Today's Potluck Quotes (4 of 10): Richard Nixon

Greetings to those of you enjoying your lunch break at the New Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah, where it is almost noon now, or any of you who are a taking a break from the 2016 Rio Olympics where Team USA is now playing Team Japan in women's volleyball.

One of the fun aspects of these Olympics has been following former American Olympic gymnast and UCLA Bruins standout gymnast Samantha Peszek use social media to document her experiences in Brazil covering the games, which have included sharing a ride with former gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi whom our friend blogger Chris Knight from Reidsville, NC, ran into in an airport once.

Ok that's enough digression; here's today's quote of the day from the late Richard Nixon (1913-1994); yes. of course, we are doing this because it's also an election year here in les etats unis:

"If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But, if you take no risks, you win no victories."

Wow! Even though he is no longer alive, it seems like Nixon would have been a perfect spokesperson for match.com

According to the web site for the Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., CIA director John Brennan will speak there on Aug. 24th at 1:00 p.m. about how intelligence was gathered during the Cold War when Nixon was president.

http://www.slcnewdragon.com

http://www.uclabruins.com

https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/

Survey of the Best Comic Strips from the Sunday Washington Post (Oct. 19th edition)

Greetings to those of you reading this blog in Germany, Ukraine and Cyprus, and special greetings to those of you have just joined us after watching the Florida gubernatorial race debate between incumbent Rick Scott (R) and his challenger Charlie Crist (D) or for those of you who are already bored with the World Series, which is starting tonight.

This week, we really liked the "Pearls Before Swine" take on the old Abbott and Costello skit "Who's on First," but it was a week full of great comic strips in the Sunday Washington Post. The Danish import WuMo had Yoda, Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh meeting in the children's section of a public library, perhaps they were in Hartford, Conn. (we have a gag about how we are posting from the Hartford Public Library even though we've never been in that building). "WuMo" got second place in our survey.

The bronze medal went to Turkish weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu, no, we just said that to keep you from daydreaming; it actually went to "Rhymes with Orange" which features selfies from the whole family. We're sure our friends at the Urban Dictionary who have coined terms like 'shoefie' and 'brofie' got a hoot out of the Hilary B. Price strip (http://www.urbandictionary.com) The selfie gag is the reason why Kim Kardashian is in our top image slot.

We also enjoyed the educational comic strip "Mark Trail" which focused on various spiders like tarantulas (pictured center) and scorpions; the strip revealed that some spiders actually dine on fish?! Perhaps, they would like Red Lobster.

The cutting edge comic strip "Candorville" had a take on man seeing a shrink, and for that we are featuring an image of Lucy from "Peanuts," a nice comic strip that will probably be in newspapers until the year 2073, when Lucy will be 116 years old.

Here is our top ten:

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. WuMo

3. Rhymes with Orange

4. Speed Bump

5. Sherman's Lagoon

6, Dustin

7. Lio

8. Big Nate

9. Mark Trail

10. Candorville

http://www.hplct.org/ (The actual web site of the Hartford Public Library)

http://www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/ (The actual web site of the Salt Lake City Library in Utah; they have 12,711 followers on Twitter)

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

http://marktrail.com/

http://rhymeswithorange.com/

http://www.candorville.com

In Honor of Banned Book Week: Passages from Six Books (not all of them were banned)

There is always a thin line between knowing which books or films were outright banned, or if some were just banned in certain parts of the world or country. I am virtually 100-percent that the film version of the Gunter Grass novel "The Tin Drum" was banned in Oklahoma, but perhaps now one can find a copy at the Tulsa Public Library: http://www.tulsalibrary.org/

My friend Tommy Trull, a playwright in Greensboro, NC, made a suggestion on Facebook this week, that everyone should take a book (I suppose it can be either fiction of nonfiction) and go to page 52 of that book and write down the fifth sentence from that book.

Well, here this evening, we are going to do that with 12 books: Six of them will be here, the other six will be on our sister blog: http://www.politcscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

The answers will be at the very end of the entry

1) When we asked him to sum up his impression of the girls' emotional state at that point, he said, "Buffered but not broken."

2) You learn to stay away from fat citizens in python suits, any swelling or protuberance is something to avoid and pregnant women have the streets to themselves.

3) "He knows," Jody said.

4) "W-who did it, Lou?"

5) The container had been packed half full of steel cylinders of some sort, each with a protective wooden box with a lid.

6) 'Well, said Georgie, 'if you must have it, have it then.'




Answers:

1) "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides

2) "The Wild Boys" by William S. Burroughs

3) "You Suck: A Love Story" by Christopher Moore (pictured bottom)

4) "The Killer Inside Me" by Jim Thompson (pictured center)

5) "The 100-Year-Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson

6) "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess (pictured top)


 http://www.malaprops.com/ (Bookstore in Asheville, NC)

http://www.boulderbookstore.net/ (Bookstore in Boulder, Colo.)

http://www.politics-prose.com/ (Bookstore in Washington, DC)


http://www.hplct.org/ (Hartford Public Library in Hartford, Conn.)

http://www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/ (Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake City, Utah)

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

Remembering Rogert Ebert- the Great American Movie Critic

With an image of the Tower Theatre in Salt Lake City, Utah, we are honoring Roger Ebert. He was an inspiration to all of us 'movie people,' and his show "At the Movies" which he hosted with his fellow Chicago film critic the late Gene Siskel gave attention to many small films such as "The Brother from Another Planet," "Paris, Texas" and "Roger and Me."

He also championed films such as "Aguirre, Wrath of God," "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Monster" while remaining  equally outspoken about movies he despised, such as the infamous rape revenge movie "I Spit on Your Grave!" (1978; amazingly enough, it was remade just a few years ago).

I had the chance to meet Ebert at the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville some 20 years ago, and I am very thankful I had a few minutes to tell him how much I admired him.

Here is one of his more famous quotes:

"No good movie is too long and no bad movie is too short."

Let the final credits roll for this remarkable man.

http://www.virginiafilmfestival.org

http://www.saltlakefilmsociety.org

Cuneyt Arkin vs. Chuck Norris_ (1 of 4)

We were going to dedicate a blog entry to Turkish action movie star and matinee idol Cuneyt Arkin on Friday, which was his 75th birthday, but we fell asleep in the Salt Lake City Public Library (yes, that is a joke!; we don't even live in Utah).

Arkin is best-known in the West for his 1982 film "Dunyayi Kurtaran Adami/The Man Who Saved the World," which is more commonly known as "The Turkish Star Wars."

But, we are going to refer back to 1974 when Arkin starred in a film with Turkish starlet Fatma Girkik titled "Once Vatan," it was about a Turkish solider who goes back to Cyprus to fight the Greeks all by himself, and, of course, Cuneyt wins.


So, we are going to simply ask which actor won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1974, the year this film, which I saw circa 1993 on the TRT  (Turkish Radio Television), while I was in Antalya, Turkey.

Is the answer?:

A) Art Carney

B) Jack Nicholson

C) Gene Hackman

D) Dustin Hoffman

E) Al Pacino

We will have the answer in a few short days....

http://www.cuneytarkin.com.tr/

http://www.chucknorris.com

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com (for an entry on Chuck Norris)

http://www.slcpl.org (The Salt Lake City Public Library; it is quite a nice building, actually)

Quote of the Day/Month: Pablo Neruda

Gadzooks! Blogger has just changed the way we do blogging, perhaps my friends who left blogging for gardening, raising pet snakes and watching every episode of "Welcome Back Kotter" had the right idea.

Today, we are continuing to quote famous poets from around the world in honor of National Poetry Month with a quip from the late Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) who was honored earlier this month at the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival in Cary (Raleigh), NC.

Neruda began life as  a poet when he was just a teenager. He was known for his surrealist nature. Neruda died just three days after right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006) took power in the coup that would haunt Chile for decades. Neruda was from the political left.

Here is his quote:

"Loe is so short, forgetting is so long."

His famous works include "I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You" and "If You Forget Me."http://www.poemhunter.org

Just for the fun of it, I am saying that I am blogging from the Salt Lake City Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, I have not been to that zip code since 2007.

50 Beers From Around the Globe- Tecate (Mexico)

We were going to delay this new series "Beers Around the Globe" until August 1st, which is our beloved tuxedo cat Gizmo's sixth birthday!, but we honestly couldn't think of anything better to post today.

Since Tecate Beer, which brewed near the California border in Los Cubas, Mexico was brave enough to air a commercial en espanyol on ESPN-2 during "Friday Night Fights" a few weeks ago, we thought we'd start off with an entry for their beer- if only because they might be the first brewery to make Glenn Beck's head explode!

According to Wikipedia, Tecate is popular in California and it is best with a lime and some salt on its top.

You may be able to find the beer at Junior's Tavern in Salt Lake City, Utah, which also has jazz and blues performers as well as at Los Tres Magueyes Mexican Restaurant in Cary, NC (Raleigh. The small two-state chain also has establishments in Wake Forest, NC, and Danville, Va., among other locations.

SIDEBAR: Get the TiVo out for the vintage 1981 film "Gregory's Girl," directed by Bill Forsyth. The Scottish director also helmed "Local Hero," which is a favorite of my friend Moviezzz's. "Gregory's Girl," which is also a great film (haven't seen it in over 25 years though!) airs on TCM on Thursday night at 11:45 p.m.

PSA- An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Go Blind

The State of Utah is planning to execute its first inmate since Joseph Mitchell Parsons in 1999 tonight (after midnight, Utah time).

A five-member firing squad is scheduled to shoot Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49, at the state prison in Draper. Due to the highly-debatable nature of the execution, it is getting more national coverage than most executions. Ironically, another controversial execution was scheduled to take place in Oklahoma, but the controversy regarding the condemned man's guilt led to the Sooner State's governor Brad Henry (D) to commute the sentence to life imprisonment.

There is no such controversy regarding the guilt of Gardner who was sentenced to death for the 1985 shooting murder of defense attorney Michael Burdell at a courthouse in Salt lake City. Gardner was standing trial for the murder of a bartender.

The Salt Lake City newspaper "The Deseret News" recently published a story regarding how Gardner was severely mentally and physically abused as a child, and how he was frequently sent to state institutions when he was as young as ten years old.

According to another article in "The Deseret News" (this one by Dennis Romboy, which was published today), Gardner is steadfastly refusing to eat anything though he did have his last meal on Tuesday which consisted of a steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream and a 7Up.

Uthans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is holding prayer services starting at 5:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m., east coast time). The abolition group will then hold a vigil outside the state capitol building in Salt Lake City from 9 p.m. until midnight.

Several militant pro-death penalty supporters posted over-the-top messages on a message board for comments regarding the Gardner case on the web site of "The Deseret News."

These included the following sentiments:

"Can't wait for the sound of gunfire in the distance all the way in San Diego."

"Last meal should've been a MickeyD's Happy Meal."

"I get tired of those who say he didn't have a chance because of his childhood."

"I am tired of hearing hearing other countries don't have the death penalty. We aren't other countries."

And, perhaps the most outlandish of all:

"I know it (the death penalty) deters me from killing anyone."

But, there were several posters with the opposing view that I fully agree with. This included a person who said that as a Mormon (it should be pointed out that I am agnostic) she was very troubled that people affiliated with his/her church hold such venemous views.

This was similar to a stance taken by The Rev. Carolyn Tanner, a retired Episcopalian minister from Utah, whose statement was posted on the Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty web site:

"As Christians we condemn the taking of a human life, recalling that Jesus himself was a victim of state-sponsored murder. His death holds before our eyes the poverty of capital punishment and its capacity to dehumanize those who carry out its sentence."

The same organization posted an editorial from "The Salt Lake Tribune" which stated that: "the legal and ethical argument supporting capital punishment in Utah has been eroding like sand castles of high tide."

Similarly, Diane Rust-Tierney, the executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (based in Washington, DC) said the following in a column she wrote for the online journal "The Huffington Post:"

"Despite the curiousity generated by the high-profile manner of imposing the punishment (she was refering to the Utah case), the death penalty is on the wane in America."

NOTE: For those of you who reside in Tashkent, Uzbekistan,and might not be entirely familiar with American pop culture, the above image is from the 1971 Clint Eastwood film "Dirty Harry." Of course, we also realize that people in Uzbekistan (who I gather might actually be reading my blogs on a regular basis) might be far more hip than many of my fellow Americans might realize!

UPDATE: Gardner was executed by a firing squad in Draper, Utah. I must profess outrage over things that death penalty proponents posted in regards to an article about the execution. First, there is this myth that those of us opposed to capital punishment feel more sympathy for the killer than his victims. This is utter nonsense, and it illustrates the pure hate and venom we get from the other side. Second, these uber-partisans point out that it is wrong to compare executions to the crucifixion of Jesus because Christ was not a murderer. But, they ignore the fact that the death penalty has evolved into a method in which people in power suppress their opponents. This is one reason why the death penalty no longer exists in my late father's county, Turkey. But, their reasoning also makes me further realize that many people who proclaim to be Good Christians are truly hypocrites. As for the name of the man who was to be executed in Oklahoma for a crime he may very well have not committed, it is Jeff Matthews.

Silly Picture to Fill Space-Minor League Hockey Fight

Since we used an image of the Charlotte Checkers' mascot (a polar bear) for an entry in this series on our other blog, we thought we'd show the violent side of minor league hockey with this fight featuring a player from ECHL's Idaho Steelheads.

One of the Boys from Boise's next home game will be against the Boys from Salt Lake City (the Utah Grizzlies) when the two teams meet on the Steelheads' home ice on March 16.

The Steelheads have had an outstanding season from goalie Richard Bachman as has recent ECHL Player of the Week James Sixsmith of the Grizzlies.

In SLC, the Grizzlies will host the Stockton Thunder (from Stockton, Calif.) for three consecutive games starting on Friday. The other games will be on Saturday and Sunday.

The Grizzlies' actually have a Happy Hour, which seems startling considering that the team is in one of the reddest states in America. But, when one reads further they find out that in fact the Happy Hour means five-dollar concession meals from 6:00-7:00 p.m. only.

I could not deduce from the Grizzlies' web site if the team serves Bud Lite or any other alcohol products, not could I find out if Donnie Osmond has ever sung the National Anthem for them.

But, we wish the Grizzlies well against the Thunder. If I didn't live in Greensboro, NC, (which ironically no longer has a hockey team even though the city briefly served as home ice for the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes before the tea permanently moved to Raleigh and won a Stanley Cup), I would be there to cheer on the Boys from Salt Lake City.

Besides, I don't care much for Bud Lite anyway.

Cinema of the Week-The Tower Theatre in SLC, Utah

This week's Cinema of the Week is the very trendy Tower Theatre in Salt Lake City, Utah, which shows a host of foreign films, documentaries and independent films.

I caught a midnight screening of "Swiss Robinson Family" (of all films!) there while I was visiting SLC in 2007. Recently, their midnight screening slate has included the Korean film "The Host" as well as "The Fly," "Carrie" and "Rocky Horror Picture Show."

The Tower is currently showing "JCVD," which is actually an independent film starring aging action star Jean Clause Van Damme who sort of plays himself in this film (which I have yet to see as it hasn't opened anywhere around my region).

The second feature being screened at The Tower is the Swedish horror film "Let the Right One In" which my friend Joe Scott of Greensboro, NC, has been heavily promoting in his area.

The Tower is located at 876 East 900 South in Salt Lake City next to a coffee shop where everyone in Utah beat me at chess. Their phone number is 801-321-0310.


Previous Entries in This Series:

Grandin Theatre- Roanoke, Va.

Galaxy Cinema- Cary, NC (Raleigh)

Cine-Athens, Ga.