Author Archives: balladeer

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About balladeer

I am passionately interested in college sports, ancient Greek comedies, bad/weird movies, mythology, the American Revolution, Puck Magazine, World War I, U.S. Presidential history, silent movies, the English Civil War, epic, lyric and comic poetry, U.S. Supreme Court history, the Revolutions of 1848, the Philippine War and old pulp heroes like The Moon Man, Pilot G8, Silver John and The Rio Kid.
June 21, 2025 · 12:01 am

1940s MARVEL SUPERHEROINES

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the neglected superheroines of Marvel Comics, known in the 1940s as Timely Comics.

SILVER SCORPION 

Secret Identity: Betty Barstow

First Appearance:  Daring Mystery Comics #7 (April 1941) Her final Golden Age appearance came in 1942.

Origin: Betty Barstow, a feisty secretary for private investigator Dan Hurley, donned a costume and investigated a case her boss was refusing to look into, a case involving unusual activity at a graveyard. She wound up capturing a ring of counterfeiters and resolved to continue fighting crime as the Silver Scorpion.

Powers: The Silver Scorpion was in peak physical condition and excelled at jiu-jitsu and other martial arts. In addition, she was as agile as an acrobat. 

Comment: Since the only things “silver” on the Silver Scorpion’s costume were her wristlets, boots and the scorpion logo on her cape, I think they should have made her wristlets into revolving bracelets which fired long silver needles coated in scorpion venom. Non-fatal scorpion venom, of course, but painful and inducing temporary paralysis. Continue reading →

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June 20, 2025 · 1:50 pm

NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOONS ROUNDUP: JUNE TWENTIETH

Here’s another current events roundup from Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog.

THE LATEST DEMOCRAT RIOTS, THIS TIME IN PORTLAND, TARGET FEDERAL WORKERS WITH EXPLOSIVES AND MORE. Fascists are gonna fascist. DEMOCRATS CONTINUE STOKING THE VIOLENCE.

SEATTLE’S DEMOCRAT CHIEF OF POLICE PROMISES TO DO EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER TO HELP ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CRIMINALS ELUDE ICE. I will ask the Democrats again – given your irrational claims that we live in a “dystopia” under Trump, aren’t there any suffering CITIZENS you would be willing to champion? “Illegal immigrants uber alles” remains the Democrat motto.

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSWOMAN ANNA PAULINA BRAVELY HELPS LEAD THE EFFORT TO SUBPOENA INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL AND PRIVILEGED WHITE ONE PERCENTER GEORGE SOROS.

APPEALS COURT RULES IN TRUMP’S FAVOR ON CA NATIONAL GUARD CASE.

SENATE HEARINGS ON THE GROTESQUE DEMOCRAT COVERUP OF JOE BIDEN’S UNFITNESS CONTINUE. Continue reading →

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June 20, 2025 · 10:13 am

NO, ANTI-TRUMP LOONS, LAST WEEKEND’S MILITARY PARADE WAS FOR THE ARMY’S TWO HUNDRED FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY, NOT FOR TRUMP

I’m still laughing over the way that anti-Trump fascists are so ignorant, uninformed and emotionally unstable that they idiotically believed that the parade last weekend was for Trump himself.

IT WAS THE ARMY’S TWO HUNDRED FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY, HENCE THE ELABORATE FESTIVITIES. President Donald Trump’s birthday happens to be on the same date as the army’s birthday – June 14th. And – try to follow me here, anti-Trumpers – those two birthdays will ALWAYS coincide.

Last weekend was NOT a case of military strength shown off for a national leader but to mark the TWO HUNDRED FIFTIETH birthday of America’s army. Birthdays/ anniversaries being celebrated for the 25th, 50th, 100th, 200th, and 250th time ALWAYS get special celebrations.

I’m still seeing anti-Trumpers lying that the military parade was for Trump. Don’t they realize that every single time they try spreading these lies that it tightens the bond between the Donald and his supporters? Sheesh! There are still imbeciles who think Trump told people to inject themselves with bleach or that he was trying to launch a nuclear program at Mar-a-Lago.  Continue reading →

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June 19, 2025 · 1:35 pm

2025 JUNETEENTH: MARKING THE DAY DEMOCRATS LOST THEIR SLAVES

democrats kkkIndependent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog wishes you a happy Juneteenth, marking the day Democrats lost their slaves. (Democrats owned slaves, not Republicans.) African-Americans continue fighting for their freedom from the Democrats, who today treat people of color like they still own them and that they MUST vote for Democrats and ONLY Democrats.

That political party, which I’m ashamed to say I used to belong to years ago, even distorts the Juneteenth holiday. They try fundamentally transforming it into a day when Democrats – the only extant political party which supported slavery and even fought a Civil War over it – can act like they are above reproach while THE REST OF THE COUNTRY shares a guilt The Party pretends to be free from. 

Joe Biden, embodying the grotesque hypocrisy of that detestable political party, EULOGIZED A KLANSMAN – DEMOCRAT SENATOR ROBERT BYRD – yet Biden thought he was fit to give finger-wagging lectures to the rest of us. (If this post upsets you, tell the Democrats to stop politicizing Juneteenth by pretending they had nothing to do with slavery, or the Ku Klux Klan, or Jim Crow, etc.) Continue reading →

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June 19, 2025 · 5:09 am

THIRTEEN HEAVY METAL HORROR FILMS FROM THE EIGHTIES

Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at a baker’s dozen of movies from the 1980s subgenre of Heavy Metal-related horror. Why only thirteen? Because I already reviewed Black Roses and Rocktober Blood years ago.

PAGANINI HORROR (1989) – Directed by Luigi Cozzi, better known to us fans of psychotronic movies as the Italian Ed Wood. Three women and one man constitute a heavy metal band desperate for a hit song. They strike a Faustian bargain with the mysterious Mr. Pickett, played by Donald Pleasence.

Pickett takes their souls as payment for a lost musical composition by the long-dead violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. The rockers adapt the piece of music as a heavy metal work and decide to film the song’s music video in a mansion once owned by Paganini himself. 

Playing the piece while filming at the mansion causes Paganini to rise from the dead and lets loose other forces of Hell. Those characters not butchered by the masked, undead maestro via a knife that pops out of his violin are slaughtered by the supernatural forces now at large in the house.

Cozzi being Cozzi we also get the kitchen sink in the form of time loops, portals to Hell, family curses, cosmic Lovecraftian concepts and some of the daffiest death scenes imaginable. Some victims die by wood fungus, an inexplicable car fire and even by having invisible walls close in and crush them. Insert your own mime joke here.  Continue reading →

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June 18, 2025 · 10:10 am

JUNE EIGHTEENTH ROUNDUP OF NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOONS

Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog offers up another current events roundup from an America where anti-Trump loons pretend to not like kings but are okay with all the faceless kings who used Joe Biden as a prop and a figurehead to sneak through their own agendas. And never forget how the Democrats and their media outlets spent years covering up Joe Biden’s unfitness and calling people “conspiracy theorists” for telling the truth about Biden.

POPULIST PRESIDENT TRUMP’S POLICIES HAVE BROUGHT ON THE LARGEST INCREASE IN BLUE-COLLAR WORKING-CLASS WAGES IN SIXTY YEARS. Trump, the greatest president for the working class and the poor during my lifetime, continues his successful policies from his first term.

        Meanwhile, Democrats go around fatally shooting their own party members for voting with Republicans in the Minnesota legislature.

BERNIE SANDERS REGAINS A LITTLE OF THE INTEGRITY HE THREW AWAY. DEMANDS THAT THE DEMOCRATS BAN BILLIONAIRE-RUN SUPER-PACS FROM THEIR PRIMARIES IN 2028. Bernie obviously remembers how the DNC rigged their primaries against him in 2016 and against Tulsi Gabbard in 2020.

THE DEMOCRATS’ BELOVED G-7 ISSUES A JOINT STATEMENT SAYING “IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON” AND ACKNOWLEDGING ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF. Following in President Trump’s wake as the leader of the free world.

EXPLOSIVE NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT VOTE FRAUD IN 2020 THROUGH THE INHERENTLY CORRUPT “CHEAT BY MAIL” CON INCLUDE EVIDENCE THAT THE INFORMATION WAS COVERED UP. The 2020 election was as tainted and corrupt as the 1876 and 2000 election results were.

EXPOSING THE ADDITIONAL MONEY FUNNELED TO THE “JUSTICES” OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT. Ketanji Jackson leads the sleazy pack with her two-million-dollar “advance” from PRH. Time for Americans to grow up and stop pretending that the SCOTUS isn’t as corrupt as the rest of our political establishment.

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S AMAZING ACCOMPLISHMENT AT THE SOUTHERN BORDER.

DON SURBER’S GREAT ARTICLE ON WHY TRUMP IS AT FIFTY-THREE PERCENT APPROVAL RATING AND ONLY THIRTY-ONE PERCENT TRUST THE MEDIA. Continue reading →

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June 17, 2025 · 8:25 pm

COTHURNUS (C 405 B.C.) ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY

The Ruins of the Theater of Dionysus in Athens.

Balladeer’s Blog takes another look at an ancient Greek comedy. This time around I’m examining  Cothurnus by Philonides, a comic poet who may also have acted and produced for the Athenian stage as well. It cannot be definitively determined if the “Philonides” referred to in those capacities are all one and the same or separate figures.

THE PLAY  

Like most ancient Greek comedies Cothurnus has survived only in fragmentary form and with very few fragments at that. The title refers to a type of footwear of the time period. A cothurnus could be worn on either the left foot or the right foot because of its softness and looseness. Because of this the word “cothurnus” also became a sarcastic term for a politician who tried to position themselves on both sides of an issue, claiming victory no matter which way the political winds blew.

