HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JAMES JOYCE! His works got me hooked in my teens when I really related to his character Stephen Dedalus as he rejected his religion and indulged what I call his “young and pretentious side” in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I wore out my copy of Joyce’s novel Ulysses and continue to mark Bloom’s Day to this very day.
Over the years Finnegans Wake replaced Ulysses as my favorite Joyce novel and I’m fonder than many people are of his play Exiles. Naturally, I’m also into his “epiphanies” in Dubliners and, poetry geek that I am, even Pomes Penyeach and Chamber Music. Continue reading
Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog is still impressed with nominal Democrat Tulsi Gabbard. She may have joined in the general overreaction to the Capitol protests but she is calling out people like Democrat Adam Schiff, the privileged white Big Tech rich pigs and former CIA Director John Brennan. 
One of the reasons I used to be a Democrat was because of the Democrats’ outspoken criticism of the CIA and its activities. In recent years the Democrats have sold out and seem to have decided that the CIA’s dirty tricks are okay as long as they help the Democrat Party. 
Gabbard alleged that they are also “much more powerful, and therefore dangerous, than the mob that stormed the Capitol.” 
BIDEN HAS KIDS IN CAGES (like during Obama’s and Trump’s administrations). Oh, that’s right, anti-Trump fascists never really cared about kids being in cages, they just wanted to use those kids as a political stick to attack Trump with. Now those hypocrites are back to not even pretending to care about such things. Anti-Trumpers apparently won’t complain about Joe Biden’s kids in cages. 
For Flashman Down Under, Flashman in the Opium War & Flashman and the Kings click 
The duo enjoy diving into the darker and more forbidden side of life where sex, booze and other diversions are concerned. Flashman happens to be with Burton in Egypt in early 1853 when the famous explorer begins his journey to Medina and Mecca disguised as a Muslim. 
I consider President Trump the best president for the working class and the poor during my lifetime. Here’s a take from a true working class heroine. Mary Harris Jones, the legendary labor organizer from the 1890s onward, also known as “the Miner’s Angel” and “Mother Jones,” spoke to Balladeer’s Blog yet again, despite being dead since 1930. 
BB: I admit the stench from Washington, DC is amazing. “Draining the Swamp” as it were, demonstrated the depth of corruption and outright criminal activity the Democrats and Republicans are responsible for. It took a de facto Third Party President like Trump to peel back the curtain. 
MJ: First off, President Trump is like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was looking out for the working class and the poor, so rich fat cat scum tried to destroy him like they’re doing with Donald Trump. They even tried the noted Businessman’s Coup plot against FDR. 
THIRD, President Trump is like that Robert Redford fella when he played Brubaker! Like Trump, Brubaker was trying to clean out a virtual sewer of corrupt officialdom. Even if the scumbags fighting Trump oust him, it will be like the ending of Brubaker, when the prisoners – or American citizens in Trump’s case – gathered around to pay him respect. 
Projected Title: FLASHMAN ON THE GOLD COAST 
In June the advance of the Ashanti was halted at Elmina and back in England Her Majesty’s Government made plans to send additional troops to the Gold Coast to deal with the situation. By August 13th General Garnet Wolseley was chosen to lead the army. 
