Read Books
It sounds very simple, but many people ignore this advice. The more books you read, the more lexicon you get. You learn new expressions and constructions. In the future, you will notice how your writing becomes better. This will help not only to improve your skills but also make texts simpler and more enjoyable. Do not force yourself to read what you do not want. Choose your favorite authors and enjoy the process.
Continue reading
KID RUSSELL: EPISODE THREE
For Episode One plus background information click HERE For a look at the Kid Russell legend click HERE
William Smith would have made a good Kid Russell long ago.
KID RUSSELL
EPISODE THREE
Title: The Judith Basin Cattle Roundup
The Year: 1883
Synopsis: This episode will open up with Kid Russell (Charles Marion Russell) among the five or six players in a poker game at one of the saloons in Helena, MT. His regular saloon gal Dutch Leina is hovering nearby. Accusations of cheating eventually erupt and, while the Kid’s friend Charlie Bowlegs gets shot down, Russell himself manages to blow away the attacker. (The Kid’s real-life friend Charlie Bowlegs really did get shot to death in saloon card-game violence.)
After a few days in jail, Kid Russell’s case comes up and he is found not guilty on self-defense grounds and released. While cooling his heels in stir the Kid got to talking to some cowhands getting ready for the upcoming Judith Basin Cattle Roundup, an annual event which was, even then, achieving legendary status.
Russell, always a romantic, can’t shake a desire to once again try the cowboy lifestyle he once aspired to. After his initial run at a sheep ranch getting leaned on by the Cattlemen (Episode One) and his two years guiding tycoons and European Blue-Bloods on big-game hunts with Lucky Boy Hoover (Episode Two), Charley finds himself itching for a change. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
WASHINGTON POST: TRUMP MADE HIS CRITICS LOOK SMALL AGAIN ON JULY 4th
For starters, the irrational haters of de facto Third Party President Donald Trump lied again when they claimed it was “unprecedented” for a President to address the nation during a Fourth of July celebration and that by doing so he was making the holiday “about himself.” Presidents Woodrow Wilson (D), Harry Truman (D), John F Kennedy (D), Gerald Ford (R), Ronald Reagan (R), Bill Clinton (D) and George W Bush (R) all addressed the nation on July 4th.
Second, when even the rabidly anti-Trump Washington Post can admit that Trump’s speech was, as the Post put it, “not partisan, but unifying” we see once again how shrill and out of touch so many Trump critics are. The man has done more for the working class and the poor than any other president in my lifetime.
For the umpteenth time I will point out that we are long past the point where, even if I didn’t support President Trump, who is technically Third Party, I would PRETEND I did just to spite the slobbering psychopaths who advocate violence against Trump supporters. And that includes Antifa (really KLAN-tifa) bacteria.
The Washington Post piece Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY 2019
Balladeer’s Blog wishes a happy birthday to the USA! What happened in early July of 1776 certainly needs no rehashing so in keeping with my blog’s theme of addressing more out of the way subjects this post will examine various events that took place on other July 4ths throughout American history.
JULY 4TH, 1778 – George Rogers Clark led his rebel forces in taking the British stronghold of Kaskaskia, near the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia Rivers. Clark and his Rangers were on a mission for then-Virginia Governor Patrick Henry.
JULY 4TH, 1783 – The Massachusetts Supreme Court is finalizing its written decision holding that slavery has been illegal in the state since adoption of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights in 1780. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History, Revolutionary War
1776: FOURTH OF JULY MUSICAL
It may be my fondness for mythology that makes me love to watch particular movies around particular holidays. I say that because many of the well- known myths were recited on ancient holidays when their subject matter was relevant to those holidays. The stories helped accentuate the meaning of the special events and that’s the way I use various movies.
At Christmas I watch countless variations of A Christmas Carol, around Labor Day I watch Matewan and Eight Men Out, at Halloween, naturally, horror films like the original Nightmare On Elm Street, Thanksgiving Eve I do Oliver! and for Frontierado (which is just a month away now) I do Silverado.
Since the actual 4th of July is loaded with activity I always show 1776 on the night before. It’s a great way to get in the mood for Independence Day. It’s a musical but with brilliant dialogue portions and the story involves the political maneuvering surrounding the Original Thirteen Colonies at last announcing their independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the shots fired at Lexington and Concord started the war.
The story is excellently conveyed and is moving, comical, invigorating and poignant all at once. As long as you know which parts of the tale are depicted accurately and which are complete b.s. it’s a terrific way to spend each 3rd of July evening. Continue reading
Filed under Revolutionary War
BETTING ON POLITICAL EVENTS IS HEATING UP
Betting on political election outcomes has become more challenging than at any other time in history, possibly. Over the past three years longshots and dark horses in the U.S. and around the globe have been winning with ever-greater frequency as political polling seems to have fallen from a science to a crap-shoot.