This is certainly another element of Old Comedy that we can still relate to 2,400 years later. Philonides was specifically using this term and this comedy to target Theramenes.

To give a comprehensive look at Theramenes’ political juggling act would take too much time, suffice it to say he would flip-flop not just on specific issues but would retroactively claim to have supported whichever side won, would change political affiliations again and again and even set up other public figures to take the fall for his own failures (like arranging for six generals to be blamed and executed for his own part in the Arginusae travesty). Continue reading →

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June 17, 2025 · 11:47 am

THE YOUNG REBELS (1970-1971) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

THE YOUNG REBELS (1970-1971) – With the 4th of July approaching, here’s another seasonal post. Harve Bennett himself was involved with this series that ran for 15 hour-long episodes. A group of young men and one young woman help fight for American Independence in 1777 Pennsylvania.

Louis Gossett, Jr. starred as former slave Isak Poole, Richard Ely played Jeremy Larkin, Alex Henteloff was Henry Abington and Hilarie Thompson portrayed Elizabeth Coates. The quartet served as spies and guerilla fighters against the British. Philippe Forquet guest starred in 14 episodes as the Marquis de Lafayette, who gave orders to our heroes.

Jeremy led the foursome while hiding his rebel activities from his father (Will Geer), a Tory mayor. Isak was the group’s best fighter and Elizabeth was their best spy. Henry was an inventor who devised gadgets for the Young Rebels.  Continue reading →

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June 16, 2025 · 7:15 pm

HAPPY BLOOM’S DAY 2025

jamesjoyceYes, it’s the 16th of June, better known to James Joyce geeks like me as Bloom’s Day. The day is named in honor of Leopold Bloom, the advertising sales rep and Freemason who is one of the major characters in Joyce’s novel Ulysses. The novel also brings along Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of his earlier novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

For those unfamiliar with this work, Ulysses is Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness novel in which he metaphorically features the events from the Odyssey in a single day – June 16th, 1904, in Dublin. (The day he met Nora Barnacle, the woman he would eventually marry after living together for decades)

Bloom represents Ulysses/Odysseus, Stephen represents Telemachus and Leopold’s wife, Molly Bloom, represents Penelope. Continue reading →

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June 16, 2025 · 10:18 am

NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOON ROUNDUP: JUNE SIXTEENTH

I’ll be making my Bloom’s Day post later today. Right now it’s another current events roundup from Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog.

THE DEMOCRAT “NO KINGS” MURDERER ON THE LOOSE AFTER THEIR POLITICAL KILLINGS HAS BEEN APPREHENDED. WAS AN APPOINTEE OF MINNESOTA’S DEMOCRAT GOVERNOR TIM WALZ. The suspect allegedly killed their victims for being Democrats who voted with Republicans in the state legislature last week. Killer’s manifesto found.

EX-ILLINOIS HOUSE SPEAKER, DEMOCRAT MICHAEL MADIGAN, SENTENCED TO SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS IN PRISON ON CORRUPTION CHARGES. Have I mentioned lately that 21st Century Democrats are a combination of the Mafia and Nazis?

BRUNER REVEALS THE MONEY BEHIND THE DEMOCRATS’ LATEST RIOTS IS BEING PROVIDED BY THE PARTY’S BILLIONAIRES, INCLUDING BILL GATES, GEORGE SOROS, REID HOFFMAN, MARK ZUCKERBERG AND HANSJORG WYSS. 

TIK TOKER REVEALS THAT PRO-VIOLENCE FORCES HAVE BEEN PAYING INFLUENCERS TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS A DAY TO POST IN SUPPORT OF THE RIOTS. No surprise. Democrats are known for astroturf, not grass-roots movements.

STEPHEN A. SMITH BRAVELY CALLS OUT DEMOCRAT ALEX PADILLA FOR HIS MANIACAL BEHAVIOR AT DHS SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM’S PRESSER LAST WEEK.

MAN ARRESTED FOR SUPPLYING EQUIPMENT TO THE LATEST DEMOCRAT RIOTERS IN LOS ANGELES IS A MEMBER OF THE FASCISTIC, RACIST HATE GROUP THE BROWN BERETS.

UNLIKELY SOURCE LAYS BARE THE LIES ABOUT THE ONGOING SITUATION IN CALIFORNIA.

STEPHEN KING, LOOKING NOTHING AT ALL LIKE A CREEP WHO HANGS AROUND PLAYGROUNDS, SAYS HE WANTS WOMEN IN CHARGE OF NUCLEAR NATIONS. As I’ve done in the past when imbeciles like King say this sort of thing, I will point out that WHAT STEPHEN KING REALLY MEANS IS THAT HE WANTS ONLY WOMEN WHO AGREE WITH HIS POLITICAL OPINIONS TO RUN NUCLEAR NATIONS. Does anyone really think the sexist King wants Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Pam Bondi, Lauren Boebert, etc? Continue reading →

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