FOR PART ONE (2016) OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE FROM INDEPENDENT VOTER SITE BALLADEER’S BLOG CLICK HERE
A LOOK AT HOW DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN ERODING FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. “The totalitarian asses of the 1960s can’t bear the fact that younger people might have opinions that offend THEM as much as their opinions offended their parents’ generation.”
A LOOK AT TRUMP-HATERS, FASCISTS AND BUFFOONS. Their attacks on the de facto Third-Party president.
BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION FOUNDER AND OTHER BLACK BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS PRAISE PRESIDENT TRUMP FOR HIS ECONOMIC MEASURES MAXIMIZING OPPORTUNITIES FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN JOBS. A reminder that Trump achieved the lowest black unemployment figures ever, but people trapped in the outdated political paradigms of the past failed to recognize the fresh air that the NON-career politician brought to America’s political cesspool.
MOCK HEADLINES: The definitive “Oh no, he didn’t!” edition that infuriated both Republicans and Democrats.
HEROIC LLOYD MARCUS CALLING OUT “MURKY” MUELLER AND HIS FELLOW CORRUPT FUNCTIONARIES – The Martin Luther King Person of Courage spoke his mind in April 2018.
MICHAEL MOORE: FAKE FRIEND TO THE WORKING CLASS. Moore and other financially comfortable Democrats are as callous toward the actual plight of the poor and the working class as the most bloated rich pig Republicans ever were.
FDR AND TRUMP HAD THE SAME KIND OF ENEMIES – Both major parties attack Trump for “filling the minds of the working class rabble with thoughts above their station in life.”
QUOTES TO PONDER: APRIL 4th – Social media robber barons plus callous and complacent fools. Continue reading
ADVENTURE COMICS VOL 1 #352 (January 1967) 
The Fatal Five are Tharok, a cyborg whose cybernetic brain makes him more intelligent than Brainiac 5; Validus, a huge purple monstrosity whose insanity drives it to perpetual violence; the Emerald Empress, evil ruler of an entire planet whose populace recently won a war to overthrow her; the Persuader, a killer and plunderer whose armor and Atomic Axe make him unstoppable; and Mano, a mutant whose hand wields energies so powerful that the hand destroyed his entire home planet. 
Frontierado is celebrated the first Friday of every August, so this year it will be marked on August 4th. This holiday celebrates the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. Here’s a seasonal post regarding my look at an opera version of the original Django spaghetti western from 1966, which strips the story down to its essentials, with no gold subplot.
DJANGO: AN OPERA – Here at Balladeer’s Blog I love sharing my enthusiasms. My blog posts where I provide contemporary slants to Ancient Greek Comedies to make them more accessible have been big hits over the years, so I’m trying it with operas. A little while back I wrote about how Philip Wylie’s science fiction novel Gladiator could be done as an opera. This time I’m addressing the 1966 original version of the Spaghetti Western titled Django. 
LANGUAGE: Spanish. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that most of my fellow English-speakers find English-language operas to be silly. The prosaic nature of the forced rhymes in a language we are well-versed in does seem to rob opera of its mystique and its grandeur. 
Scene One: The opera would open with a stage version of one of the most iconic visuals from the 1966 film. Our title character, DJANGO, clad in his long blue jacket with his well-worn Union Army uniform underneath it, slowly, wearily drags a coffin behind him as he walks along singing his mournful song. He pulls the coffin via a rope slung across one shoulder. 
THE CLONES (1973) – This neglected sci-fi item from the 70s was directed by Lamar Card & Paul Hunt, based on Hunt’s story. The Clones falls into that category of films that I always refer to as “X-Movies” because of the way they put one in mind of the paranoid and conspiratorial air of the best X-Files episodes. 
Gregory Sierra, best known to trivia buffs as “And Gregory Sierra” for the number of times he was credited like that in various television shows and movies, plays Nemo, a government agent tasked to keep the clone project a secret and bring in the escapee. 
THADDEUS KOSCIUSZKO (1746-1817) – As my last name makes clear, I’m of Polish American descent. Last 4th of July I made a blog post about
After receiving his education and military training in Europe, Kosciuszko sailed for America in June 1776. Unlike his fellow Pole Casimir Pulaski, he had missed out on serving in the Bar Uprising in Poland and was enthusiastic about fighting in the Revolutionary War. Poland’s long history of religious tolerance made Thaddeus feel a certain kinship with those who held similar sentiments in our emerging nation. 
ABRAHAM CLARK – Abraham’s two sons Aaron and Thomas were captured during the war and may have perished while captives of the British. Accounts vary and some sources even claim he had three sons die in the war. 
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