NCAA Gymnastic Champions Tweets: Greetings from Forth Worth, Texas

The NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships are underway in Forth Worth, Texas, which is not where we actually are. But, even though some local folks may be more interested in the Assassination City Roller Derby match in Dallas, Tex., given that no Texas Superconference school has a women's gymnastics program, we thought we'd post some tweets from some of the participating schools.

We are going with an image of former North Carolina State Wolfpack gymnast Ashley Shepard to show neutrality as the school did qualify at regionals for the championships, and we wanted to go with an image of Cam the Ram, the mascot for Colorado State University, as well. But, since Colorado State doesn't even have a gymnastics team, we figured none of our blog-readers would be amused.

Here are the tweets (Note: Some schools have gymnasts competing individually even though their teams did not qualify):

1) Kentucky Gymnastics: NCAA gym warmups are underway! Sydney Waltz will compete in Stanford's rotation of bye, bars, beam, bye, floor, vault.

2) Florida Gators Gymnastics: Gator senior Rachel Spicer returns to Texas as NCAA Championships cap emotional senior year.

3) Samantha Peszeck: It's game time Bruins, lezzzgoooo

4) LSU Gymnastics: LSU competes for a spot in the Super Six in NCAA Semifinal II.

5) NC State Gymnastics: Brittni Watkins and Michaela Jayne ready to go!

6) WVU Gymnastics: Congratulations, Jaida Lawrence to co-Big 12 Scholar-Athlete of the Week!

7) CSU Cam the Ram: Happy Friday, Rams! Hope that rain jacket is green and gold! (The tweet actually featured a sheep wearing a raincoat!)

8) UCLA Gymnastics: All gymnasts master difficult skills. Danusia Francis likes to invent new ones.

9) Urban Dictionary: Hater_ A person that simply cannot be happy for another person's success.

Top 10 Roanoke Times Comics...........yeah, we are just not getting around to posting this.....

Greetings to those of you in the Netherlands, Australia, and Israel.......even though we aren't fans of Benjamin Netanyahu here........domestically, we want to send greetings to those of you in Hartford, Baltimore and Dallas.

What do The Three Bears, King Midas and the late Rodney Dangerfield (all pictured above) have in common you might ask? Well, our favorite Sunday "Roanoke Times" comic strips (the newspaper serves Roanoke, Va., and surrounding areas) touched upon the three bears (Non-Sequitur), royalty (Speed Bump) and stand-up comedians (Doonesbury)............here is the list:

1) Non-Sequitur (a first time number one)

2) Speed Bump

3) Doonesbury

4) Funky Winkerbean

5) Pearls Before Swine

6) Zits

7) Garfield

8) Agnes

9) Dilbert

10) Get Fuzzy

http://www.roanoke.com

Presidential Quotes (1 of 16): William Henry Harrison

Greetings to our blog-readers in Moldova (?!), Slovenia and Portugal.

Yes, we have many unique and interesting ideas which are perhaps more exciting than quoting American presidents from waaaay back in the day, but if we quoted the late, great English playwright Harold Pinter, people might well still ignore us.

We are kicking off this series today because it is the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Tex., presumably by Lee Harvey Oswald (though Oliver Stone begs to differ) he was the last of eight American presidents to die in office. Four died of assassinations, including William McKinley, whom we will quote on our sister blog http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com and four died of natural causes.

We begin with William Henry Harrison, the ninth president, who was the first one to die in office and it was from natural causes. In fact, Harrison was only in office for one month before his death. 

Previously, we have quoted the first eight and last American presidents, so now we are filling in the gaps.

Here is the quote from Harrison, who hailed from Charles City, Virginia:

"I contend  that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free."

PS- Though we have discontinued the practice of using quotes from our favorite Sunday comic strips, this line from "Judge Parker" that we saw in "The Washington Post" got our attention: "Call your man in Niger and tell him we're going to pay the ransom."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/williamhenryharrison

Quote of the Day/Week- Thomas Jefferson

Today, we continue quoting the first eight American presidents in honor of the up-coming presidential election in the United States in November. Egypt just had elections over weekend, and Mexico is expected to hold them this week.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of eight presidents to come from Virginia and the first one from the Democratic Party, has approximately 16 high schools named after him, including ones in Alexandria, Va., Brooklyn, NY, and Dallas, Tex.

The late comic actor Danny Kaye (1913-1987) who our sixth grader teacher mistakenly told us was dead (this was 1982, he did indeed die five years later) graduated from the JHS in Brooklyn, while actress Brenda Vaccaro, who is alive and presumably well, graduated from the school of the same name in Dallas.

Jefferson's historic home Monticello is a major tourist destination in Charlottesville, Va. I was supposed to go there on an ninth-grade field trip, but I overslept (the bus left at circa 7:30 p.m.) ...oh well!

Here is Jefferson's quote:

 "A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit."

http://www.monticello.org

Quote of the Week- John F. Kennedy

Today, we continue with quips from famous New Englanders with a quote from the legendary Democratic President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963). The 'forever young' president who was 46 when he was assasinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Tex., would be 94 today.

Here is his quote:

"A man may die, nations may rise, but an idea lives on."

Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 29, 1917, and the JFK Library is located in Boston.

SIDEBAR ONE: Gazooks! It was 107 degrees today in Little Rock, Ark., today where the Bill Clinton Library is located.

SIDEBAR TWO: PBS will air the first episode of "Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided" tonight, local times may vary.

SIDEBAR THREE: Michelle Goldberg of "The Daily Beast" is reporting that far, far-right Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, who is currently a congresswoman from Minnesota, is the first GOP candidate to sign a pledge to fight pornography and 'find a cure' for homosexuality!

50 Beers Around the World- NewCastle (England/UK)

We continue our series 50 Beers Around the World with NewCastle, a beer that one can find just anywhere especially in England and The United States.

One of the most popular breweries and bars in our local Greensboro/Winston-Salem area is Natty Greene's (don't forget the 'e') located at 345 South Elm Street in downtown Greensboro.

While researching this piece, we discovered that Natty Greene's has opened up a second locale in Raleigh on 505 West Jones Street.

The brewery offers many specialty beers including the Guilford Golden Ale and the Buckshot Amber Ale. Many of these beers can be found throughout North Carolina and in other areas.

There also happens to be a bar in Dallas, Texas, called Lee Harvey's, located at 1807 Gould Street. It is open until 2 a.m. from Fridays-Sundays. One has to love their sense of humor!