School: HESSTON COLLEGE
Team Name: LARKS
Location: Hesston, KS Continue reading
Monthly Archives: April 2023
NEWS, POLITICAL CARTOON AND MEME ROUNDUP: APRIL 7th
Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at some of the latest in current events:
ANOTHER OFFICE HOLDER – THIS TIME IN THE NORTH CAROLINA STATE LEGISLATURE – LEAVES THE DEMOCRATS TO BECOME A REPUBLICAN. Speaking for so many people, she stated “The modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me.” More HERE. And HERE. And HERE. As a former Democrat myself, I can sympathize. The Democrats are now intolerant fascists and worse.
JOE BIDEN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES ARE FORCING SMALL BUSINESSES TO FILE BANKRUPTCY AT A RECORD RATE. But Joe and his fellow one percenters are just fine.
TESTIMONY REVEALS THAT OBAMA RECEIVED THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS FROM CCP-LINKED FUGITIVE. Leonardo DiCaprio weighs in with his testimony as references are made to the fugitive’s illegal campaign contribution to the Obama campaign in 2012. More HERE.
ANOTHER TWITTER BOMBSHELL: TWITTER CODE INCLUDED A GOVERNMENT-REQUESTED INTERVENTION TOOL.
BEN CARSON “PROUDLY” STANDS WITH DONALD TRUMP.
SENATOR CINDY HYDE-SMITH ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT AFTER “BOGUS” INDICTMENT.
BIDEN REGIME’S LATEST SCANDAL: FRAUD FOUND AND FUNDS MISUSED FROM ANOTHER OF THEIR OPERATIONS.
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
PATHFINDERS IN SPACE (1960) – FORGOTTEN TELEVISION
PATHFINDERS IN SPACE (1960) – Balladeer’s Blog’s recurring segment Forgotten Television examines the half-hour per episode British television miniseries Pathfinders in Space. Fans of early British sci-fi will likely remember that in the 1950s and 1960s the BBC aired several episodic serials of 6 or more parts, like the original Quatermass tales, Object Z and its sequel, plus others like The Trollenberg Terror, which were remade as feature films (The Crawling Eye in this case).
As for Pathfinders in Space, this 7-episode television serial was the second in a connected series of sci-fi adventures that anticipated the kind of kid-friendly, semi-educational fun of early Doctor Who episodes. Target Luna, from earlier in 1960, was the first of the adventures about Buchan Island, a Scottish complex that served as the U.K.’s fictional Cape Canaveral for its space program. (No episodes of Target Luna have survived.)
Buchan Island looked as comically unconvincing as the set from Captain Z-Ro, but in my opinion that adds to the charm of these primitive attempts at televised science fiction. Target Luna introduced viewers to Professor Wedgwood and his children, some of whom would appear in the following serials as well. That 6-episode item centered around the Buchan Island personnel testing manned orbital vessels, setting up the 7-part Pathfinders in Space, in which the Wedgwoods and others flew to the moon.
Okay, it’s obvious that small children would not be sent on such a mission, but Pathfinders in Space was meant to be educational for kids as well as entertaining. Female professor Mary Meadows joins the team of MR1 (Moon Rocket 1) on its mission to the moon. Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television
BOOK OF THE DUN COW: PART THREE
Here is Part Three of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the various mythological works in Ireland’s Lebor na hUidre, The Book of the Dun Cow. For Part One click HERE.
THE VOYAGE OF MAEL DUIN (Immram curaig Mail Duin) – Dated to around the late 900s A.D. or earlier, this story deals with the epic quest of Mael Duin (aka Maildun and Maeldune) and the crew of his ship as he seeks revenge on his father’s killers. This lengthy epic deserves to be as well-known as the Odyssey or the Quest for the Golden Fleece.
At any rate, exactly why the main character wants revenge for that slaying is beyond me, because Mael Duin’s father, supposedly Ailill of the Edge of Battle, raped a nun at a priory and she subsequently gave birth to him. The nun turned the infant Mael Duin over to her queen and king to raise as if he was their own child.
Mael Duin matured, and proved better than his presumed siblings at athletic, martial and academic competitions. Losing their temper over this, one of our hero’s foster brothers ridiculed Mael Duin for not even knowing who his real father and mother were.
The hero prevailed upon his mother the queen to tell him the truth, and she referred him to his birth mother, the nun. She revealed to Mael Duin the name of his father and the young man set out with his three foster brothers to the land of his father Ailill of the Edge of Battle. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
AMERICA’S CORRUPT SYSTEM GOES ALL IN AGAINST TRUMP
THE DAUGHTER OF THE JUDGE IN THE TRUMP CASE WORKED FOR THE BIDEN CAMPAIGN. In an honest judicial system, this judge would recuse himself.
AND THE JUDGE WAS A BIDEN DONOR PER THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION. An honest judge would recuse himself, given that the case involves a man who is a political rival of the candidate he helps finance.
TRUMP REFUSED TO DIVIDE THE NATION BY PROSECUTING HILLARY CLINTON, BUT DEMOCRATS THRIVE ON DIVISION.
Balladeer’s Blog launched in 2010, long before there was even a hint of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, yet I was already, over and over again, making blog post after blog post about how corrupt both major political parties are in the United States.
COUNTLESS times I raised new and old instances demonstrating that the Democrat and Republican parties are nothing but rival gangs of white-collar criminals running the country like a Mafia bust-out scheme. Virtually every member of Congress leaves office having accumulated enormous wealth or obtaining VERY lucrative employment in industries they exercised legislative authority over, giving every appearance of being rewarded for services rendered while in political office.
Even efforts at preventing Insider Trading on the part of members of Congress have been blocked. Both parties have been complicit in too many corrupt practices to list in one article, but many of those practices have been covered here at Balladeer’s Blog since 2010, years before Donald Trump even declared his candidacy in 2015.
Both major political parties and many of their appointees continue to be part of the cesspool of corruption which masquerades as the United States government. As I mentioned countless times from 2010 onward, the only hope would lie in an outsider candidate who was NOT a “made” member of the career politician clique.
In the past several years, despite the never-ending FLOOD of exposed crimes and corruption by other political figures, the ONE figure who has been targeted over and over and constantly lied about has been the outsider Donald Trump. The white-collar criminals of the Democrat and Republican parties – with sadly few exceptions – have participated in playing gatekeepers regarding who may or may not enter “their turf.”
The message from these thugs who hold office has been, and continues to be “If anyone who actually tries to reform the Washington DC sewer ever again dares to take us on, THIS is what we will do to them, their associates and whoever else we decide is in our way.” Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
TWO VERY RELEVANT NOVELS FROM ROBERT LUDLUM
Yesterday’s blog post about the dystopian film Golem (1980) called to mind a pair of Robert Ludlum’s espionage novels from the 1970s. Both of them are spy thrillers but reflected Ludlum’s distrust of both left-wing and right-wing fanatics. Sadly, they also predicted a lot of what citizens around the world face right here in 2023. It’s not just science fiction that can prove virtually prophetic.
THE MATARESE CIRCLE (1979) – Two veteran intelligence operatives – Brandon Scofield from the U.S. and Vasili Taleniekov from the Soviet Union – are forced to set aside their personal enmity when they get caught up in the intrigues of the Matarese organization. Continue reading
Filed under opinion
ERASERHEAD MEETS “THE PRISONER” – GOLEM (1980)
GOLEM (1980) – This science fiction film set in a post-World War Three dictatorship was made in Poland by director Piotr Szulkin and starred Marek Walczewski & Krystyna Janda. It uses the concept of a Golem as an allegory for the creation of artificial humans and examines the motives of those who would do the creating.
Golem is a challenging movie that plays like Eraserhead crossed with the Patrick McGoohan series The Prisoner or even Kafka. The main character is Pernat (Walczewski), a meek and not too bright man among the struggling lower class in the oppressive dictatorship that has emerged following the nuclear war.
The low budget limits the film’s depiction of this post-apocalypse dystopia to a claustrophobic ghetto environment rather than sweeping vistas of ruined buildings or vast wastelands. Most of the story is set in Pernat’s apartment slums or at the local police station.
When we first meet Pernat, who has a kind of “Phil Collins in Buster” look, he is being interrogated about a murder committed in his apartment block. We observe how easily subdued and fairly lacking in intelligence he is, but ultimately the authorities release him because they don’t have enough evidence and he is just one of the suspects.
While timidly taking his leave of the police station, he notices a dead body being wheeled to the morgue and gets enough of a fleeting glimpse to realize the corpse looks just like him. Not even forceful enough to inquire about this, Pernat tries to claim his jacket and hat from the police property room but is mistaken for another person (hinting that there is yet another person who looks like him and was brought in by the police in an unrelated matter). Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, opinion
JANUARY 2017
Balladeer’s Blog
FOR PART ONE OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE (2016) CLICK HERE.
COMEDIC LOOK AT THE UNHINGED ATTACKS ON TRUMP.
THE MEDIA LIES BY CLAIMING TRUMP GOT RID OF A WHITE HOUSE BUST OF MLK. They still lie about Trump on a daily basis here in 2023.
RATIONAL PEOPLE WEIGH IN ON TRUMP. Many of them are his African American supporters.
MORE OF TRUMP’S AFRICAN AMERICAN SUPPORTERS SPEAKING OUT.
A WOMAN OF COLOR DISCUSSES WHY SHE VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
CANADA’S GOLDEN AGE SUPERHEROES (1941-1950)
This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog examines Canadian-made superheroes from the 1940s. When imports of American comic books were banned in Canada in late 1940 to try trimming their trade deficit, writers and artists north of the border filled the gap with some unjustly neglected characters.
NELVANA OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
Secret Identity: Alana North
First Appearance: Triumph-Adventure Comics #31 (August 1941). Her final Golden Age appearance came in 1947.
Origin: Nelvana was the daughter of a mortal woman and Koliak, god of the northern lights. When she became an adult, she took to using her powers as a demigoddess to battle the forces of evil.
Powers: Nelvana could fly at the speed of light, turn invisible, shoot heat rays from her hands and disrupt radio and other communications. In addition, she possessed the power of telepathy.
Comment: Nelvana was one of the superheroines to be in print before Wonder Woman herself. Nelvana has been on postage stamps in Canada and is still synonymous with Canadian-made comic books of the Golden Age.
BLACK WING
Secret Identity: Phil Dauntless
First Appearance: Lucky Comics #1 (June 1941). His final Golden Age appearance came around mid-1944.
Origin: While serving as a fighter pilot in World War Two Europe, Phil Dauntless stole the Flying Fish, a virtually indestructible experimental plane/ submarine from the Nazis. Nazi spies framed Phil for treason, causing him to adopt the costumed identity of Black Wing as he went on to fight crime and Axis villains while seeking evidence to clear himself.
Powers: Black Wing was in peak physical condition and excelled at unarmed combat. He was also a superb pilot and had the advantage of flying the high-tech craft he had stolen from the Nazis.
Comment: Black Wing had two sidekicks – his love interest Dizzy and his co-pilot Hap. After a few issues Black Wing and Hap overhauled the Flying Fish to be wingless like a rocketship. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
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