If they had, they would have learned that it is very hard to make accurate predictions about the future.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2026
The climate change crowd should have spoken to Yogi Berra
The climate change crowd should have spoken to Yogi Berra:
Happy # 86 Jill Jackson (Paul & Paula)
They were Ray Hilderbrand and Jill Jackson who met in college in Brownwood, TX.
Ray was born in Joshua, TX, on December 12, 1940 and died in 2023. Jill was born in McCarney, TX, on May 20, 1940.
Eventually, they recorded the song and it was #1 in the US for the entire month of February 1963......a real pop classic!
They broke up a few years later and went on their separate ways. However, they do get together once in a while to sing "Hey Paula".
So Cher is 80 today?
She was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California in 1946. We know her as Cher.
In the 1960s, Cher and her husband Sonny, had a string of hits as Sonny & Cher.
The couple moved to TV in the 1970s and then Cher followed that with a very successful solo career.
We hope that she is enjoying another birthday. Frankly, a lot of us can not believe that time has flown by!
P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
We remember James Stewart (1908-1997)
Stewart became one of the greatest movie stars of the 20th, from "Winchester '73" to "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" to "The Spirit of St. Louis" and more.
He died in 1997. My favorite is "It's a wonderful life" because it is such an inspirational movie and holiday classic:
P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
We remember Bobby Murcer (1946-2008)
In 1971, Murcer hit .331 with 25 HR, 94 RBI's and played a great CF. He had other great years but 1971 was probably his best all around season. Murcer finished second to Tony Oliva in the batting race that year!
Bobby Murcer hit 252 career HRs with 1063 RBIs. He was a real fan favorite because of his personality and passion for the game.
P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
Cuban Americans and Cuban independence day
My grandmother had a neat life. She was born in Cuba (1892) when it was still a Spanish colony. She recalls the celebrations on May 20, 1902 when Cuba finally became an independent country. She left Cuba and died in the US in 1984.
Today, Cuba celebrates the 112th anniversary of that independence day that my grandmother celebrated as a little girl. However, there is little to celebrate in Cuba in the 54th year of communism.
We continue to hear of dissidents being arrested, such as Jorge Luis Perez-Garcia, known as "Antunez". (Via Babalu)
We heard this from Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, a dissident who recently spoke in the US. He reminded us of Cubans in prison or under harassment by the Castro government via Capitol Hill Cubans:
"Dear friends: since I became an independent blogger and journalist in Cuba, I was told, by the former Minister of Culture, Abel Prieto, and the former director of the Cuban Book Institute, Iroel Sanchez, that I will never publish again in my country. They were both removed from their positions later (Saturn’s law), but the unholy war of the Castros against critical intellectuals goes on and on.The Castro government will put on a show today and celebrate independence day. However, I am sure that most Cubans won't really feel it until this corrupt dictatorship passes on.
While I talk here, the Havanan novelist Angel Santiesteban languishes a 5-year sentence for a common crime announced to him —by State Security agents— as a punishment for his opinion columns in his blog:Los hijos que nadie quiso /The Children Nobody Wanted.
While I talk here, a journalist from the free-lance agency Hablemos Press / Let’s Talk Press, Calixto Ramon Martinez was kept many months in prison for reporting an outbreak of cholera in Cuba, which still constitutes a serious health risk there, even for tourists, a fact that the Cuban government refuses to recognize in its due importance. Finally he was released without any explanation, documentation of his case, or at least an attempt to give him an apology or indemnify him.
While I talk here, a Catholic Afrocuban young mother and her husband, both peaceful pro-democracy activists, Sonia Garro and Ramon Alejandro Muñoz, have been for two years and two months in several Cuban prisons, subject to physical abuse and isolation periods, just because they protested when they were forbidden to attend the Holy Mass of the Pope Benedict XVI in the Revolution Square of Havana city, in March 2012. Hundreds of human rights activists were then arrested, including me, kidnapped for three days with my girlfriend, apparently accused of attempting to take counter-revolutionary photographs of His Holiness with the Heroic Guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara behind him, in the façade of the mysterious Ministry of Interior where the mass took place.
While I talk here, an American citizen under contract by USAID, Alan Gross, is being held hostage since December 2009 in a Cuban jail, serving a 15-year sentence for charges that included espionage. A Jew himself, he was just helping the Cuban Jewish community to have a ready access to the internet, since the right to independent information is not recognized by my government. In fact, it constitutes a major crime: enemy propaganda, diffusion of negative news, among other brutalities of our actual Penal Code. This was a miserable mafia message thrown to the fair-play face of America: mind your own business, do not dare to try to help the Cuban civic society or you will pay a dirty price too.
Besides, dozens of well-known terrorists have found safe haven to grow old in Cuba and take care of their families and their fortunes, after a whole life devoted to international delinquency, including USA fugitives, ex CIA agents and hit-men associated with dictators and paramilitary bands worldwide."
P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
Happy May 20th to all of my Cuban friends
(My new Babalu post)
Back in 1902, Cuba became an independent country after 400 years as a Spanish colony (1492-1898) and the US occupation (1898-1902).
JM Sierra recalls the moment:
“May 20. Tomás Estrada Palma is sworn in as president, and the Cuban flag is finally allowed to fly over Havana.”
As one of those of us who grew up in the US, I always found May 20 as a great day to learn about Cuba.
My grandmother, who died in 1984, left Cuba and would share her stories often. She was a young girl on May 20, 1902 and told me a lot about the day. She remember flags all over and a great sense of optimism every where.
My parents also had their own stories, specially from their school activities. I recall my mother telling me about the parade in Ciego de Avila. Her family lived across Parque Marti.
My father had many tales of events in Sagua la Grande. By the way, this is the first May 20th since my father died last December. I miss chatting with him about this day.
I learned a lot of Cuba history hearing their memories of May 20.
May 20 is actually bittersweet for many of us. We remember Independence Day 1902 but understand that Cuba is not free today.
P.S. Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos.
2015 podcast: A show about Cuba's independence in 1902
Guests: Fausta Rodriguez Wertz, editor of Fausta's Blog....and Fernando Hernandez, author of 'The Cubans, Our Footprints Across America', a book about the story of Cubans in the US.......we will look at another anniversary of Cuba's independence and remember some famous Cubans who came to the US.............
Click to listen:
1927 and "The Spirit of Louis took off
It was a rainy morning on May 20, 1927 but Charles Lindbergh took off to cross the Atlantic.
By the way, I love the movie with Jimmy Stewart playing the role of Lindbergh.
P.S. You can listen to my show. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
It was 121 years ago today
(My new American Thinker post)
On this day in 1902, Cuba became an independent country. If you grew up in a Cuban home, or had Cuban friends in high school, or lived in Miami, then you may recall celebrations and good food this day.
To make a long history short, Cubans fought for much of the 19th century but just couldn't push Spain from running the island. Then the USS Mainemade a stop in Havana, blew up or got blown up, and President William McKinley decided to declare war on Spain. It was not a long war and Spain was finally was out and the U.S. ran things for a few years.
On May 20, 1902, Cuba, the last of the major Spanish colonies in the new world, got its independence.
Most of the rest of Latin America won its independence in the first 30 years of the 19th century.
I recall my grandmother, a 10-year-old girl at the time, tell stories of celebrations, parties, Cuban flags hanging from windows and a general sense of happiness around the island.
Of course, independence did not fix Cuba's problems. The island went through several ups and downs, government changes and the communist takeover of 1959. It was a rough 50-plus years but nobody rowed a boat to Florida or left for a better life abroad. The island had problems but Cubans were willing to stay and work on them, as my late father once said.
My friend Carlos Eire, author and professor at Yale, pointed this out about pre-Castro Cuba:
In 1902, the population of Cuba was nearly 1.5 million (a 200,000 decrease from 1895, due largely to the genocidal policies of the Spanish government during Cuba’s final war of independence).
• Between 1900 and 1930, the first three decades of Cuban independence, about one million immigrants flooded into the island, mostly European, and mostly northern Spaniards. This population tsunami also included Asians, Levantines, and Jews. These immigrants doubled the population of the island and changed its complexion, literally. Tens of thousands of immigrants continued to flow into Cuba every year after that, up to 1958. Immigration from the U.S. was comparatively slight, but in 1958 there were more Americans living in Cuba than Cubans in the U.S.A. Emigration from Cuba was minimal during this half century.
• Rates of immigration as high as this and of emigration as low require a robust and growing economy, and a considerable degree of political stability.
• Cuba’s economic success can be measured very accurately by tracing the growth of Havana, both in terms of population and construction. Around 1902, Havana was still a very small city, which had just begun to expand beyond its colonial enclosure, known as “Old Havana.”
What happened after communism? People jumped on rafts to look for freedom, the island's economy has been destroyed and the only people who find Cuba exciting are the leftists who hate the U.S. I should know about the latter because I've debated quite a few of them over the years. As I tell them, you love Cuba because you hate the U.S. I remind them that they wouldn't last one second living in the reality of Cuba. It's great to be a "fidelista" over French wine at an expensive restaurant.
Maybe Cuba will eventually celebrate another independence day as a democratic country. We hope so! I’ll remember my parents, my grandparents, and so many more on that future day.
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