Monthly Archives: August 2012

August 8, 2012 · 8:41 pm

SOPTIC TANK: OBAMA SLITHERS EVEN LOWER THAN RICHARD NIXON EVER DID

There’s a reason his initials are B.O.

Obama has shown once again that he is determined to be remembered in one breath with sleazy presidents like Republicans Richard Nixon and Warren G Harding.

Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know that I am an Independent Voter who criticizes both Liberal fools and Conservative fools equally and that I show no respect for any presidents of either party. (If you don’t believe me read my President’s Day look at all the men who have stayed one step ahead of the law while holding that office. )

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August 7, 2012 · 12:22 am

BALLADEER’S BLOG’S NAIA COLLEGE FOOTBALL PRESEASON TOP 25

 Yes, it’s Balladeer’s Blog’s preseason rankings for the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) football teams. The NAIA has so many potent football teams from top to bottom I’ll be doing an entire Top 25 for them every week instead of my usual Top 12.

The football season in the NAIA kicks off on August 24th, and as always Balladeer’s Blog will be there covering the action all season long.

 The reigning national champions, the Saint Xavier University Cougars will begin defending their title soon with Dianne “The Cougar” Zajdel cheering them on. Coach Mike Feminis’ boys are fresh off their first national football crown but they are not the top team in my rankings here in the preseason.

Based on overall performance over the past several years the C.C. Fighting Saints, last year’s runners- up, are at number 1. The Hellions from Helena, as I call them, have earned a name for football excellence season after season and have won six of the last ten national championships and played in eight of those ten title games. Teams named Cougars have been a hurdle for C.C., with the University of Sioux Falls Cougars and Chicago’s own SXU Cougars being the only two teams to defeat the Fighting Saints in Rome, GA, the home of the NAIA Championship Game.

Coach Fem’s boys are at number two, with the entire Top 25 looking like this:

1. C.C. Fighting Saints   ###   2. SXU Cougars (defending champs)   ###   3. Georgetown (KY) Tigers   ###   4. Marian University Knights   ###   5. MidAmerica Nazarene University Pioneers   ###   6. Morningside Mustangs   ###   7. Continue reading →

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August 6, 2012 · 10:01 pm

SHINTO GOD: SARUTAHIKO

 SARUTAHIKO – The god who guards the floating bridge between the Earth and the heavenly realm of the gods, Takamagahara (“High Plain of Heaven”). He is depicted as a giant wielding  the jeweled spear that once belonged to his father Izanagi and which Izanagi used to stir the primordial broth on Earth as he and his wife Izanami were preparing to begin creation.

Sarutahiko is considered the god of pathways and crossroads, both real and symbolic. He took his sentry duties so seriously that he once even tried to bar the way of the god Ninigi and his retinue when he was Continue reading →

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August 6, 2012 · 12:05 am

THE BIG TWO TOP BALLADEER’S BLOG’S PRESEASON RANKINGS FOR NCAA DIVISION 3 FOOTBALL

 Balladeer’s Blog presents its preseason rankings for NCAA D3 college football.

To the surprise of nobody the Whitewater Warhawks (logo at left) and the Mount Union Purple Raiders come in at numbers one and two. For newbies to D3 football the Warhawks and the Purple Raiders have played each other in the national championship game for the past SEVEN YEARS IN A ROW!!!

The Warhawks are the defending champs and have won four of the seven clashes between these two powerhouses who have emerged from the dust of the playoffs to battle for the title so frequently in recent years. For the third year in a row I’ll use my stale, tired joke that Mount Union and Whitewater should play for the championship on Labor Day Weekend and the rest of the D3 season should just be canceled.

Will it be eight years in a row that these two gridiron juggernauts monopolize the title matchup or will one of the other teams at last rise up and knock at least one of them out come playoff time? Stay tuned to Balladeer’s Blog to find out.

1. UWW Warhawks (defending champs)   ###   2. Mt Union Purple Raiders   ###   3. Mary Hardin Baylor University Crusaders   ###   4. Wesley Wolverines   ###   5. Saint Thomas University Tommies   ###   6. Salisbury Sea Gulls   ###   7. Linfield College Wildcats   ###   8. Continue reading →

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August 5, 2012 · 4:48 pm

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY: THE BANQUETERS (427 BCE)

 For background info on ancient Greek comedies and my previous reviews of them, click here (also features a list of my source books): https://glitternight.com/ancient-greek-comedies/

What Meet the Beatles was to the British Invasion, The Banqueters was to Attic Old Comedy. (Yes, I love silly comparisons) This play was the first comedy written by Aristophanes, the leading light of ancient Greek comedy, and was performed at the Lenaea festival of 427 BCE when Aristophanes was nineteen years old. The Banqueters won second prize, making it a very auspicious debut for the man often considered the greatest political satirist of the ancient world.

THE PLAY

The Banqueters is a comedy that once again lets us feel our shared humanity with the ancient Athenians, in this case over the perennial conflicts caused by Generation Gaps and the tension between pointlessly clinging to the past and pointlessly embracing new ideas just because they’re new, even though they may be just as flawed as the older ideas they replace. This is one of the many comedies of Aristophanes that survive in fragmentary form, not in their entirety. 

SYNOPSIS

An Athenian landowner with staid, old-fashioned views is hosting a lavish banquet in honor of Heracles. The attendees are the landowners’ Phratry- brothers (think of a cross between college fraternity brothers and social lodge brothers) and they are the title banqueters who make up the chorus of the play, offering wry commentary on the action of the comedy, often with jokes that break the fourth wall and address the audience directly.

The landowner is using the event to Continue reading →

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August 4, 2012 · 2:20 pm

THE COOLEST HELMETS IN NCFA COLLEGE FOOTBALL

 The 2012 college football season in the divisions covered by Balladeer’s Blog kicks off on August 22nd! To keep us all sane until then I’ve been showcasing the coolest football helmets in those divisions.

This week it’s the NCFA’s turn. The Chabot College Gladiators (logo at left), who are ranked at number 10 in Balladeer’s Blog’s preseason rankings, would have made this list, too, if not for one thing.

The Gladiators used to wear cool black helmets with two gold C’s interlinked but have switched to helmets with just one C on it, knocking them off this list. But still, the name Gladiators stands out tall and proud in a college sports landscape overflowing with teams called Eagles, Tigers, Bulldogs and Wildcats.

 6. COLLEGE OF SAN MATEO BULLDOGS

Location: San Mateo, CA

Conference: NorCal Conference

Comment: If you’re going to use just letters on your football helmet do it the right way like the Bulldogs have and Continue reading →

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August 3, 2012 · 12:01 am

HAPPY FRONTIERADO! CELEBRATE WITH A LOST ADVENTURE OF BUCKSHOT BRYANT

Computer image reconstruction of what Buckshot Bryant’s mysterious visitors may have looked like … if filmed by a urinal cake

At last the day is here! All through the year we waited and now the celebrating begins in earnest! Frontierado, the greatest holiday this side of Life Day for Wookies, has galloped into town and bellied up to the bar for a drink and a hot meal.

Special greetings from me, the Blackwater Kid, to Amarillo Rose, Dusty Murtaugh, Doc Albany and her husband Casino Bill Kost, Cyclone Rachel, Buckshot Bryant, Lady London, Cactus Cathy, Kid Equus and Doc Robyn, plus the M.I.A Six-Gun Sara!

There are even more people celebrating Frontierado with us this year than last year, but various obligations have prevented me from writing official Sagas for all of them.

This holiday is being observed in the USA, New Zealand, the UK and Australia just like last year, but this year we add Canada, Germany and Japan to the list of nations that have Continue reading →

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August 2, 2012 · 1:08 am

THREE MORE NEGLECTED WILD WEST FIGURES

FRONTIERADO IS THIS FRIDAY, AUGUST THIRD!

With the Frontierado holiday almost upon us what better time to examine 3 more figures who helped make the American west wild?

3. LOTTIE DENO – Equally comfortable  dealing faro, playing poker or shooting a pistol Charlotte “Lottie” Deno was one of the most famous female gamblers of the old west, along with Poker Alice. Lottie didn’t engage in nearly as many gunfights as Poker Alice did, but she didn’t have to, since she was very skilled at maneuvering lovesick men into doing some of her killing for her. Even her no-good husband Johnny Golden was bumped off by two of Lottie’s male conquests. 

Lottie, who said she learned card-playing from her father, was a former southern belle who came west after the Confederacy fell. She spent three years in San Antonio dealing faro and playing poker in, among other places, the iconic vaudeville saloon of Jack Harris, where Texas Ben Thompson and King Fisher were killed the same night in 1884. Fellow gambler Frank Thurmond began a romance with Lottie but when he Continue reading →

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