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

The Last 10 CDs We've Listened To: The Cars to Cold War Kids

Before we get this entry underway, we want to express our condolences to the families of Alison Parker of Martinsville, Va., and Adam Ward of Salem, Va. The reporter-video photographer team was murdered while on assignment for WDBJ-7 (CBS, Roanoke, Va.) in the Smith Mountain Lake town of Moneta, Va. Parker was 24; Ward was 27.

Roanoke is our hometown, and the area is still in mourning five days after the shooting incident which occurred at 6:45 a.m. The assailant lead state police on a wild chase which ended with his suicide en route from Front Royal, Va., to the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, on I-66, some four hours north of the scene of the homicides.

Kimberly McBroom, the morning anchor when the shooting occurred,  stayed on-air to report breaking news updates throughout the day. Nadia Singh anchored the weekend morning show which Parker had anchored. And, former "Roanoke Times" journalist and book author Beth Macy wrote a heratfelt piece in "The New York Times" about the community's devastation.

Now, here is our top ten Last Ten CDs We've Listened To list, which includes some hip bands from this decade, such as Cold War Kids (we are using the center image of Misha the Bear in their honor), who will perform in Houston, Tex., Sept. 12th, and Fitz and the Tantrums who will perform Sept. 4th and 5th in Aspen, Colo.

The list also includes some older bands including INXS (pict. top), Talking Heads, and The Cars (we use the Jaguar car, pict. bottom, for them) as well as New Order!

Here is the list:

1. Fitz and The Tantrums, Pickin' Up the Pieces, 2010

2. INXS, Kick, 1987

3. Cold War Kids, Loyalty to Loyalty, 2008

4. Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues, 1983

5. The Cars, Candy O, 1979

6. Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks, 1974

7. Josh Ritter, The Animal Years, 2006

8. Weezer, Make Believe, 2005

9. Peter, Bjorn and John, Gimme Some, 2011

10. New Order, Republic, 1993

http://www.wdbj7.com

http://www.fitzandthetantrums.com

http://www.coldwarkids.com 

Sunday Washington Post Comic Strips Survey: Steve Jobs in Hell

Greetings to our blog readers in Cuba, Denmark, and Egypt.....

This week, Scott Hilburn took the brave task of having his comic strip "The Argyle Sweater" take on the complex and surreal topic of what the late Steve Jobs  (pict. top) would have to deal with if he ended up in hell. In the comic strip, which does not have set characters like "Peanuts" or "Garfield," two demons give Jobs an iPhone and play several practical jokes on him through the device which of course irritates the cellphone entrepreneur.

The comic strip "Lio" also took to fantasy escapism with a strip that has Lio, the title character, whistling at his father to look at a shark fin floating in make-shift outdoor pool. The image for this strip that we are using is of two shark fins at a pharmacy in Yokohama, Japan.

Jim Toomey's comic strip "Sherman's Lagoon" regularly features sharks as well. In this week's strip, Sherman, the title character and a shark, tries to talk to his Uncle Phil via Skype and there are technical problems as well as mutual difficulties in finding things to talk about.

Insects also figured prominently in several Sunday strips this week including Keith Knight's autobiographical "Knight Life" in which two mosquitoes (bottom image) try to bite his legs and converse with each other in the process!

Here is our top ten:

1. The Argyle Sweater 

2. Foxtrot

3. WuMo

4. Pearls Before Swine

5. Lio

6. Knight Life

7. Sherman's Lagoon

8. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

9. Candorville

10. Dustin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.comicskingdom.com

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.kchronicles.com

Comic Strip Survey: For the First Time, We Check Out the Baltimore Sun

Greetings to our blog readers in Hong Kong, Turkey, and Germany........

This week for the first time in the eight-year history of this blog, we look at Sunday comic strips from "The Baltimore Sun." We were hoping to see "Zippy the Pinhead," and as it turns out, yesterday Bill Griffith's comic strip was truly a piece of art. Today, he made vintage fun of Donald Trump; even Bao Bao, the panda at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., isn't such an easy target.

Omigosh, we just made a major faux paux as it is considered rude to mention Washington, D.C., when one is talking about Baltimore. Fortunately, when I briefly met John Waters, a cult film director from Charm City, in 2002, I did not make this mistake. But, I only talked to him for about eight seconds, which is how long I spent talking to Willie Nelson backstage at a Farm Aid concert  around that same time.

"The Baltimore Sun" features several comic strips which we don't see in the other newspapers we survey, like "The Washington Post" (whoops again!), including "Mother Goose and Grimm," "The Middletons," and "One Big Happy." All three of those strips made our big list.

First place goes to "Foxtrot," which features the family going out for a Sunday picnic at a state park in a place like The Humpback Bridge State Park in Covington, Va., and they encounters all sorts of natural elements likes ticks (top image), poison ivy, and snakes. Of course, in Florida, they would also have to worry about alligators.

Third place goes to "Speed Bump," in which a judge (center image) tweets his verdict, somehow we can't imagine Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas doing such a thing (ahhh, that's the third D.C. reference).

And, in sixth place, we have "Mother Goose and Grimm," which ironically has a nursery rhyme themed strip (given its title) as Humpty Dumpty falls off his great wall. We actually didn't get the Obamacare gag (and, that makes four), but we liked the strip enough as it is.

Now, let's give this list which you can perhaps read on the Metro after you've come back from seeing that new Woody Allen movie at the Landmark E-Street Cinema...........now, we are up to five!:

1) Foxtrot

2) Pearls Before Swine

3) Speed Bump

4) Dilbert

5) Get Fuzzy

6) Mother Goose and Grimm

7) The Middletons

8) One Big Happy

9) Garfield

10) Zits

http://www.baltimoresun.com/

http://baltimore.org/

http://www.visitmaryland.org/

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot

Comic Strip Conversations: Pickles to Sherman's Lagoon

Here a sample of Sunday comic strip lines pasted together as if they are one singular long conversation. The images above are of: 1) Dilbert, 2) Zits, and 3) Baldo. Other comic strips featured in this piece are "Pickles," "Pearls Before Swine," and "Judge Parker" as well as "Sherman's Lagoon."
1. "That sounds like an excuse" (Dilbert, May 3rd)

2. "So what are you guys going to do tonight?" (Zits, March 29th)

3. "I'll be in my cubicle I have work to do," (Judge Parker, March 29th)

4. "There must be something you can do for me." (Hagar the Horrible, March 29th)

5. "How much experience do you have?" (Pearls Before Swine, Dec. 7th, 2014)

6. "How long can I play in the NFL? We'll see." (Jump Start, Sept. 21st, 2014)

7. "I had a weird dream last night." (Pickles, March 29th)

8. "Milk Duds." ("Baldo, Dec. 7th, 2014)

9. "There's lasagna in the oven," (Sherman's Lagoon, March 29th)

http://www.denverpost.com/comics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Comic Strip Conversations: Judge Parker is Always Good for This

Some three years ago, we took comic strip dialogue lines and pasted them together as if it was one conversation. The process is a bit cumbersome and challenging, but the results are sometimes quite intriguing. Comic strips with lots of talking like "Judge Parker" and "Sally Forth" are good for this.

1. "Are You Crying?" (Phoebe and Her Unicorn, Aug. 9th)

2. ".........My cartoonist still hasn't come up with an idea for today's comic strip" (Ziggy, Aug. 9th, top image)

3. "When is Mark Leaving for Hong Kong?" (Judge Parker, Aug. 9th)

4. "How long have you guys been married?" (Pickles, July 26th, pict. center)

5. "Oh, great, what does that old goat want now? (Blondie, July 26th, pict. bottom)

6. "We Need a Vacation" (Muts, July 26th)

7. "So, what do think of today's comic books?" (Funky Winkerbean, July 26th)

8. "You ever think about aliens from outer space?" (Jump Start, July 26th)

9. "Everything, I could possibly wish for is right here," (Sally Forth, Aug. 2nd)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.denverpost.com/comics

http://www.comicskingdom.com

http://www.gocomics.com

10 Favorite Comic Strips from Sunday Washington Post: The Foxtrot Kids Scream at Ice Cream

We are a bit pressed for time today, so let's just mention which specific comic strips made our top ten for this week (from the Sunday "Washington Post"). We picked "Foxtrot" as our top selection of the week; in the Sunday strip the kids gripe about how limited the choices are in the neighborhood ice cream stand, of course, one of the Foxtrot kids as for Hexagonal Prism?

Second place goes to "Sherman's Lagoon" where lava lamps and garden gnomes (pict. center) are on the verge of becoming house cleaning casualties. But, Sherman promises to save them at any cost.

Third place goes to "Lio," with this week's strip reminding us of "The Addams Family" (pict. bottom) as Lio sees a hand creeping up through wet cement and he resolves this scary conflict in a typical confident matter.

Here is the top ten:

1. Foxtrot http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot

2. Sherman's Lagoon http://www.shermanslagoon.com

3. Lio http://www.gocimics.com/lio

4. WuMo http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

5. Knight Life http://www.gocomics.com/theknightlife

6. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy http://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit

7. Rhymes with Orange

8. Pearls Before Swine

9. Dustin

10. Doonesbury

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics