Thursday, October 31, 2024

Thursday's video: Dodgers win and Trump doing well plus more stories

So am I garbage with an apostrophe?

So am I garbage with an apostrophe?: Well, how did this happen? How does a sitting president refer to half of the country as garbage? Was it a slip of the tongue or was he trying to sabotage VP Harris's closing speech? Your guess is as good as mine, but the White House is in full….
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Well, how did this happen? How does a sitting president refer to half of the country as garbage? Was it a slip of the tongue or was he trying to sabotage VP Harris’s closing speech? Your guess is as good as mine, but the White House is in full cleanup mode. Let’s check the story:

The White House and its media allies ran a coverup for President Biden after he maligned former President Donald Trump’s supporters as “garbage” — going so far as to edit an official transcript of his remarks, to the outrage of conservatives and other critics who called out “flat out lying” by Democrats and their allies.

Democrats went into damage-control mode Tuesday night due to the president’s trash talk, claiming that Biden hadn’t intended to demonize his party’s political opponents just seven days before voters head to the polls.

“The President referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage,’” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The White House in a transcript of the speech also added an apostrophe to the 81-year-old’s poorly timed criticism less than five days before the 2024 election.

When in doubt use an apostrophe? I guess that the cleanup crew at the White House thinks that we are that stupid. Yes, he didn’t call the Trump supporters “garbage” because they added an apostrophe in the transcript. Why didn’t I think of that?

In the end, this is a president who is now a full victim of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He got the virus and is behaving the same irrational way that all the others do.

Of course, the problem with a sitting president referring to the other side as garbage is that he may have to send their sons to war. As far as I know, we don’t have a D or R next to the soldiers’ names who may have to tackle Iran or China.

So a bad night for those who want to unite the country. Hard to unite people when you call them garbage for thinking differently. Even if you edit the word by conveniently adding an apostrophe.

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We remember Michael Collins (1930-2021)


We remember Michael Collins who was born on this day in 1930 and died April 2021.  He was a part of the Apollo 11 mission along with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

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We remember Dave McNally (1942-2002)




   

Dave McNally was one of my favorite Orioles.    He was born on this day in 1942 and passed away in 2002.

McNally broke with Baltimore in 1962 and won 184 games.   Along the way, Dave pitched in 4 World Series, 2 LCS and won 87 games over 1968-71.

Just a great lefty who kept you in every game.    

McNally won game 4 of the 1966 World Series with a 1-0 shutout of the LA Dodgers.    He hit a grand slam in game 4 of the 1970 World Series against Cincinnati.

He was 7-4 with a 2.49 ERA in 9 post seasons series with Baltimore.     

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No lettuce or spinach this Halloween


It's been a tough year for mothers and spinach!

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Still the best Halloween song after all these years!



My sons don't "trick or treat" anymore but it's still great to see the next generation with their costumes knocking on your door.

To say the least, Halloween is a great excuse for us adults to eat those chocolate treats.    I've had my share of "treats" over the years. 

Over time, we've seen movies, TV specials and have heard songs about Halloween.   I guess that The Charlie Brown special is my favorite.  The Disney stuff is usually good.  I don't care much for the "Friday 13th" movies.  They're a bit too scary for me!

Halloween song?  My favorite, and # 1 after all of these years, is Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash".   It gets a lot of airplay every year:





Happy Halloween cubano!





Fidel Castro died in 2016.   So we remember him this Halloween.

This is the story of a Cuban Halloween!

(The CubanAmericanpundits.com website!)

Happy Halloween, and don't forget to vote

Image result for dracula images

(My new American Thinker post)

Halloween was totally new when our family came to the U.S.  The idea of kids wearing masks and asking for candy was totally new to us.  I mean totally new.  I don't remember watching a Disney cartoon about it, and we learned a lot about the U.S. in Cuba watching Disney cartoons.

So we went out on our first Halloween and could not help laughing whenever my mom said "trick or treat."  She couldn't get the pronunciation down and said "tree ka tree."  The three of us couldn't stop laughing at my mother's accent until she got mad and said that if we didn't like her accent, then we could eat breakfast somewhere else.  We did not laugh anymore after that because we really didn't have another place to go for breakfast.  I should add that the McDonald's across the park did not serve breakfast in 1964.

My kids have grown up, pursuing their careers, interests, and other things.  Therefore, Halloween just doesn't mean as much as it used to.  I still enjoy seeing the little kids in their costumes, but it's different.  My grandkids are cute wearing their costumes, but they're still too young to get into the Halloween spirit.  I'll wait a couple of years to take them trick-or-treating.

A few years ago, I had Dr. Ileana Johnson, author and native of Romania, on my podcast.  We spoke about her book Echoes of Communism, her story about growing up in communist Romania.  We found a lot in common about leaving communist countries and settling in the U.S.  She is also a wonderful economist who has a lot to say about socialism and what's going on in our colleges.

Dr. Johnson wrote about Dracula and the castle during a recent trip to Romania:

Bram Stoker chose Transylvania, the western province of Romania, as the location of his 1897 gothic novel "Dracula" because of the dark, foreboding feel of the area even when it was bathed in sunshine. The myth of Dracula was so attached to Vlad Tepes and Bran Castle that the locals, when asked about it, shrugged their shoulders with amused looks, and went about their business. 

The real Vlad Tepes, the inspiration source for Count Dracula, was known for his strong resistance and valiant battles against the advancement and occupation of the Ottoman Empire. "Voievode" Vlad was a real hero and founding father to the local population.

Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476), was named posthumously "Vlad the Impaler," for his habit of impaling his enemies and those condemned for capital punishment. Tepes was his Romanian moniker for "Impaler." He ruled mainly from 1456–1462, the incipient period of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. Of the house of Draculesti, Vlad III, son of Vlad II Dracul, was born in Sighisoara, Transylavania and died in Bucharest, Wallachia.

Dracula is Romanian for "the son of the Devil." Historians argue over the meaning of the Latin "draco" (dragon). Vlad was of the order of the dragon bestowed on his father to defend Christianity. However, the Romanian word for dragon is "balaur." "Dracul" is identified in modern parlance as the "devil." The Ambras Castle portrait of Vlad III, c. 1560, is reputedly a copy of an original made during his lifetime.

I catch this article every year and and enjoy it a lot.  Who knew that Dracula and a castle could be so interesting?  Well, it is, and I hope you read her full article about Dracula before the kids come to your door.

And then play "The Monster Mash" to make Halloween complete.

Happy Halloween, and don't forget to vote.

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Our 2015 Halloween show with Leslie Eastman & Daisy Viktoria.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Talking with Voz Media

 

Wednesday's video: "Garbage" and a few other stories

A message from Jeff

A message from Jeff: As you probably know, there are some hurt feelings over at the news rooms. This is because some of the nation's liberal newspapers have gone uncommitted on presidential endorsements. No Kamala endorsement, and that's driving a lot of liberals...
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As you probably know, there are some hurt feelings over at the news rooms. This is because some of the nation’s liberal newspapers have gone uncommitted on presidential endorsements. No Kamala endorsement, and that’s driving a lot of liberals over the cliff.

Why didn’t the Washington Post do its usual endorsement of a Democrat? Maybe we should listen to the guy who signs their payroll checks. He is not happy with his newspaper or the state of the media.

This is the message from Jeff Bezos:

The billionaire then argued that presidential endorsements “create a perception of bias… of non-independence” and the decision to end them was a “principled decision.”

Bezos wrote he wished “we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it,” but chalked the issue to “inadequate planning” rather than “some intentional strategy.”

The Washington Post owner said there was no quid pro quo at play, and neither of the candidates or their campaigns were consulted or informed about the decision beforehand.

Bezos cited surveys showing declining public faith in the news media and framed the decision as an effort to restore trust and avoid being replaced by “off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources.”

Bezos is right on target and his comments are must reading in newsrooms. Bezos is correct that trust in the media is down, way down. Honestly, I’m not sure that the presidential endorsements have destroyed the media’s credibility. What Bezos is more concerned is the biased coverage.

And the perception that the media is in the tank for one candidate, such as VP Harris is 2024, is real.


It’s an important message from a man who obviously wants to sell more newspapers or subscriptions. I see it more as a man who sees what’s going on in the industry and doesn’t like it.

Good for Bezos.

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Happy # 85 Grace Slick


We say happy birthday to Grace Slick.  She was born Grace Barnett Wing in Illinois on this day in 1939.
Somebody to love” was the first big hit by “Jefferson Airplane“, a California band. The lead singer was Gracie Slick.    This band eventually became “Jefferson Starship“.
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2016: What radio show would Orson Wells do about this election?

large_war-of-the-worlds
On October 30, 1938, millions of Americans had their dinner and sat down to listen to the radio. It turned out to be a rather unusual Halloween night:
Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy “Charlie McCarthy” on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story of the Martian invasion was well underway.
Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to “the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra.” …  An announcer broke in to report that “Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory” had detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey.
Soon, an announcer was at the crash site describing a Martian emerging from a large metallic cylinder. “Good heavens,” he declared, “something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here’s another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me … I can see the thing’s body now. It’s large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather.” But that face, it… it … ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable…”
The Martians mounted walking war machines and fired “heat-ray” weapons at the puny humans gathered around the crash site. They annihilated a force of 7,000 National Guardsman, and after being attacked by artillery and bombers the Martians released a poisonous gas into the air. Soon “Martian cylinders” landed in Chicago and St. Louis. The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors doing an excellent job portraying terrified announcers and other characters.
They say that a million people fell for it.
Maybe a 2016 version of Orson Welles could do a radio show about a presidential candidate who used a private server as Secretary of State.    

Then he can tell us about the lady’s assistant who is married to a rather bizarre fellow addicted to sending strange texts to young women.    
And the climax of the story is when the FBI discovers that the bizarre fellow had classified information in his laptop. 
Wonder if any radio producer would buy that story? My guess is that that they would reject it on the grounds that they don’t think any candidate for president would be that stupid.
Orson, where are you when we need you?
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October 30, 1938: Orson Wells and "The War of the worlds" radio show.


Years ago, Sunday night was radio prime time.  


Enter Orson Wells.    

On Sunday, October 30, 1038 at 8 p.m, a voice announced: 

“The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in ‘War of the Worlds’ by H.G. Wells.”

The broadcast was so good that people were in panic from coast to coast.  In other words, many really believed that we were being invaded by aliens.

Let me recommend that you check out the whole show.   It is one of the finest audio programs ever made.  
I can understand why so many people bought into the Martian attack.   Fantastic!    
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Our Halloween 2019 show with Leslie Eastman



Our Halloween 2019 show with Leslie Eastman 10/31 by Silvio Canto Jr | Politics:

Guest: Leslie Eastman, contributor to Legal Insurrection.......we will look at the big stories of the day. and other stories....
 


We remember John Adams (1735-1826)


We remember John Adams, who was born on this day in 1835.

This is what John Adams wrote to Abigail about July 4th:
"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.

It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty.

It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."
The HBO series is great.   Check it out.

It is a great story about the making of the US.   It is also a great story about a wonderful couple, John and Abigail Adams.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Tuesday's video: Campaign jokes and Bezos has a message

The battle of the sexes goes crazy

The battle of the sexes goes crazy: Maybe you're old enough to remember that tennis match from the early 1970s billed…
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 Maybe you’re old enough to remember that tennis match from the early 1970s billed as “The Battle of the Sexes.” I didn’t watch it but they told me that it involved a young Billie Jean King and an aging male pro named Bobby Riggs. Nobody took that show seriously, but I guess they made a few dollars of the whole thing. Hope they made enough money to buy a ‘73 Sabre. It was a beauty!

The Battle of the Sexes has now gone political. In fact, the divide is pretty big. If only men voted then Trump would sweep. If only women voted then Harris would win. It’s probably more complicated than that but you get what I mean.

The Harris campaign has apparently given up one men and gone “girl” all the way. Let’s take a look at this story from Andrew Stiles:

Vice President Kamala Harris was briefly interested in reaching out to male voters in the final weeks before Election Day. Recent events suggest the candidate has abandoned those efforts in favor of joyless fearmongering intended to rile up the Democratic base of #resistance-obsessed single ladies who scream at children. (No, we’re not making this up. A deranged young white woman accosted a little girl in a stroller outside a Harris rally in Houston on Friday. “I don’t give a f—, your dad’s a b—!” the female Harris supporter yelled just inches from the child’s face.

Harris appeared in Houston alongside Beyoncé, a female musical artist of some renown. The former Destiny’s Child member echoed the candidate’s women-focused closing message. “We are so happy to be standing here on this stage as proud, country, Texas women supporting and celebrating the one and only Vice President Kamala Harris,” Beyoncé said. “I’m not here as a celebrity. I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother. A mother who cares, deeply, about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.”

Once on stage, Harris wasted no time attacking Trump on the issue of abortion. “No one is protected,” Harris warned, joyfully. “Because a Donald Trump national ban will outlaw abortion in every single state.” Trump, who was also in Texas last week to tape an interview with celebrated male podcaster Joe Rogan, has said he “would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances.”

Unlike King vs Riggs back then, something that everyone understood as a joke and nothing more, the current divide is between men worried about the future and a group of young women who have lost their common sense. Keep the women in your life away from this virus specially if they are talking about majoring in gender studies. Don’t co-sign that loan!

Our battle of 2024 is not just a threat to our politics. We may be seeing a generation of young men and women with nothing in common. What are they going to talk about when they go on a date? Maybe they won’t date and young men will look for wives overseas. At least those girls, many of them super educated and from good families, would want to be your wife, have your babies, and enjoy a future without arguing about politics or abortion.

In the meantime, the Harris team wants to energize all those women with empty lives and a cat. I’m not knocking cats but it’s tough to reach old age without little kids running around and bringing Christmas presents.

Save the girls from this madness because it won’t end well.

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We remember Denny Laine (Moody Blues and Wings)




We remember Denny Laine who was born on this day in 1944 and died in 2023.

Denny started out with The Moody Blues.  Later, he joined Wings, the Paul McCartney group of the 1970's.

My favorite of his songs is "Go now", the first big hit in the US by The Moody Blues...

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"We've already said ‘Goodbye’.
Since you've got to go
Oh you had better go now.
Go now. Go now. Go now
Before you see me cry.
I don't want you to tell me
Just what you intend to do now.
'Cause how many times do I have to tell you
Darling, darling,

I'm still in love With you now? 

We've already said ‘So long’

I don't want to see you go.
Oh you had better go now.
Go now. Go now. Go now
Don't you even try telling me
That you don't want me to end this way
'Cause, darling, darling,

Can't you see I want you to stay? 

We've already said ‘Goodbye’.

Since you've got to go

Oh you had better go now. 

Go now. Go now. Go now

Before you see me cry.
I don't want you to tell me
Just what you intend to do now.
'Cause how many times do I have to tell you
Darling, darling,
I'm still in love,
Still in love,
With you now? I don't want to see you go
But, darling,
You'd better go now."

Happy # 89 Jim Perry

We remember Jim Perry, who was born on this day in 1935.

Jim Perry was the other good pitcher in the family.  His brother is Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry.

Jim broke with the Indians in 1959 and won 18 in his second year.   He was traded to Minnesota in 1963 and that's where he won the 1970 AL Cy Young:  24-12 with a 3.04 ERA.

Perry retired with 215 wins and a 3.45 ERA.   He was a very good pitcher.     

