Democratic Debate Tweets (2 of 3): Starring Martin O'Malley as Hercules

Here is our second tweet script from tonight's debate at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. These tweets were taken as Martin O'Malley (pict. top) the former Democratic governor of Maryland took the stage.

 One female tweeter's enthusiasm for his physical appearance made us decide to compare him with Hercules, last played on film by Lou Ferrigno (pict. bottom), well, not that may not be entirely accurate!

Brer Rabbitt (pict. center) is our way of making sun of the South (my mom's side of the family is actually from South Carolina). On a personal note, my late grandfather Dudley "Doc" Sturgis taught at Winthrop. Here are the tweets:

1) Jessica Taylor (NPR): O'Malley applauds Obama on Keystone decision but not Secy. Clinton got there just last week.

2) Abby Miles: Could not be prouder to be a student at Winthrop University than I am tonight.

3) John Iodorola (Liberal talk show host/producer): On O'Malley's etch-a-sketch, he's winning in a landslide.

4) Dayna Colbert: I'm loving this. We need more forums.

5) Rachel Wright: O'Malley brought up the zeitgeist. I love fancy words.

6) David Doyen ("Salon"): None of the things O'Malley is saying will help him in the South.

7) Phillip Kessler: Candidates get to talk turkey without interruption from other candidates.

8) Kay Hanley: Martin O'Malley has ripped abs and glistening pecs but for some reason he insists on being in politics.

9) Toasty Poptart (Bernie Sanders supporter): I don't hate Martin O'Malley, but he has ZERO chance. He's barely a contender. This is a waste of time.

http://www.winthrop.edu

https://martinomalley.com/

(10 for 10; 6th Entry): Virtual Postcard from Maryland

Greetings to our blog readers in New Zealand, Jamaica, and Sweden......

Today, we feature an image of Keyote (pictured) the mascot of the Frederick Keys in Frederick, Maryland, a Carolina League affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles.

We had a chance to visit Frederick and meet Keyote back in August on a surprisingly hot day in which Frederick was actually hotter than Myrtle Beach, South Carolina! (The Keys play the Myrtle Beach Pelicans in the Carolina League; the Pelicans won the league title earlier this week).

While we were in Frederick, we also had a chance to dine at Ayse Meze Lounge, a Turkish restaurant downtown, where we feasted on lahmacun, also known as 'Turkish pizza.'

Hope you are enjoying your Saturday afternoon (or evening/night in other parts of the world). We are currently listening to "The Moth Radio Hour." This week's NPR show has a story performed by former American astronaut Michael Massimino who talks about what earth looks like from outer space. The radio shows airs at 8:00 p.m. on WNYC (New York).


http://www.visitfrederick.org/

http://www.downtownfrederick.org/

http://aysemeze.com/

 http://www.visitmaryland.org/

http://www.themoth.org

http://www.wnyc.org/

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

Breaking News Tweets: Riots in Baltimore

Here a compilation of tweets regarding the rioting in Baltimore which escalated yesterday; the top image is from the 1968 riots which these incidents have been compared to. The middle image is the logo for the Baltimore Orioles; the bottom image is of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. The riots were caused by alleged criminal wrong-doing by the Baltimore Police Department which resulted in the death of Freddie Gray, 25, while in police custody:

1) Occupy Wall Street: The 'riots' in Baltimore are not a 'civil disturbance' they are a primal scream to fix a systemically racist world.

2) Jeff Barker (Baltimore Sun): There is a doubleline blocking North Ave- row of police and a line of people with arms locked urging non-violence.

3) Mayor Rawlings-Blake: And to those actively demonstrating, I call for peace. Tonight we must be OneBaltimore. Thank you for holding the line.

4) Talking Points Memo: Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) is sending 150 state troopers to join the 2,000 national guardsmen bound for Baltimore.

5) Baltimore Police: A crowd continues to block intersection of Pennsylvania Ave and North Ave. We are asking motorists to avoid this area.

6) Christopher Hayes (MSNBC): Situation is being managed by protestors w tremendous discipline and care right now.

7) Ben Casselman (Five-thirtyeight): The unemployment rate for young black  men in Baltimore is 37 percent. For whites, it's just 10 percent.

8) Reason (Libertarian right journal): Barack Obama on Baltimore_ We need 'political mobilization' to solve problems.

9) Justin Fenton ("Baltimore Sun"): Many comments from officials about looting being 'kids.' Police clarify there were 235 arrests, only 34 of which were juveniles.

http://www.baltimoresun.com

The Last Ten CDs We've Listened To: Nothing Goes Together Like Rush and The Go-Gos

For those of you in France, the land of Lucky Luke (who is called Red Kit in Turkish) and Asterix, we want to take a moment to remember the 17 people who senselessly lost their lives this week in various terrorist attacks across Paris, including the ten who were killed at Charlie Hebdo headquarters. Je Suis Charlie. Je Suis Ahmed. Of course, we are now realizing that using an image of a Volkswagen Beetle, a German car, instead of an image for a Fiat is perhaps a bad idea.

The images are of 1) the Canadian rock band Rush, 2) a postcard from Ocean City, Maryland, for the Go-Gos' album "Vacation," and 3) the VW bug for the band The Cars.

Here are the last ten cds we've listened to:

1. Interpol. Antics. 2004.

2. Rush. Signals. 1982.

3. The Go-Gos. Vacation. 1982.

4. Talking Heads. Remain in Light. 1980.

5. The Pretenders. Learning to Crawl. 1982.

6. The Cars. Candy-O. 1979.

7. The Rolling Stones. Let It Bleed. 1969.

8. Peter Gabriel. Us. 1992.

9. Frank Zappa. Waka/Jawaka. 1972.

10. Blur. 13. 1999.

http://www.gogos.com/

http://www.talking-heads.nl/

http://petergabriel.com/latest/

Our Top Sunday Washington Post Comics of the Week for Dec. 7th

Greetings to our blog readers in Lithuania, Ukraine and Georgia!

There are many comic strips which don't get into even the largest American newspapers, such as "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee," Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog," "The Flying McCoys," "The Fusco Brothers" and "Strange Brew," but here is a sample of comic strips which are in the "Washington Post."

The large metropolitan newspaper serving the nation's capital as well as much of Virginia and Maryland has an eclectic mix of legacy comic strips like "Beetle Bailey" and "Hagar the Horrible" as well as nationally established comic strips such as "Zits" and "Pearls Before Swine" as well as some trendy comic strips with cult followings like "Prickly City" and "Reply All."

"WUMO," a single panel import from Denmark, is perhaps our most favorite comic strip in the Sunday edition, but this Sunday's comic strip featuring a failed effort by a teenager to leap from the moon to earth didn't work for us, but some of our usual favorites, like "Lio," "Brewster's Rockit" and "Sherman's Lagoon" once again made the proverbial cut.

"Lio" focused on the title character having a false sense of confidence with his new paint by the numbers (hence the reason why we have the late Bob Ross for our top image), "Doonesbury," which came in second, focused on panels dedicated to each of the strip's anchor characters, and "Brewster's Rockit" featured a major brewhaha over a workplace coffee maker aboard a spaceship (Captain Kirk would be proud).

"Dustin," which has nothing do with Dustin Hoffman (bottom image), examined a father and son debating if an older man and a younger woman were romantically involved like the late Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon were back in the day or if they were father and daughter.

Meanwhile, "Sherman's Lagoon" also focused on dating, but for this comic strip, Jim Toomey had Sherman the Shark and Mrs. Shark going out on a date as a married couple who know each other just a bit too well.

Here is our top ten:

1) Lio

2) Doonesbury

3) Brewster Rockit

4) Dustin

5) Pearls Before Swine

6) Knight Life

7) Sherman's Lagoon

8) The Argyle Sweater

9) Foxtrot

10) Judge Parker

http://www.gocomics.com/lio

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Quotes from Famous Authors (2 of 5): Margaret Atwood

"Being edited is like falling face down into a threshing machine," Margaret Atwood.

