorKo pays about $62 a month- roughly what I got today for working till noon.
But I guess, when you consider Kate and her ilk think Sharia Law would be neat (at least until THEY tried to blame Harvey Achmed Weinstein for something).
Yes, I guess when you consider the USA is a place you can always get a decent, parasite-free meal somewhere, you can usually sleep in a clean bed if you choose not to be a pig, you could make $62 dollars a day on the streetcorner at Wal Mart doing nothing but holding a sign, and you can have privacy in restrooms for genders that don't even exist, we ARE pretty scummy.
Thank you, my Lord and God, for allowing me to live in a cesspool like this. Because I'm here, a North Korean doesn't have to suffer like I do.
You know what kind of day it's been when you think to yourself, "This might be a good day to check headlines and do a Newspage Go! post, and the first thing you see is that Charlie Rose is the latest to get busted for being just to the left of chivalrous towards women.
And I don't mean to make terribly light of the situation. Without trying to make any political hay on this, we are learning just how pervasive sexual inappropriateness has become in our society. And while the vast majority of those being, shall we say, exposed of late have been men in the entertainment industry, it is just a tip of a VERY big iceberg. I couldn't help but notice how many female teachers at high schools- and MIDDLE schools- have been busted lately for sex with students. If so minded I could give you a list of 10 female teachers- from 22 to 40 years old, from Bible belt midwest to Medellin, Columbia- who have been arrested for sex with a minor student SINCE OCTOBER 27. One fricking month.
And what makes it bad is that there was one man similarly charged for each woman. Or close to.
So we spend a lot of time on the news debating the "culture of Hollywood", that it was part of the game, and naively pretend it isn't just a cross section of society. And depending on what level we want to take it down to, a valid point could be made that we've ALL been guilty. I know I have.
And we look on in lurid fascination as one media darling after another gets blown up by accusations. You know, accusations? They used to be the beginning of justice, and now they are the vehicle of vengeance. Years of nod-nod wink-wink acceptance has made it so that victims only feel they can get equity under the glare of the media lights. And we snap up the articles of (disproportionately) barely-out-of-high-school teachers, bubbly blondes and big busted brunettes, and retell the joke about, boy, if I'd been in school when... and forget about the guys doing the same thing while we growl, I'd fire him with a 30-aught if he did that with MY daughter.
And maybe we see a little bit more why some women wait so long to tell their story. A caller to Rush Limbaugh the other day told about his step-daughter, who at 14 had to get therapy from the school trainer, who stuck his tongue down her throat and his hand down her pants. They told the school, the cops, everybody said it was a "he said, she said" deal and blew it off. Years of therapy, counselling, drugs, and despair followed. Never recovering from it, she committed suicide at 48.
Think about that. 30 seconds of being a "big man" led to 34 years of hell on earth.
And knowing this, I STILL laughed when I saw Charlie's picture up there. Because he's one of those self-righteous asses who busted Trump for telling an off-color joke and pretending Juanita Broaddrick never existed. All the while knowing he'd done the same thing. And Weinstein did the same thing. And George Takei. And on and on.
And knowing in my heart that but for Christ, I would have been worse than them all.
So go ahead and chuckle, if you've a mind to. But let it be chuckle that says, "Welcome to the club."
Today we go to November 11th, 1962, where a 185-day-old little Time Lord was watching the world with rapt attention.
Little Time Lord with just as little niece, 1962
And he saw today a couple of things. First, he watched the news and saw this:
On Nov. 17, 1962, J. Edgar Hoovers’ FBI cracked a terrorist plot (though the term "terrorist" was not used at the time) by Castro-Cuban agents that targeted Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale's and Manhattan’s Grand Central Station with a dozen incendiary devices and 500 kilos of TNT. The holocaust was set to go off the following week, the day after Thanksgiving.
