We're Back from Hibernation.....Roanoke Times Comic Strips Dialogue (2 of 4)

This is our first entry since September of last year, and the only reason we have come back is that there is a loyal blog reader in Riga, Latvia, who kept pestering me about when I would blog again. Ok, so actually Instagram is to blame....all those amazing photos of Lake Van in Turkey are hard to ignore!!! It's hard to believe that in that amount of time we have watched Vladimir Putin became the 45th president of our beloved America (Sorry, but we can't stand Donald Trump, if there was definitely a God, then Hillary Clinton would have won the election...excuse the editorial)

Here are eight lines of dialogue we are stealing from the "Roanoke Times" Sunday comics section which ran on March 5, 2016. The reason we are using an image of starting Washington Capitals goalie Braden Holtby (pictured) is because a hockey goalie is referenced in "For Better or For Worse."

1) That stupid goalie! He just never looks! He misses everything! (For Better or For Worse)

2) "I think I need a hug anyway," (Zits)

3) What do you mean? (Hi and Lois)

4) I know red flowers make me sneeze. (Pickles)

5) At long last...............The Baby Aisle! (Jump Start)

6) I was just leaving for the day (Dilbert)

7) You're going to be late! (Baby Blues)

8) Chef Salad! Lasagna! Fried Chicken! (Blondie)

Now we can finally devote more time to those Mental Floss pop culture quizzes!

http://www.nhl.com

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.mentalfloss.com

Potluck Quote of the Day (9 of 10): Dorothy Parker

It has been three full days since Dorothy Parker (1895-1967) would have celebrated her 123rd birthday, and we were planning to quote her before the anniversary. We gather Zeynep Akili of Istanbul, Turkey is a huge fan of her work (this is an in-joke, Zeynep Akili is not a real person)

One can probably find her books in places like The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC, which is hosting humorist/author Dave Barry on Sept. 7th, Malaprop's Bookstore (note to self: don't forget the apostrophe) in Asheville, NC, or The Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colo.

Parker was also the focus of a recent article in "Mental Floss" magazine.

Here is her quote, on love:

"Now I know the things I know and I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you!"

http://www.mentalfloss.com

http://www.malaprops.com/

http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/

http://www.boulderbookstore.net/

Potluck Quote of the Day (8 out of 10): Brigitte Bardot

Today we quote French bombshell actress Brigitte Bardot, who was tonight's Star of the Day on TCM which screened several of her films including "Contempt" by the amazing filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. Bardot has also gotten wide media attention for speaking out against Muslim emigre women wearing burkinis along resorts on the French coast. Amazingly enough, we got into a row on Twitter with BOTH Muslims and non-Muslims for expressing our nuanced views on that matter. It seems like social media is a great way for everyone to hate your guts!

Before we get to tonight's quote, we want to thank WXYC-FM, the student-run UNC college radio station in Chapel Hill, NC, for playing one of our high school favorites "New Girl Now" by the Canadian band Honeymoon suite and the new wave German-language classic "Das Komasor" from the late Austrian pop star Falco.

Additionally, we want to share this great line from the Sunday edition Paul Jon's comic strip "Fort Knox": "Absolutely, in a few years, it will take over our backyard.

Lastly, we want to congratulate Turkish free-style wrestler Taha Akgul for winning his nation's lone gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Here is our quote from Bardot: "If only every man who sees my films did not get the impression he can make love to me, I would be a lot happier."

http://www.tcm.com

http://www.wxyc.org/

http://www.gocomics.com/fortknox

https://www.rio2016.com/en/turkey

Potluck Quote of the Day (7 of 10): Bill Murray

Happy National Radio! We are recognizing the occasion by listening to "Snap Judgment" with Glynn Washington on our local NPR radio station.

Alas, we have to keep this short as we desperately need to get back to arguing about religion and politics on Twitter! While we are it, we can also see if Paula Poundstone or Sarah Silverman have something witty to say there.

But, we do want to congratulate Ekaterini Stefanidi for winning gold in the pole vault for Greece, one of three gold medals for the nation. Similarly, we salute Nur Tartar, another female athlete, for winning bronze for Turkey in taekwondo.

Here is our quote from Bill Murray; today we are quipping alums of "Saturday Night Live" (yes, we know when Murray was on the show John Travlota was in "Saturday Night Fever"):

"There aren't many down sides to being rich, other than paying taxes and having relatives ask for money. But being famous, that's a 24-hour job right there."

http://snapjudgment.org/

http://sarahsilvermanonline.com/

http://www.paulapoundstone.com/

Potluck Quote of the Day (1/10): Noam Chomsky Meets Marvin the Martian

Greetings to our blog readers in Turkey, Israel and Costa Rica......

