Chaos in DC: Tweets from the Republican Congress Mess

Greetings to our blog readers in Serbia, Finland, and Scotland.........


Yes, it has been a full two weeks since I last posted. In the mean time, actor James Woods has reverted back to being a progressive and Susan Sarandon has become a tea partier......well, of course, neither of those things has happened, but we are still here, and we still maintain a center-left point of view.

The images pictured here are of: 1) Cong. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who is one of 46 Republicans trying to become House Speaker since Cong. Kevin McCarthy stunned the nation by dropping out of the race (in actuality, there are 10 candidates who might be speaker), 2) Bao Bao the National Zoo panda who doesn't get to vote for House Speaker, and 3) Turkish ambassador Serdar Kilic posing with President Barack Obama, the man who has replaced Thomas Jefferson on the two dollar bill. (I think we lost some conservatives in the audience with that quip).........we refer to Kilic because Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was mentioned in a tweet (see below).......

Here are 11 tweets, one for each member of the D.C. United soccer team regarding the predicament over which Republican will prevail as House Speaker in the wake of Cong. John Boehner's (R-Ohio) stunning resignation.

1)  Donna Brazile: #TheSpeakerofTheHouse is second in line after the Vice President to accede to the Presidency. This is serious.

2) The Hill: Amid chaos, Dems catch GOP off guard with Planned Parenthood vote.

3) Roll Call: One member* stomped into an elevator away from reporters with an emphatic "no!" when asked if running for speaker (*-Cong. Trey Gowdy R-SC).

4) Slate: Ted Cruz ambushed the Sierra Club's president** on climate change (**-Aaron Nair). 

5) Gawker: Dr. Ben Carson just won't quit it with the Hitler talk.

6) Cong. Jared Polis (D-Colo.): "#chaosintheHouse who will be speaker?"

7) Politico: Leading Republicans to GOP conference: keep calm

8) Jonathan Chait: Biden seen ordering ice cream cone.

9) Ken Rudin: Newt Gingrich says he wouldn't rule being temp House Speaker.

10) New York Post: Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich won this year's Nobel Prize in literature.

11) The Economist: Turkey's Erdogan once visited Brussels begging for favours. The tables have turned.

Now, that we're done, we should head to the Turkish restaurant Meze http://www.mezedc.com though it is late and we don't actually live close to the nation's capital.

Saturday Afternoon Tweets: Big Ben to Bao Bao the Panda

This afternoon on Twitter, we found out that, much to our horror, there are actually some crazy people who think the murders of WDBJ (CBS. Roanoke, Va.) reporter Alison Jones and photojournalist Adam Ward which occurred last week in the Smith Mountain Lake town of Moneta, Va., was a staged hoax. The incident is still a shock to those of us in southwest Virginia, though we saw this amusing sign in the Roanoke County community of Bent Mountain: "Prayers for WDBJ. Lopes. Tomatoes."

This week, there has also been considerable discourse over the drowning death of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian Kurdish refugee, after he fell from a raft and drowned en route from Bodrum, Turkey, and the Greek island of Kos, some three miles apart (both are resort areas). Today, we learned of another tragic infant death off the coast of the Greek island of Samos, near Kusadasi, Turkey. Refugees have also been stuck in Budapest, Hungary, and today the prime minister of Finland offered his residency to refugees in his country.

Today, the National Festival of the Book is also underway in Washington, DC.

Here are ten tweets from this afternoon, between 1:00-2:00 eastern United States time (6:00pm in London, 7:00pm in Amsterdam, and 8:00pm in Istanbul):

1) Big Ben: BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

2) The Hill: Hillary Clinton raised up to $500k in Puerto Rico.

3) Des Moines Register (Des Moines, Iowa, newspaper): Several roads have already been closed ahead of Des Moines Triathlon.

4) VICE: Some rich a--hole in the UK used children's gravestones to decorate his mansion.

5) GlobalPost: Greek Coastguard say newborn infant found dead (near Samos island)

6) Jon Winkaur: I don't have to live in the real world_ I'm a fiction writer, Aaron Sorkin (Tv's "West Wing," "A Few Good Men" screenplay)

7) Talking Points Memo: Scared of ISIS attacks? For $525, Vickers Tactical will teach you to kill terrorists.

8) The Guardian (English newspaper): "To end the refugee crisis, we need more than grief. We need to see we're broken," Sabrina Hersi Issa.

9) Frederike Geerdink: Note to self, always, always, take a toothbrush.

10) Bao Bao (National Zoo panda, pict. bottom): Whoa. I just realized that two of my favorite things are very different but have similar sounding names: trees and treats.

http://www.twitter.com

Last Ten Films We've Seen: Looking for Prozac Nation

Greetings to our blog readers in Cuba, Slovakia, and Finland......we are delighted that full diplomat relations have been established between our country the United States and Cuba!

Here are the last ten films we had seen as of last week. "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" and "Prozac Nation" have been notoriously hard to find, so we glad to have them off of our cinematic bucket list. "Love and Mercy" is the new film about Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. He was played by two actors: Paul Dano (the young Wilson) and John Cusack (the older Wilson).

The pedestrian stop and go lights at the bottom are a holdover from East Germany in Berlin; "A Coffee in Berlin" is the only foreign-language film on this particular list, though "Prozac Nation" has a Norwegian director.

Fun thing we learned while putting this list together is that over $1 million of $7 million budget for "Dazed and Confused" went to film's soundtrack; we assume this means Foghat's 1975 rock hit single "Slow Ride" is expensive!

We originally got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine http://www.filmcomment.com

Here is the list:

1. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. director: Richard Brooks. 1977 w/Diane Keaton

2. Prozac Nation. dir: Erik Skjoldbjaerg. 2003.

3. The Lineup. Don Siegel. 1957

4. Bone. Larry Cohen. 1972.

5. A Coffee in Berlin. Germany. Jan Ole Gerster. 2012.

6. The Immigrant. James Gray. 2013.

7. Trishna. Michael Winterbottom. 2011.

8. Dazed and Confused. Richard Linklater. 1993

9. Entourage. Doug Ellin. 2015.

10. Love and Mercy. Bill Pohlad. 2014.

Top Ten Things to Know for Today and This Week: William Shakespeare Turns 451

Here are ten things to know for today, April 23rd, 2015:

1) Today is National Children's Day in Turkey (pict. top)

2) Today is William Shakespeare's 451st birthday (pict. center)

3) Tampere is the third largest city in Finland

4) Serdar Kilic is the Turkish ambassador to the United States

5) Seville (Spain), Dnipro (Ukraine), Fiorentina and Napoli (Italy) advanced to the semi-finals of the Europa League.

6) Dynamo Kiev's Jeremain Lens (Netherlands, pict. bottom) got a red card in the team's 2-0 loss to Fiorentina today.

7) "Laverne and Shirley,"  an American sitcom, lasted 178 episodes over eight seasons (1976-83).

8) Nicholas Smith, 81, (Mr. Rumbold) is the surviving original cast member of "Are You Being Served?," a British sitcom that debuted in 1972, and lasted 10 seasons.

9) James Earl Ray, the accused murderer of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee, died on this date of natural causes at age 70 in 1998.

10) Chile's Calbuco Volcano erupted for the first time in 42 years yesterday.

Last Ten Songs We Listened To on 106.1-SteveFM in Roanoke, Va.: For God's Sake, Why Play Whitesnake?

Greetings to our esteemed blog readers in Finland, Uruguay and Australia..........

Yes, we can't understand why oldies radio station that play 'our music' from the 1980s play hair metal bands like Whitesnake, Twisted Sister and Cinderella either. We are the 'I Want My MTV" Generation X'ers who purchased records and tapes from these bands, and we did see them perform in concert (True confession: I saw Whitesnake in concert, but they were opening for Heart), but now we aren't that interested in these bands (oh, I forgot to mention Ratt and Poison too), but young folks seem to be. So, we will be tortured by these songs we made famous until we are old enough to play shuffleboard at a nursing home in Pensacola, Florida. Perhaps, this is what we deserve for the mistakes of our youth.............

Now that we've had our little rant, here are the last ten songs we listened to 106.1-SteveFM in Roanoke, Va.:

1) Best Day of My Life. American Authors. 2013

2) Let's Go All the Way. Sly Fox. 1985.

3) Don't Go Breaking My Heart." Elton John (pict. bottom) and Kiki Dee. 1976.