SIDEBAR: We learned from The Urban Dictionary last week that when a person takes a selfie of their shoes, it is called a ''shoefie.' We imagine it is popular with suburban narcissist women in places like Bethesda, Maryland, who want the whole world to see how they fit into their new Jimmy Choo high heels!

http://us.jimmychoo.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-jchus-Site/en_US/Default-Start?geoip=geoip

Sunday Comics Survey from The Washington Post: We Love WUMO

Greetings to our blog readers in Algeria, Serbia and Lithuania.

Today, we reveal our ten favorite comic strips from the Sunday edition of "The Washington Post," which came out on Sept. 21, 2014. The newspaper has an eclectic mix of comics, some of which are aimed at young demographics ("Reply All," "Knight Life"), some of which are aimed at folks over 50 ("Doonesbury"and "Sally Forth" ) and some of which are aimed at people who are 92 or older and living in a retire home in Bethesda, Md. ("Dennis the Menace," "Pickles").

The images above are of 1) the planet Mars which was the subject of a gag in "WUMO," 2) Mae West for "Sherman's Lagoon" since the strip was focused on Sherman's wife who is quite sardonic and 3) dragons in Varna, Bulgaria, for "Rhymes with Orange" as Hilary B. Price which had dragon ordering 'hero sandwiches' from a fast food place..........yes, we presume the hilarious strip will be misunderstood in Uzbekistan as well!

Here is the top ten:

1) WUMO

2) Pearls Before Swine

3) Sherman's Lagoon

4) Rhymes with Orange

5) Judge Parker

6) Lio

7) Speed Bump

8) The Argyle Sweater

9) Dustin

10) Frazz

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

For our "Roanoke Times" comics survey, go to our sister blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Virtual Postcard from Maryland: The Mascot of the Frederick Keys

Maryland is home to the National Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore, the grave of Peley, the Little Rascals' dog in the D.C. 'bur b of Silver Spring, and a statue of Testudo the Terrapin who has left the ACC for the Big Ten (editorial comment: BOO!) in College Park.

But, our choice for this virtual postcard is of Keyote, a coyote, which is curious because we imagine there aren't many coyotes in Maryland, who is the mascot of the Frederick Keys in Frederick, a medium-sized city about 45 miles west of Washington, D.C.

The Frederick Keys split a double-header at home with our hometown team the Salem Red Sox, from Salem, Va., in Carolina League play; here is the complete scoreboard from Wednesday night's games. The home team is marked with an (*).

*Frederick 3 Salem 1 (game one)

Salem 5 *Frederick 4 (game two)

Potomac 3 *Wilmington (Del.) 0 (game one)

Potomac 3 Wilmington 0 (game two)

Lynchburg 6 *Carolina 2

*Myrtle Beach 16 Winston-Salem 5

http://www.visitfrederick.org

http://www.roadsideamerica.com

Quotes from Off the Beat and Path (2 of 6): John Waters

When we last posted 12 days ago, Robin Williams was still alive, everyone from Bill Gates to Didier Drogba to the Florida State women's volleyball team had not taken the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and Ferguson, Mo., was a suburb of St.Louis no one outside the Show Me State knew of.

So, here is our quote from the Baltimore hipster, film director and author John Waters:

"I pride myself on the fact that work has no socially redeeming value."

Tweets from Sunday Night: Scientists Study Crabs

We were hoping to get a blog post in yesterday as July 20th is the date when the late American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon 45 years ago yesterday; conversely, also on July 20th, the late Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit decided to send Turkish troops to Cyprus to protect the Turkish Cypriot residents of the island 40 years ago yesterday. This started a short, but bloody war between Turkey and Greece over the island nation, which remains divided to this day.

Since we had a tweet from an actor pretending to be God, we wanted to use an image of George Burns, but when we couldn't find one that was suitable, we chose instead to go with the fringe minister Rev. Johnny Robertson in Martinsville, Va., who was once in a public feud with our friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC.

Here are last night's tweets:

1. Ali Spignola (an electronics musician): I've never seen an owl that wasn't pissed off (top image).

2. WNYC (New York NPR station): A black woman (Mikki Kendell) disguised herself online to see what the Internet was like as a white man.

3) J. Freedom du Lac (features writer for The Washington Post): Can discarded sea containers help create more affordable housing, or is this mostly a gimmick?

4) Washington Post: Babies start mentally rehearsing speech long before they actually say their first words.

5) Tweet of God: I have absolutely no plan for your life (middle image, read second paragraph)

6) Charlotte Observer: :School starts Monday for 2,500 Charlotte students.

7) Baltimore Sun: Scientists tally crabs and see how reef building affects them.

Comic Strip Dialogue from The Washington Post: Grandpa Going Fishing

 

Greetings to our blog readers in Canada, Canada, Canada and South Africa!

 

To explain the images, which are in reference to comic strips in today's "Washington Post," the top image above is being used for "Reply All," a comic strip about a Generation-Y woman trying to find her place in the world through lattes, yoga and (of course) her SmartPhone; the second strip is in reference to today's "Sherman's Lagoon." The strip which resolves around a shark dealt with the title character and his crab pal checking out Youtube videos, and we all know nothing is more popular than a cat playing a piano. And, lastly, the final photo of a man with a big fish deals with "Pickles." A modest, conservative comic strip which revolves around an elderly couple. In today's strip, the old man talks to his grandson about fishing.

 

Here is the dialogue:

 

 

1) "Fishing? Don't Be Silly! I'm Walking the Dog" (from "Pickles")

 

2) Uncle Z....? You Okay? (from "Doonesbury")

 

3) "Are those the videos that last 30 seconds?" (From "Sherman's Lagoon")

 

4) "Less than a week into the New Year and I've already broken all my resolutions!!!" (from "Knight Shift")

 

5) "You Wanted Me To Play Poker with My Friends at the Tavern" (from "Hagar the Horrible")

 

6) "Katherine, This is Very Good! You Have a Gift of Dialogue" (from "Judge Parker"_

 

7) "I really can't believe you made this bet with her" (from "Foxtrot")

 

8) "Well, Mark, it's that time again" (from "Reply All")

 

9) "How about Gouda? I've got Smoked Gouda" (from "Blondie")

 

10) "Are you the enemy?" (from "Beetle Bailey")

 

http://www.foxtrot.com/

 

http://www.gocomics.com/theknightlife#.Usn8DTYo6Uk

 

http://www.mayorgacoffee.com/ (Coffee Shop in Rockville, Md.)

 

 

 

 

Weather in the Mid-Atlantic: Snow, Ice and Rain

With this snowy image of the Humpback Covered Bridge in Covington, Va., a town that is one hour northwest of Roanoke, which is seeing inclement weather tonight, we present a look at the weather in this region. We are looking at areas from southern Pennsylvania to northern South Carolina.
The city of Frederick, Maryland, reportedly had three inches of snow today:

1. Covington, Va. 21 Light Snow

2. Frederick, Md. 25 Ice Pellets

3. Winston-Salem, NC 33 Overcast

4. Fort Mill, SC 31 Overcast

5. Shippenburg, Pa. 26. Light Rain

6. Martinsburg, W.Va 25 Overcast

7. Dover, Delaware, 32, Light Freezing Rain

8. Charlottesville, Va. 29 Overcast

9. High Point, NC 33 Light Drizzle

10. Marion, Va 30 Overcast

11. Arlington, Va. 29 Light Freezing Rain

12. Asheville, NC 35 Light Rain

http://www.weather.com

http://www.covington.va.us/

http://www.wdbj7.com/weather (Roanoke)

http://www.wxii12.com/weather (Winston-Salem)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/ (Washington, DC metro area)

An Ice Storm in Any Language

Greetings to our blog-readers in Kazakhstan, Italy and Guatemala. We hope the weather is better where you are. Here in the mid-atlantic part of the United States we are experiencing ice storms, especially in Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.