Why are we featuring an image of Mars with a quote from left-wing philosopher/linguist/historian Noam Chomsky, one of America's leading critics of the Vietnam War, who happens to still be alive at age 87?

Well, just read this quote. And, thanks to the kids from Duke University for helping us with this research......(we are actually UNC fans here, but we wanted to be nice....and since all the college students are on break for the summer, perhaps, they will be reading this instead of playing video games)....

We gather that Speak of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is a closet admirer of Chomsky's work (yeah, we just said that to get your attention)....

This will be our first of ten quotes from people who have achieved fame and/or notoriety in a variety of fields.

Here is the quote:

"If there were an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long."

https://chomsky.info/

http://mars.nasa.gov/

http://www.wxdu.org/ (Duke's student-run college radio station; they were playing Frankie Cosmos at last report, actually that was another college radio station).........

Happy Children's Day............April 23rd is a National Turkish Holiday Honoring Children

Today is National Children's Day in Turkey, a National Holiday established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, formed in 1923, after a devastating period of wars including World War One and Turkey-Greece War of 1922.

The photos here are of Turkish children from 1) Edirne 2) Konya, 3) Gaziantep (Syrian refugee children), 4) Izmir 5) Izmir (Syrian children) and 6) Izmit/Sakarya.

Happy Valentine's Day (1 of 4): For Lovebirds.....

Yes, this is soooooo not us!!!!

GOP Debate from Iowa Minus Trump (3 of 3)

Before we get to our final entry on this blog about tonight's GOP debate from Des Moines, Iowa, let's say Gunaydin/ Good Morning to our American Ambassador John Bass in Ankara, Turkey, where it is now 8:30 a.m. Yes, I know there is a less than one percent chance he reads this blog....

For your knowledge, the man at the top is Gov. Chris Christie and the man at the bottom is Sen. Ted Cruz, the state capitol building in Des Mones (not where the Fox News debate took place) is in the middle.

Here are the tweets:

1) Peter Beinart: Chris Christie__ the fact that your wife was near Ground Zero on 9/11 is not a foreign policy credential.

2) David French (conservative): Jeb Bush is right_he's been out front on ISIS strategy__and getting lawyers off the damn backs of the military__Yes!

3) Andrew C. McCarthy (conservative, no not the brat pack actor from the '80s): You think something about Muslims is suspicious.....and Chris Christie says you're a Sharia crazy.

4) Meghan McCain (conservative, daughter of Sen. John McCain): This is a completely different and more substantive debate with Trump off the stage.

5) Patton Oswalt: Mohammad Atta tried to fly a plane into my wife on 9/11........Chris Christie....

6) Spartan Basketball: With 513 wins at Michigan State, Coach Tom Izzo moves ahead of Gene Keady for second-most victories at a Big Ten school (yeah, we did this to play a mind game on you)

7) Zeynep Tufekci: They were trying to out-Trump each other yet they got hit with tough Qs while Trump didn't? Umm.....maybe, I'll read this Art of the Deal book.....

8) Cenk Uygur (liberal): Ben Carson just copied and pasted his closing statement. Too much effort to come up with his own conclusion.

9) Michael Medved (conservative): Maybe Trump's strategy worked....in his absence, chief rival Cruz had his worst debate, by far.....

Our Pictorial Tribute to Istanbul, Turkey.............

This is our 1,800th entry and we are dedicating to the city of Istanbul, Turkey, which was struck by what appears to be an ISIS terrorist. Ten people lost their lives yesterday, including reportedly nine German tourists and a Peruvian tourist. Another 15 people are reportedly injured.

The images from top to bottom are of: 1) A bus stop; 2) a Beyoglu streetcar; 3) simit, the pastry that is sold by hundreds of vendors throughout the city; 4) the gate of Dolmabahce Palace; 5) Burgaz Island, one of the five Princess Islands and 6) The Maiden's Tower in Uskudar.

http://www.kizkulesi.com.tr/

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/turkey/istanbul

https://goturkey.com/

SOTU Blogathon: Let's Drop the Gloves (1 of 3)

With our hearts and minds on the ISIS terrorism victims from today's senseless ISIS attack in Istanbul, Turkey, which we hope to dwell into later this week, we focus on tweets from tonight's State of the Union Address (SOTU), the final one for President Barack Obama.

Picture here we have Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Alex Ovechkin captain of the Washington Capitals, and new Speaker of the House Cong. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.).....

Here are tweets from right, left and center.........

1) Ana Marie Cox: Paul Ryan thinking about how tomorrow is legs day.

2) Mormon Democrats: Obama calls for bipartisan work on criminal justice reform.

3) Susan Davis (NPR): Prescription drug abuse is one of those issues that crosses party lines. Big and growing problem in both red and blue states.

4) Molly Ball (The Atlantic): Oh god, the WH livestream is full of cheesy graphics.

5) Larry Sabato: Camera focused on Bernie. Those stars in his eyes are actually polling numbers.

6) Chris Cillizza: Direct Trump shot: "Promising to restore past glory if just get some group or idea that was threatening America under control."

7) Michael Crowley (Time): Only two sentences on Iran in this speech.

8) Washington Week: Obama asks: "How can we make our politics reflect what's best in us, and no what's worst."

9) New Republic: Paul Ryan and Joe Biden: Awwkwarrdddd

10) NBC Nightly News: Former Congresswoman Gabbie Giffords is attending tonight's SOTU.

11) Post Politics: Obama: 'I want to focus on the next five years, ten years, and beyond. I want to focus on our future. '

http://www.thehill.com

http://www.rollcall.com

http://www.politico.com

10 for 10 (4th Entry): Say Hi 2 a Calico Cat...

Greetings to our blog readers in Turkey, Slovenia, and Mexico....

We are continuing our trying to catch up series of blog entries with one dedicate to the calico cat, a popular breed of cat here in America and perhaps the world.

No, we don't actually own one.

There are many cats available at animal shelters here in virtually every community in the United States.

Today, we are choosing these three at random:

http://www.hsaconline.org/ (Humane Society of Alamance County (Burlington), North Carolina

http://plannedpethoodrockymount.com/ (Franklin County Animal Shelter in Rocky Mount, Virginia)

http://foothillsanimalshelter.org/ (Jefferson County, Colorado Animal Shelter near Denver)

10 for 10: The Nine Countries Outside America Where Our Blog Is Most Popular

Our original blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," which is still up and existent http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com 

....will be turning ten years old on Sept. 21t. So to honor the occasion, we are posting 10 entries on both blogs commemorating the anniversary.

We start here with a round-up of the nine countries outside the United States where "The Daily Vampire" has had the highest number of hits from. We do want to take a moment to recognize people from smaller nations, such as El Salvador, Gabon, and Laos, where we have seen hits from over the years. But, as one would expect larger countries are in the top nine. We have been stunned by how popular both blogs are in Russia and Ukraine, and we are grateful that Turkey, the country of my late father, is in the top nine for this blog.

The images we have chosen to represent three of the countries on the list are of Misha the Bear (or Mishka) who was the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, Karagoz and Hacivat, two beloved Turkish shadow puppets which have been in existence since Ottoman times, and a still from Federico Fellini's 1969 film "Satyrican" for Italy (alas, the Italian director's name is one we have frequently spelled incorrectly!)

While we are at it, let's take a moment to salute Italian female tennis player Flavia Pennetta for winning today's U.S. Open finale.

Here are the countries and the number of hits from each one:

1. Russia 29,585

2. United Kingdom 27,223

3. Canada 17, 098

4. Germany 15,121

5. France 7,495

6. Australia 7,256

7. *Turkey 2,586

8. Ukraine 2,493

9. Italy 2,371

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

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

The Republican Candidates for President: Worst to Best........

We gather that it's entirely possible that folks in Ankara, Turkey, and Tel Aviv, Israel may have been watching the Republican debate on Fox News from Cleveland, Ohio, on Thursday night, even though it was 2:00 a.m. when the debate aired in Turkey and Israel, two countries which are both seven hours ahead of Cleveland, Washington DC, and New York.

Here in America, 24 million people were watching including Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the most liberal Democratic candidate in the face, who was followed and retweeted by more people than anyone else during the GOP debate that he was watching live.

While everyone from David Letterman to Garry Trudeau was rightfully lampooning Donald Trump, whose candidacy seems like a joke, given that he has zero political experience and a reputation for insulting people for the sake of doing just that, there are actually three candidates who are worse than Mister Clown.

These include Rick Perry (pict. top) the notorious former governor of Texas who left years of scandal and probable wrongful executions behind him when he ran for president for the first time four years ago, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas,pict. center) a darling of the Tea Party movement who is probably less progressive than members of the Iranian Parliament, and Mike Huckabee (pict. bottom) an evagelical former governor of Arkansas who dropped a Nazi Germany reference against President Barack Obama.

Here are the candidates from worst to best, to be 'fair and balanced,' we have the candidates listed from best to worst on our sister blog http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

1. Rick Perry, Texas

2. Ted Cruz, Texas

3. Mike Huckabee, Arkansas

4. Donald Trump, New York (currently first in the field)

5. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania

6. Bobby Jindal, Louisiana

7. Scott Walker, Wisconsin

8. Ben Carson, Maryland

9. Jeb Bush, Florida

10. Rand Paul, Kentucky

11. Jim Gilmore, Virginia (currently the last field, the only candidate we have met in person)

12. Marco Rubio, Florida

13. John Kasich, Ohio

14. Carly Fiorina, California (the only woman in the GOP field)

15. Chris Christie, New Jersey

16. George Pataki, New York (at 72, the oldest Republican in the race)

17. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics

http://www.politico.com

http://www.thehill.com

http://www.nationalreview.com (A conservative journal)

http://www.thenation.com (A liberal journal)

http://www.theonion.com/politics (A satirical site)

Friday Night Tweets: Big Ben and Domestic Politics

Greetings to our blog readers in Turkey, France, and Mexico........


We are closing out July with three consecutive blog entries (hmmm.....yea, we changed our mind), this one is dedicated to tweets that were posted during the 9-10 p.m., eastern US time, many of which dealt with the partisan political divide in the country.......

1) Big Ben (yeah, that clock in London, pict. top): BONG BONG

2) UbertFacts: Osama bin Laden was obsessed with Whitney Houston (pict. late) and wanted to make her one of his wives (alas the pop singer died a few years ago as did Osama)....

3) The Daily Signal: Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky; pict: bottom) commits to Planned Parenthood defunding vote next week (He does NOT have the support of comedian Sarah Silverman who mocked pro-life groups with a video that is causing quite a stir)

4) Urban Dictionary: White Man_ A term used to describe a group of people who are blamed for all the problems in the world.

5) Adam Owens (A tv news reporter for WRAL, Raleigh, NC): Raleigh Police investigate fatal accident on Roy Road....

6) Psychological Facts: If you think someone is starting at you: 1. Yawn 2. If they yawn, they were staring

7) Martin DeGarmo: The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers (a quote from Ralph Nader as the tweeter cited)

8) Jon Winokur (Advice to Writers): Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. (a quote from Maya Angelou as the tweeter cited).

9) The Job Guy: "The only limits are, as always, those of vision," James Broughton, a late American poet.

http://www.dailysignal.com

http://www.urbandictionary.com

http://www.job-guy.com (This might not be the same job guy we mentioned!) 

Comic Strips Survey from Father's Day Roanoke Times: We Like This Week's Doonesbury

Greetings to our blog readers in Dubai, Bulgaria, and Indonesia.......

A lot has happened since we last tweeted one week ago today: 1) There was a mass shooting that resulted in the deaths of nine African-Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, here in America, sparking a national debate between guns and racism. 2) President Barack Obama surprised the world by sitting down for an interview with edgy comic podcast host Marc Maron in Los Angeles. 3) And, Muslims around the world started celebrating Ramadan, which according to the Turkish English-language newspaper "The Daily Sabah" is quite challenging in Iceland where there is 18-22 hours of daylight per day. There are about 770 Muslims residing in Iceland, and adjustments have been suggested for the holiday period's fasting period.

Our images for the week are of: 1) The Jetsons family as "Doonesbury" tackles how fathers are adjusting to modern parenting; 2) Since "Dilbert" features a character who looks just like Turkish shadow puppet Karagoz (center image, the dude with the long beard and a drum; Hacivat is his frenemy; 3) Doctor Who for "Pearls Before Swine" which features a British alien (not in the E.T. sense)

Here are our ten favorite comic strips from Sunday's "Roanoke Times":

1) Doonesbury

2) Get Fuzzy

3) Dilbert

4) Pearls Before Swine

5) Zits

6) Jump Start

7) Non Sequitur

8) Agnes

9) Mutts

10) Speed Bump (this comic strip was number one for four weeks in a row!, but not this week).....

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.denverpost.com/comics

Top 10 Comic Strips from the Sunday Washington Post: Lio Takes Gold

Greetings to our blog readers in Switzerland, Sweden and Turkey........

Today, we once again rank our ten favorite comic strips from the Sunday edition of "The Washington Post," which carries 40 comic strips, including some that rarely make the cut, ie. "Hagar the Horrible," which was brilliant 40 years ago..........oh well.........

Since, there squids in both "Lio," which came in first, and "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy," which came in third, we thought we'd start off with an image of an animal that you can eat in most Greek restaurants. The late Soupy Sales is the image in our middle slot as "Rhymes with Orange," the second place strip had a pie-in-the-face gag which Sales was famous for, but the strip actually has clowns as the subject of its joke.

Finally, a map of the United States marking where Kansas is will be used for our final image as the always hip Garry Trudeau nailed Gov. Sam Brownback (R) in a financial fiasco which messed up the lives of countless educators and school students across 'The Land of Oz.' According to our iPhone, Topeka, Kansas, and Washington, D.C., are almost exactly 1,000 miles from each other. Brownback was also a Republican member of the U.S. Senate.

Here is our top ten:

1. Lio

2. Rhymes with Orange

3. Brewster Rockit

4. Doonesbury

5. Pearls Before Swine

6. WuMo

7. Speed Bump

8. Knight Life

9. Prickly City

10. Sherman's Lagoon

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics