Saturday, December 28, 2024

 Art Carney, Academy Award Winner actor, in a Twilight Zone episode about Christmas..  He is a department store Santa who is a drunk, depressed about the pain and suffering of  life.  Somehow  a miracle happens: he actually becomes Santa, his spirituality is consistent with the Christmas spirit.  Anyway, it's a great episode, shows his acting ability.  Reminds me of a time I took my sons to a Christmas service in Germantown Tennessee, the minister makes some comments about how some people" only attend church on Christmas.  Really pissed me off; some marginally literate guy, I am sure intellectually shallow, has to INSULT someone who attends church on Christmas eve!  The rest of the year, Mr. Minister, the church teaches us how we are born in sin (we pop out of the womb and we are sinners screwed!) and we hear about how god has sacrificed for us (hey, he can try being a human sapiens on earth!) and we are exposed to those horrible medieval hymns accompanied by an organ (only one way to play an organ and that is LOUD) because the organ used to be the loudest sound medieval people could ever hear (the sound of GOD).  Christmas eve is the only time of the year that presents the ethics of Jesus of Nazareth - if it was Christmas year-


round I would attend church more often!

Friday, December 20, 2024

Bobby Kennedy the movie, at the Ambassador Hotel

 Bobby (2006) - IMDb

Great film with all star cast lots of cameos.  One character is the bus boy we meet at the beginning of the movie.  Turns out, he is the one who kneels next to Bobby after he is shot, holding him, staring up at camera with grief. Juan Romero, the busboy,placed a rosary in Bobby's hand.Bobby asked, "is everyone ok?" Juan said yes, everything will be ok.  Bobby lost consciousness.




Beautiful coming of age movie about teen girl

 My Old Ass (2024) - IMDb

such a beautiful movie about how a teen girl learned to appreciate her family, mom and dad and siblings. At the same time she falls in love even though she knows it will be heart break. 

The acting was great, especially Aubrey Plaza








Sunday, January 02, 2022

Traumatized child from WWII


 This child is named "Tereska," and she was photographed while at a facility for homeless children post war Poland.  She is from Roman Catholic family, father member of underground, tortured by Gestapo  Her family home bombed by Ukranians working with the fascist Germans to put down Warsaw rebellion. The task she was give was to draw a picture of her "home."  Unfortunately things did not improve for Tereska: she remained in mental health facilities (hell holes probably) and died in 1978 after choking on a sausage she stole from another patient. 

She is just one of millions of children whose lives were destroyed in the 20th century.  Children continue to be traumatized in conflict around the world: Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syrian, West Bank, Gaza, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, central American counties, the list is so long....




Dialectical Materialism class in Cluj, Romania 1951. What a happy picture!!!


 This is a college class in dialectical materialism taught by Pavel Apostol at Victor Babes University in Kluj, Romania 1951.  I would think the students would be smiling at the knowledge that history will march forth and create socialist paradise all over the world.  Then again, Romania was recovering from WWII when they sided with Fascist Germany, actually had troops at the battle of Stalingrad fighting the Marxist Leninists.  Then Romania changed sides and fought with the Allies.  Then Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin decided that Romania would be under USSR influence when the war ended. Maybe that is why these students appear to be so depressed.  When I first saw this picture I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair!

Sunday, January 31, 2021

Solar Orbital November 2020 more than 1 1/2 times the distance to the sun



As Carl Sagan said in 1994, upon viewing a picture of earth from Voyager 1 as it was leaving the solar system:

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives," he wrote.

"The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilisation, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Imma dreamin of a White Christmas

 Here is what is missing from the Trump supporters most recent Christmas, a K Mart Christmas sound track. Remember the Blue Light Specials?  


Here it is for your 1970's enjoyment, K Mart Christmas official sound track.



This is so depressing...