4) 'Livin' on a Prayer.' Bon Jovi (pict. center). 1986

5) I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). The Proclaimers. 1988/93 (song was made famous by Johnny Depp film "Benny and Joon")

6) "West End Girls." Pet Shop Boys. 1984/2001

7) "Old Time Rock and Roll." Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. 1979. (song was a hit when released, but became popular again in 1983 thanks to the early Tom Cruise film "Risky Business")

8) "Holiday." Madonna (pict. top) 1983

9) "Demons" Imagine Dragons. 2013.

10) "Here I Go Again." Whitesnake. 1982/87.

http://www.1061stevefm.com

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

http://www.madonna.com
 
http://www.bonjovi.com

http://www.eltonjohn.com

http://www.whitesanke.com

Our Favorite Comics from Sunday Jan. 18th Washington Post: Maybe Michelle and the Kids Like Foxtrot Too

Greetings to our blog readers in Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.....

In the Outlook section of the Sunday, Jan. 18th edition of "The Washington Post," journalist Michael Booth made the bold proclamation that Scandinavia was over-rated. This made me rethink my foreign country travel bucket list in which Iceland and Norway are ranked second and third respectively after Liberia..........(perhaps, stand-up comic Gilbert Gottfried applauds us for making fun of Ebla, he might be the only one!).............

The images above are of: 1) Charlie Brown, but "Peanuts" is not our top-ranked comic strip, in fact, since the strip is in permanent rerun status, we disqualify the strip from our surveys, but Charlie Brown was the butt of a great gag in "The Argyle Sweater;" 2) A snowball fight in reference to "Foxtrot," which perhaps First Lady Michelle Obama and her daughters found amusing; and 3) the old Flash Gordon serials with the late Buster Crabbe which is actually being used for "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy" (there is also a "Flash Gordon" weekly comic strip still in circulation)....

Here is our top ten, which also includes "WUMO," a Danish import that this week illustrated what it would be life if children said inappropriate things about fat people who eat too much fast food (Gottfried probably loves "WUMO" too):

1) The Argyle Sweater

2) Foxtrot

3) Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

4) WUMO

5) Lio

6) Speed Bump

7) Sherman's Lagoon

8) Knight Life

9) Prickly City

10) Pearls Before Swine

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Comic Strips Survey from Sunday Roanoke Times (Oct. 19th edition)

Greetings to our blog readers in Australia, Uganda and Finland; and to our domestic friends in New Jersey, Utah, and Florida.

This week, we resume our look at our favorite comic strips from the Sunday, Oct. 19th edition of "The Roanoke Times," for our favorite strips from last week, visit our sister blog at http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Our favorite comic strip of the week was "Pearls Before Swine," by Stephan Pastis which did a brilliant take on the Abbott and Costello (top image) skit "Who's on First," but in this satire, Rat asks Goat "Which band did Keith Moon play for?"; the answer is The Who, and all the shenanigans roll from there.

"Dilbert," which has substantially jumped in our rankings in recent weeks, features an office visit from a robot (center image) who actually doesn't speak in Scott Adams' strip, which finishes second in our survey this week.

The bronze medal goes to East German ice skater Katarina Witt (we were just trying to see if you were paying attention). Actually, the third place finisher is Dave Coverly's "Speed Bump," a single long panel strip that has some Tennessee raccoons (actually, we have no idea what they are from) digging up trash through backyard garbage cans as well as community recyclable bins that one might find in a hip college town like Boulder, Colorado.

Here is our top ten:

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Dilbert

3) Speed Bump

4) Get Fuzzy

5) Non-Sequitir

6) Zits

7) Agnes

8) Doonesbury

9) Garfield

10) Jump Start

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

http://www.dilbert.com/

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

http://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy

http://www.boulderweekly.com/

The Olympic(s) Lists (6 of 10): Athletes with Long Last Names

Since there is 18 inches of snow in our front yard, we thought what better time to get the next freaking list out of the way, and this time, we turn our attention to Olympic athletes with long or cumbersome last names. Of course, we realize that in their countries, our names would be challenging too.

1) Krista Lahteenmaki (pictured). Age 23. Finland. Women's Cross-Country Skiing.

2) Mohammad Kiadarbandsari. Age 24. Iran. Men's Alpine Skiing (as one might expect, there are no female athletes from Iran!).

3) Kelime Cetinkaya. Age 31. Turkey. Women's Cross-Country Skiing.

4) Mats Zuccaerllo-Aasen. Age 28. Norway. Men's Hockey. Plays for the New York Rangers.

5) Yekatrina Smolentseva. Age 32. Russia. Women's Hockey

6) Iouri Podladtchikov. Age 25. Switzerland. Men's Snowboarding. Won gold. Was born in Russia, and is of Russian heritage. A crowd-favorite in Sochi.

7) Yekatrina Tudegesheva. Age 26. Russia. Women's Snowboarding.

8) Dmytro Pidruchnyi. Age 22. Ukraine. Men's Biathlon.

9) Elena Khrustaleva. Age 33. Kazakhstan. Women's Biathlon.

10) Albert Demchenko. Age 42. Russia. Men's Luge. Won silver.

Links:

http://www.kristalahteenmaki.fi/ (In Finnish)

http://www.sochi2014.com/en

Top Ten Olympic Lists (1 of 10): The Flag Bearers; 55 is NEVER Too Old to Compete

Greetings to our blog readers in Kenya, Honduras and Taiwan (yes, we are aware none of these countries are Winter Olympics contenders). We intended to start this whole project on Thursday, in conjunction with the 2014 Sochi Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which is somehow two hours ahead of Trabzon, Turkey, even though the two cities are across the Black Sea from each other.

Here are ten flag-bearers; there will be ten more on our sister blog http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com


Here we go:

1) Greece. Panagiota Tsakiri. Women's Cross Country (pictured top)

2) Mexico: Hubertus von Hohenlohe. Men's Alpine (actually a 55-year-olf European prince who was profiled in "Mental Floss," pictured center)

3) Finland. Enin Rukajarvi. Women's Snowboarding (pictured bottom)

4. Australia. Alex Pullin. Men's Snowboarding.

5. Belgium. Hanna Marien. Women's Bobsled.

6. Sweden. Anders Sodergen. Men's Cross-country Skiing.

7. Jamaica. Marvin Dixon. Men's Bobsledding.

8. Great Britain. Jon Eley, Short-track Speed-skating.

9. Germany. Maria Hofl-Reisch. Women's Alpine Skiing.

10. Slovenia. Tomaz Razinger. Men's hockey.

http://www.mentalfloss.com

http://www.redbull.com

http://www.sochi2014.com/en

http://www.nbcsports.com/

http://www.visitrussia.com/

Presidential Quotes, (7 of 8): Gerald Ford

Greetings to our blog readers in Austria, Finland and Uruguay, where Jose Mujica is president and apparently he is also the poorest president in the world (ok, we asked Google who the president of Uruguay was).

Since these quips from the first and last eight presidents seem to be as popular as late-night vacuum infomercials, we thought we'd arbitrarily throw in a few names to boost our hits: Kate Middleton, Paris Hilton and Edward Snowden*: We don't actually give a fig about any of these people.

Here is our quote from Gerald Ford, who always enjoyed a good round of golf, and helped comic actor Chevy Chase rise to stardom; his presidential library is located in Ann Arbor, Mich.:

"I would hope that understanding and reconciliation are not limited to the 19th hole alone."


http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov

*-This is, in fact, the first time we've mentioned Snowden's name on this blog, though we gather people like Noam Chomsky and Ron Paul admire him.

PSA_ Angry Birds More Addictive Than Heroin

The video/computer game "Angry Birds," which was developed in Finland_ of all places (I thought the game was of Japanese origin since the birds act like kamikaze pilots) way, way back in 2009 (apparently three years is like back in Paleozoic period in terms of technology), is in my view addictive.

I should point out that I've never engaged in recreational drug activity, and my claim that Angry Birds is more addictive than heroin is meant to be humourous (we used the English spelling to see if you are paying attention!).

I could not find any stories on the web about Angry Birds Addiction in terms of psychological research studies, however the web site "Forever Geek" published an online story on Sept. 13, 2011, which said that single people are more likely to get hooked on the game since it supposedly allows for the release of anger and tension.

Angry Birds has reportedly sold more than 12 million editions worldwide, and there are seasonal variations of the game for occasions such as Halloween and Christmas.

The other night I heard on the BBC that a satire of the game called "Angry Brides" has become popular in India. The game takes aim (no pun intended) at the highly controversial, archaic dowry system which was actually outlawed in India 50 years ago, but it is still apparently practiced in some circles.

The dowry system calls for the bride to give gifts for both the groom and his entire family. Among the slingshot items in "Angry Brides" are broomsticks, stiletto high heels and frying pans.

I just recently started playing "Angry Birds" and yes, the game is quite addictive. It almost reminds me of when I played "Ms. Pac-Man" as a teenager some 25 years ago.

Quote of the Week- Jean Sibelius

Today's quote from the late, great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius; it concludes our series of quotes from Scandanavians:

"Pay no atteninon to a critic, no one has ever erected a statue of a critic."

Strange, but True Things We Learned This Week

We will get to why we are using an image of Ozzy Osbourne, who is going to be performing in Tampere, Finland, on June 9th, later in this entry, but first here are four surreal things we found out this week. We have four more strange, but true items on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time." Here are the things that will likely surprise you:

1) Osama bin Laden (1957-2011) was the subject of a UCLA geography department study that sounds a bit like a more formal take on "Where's Waldo?" in which geographer Thomas Gillespie and his colleague John Agnew along with undergraduate students from UCLA tried to predict where the ruthless terrrorist leader was hiding. Through sturdy research, they concluded that with an 88.9 % likelihood that bin Laden was in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which proved to be correct. (I actually thought he was in Karachi or Islamabad myself, but I had never heard of Abbottabad until late Sunday night). I heard this story through the BBC last night, and it was also reported in "Science" magazine.

2) What is the busiest McDonald's in the world? Well, the answer is ironically the historic McDonald's located at Pushkin Square in Moscow, Russia. It serves 30,000 customers per day!

3) Do you think it costs too much to go to the movies these days? Well, as we reported on our sister blog yesterday, the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco is selling tickets for $20-40 for tonight's special 30th anniversary screening of "Mommie Dearest,"for Mother's Day, which will be presented by a local transvestite celebrity named Pecahes Christ. The cinema is also showing a Faye Dunaway double-header (she stars as Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest" and the film is apparently her least favorite) on May 11, including a screening of "The Eyes of Laura Mars." Personally, I would prefer going to the May 11 event, but San Fran is a long way from the east coast!

4) I read another great article/column by "The Atlantic" magazine's media writer James Parker about how heavy metal has 'saved our souls.' The article reminded me of how I heard the music of Ozzy Osbourne (yes, now we are now getting to him) in Bursa, Turkey, which is a fairly conservative city with a large number of fundamentalist Muslims. Interestingly enough, Turkey has a 'heavy metal scene" with domestic bands like Labrient, founded by Serhat Kocak and Yavuz Selim Sarici. But, sadly, we also learned a few months back from WKNC (88.1-FM/Raleigh) the student-run station at North Carolina State that the Turkish scene is not quite as globally recognized as the Greek heavy metal scene, which includes the likes of Acid Death and Nightfall. But, perhaps music associated with demons and warlocks can perhaps bring the two feuding countries together once and for all. And, I'm sure that would delight Ozzy Osbourne and his compatriots!

Top 10 Countries to Visit in Next 10 Years...

I have a feeling some folks are going to scratch their heads over this list, which I initially made on New Year's Eve.

Egypt was actually on the original list at number ten, but do to riots, looting and political unrest, we have replaced Egypt with Burundi, even though that is where one can find the man-eating crocodile Gustave, who has had some 300 people for breakfast!

The images above are from Costa Rica, Honduras and Bolivia respectively. And, as it will seem quite obvious to most folks, I really, really want to go to a Scandanavian country.

Here is the list:

1. Bolivia

2. Honduras (yes, we know they had a coup in 2009)

3. Costa Rica

4. Finland

5. Sweden

6. Norway

7. Iceland

8. Denmark

9. Uzbekistan

10. Burundi

Quotes from The Composers- Jean Sibelius

Today, we quote Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) who is Finland's best-known composer. His works include "Finlandia," "Valse tries" and "The Swan of Tvorela" (hope we spelled Tvorela right, if now we'll blame Javier the intern).

There is a statue of the composer in Helsinki, which makes this quote all the more amusing:

"Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic."

SIDEBAR: Speaking of another composer - Brahms, his works will be conducted by the Baltimore Symphony from Jan.27-29, which might be worth a field trip!

Yaaaay! The Olympics are Finally Over!

It's not that we didn't enjoy them. The Vancouver Winter Olympics were certainly memorable for many reasons, including South Korean figure skater Kim Yu-Na's exeptional performance which garnered her a well-deserved gold medal.

But, an 18-day event is sort of like a performance of Richard Wagner's long opera "Gotterdammerung/Twilight of the Gods." You were glad to watch it, but you are also certainly most pleased that you can now watch the original 1925 version of "Ben Hur," which you have no idea why you put on your NetFlix que to begin with! (In my case,the long film is actually a three-hour 1969 Chinese epic called "A Touch of Zen.")

Of course, it should be pointed that we are featuring Dudley Do-Right here to poke a little fun of 'our friends up north'- not that we are biter over losing to Canada by a 3-2 count in yesterday's hockey game. Of course, if we had won Glenn Beck would have been ranting about 'American superiority' for weeks on end...!


The good thing about not having a blog that gets over 1,000 hits per day like my friend Chris Knight's blog (http://theknightshift.blogspot.com) is that I am not getting emails from Swedes, Danes and Finns who are perhaps rightfully ticked with me for snubbing their athletes in my recent series on 25 Olympic athletes.

I did profile the great Norwegian skier Alex Lund Svindal, but I otherwise completely snubbed Scandinavaian countries, which won a total of 39 medals (Denmark and Iceland failed to medal). However, I also featured three athletes from African nations none of whom medalled though The Snow Leopard finished in the top 50!

So, I will make a random list of ten Scandanavian athletes we could have profiled. Oh, I should mention we mostly snubbed Eastern European countries too, but we only have so much time to make amends:

1. Emil Jonsson-cross country skiing-Sweden
2. Iris Gudmundsdottir-slalom skiing-Iceland
3. Laura Lepisto- figure skating- Finland
4. Angelina Jensen-women's curling- Denmark
5. Petter L. Tande- nordic skiing- Norway
6. Anna Holmund- free style skiing-Sweden
7. Henrick Lundquist- men's hockey-Sweden
8. Mikka Kiprusoff- men's hockey- Finland
9. Anja Paerson- slalom skiing- Sweden
10. Janne Ahone- ski-jumping- Finland

We believe at least two of these athletes, Tande and Ahone actually medalled as did the Finnish men's hockey team (the Swedes won bronze in women's hockey as well).

The American Olympic delegation actually won some surprising medals, including nordic skiers Billy Demong (gold) and Johnny Spillane (silver).

We also got a gold medal in four-man bobsled,which during the time of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid,would have been virtually unthinkable. The "Night Train" team consisted of Steve Holcomb, Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler and Curt Tomasevicz.

Later in the month, we hope to update some of the 25 athletes we profiled in an entry entitled "The Olympic Hangover." But, for right now, we are going to resume regular programming, but at least here you won't have to watch Jay Leno interviewing Sarah Palin, who will speaking for $300 in Charlotte, NC, later this spring (we are not making this up!).

SIDEBAR: Speaking of snubs, it appears that the local Greensboro, NC, newspaper "The News and Record" did not publish a letter I wrote which was critical of The Rev. Pat Robertson's heinous comments regarding the devastation in Haiti.

I realize that it is possible the letter got lost in cyberspace or there were similar letters about the matter or that they had limited space.

Nevertheless, the same newspaper did publish a fringe, right-wing letter by Tony Maschetti of High Point, NC, today which actually said that Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama should make arrangements to have terrorist Khalid Sheik Mohammed stay in the Lincoln Bedroom.

This does make me think of liberal columnist Eric Alterman, also a professor at Brooklyn College, who entitles his pieces in "The Nation" under the name "What Liberal Media?"

I consider myself much more to the political center than "The Nation" (though I prefer them over "The National Review") and I realize that "The News and Record" may not have published my letter for other reasons. But, irregardless I fully sympathize with Alterman's motto. And, I have to wonder if I were to write a letter to an arbitrary local newspaper about how we should nuke Canada to avenge our losses to them in both men's and women's hockey if it would in fact get published the next day.

Not that I'm going to try............