So, we thought we'd google the various words for ice storm in other parts of the globe; our personal favorite terms are isstorm (Norwegian and Swedish), which we actually put into Google and buz firtinasi, which is the Turkish word for ice storm.

Here is the list:

1) eisstrum (German)

2) tempete de glace (French)

3) buz firtinasi (Turkish)

4) tormenta de nieve (Spanish)

5) isstorm (Norwegian and Swedish)

6) gradobice (Polish)

7) snezha burya (Bulgarian)

8) isslag  (Danish)

DC Week (6 of 8): Cong. Reps from Blue States

Today, Cong. Chris Van Hollen (pictured top) made headlines when he was informed by Cong. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who was presiding in the speaker's chair, that Democrats in the House could not introduce legislation to end the government shutdown. The video of the spat went viral, and the incident was subject of stories in both "The Salt Lake Tribune" and "The Baltimore Sun."

Since the government shutdown has just concluded the 15th day of deadlock, we thought we'd post two boxers as the middle image.

The first image is of Cong. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) who should be mistaken for ventriloquist comedian Jeff Dunham. While the House has a reputation for being a group of grumpy old men, Denham is only 46 years and there are two House members on this list who are younger than him.

Denham is also one of only 17 House members (from both parties) who lives in a competitive district, according to "The San Francisco Chronicle."

Here are 10 House members from Blue states:


1. Chris Von Hollen (D-Md.), fifth dist., 54, budget committee

2. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), 48, 23rd  district, minority whip; financial services

3. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), 35, 15th dist., energy and commerce; foreign affairs

4. Pete Welch (D-Vt.), 66, energy and commerce

5. Jim Langevin (D-R.I), 49, 2nd dist., Armed services

6. Pete King (R-NY), 69, 2nd dist., Financial services; foreign affairs

7. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) 46, 9th dist., agriculture; transportation and infrastructure

8. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.), 56, 5th dist., science, space and technology; transportation and infrastructure

9.Niki Tsongas, (D-Mass.), 67, 3rd dist., Armed Services; Natural Resources

10. Michael Grimm (R-NY), 43, 11th   dist., Financial Services


http://www.baltimoresun.com/

http://www.sltrib.com/

http://denham.house.gov/

http://www.sfgate.com/news/

http://vanhollen.house.gov/

http://www.rollcall.com

Today We Mark Our 8th Year of Blogging

It was a very dark and stormy night (apologies to the late Charles Schultz, the creator of "Peanuts"), on that fateful day on Sept. 21, 2005.

Hmmm.....this reminds me.........one of my favorite comic strips is "Sherman's Lagoon" which has underwater creatures, such as sharks, sea turtles and crabs as its main characters; I'm not sure if I've seen an octopus yet (?!)

When we began blogging, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, no Miley Cyrus, no Sarah Palin, no "Breaking Bad," no "Mad Men" and no "Parks and Recreation." The oxy-moronic good Samaritan serial killer series "Dexter," which concludes tomorrow night, was on the air but it was a very new show at the time. 

One of our earliest entries on "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," which is our sister (please visit it, we need the hits!) was a mere shopping list!

I'm sure like all shopping lists I've ever written it included bananas.


Here's to the next eight years............

(We used an octopus for our image because it has eight tentacles; one can see live octopuses at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, or the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta).

http://www.peanuts.com

http://www.aqua.org

georgiaaquarium.org

7 Words in Turksih (4 of 7): Dolphin

Dolphin=Yunus

One can see dolphins and other sea animals at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland (see links below):

http://www.aqua.org

http://www.baltimore.org

For our blog series "7 Words in Norwegian," click here: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

High Schools of the Week_ From Northside HS to Northwestern HS

Since we last blogged about our high school films, we thought we'd dedicate at least one entry to 'our favorite high schools' in America. I decided not to use my own alma mater of Glenvar High School in Salem, Va., to avoid a conflict of interest. But, we are featuring Huntington High School from Huntington, W.Va., which has the same school nickname: The Highlanders.

And, greeting our blog readers in Croatia (kudos on getting into the European Union), Sweden and Azerbaijan.

We do wonder if any of the high school biology teachers in this respective school is showing the episode of the PBS series "Nature," which illustrated why the Black Mamba snake, found heavily in Swaziland, is among the deadliest reptiles on the planet.

Here are our high schools:

1) Northside High School (pictured top). Nickname: The Vikings. Location: Roanoke, Va. Principal: Frank Dent. The school had 988 students in 2007-08.

2) Clarke Central High School. Nickname: The Gladiators. Location: Athens, Ga. Principal: Dr. Robbie Hooker. Notable alumni: Kim Basinger (class of 1972).

3) Huntington High School. Nickname: The Highlanders. Location: Huntington, W.Va. Principal: Greg Webb. Enrollment: 1,600. Notable alumni: O.J. Mayo of the Dallas Mavericks.

4) Western Alamance High School (pictured center). Nickname: The Warriors. Location: Elon, NC.
Newspaper: "West Side Story." Head football coach: Jeff Snuffer.

5) Walt Whitman High School. Nickname: The Vikings. Location: Bethesda, Md. Principal: Dr. Alan Goodwin. Enrollment: 1,928. Newspaper: "The Black and the White." Notable alumni: Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Mark Halperin (news reporter/analyst) and Spike Jonze (film director).

6) Northwestern High School (pictured bottom). Nickname: The Trojans. Location: Rock Hill, SC.
Principal: James Blake. Enrollment: 1,800 Notable alumni: Former NFL and Notre Dame star Jeff Burris. Then-candidate Barack Obama spoke at the school on Oct. 6, 2007.


SIDEBAR: Kudos to Caroline Brailsford of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Va. The volleyball player was named the Girls Athlete of the Year by "The Roanoke Times."

https://www.alumniclass.com/clarkecentral


https://www.alumniclass.com/northsideva

http://www.waltwhitmanhighalumni.com/

https://www.alumniclass.com/northwesternhighschoolsc

http://www.roanoke.com

Blogging in 3.5 Minutes or Less_ Our Favorite '80s High School Films

Whether you are a supporter of Cong. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) or Cong. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), you will probably agree that brevity is not one of our strengths.

With that, and greetings to our blog-readers in Mozambique, Venezuela and Jordan, we bring you the latest installment of Blogging in 3.5 minutes or less.

Today, we are going to list our six favorite high school films, with no order of preference, from the 1980s.

This idea came to mind when saw that The Sundance Channel, which along with IFC airs reruns of the cult tv show "Freaks and Geeks," which ran for 18 episodes in 1999, asked followers of its Facebook page what their fav high school film was. It is also Throwback Thursday here in America, and perhaps in Jordan too.

 Here are our's:

"Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982; pictured_ yes, that is a year young Nicholas Cage)

"The Outsiders" (1983)

"Porky's" (1983)

"Risky Business" (1983)

"The Breakfast Club" (1985)

"Heathers" (1988, which is the year I graduated from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland*)

*-Not really where I went to school

http://www.jasonforcongress.com

http://www.jaredpolis.com

http://www.sundancechannel.com

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org

And, Now a Quick Word from Our Sponsors- Cola Turka

Tonight's sponsor is Cola Turka, a product that once featured commercials with Chevy Chase, yes that Chevy Chase, you know the one who said: "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not" on "Saturday Night Live."

There is also a Washington, DC, suburb called Chevy Chase, Maryland, where conservative commentator George F. Will reportedly resides.

We will also mention that country singer/actor Kris Kristofferson will be performing at the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival on Aug. 3rd in Orkney Springs (Mount Jackson), Va.

Now, it's time for us to move on to other things and finish working on up coming blog entries!

http://www.worldmarket.com

http://www,musicfest.org

http://www.kriskristofferson.com