Quickly Turning to sports, he saw this:
...The 1962 game (Georgia Tech- Alabama) in Atlanta. The Tide came to town 8-0, ranked #1 in the country. They hadn't lost in 26 straight games, a streak that stretched over three seasons. Joe Namath was the superstar sophomore quarterback of the Tide facing Tech's own sophomore QB Billy Lothridge. To make a long story short, Tech led all game 7-0. In the waning seconds of the game, Namath finally drove Bama down the field and scored a TD. Instead of taking the tie, Bear went for 2 and the 2 point conversion was intercepted preserving Tech's lead and the eventual upset of the juggernaut Crimson Tide.
Which he no doubt enjoyed a lot more. And we will go looking into the music he was hearing, including another big winner on the Panel picks- missed lapping the field by 2 votes; what the movie To nisi ton genneon has to do with the 6D (and what exactly it means); the Philly cop bringing us the latest dance craze; and 2 new M10 debuts! Joe Namath will guarantee a good time on this one... if he were here (and skipped the lead-in), that is...
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So I had to start notebook #2 for the M10 this week, and as I packed some records from the old one in it, I learned that our second debut will be the 178th main act to make the chart! But our FIRST debut has the MOST charting singles- and adds number six this week! At #10, here's Molly Rankin and Alvvays...
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This week, we have a special treat! Not only do we have Jimmy Dean, sausage maker extraordinaire and star of the '60s TV show Daniel Boone (as well as a Country HOFer), but he brought along his partner, ol' Dan hisself, Fess Parker!
Guys, this is a great honor for me! My entire childhood was watching you guys on TV and then going to my room to shoot Redcoats, Tories, and Indians!
J: Sounds like yew shoulda got out more...
Well, I exaggerate a little...
Chris' niece from up above: Not very much...
Hey, hush, Robin! Anyway, I tried to be like you, Dan- I mean, Fess. I had a hat with one of those snap-straps that I pretended was a coonskin cap, I had Mom sew bedspread fringes on the arms of one of my shirts, even got to borrow one of her knives to "mark a trail" in the woods!
F: Sure hope you didn't hurt yourself like I did that one episode. J: So yeah, how'd that turn out?
Well, my "backpack" was a paper shopping bag, the knife cut its way out on the way home. I was scared to tell Mom because she said, "This is my good knife", but she never said anything, so in retrospect I think she might have fibbed...
J: (Shakes head) F: Maybe we aught get to these songs...
Okay, so you got nine candidates from 34 stations.
J: And the first one is Bent Fabric with Alley Cat. It was #40 and falling this week on Cashbox...
Which is what we call, "Not getting the memo on that vote."
F: Uh, yeah. Next comes Big Girls Don't Cry by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, this week's #1 on Cashbox. J: Fine song. I wonder how he gets his voice up so high. F: Cain't yew do it? J: Not in these underwear. Then comes Marcie Blaine with Bobby's Girl, at #9. F: And next is the Orlons with Don't Hang Up at # 8. J: The Crystals come next, they was #4 with He's A Rebel. F: Herb Alpert and the Tee-jew-ana Brass was at #22 with The Lonely Bull. J: Prob'ly because his buddies was all steaks. Now, Chris, yew wanted to explain these next two?
Yeah, Dick Dale and his Deltones had two different songs claim #1 votes- and as far as I could tell, neither one was even released as a single! One of them was the oft-covered Miserlou; the other was called Peppermint Man. I'm thinking there were a couple of djs somewhere with bro-crushes...
F: With WHUT? J: Yew know, Like Albert Salmi was with ol' Cincinnatus...
Ah heard that, yew little twerp...
J: Uh, anyway... (How'd he get in here?)... Next up was Gene Pitney's Only Love Can Break Your Heart, at #5... F: Then comes Elvis Presley with Return To Sender. He was at #2. Bet he don't like that...
He never does, sigh.
J: Next is Road Hog by John D Loudermilk. He's the feller that wrote Indian Reservation and Tobacco Road. F: Both fine songs. Lastly was Telstar by the Tornados, which was movin' up fast at #38.
Wow, Great job, guys, I had a blast.
J: Shoot, this ain't nothin'. Lemme get that jug out back an' we'll...
Ixnay on that, you'll just attract George Jones, and I'm over my quota for guests as it is. So anyway, like I said above, one of these tunes nearly lapped the field, grabbing 16 of the 34 votes. But who was it? The Four Seasons? Elvis? Marcie Blaine? Or the Crystals? Take a guess and find out a bit later on. For now...
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What do Chris Montez's Call Me and the Vogues' You're The One have in common besides being top ten hits? Well, they were written by a team at the time known as the UK's Bacharach and Warwick- Petula Clark and Tony Hatch. One of their big hits that Petula sang was Downtown, which was not only big here, but was one of her 4 #1s in Italy, sung in the native tongue! One of the other #1s for Petula in Italy was I Will Follow Him. You know that song by Little Peggy March, likely; what you might not know was that the tune was originally the instrumental Chariot, written by Frank Pourcel and Paul (Love Is Blue) Mariat! The English lyrics to it were contributed by Artur Attman- and he also wrote English lyrics to that Greek movie (Which translates to Island Of The Brave) theme mentioned above- lyrics that became Brenda Lee's #3 this week, All Alone Am I, which got NO Panel votes.
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Our second debut comes from a Nashville duo who have a real Astrud Gilberto/Sergio Mendes vibe to them. At #9, I give you Escondido...
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Stat Pack Time:
I knew a whopping 32 songs on this week's hot 100.
The #62 in '62 belonged to Mark Valentino, a very hard person to track down, as this was his only dip into the charts before leaving music to become a cop in Philadelphia. His tune was a rather limited dance craze tune, called The Push And Kick. Next month, it would make it to #27. It was written by the slightly more famous Eddie Rambeau, whose bigger claim to fame was writing an old favorite- Diane Renay's Navy Blue.
The #101 song belonged to Jimmie Rodgers, the one who had the big hit with Honeycomb back in '57. This time, he was sorta charting with the 11th song in a 7-year, 25 song missed-the-top-40 streak, a #62 peaker called Rainbow At Midnight.
The big mover belonged to Nat King Cole with Dear Lonely Hearts, which blew up 25 spots from 84 to 59. The follow up to Rambling Rose (which was also on the chart, on the way down at #27), it would peak at #13 on Billboard.
And on the UK chart, we had Frank (I Remember You ) Ifield with Lovesick Blues, which wasn't on the US charts at the moment, and would only ever get to #44 here. Chris Montez cops another mention this week as his Let's Dance was the UK runner up. And our CB number one was NOT on the UK chart at the time- Big Girls Don't Cry wouldn't chart there until the end of next January. The highest here that charted there was Chubby Checker's Limbo Rock, which was #6 here but 38 there; and our #38 was the biggest one from their chart on ours as well, with Telstar sitting at their #4 slot. How's that for a patented Martin Statistical Anomaly?
In doing my abnormal tour of news sites not dedicated to which Hollywood wheel did what to whom, or which doer/doee is complaining about Trump doing/not doing them now, I noticed a slightly elevated level of slightly amusing articles on our good friends in Russia. Thought I'd share my take on a few.
First up, it would seem Putin has stumbled onto a brand new way of "draining the swamp." Let me share the first part of the BBC article:
Two Russian officials say they were expected to lie down as armoured personnel carriers were driven over them as part of a new training programme for future regional governors. The two participants in the course, who wished to remain anonymous, told the RBC news portal that they also had to make parachute jumps, throw hand grenades, and fire pistols and automatic weapons. "Three hopefuls left after the parachute jumps with leg injuries, and another with a bad back," one participant said. "The jumps were designed for guys weighing 60-70 kg, not 100 kg (16 stone)," he said, adding that he couldn't explain what the aim of the exercise was. The other participant was clearer on this, saying "anyone who hasn't yet been appointed" to a senior post has to take part, in order to develop their "military endurance and readiness for defence".
So this turns out to be a controversial and pretty extensive course, which at first blush makes one wonder if the point isn't to convince old and out of step politicos to retire. In addition to training at a military base, footage has apparently surfaced of gubernatorial candidates jumping into a waterfall gorge near Sochi, as well as classroom work, guest lecturers and field trips to Malaysia and Singapore for some unexplained reason. And it isn't exactly something everyone wants to talk about...
RBC approached some of the 40 other officials who allegedly took part in the course, including a number of MPs, but none would confirm their participation and one flatly denied it.
You gotta admit, the thought of putting Pelosi, McCain, Hillary, McConnell, or John Boehner through this is appealing. But Harry Reid? Maybe not, seeing's as he "got beat up by a treadmill". A Union treadmill, no doubt.
The next lovely story comes from my friends in the KHL. Dinamo Minsk was hosting old rival Spartak on Halloween, and decided to announce a costume contest. Dress up, post you in your costume at the game to various appropriately hashtagged social media, and have everyone vote on the winner.
Two problems with this idea. The team passed on the contest to everyone BUT the league and the police that worked the stadium. AND, they forgot- but the police didn't- this crucial part of league rules:
clothes and other means of concealing the identity, meaning that masks and make-up that make identifying fans difficult are not allowed
Which means anyone whose costuming involved full face paint or a mask got stopped and told to remove the masks or themselves. Which left us with this winner, with 30% of the vote:
Congrats, I guess...
Third story is an embarrassing, "I gotcha- oops, no I don't" that one might think couldn't happen outside the DNC. I'll just put up the lead of the story...
Russia's Ministry of Defence has posted what it called "irrefutable proof" of the US aiding so-called Islamic State - but one of the images was actually taken from a video game. The ministry claimed the image showed an IS convoy leaving a Syrian town last week aided by US forces. Instead, it came from the smartphone game AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron. The ministry said an employee had mistakenly attached the photo. The Conflict Intelligence Team fact-checking group said the other four provided were also errors, taken from a June 2016 video which showed the Iraqi Air Force attacking IS in Iraq.
The response from US- Coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon:
"I certainly can't verify, but I've seen the report that one of the pictures came from a video game. So, again that is pretty consistent with what we have seen come out of Russian MoD, as being baseless, inaccurate and you know, completely false," he said.
Next up came this tale from the Moscow Times:
At least one in three Russians have paid a bribe for public services over the past year, Transparency International’s new global survey has revealed.
To which I chuckled to myself, "Down from three of five in 1988."
And why do I not really care about supposed Russian influence in the US election? Because stupid people will vote for whoever stupid people vote for. As an example, I give you an excerpt from an article on Russia allegedly hacking utilities in the UK:
To coincide with its event, the Times also published details of a new study into how Russia used Twitter to influence 2016's Brexit referendum. The research indicates that more than 156,000 Russia-based accounts - many of them automated bots - mentioned #Brexit in original posts or retweets in the days surrounding the vote.
Lesson to be learned- try to be more intelligent that to get your "facts" from social media. Except this blog, which is 100%. (100% what open to debate)
And finally an article on the Times on their feature page on the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution. This one is headlined "Why the 1917 Revolution was bad for the Russian economy today". While this, in the right hands, could become a devastating comedy piece, the author does make the valid point of the one thing Bolshevism did right- raise the literacy rate from the low 30% range to 70-80%. This, he claims, gave them the great potential for industrialization- which, he goes on to basically say they then pissed away on the military and other "non value added" pursuits. And thus, they went from 1897, when their economic peers were Mexico and Brazil- to today, where their economic peers are... Mexico and Brazil.
But there's greater hope, he says, in Russia, because they have already learned the importance of increasing education among the masses. Now, they just gotta tie it to a market economy model instead of Communism.
And who knows, he could be right? After all, imagine Pravda publishing an article like this 100 years ago.
A lone man looking for means of expression in a tsunami of information. Seeking truth justice and the American way in the perspective of a Nixon conservative. And the Commissioner of the free world's smallest and best fantasy football league.
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