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2011 and that series still hurts!

In every way, this one hurts a lot more than the 2010 loss to San Francisco.  However, there were many similarities between the two losses.

First, the Rangers were a better team.  YES YES!!

Second, the 2010 Giants and 2011 were both "teams of destiny", or teams on a run to end the season.  They were wild card teams that got hot and played perfect baseball for 6 weeks.

I don't know what else to say.  How do you explain game 6? 

We congratulate St Louis because they won the series.  Nevertheless, I still think that Texas was a better team on paper.

Let's hope that the Rangers' fans don't get too disillusioned with their team.  I really believe that they will win one down the road.

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Our 2016 Halloween chat with Leslie Eastman


CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO LISTEN:

Our annual Halloween chat with Leslie Eastman 10/26 by Silvio Canto Jr | News Podcasts:

Guest: Leslie Eastman joins us for our annual Halloween show......we will the website that Leslie has been the Project Manager for, which Girl Scout Emma Kahn created as part of her Gold Star Project: Black Cats Need Love! The purpose of the site is to encourage people to adopt black cats from animal shelters.............and a few stories about the 2016 election.......


Monday, October 28, 2024

The week in review with Bill Katz the editor of Urgent Agenda

 


Monday's video: Democrat panic and a few other thoughts

They are calling it ‘narcoterrorism’

They are calling it ‘narcoterrorism’: Over time, we've associated car bombs with terrorism. We saw some of that in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel has seen a lot of it over the years. Well, they are now seeing it in Mexico. Let's check out the story: Two car bombs exploded...
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Over time, we’ve associated car bombs with terrorism. We saw some of that in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel has seen a lot of it over the years. Well, they are now seeing it in Mexico. Let’s check out the story:

Two car bombs exploded in the Mexican state of Guanajuato on Thursday, Oct. 24, in what state officials have described as an act of “narcoterrorism.”

The explosives went off in the southern municipalities of Acámbaro and Jerécuaro, just miles outside of Guanajuato’s border with the State of Mexico (Edoméx).

The Acámbaro explosion, which occurred outside of the local police station, left three local police officers injured in its wake.

Numerous schools and businesses in the municipalities said they had suspended operations for the day after the car bombs went off. 

A day ago, a Mexican friend told me that people are in a bit of shock. After all, to paraphrase another friend, Mexico’s had a lot of problems over the years but car explosions is not one of them. Let me add that I’ve taken many trips to Mexico before, even lived there for four years working for U.S. company, and cars exploding is not among them.

Over the last month, Mexico has been hearing a lot about violence in the news. In the state of Guerrero, on the Pacific coast and home to Acapulco, the mayor was decapitated. In Sinaloa, or closer to the border, a truck was discovered with at least five dead bodies. And now lovely and colonial Guanajuato has been shaken by two car explosions.

So far, no policy shift from the administration that wants to hug its way to peace with criminals.

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October 28, 2011: Texas vs St. Louis and that painful Game 7


Who can forget?   I think that all of us know how David Murphy felt watching the other guys celebrate the last out of the 2011 World Series. 

What was the turning point of game 7?  It was Molina walking on a 3-2 pitch that was simply too close to take.   It kept a rally going and it was over after that.

Don't get me wrong.  I think that the Cardinals won fair and square.  They got the clutch hits and we didn't.  They threw strikes and our guys didn't.  They manufactured runs and we didn't.

It was a bad night for Rangers' fans, specially the agony of Game 6 the night before.
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1886: Another anniversary of The Statue of Liberty



We remember another anniversary of The Statue of Liberty.   


Lady Liberty, as we affectionately call her, was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland on this day in 1886.  It is one of the country's great landmarks.     

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2016: Our Halloween chat with Leslie Eastman




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Our annual Halloween chat with Leslie Eastman 10/26 by Silvio Canto Jr | News Podcasts:

Guest: Leslie Eastman joins us for our annual Halloween show......

P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).  If you like our posts, click send, and drop a dime here.

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