The first Democratic Party Primary debates have just ended and odds for the candidates have already been updated. In case you haven’t caught on yet betting on political events is heating up and you can see there’s been new updates since the debates ended. With 16 months to go until the presidential election, various betting props will continue popping up and most of them will likely be related to President Trump.
The wild mob of Democrats contending for their party’s nomination have just begun the process of taking each other out and history tells us that things will get meaner and meaner as the field of candidates gets leaner and leaner. Continue reading
Filed under opinion
DEMOCRAT FREDERICA WILSON CALLS FOR PEOPLE WHO RIDICULE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO BE PROSECUTED
Brain-dead Frederica Wilson, Democrat member of Congress (aka “bought and paid-for whores”) openly called for people who ridicule members of Congress to be prosecuted. For what, the little imbecile apparently couldn’t say.
The simpleton also stumbled over her brief statement, confusing “unacceptable” and “not unacceptable.” Frederica, who dresses like a rodeo clown, is apparently one of those Democrats who think they are our rulers rather than our elected representatives.
Thank you, Frederica, for driving even MORE of us former Democrats to the #WALKAWAY movement. CHECK OUT #WALKAWAY online, by the way. It’s home to a lot of us former Democrats who have grown disgusted with what intolerant fascists that party has become. See also, Antifa’s (Really KLAN-Tifa’s) threat to start acid attacks next. Definitely not the party of FDR and JFK anymore.
For Frederica’s idiocy click Continue reading
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
KILLRAVEN SIX: THE LEGEND ASSASSINS
FOR PART ONE OF BALLADEER’S BLOG’S EXAMINATION OF THIS OLD, OLD MARVEL STORYLINE CLICK HERE The revisions I would make are scattered throughout the synopsis below.
AMAZING ADVENTURES Vol 2 #23 (March 1974)
Title: THE LEGEND ASSASSINS
Revised Title: Since I would save the attempted execution of Killraven for the next issue instead of this one, I would use For He’s A Jolly Dead Rebel as the title for this part and save The Legend Assassins for next time.
Synopsis: Killraven and his Freemen (M’Shulla, Old Skull, Hawk, Carmilla Frost and Grok) continue to battle against hopeless odds at the Lincoln Memorial Slave Market, where the Martians buy and sell humans as either slave labor or to be used as food.
Battling at their side is their fellow rebel Mint Julep, the green-skinned plant/ human hybrid created by Martian science and her unnamed Freewomen. Both bands of guerillas have freed their comrades who were being auctioned off and are trying to fight their way free of the increasing numbers of Martians and their human quislings closing in on the area.
Killraven has no trouble killing the mob of actual Martians that he was thrown to at the end of last issue. Their sluggish movements in Earth’s greater gravity negated the advantage of their superior numbers and their many tentacles. KR fights his way clear with his sword and photo-nuclear pistol and the Martians slink away to shelter since, even now, they have only LIMITED immunity to Earth germs.
A pair of Tripods manage to snair Killraven and carry him off before the other rebels can free him. Mint Julep convinces KR’s Freemen to escape with her since she and her Freewomen have hidden lairs all around this territory of theirs.
REVISION: Writer Don McGregor had not yet hit his stride writing about Killraven’s adventures and I feel he messed up the story structure to this three-parter. I would have had ALL the Freemen – including KR – escape with Mint Julep and her band.
The quisling Sabre (no relation to the later Don McGregor figure) would, like in the real story, salute the fleeing Freemen with his sword, wishing he could be one of them.
With Killraven using The Power to keep all of them undetected by the sensors and alarms of the aliens (Zetans in my revisions, NOT ridiculous Martians) the rebels all escape to the subterranean hideouts of Mint and her people. They follow abandoned subway lines to a sub-level of the Pentagon, one of their lairs.
Dialogue will make it clear that she and her Freewomen practically rule the comings and goings through the old subway system beneath the city because they know them inside-out and massacare any human quislings like Sabre and his men if they try to pursue them there. And, for reasons not known YET, the aliens themselves are too terrified to personally venture into the old subways OR the sub-levels of the Pentagon. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
AMERICA (1924): A SILENT FILM FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY
Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are familiar with my fondness for old Silent Movies. America was D.W. Griffith’s 1924 production about the Revolutionary War. The movie is pleasant enough for the July 4th holiday season, but don’t expect a classic like The Phantom of the Opera, The Mark of Zorro or many other masterpieces of the silent era.
Batman fans may enjoy the fact that a very young Neil Hamilton – Commissioner Gordon on the much later Adam West Batman show – starred in America as Nathan Holden, a rebel Minute Man in Massachusetts. Nathan is part of a Romeo and Juliet-styled romance and is in love with Nancy Montague (Carol Dempster), who belongs to a Tory family still loyal to England.
The Holdens can’t stand the snobbish Montagues and the Montagues pompously look down on the Holdens and the rest of the rebels. Nancy’s father would rather see Nancy married off to the prominent British military officer Captain Walter Butler, played with aristocratic and sadistic flair by THE Lionel Barrymore.
The star-crossed lovers Nathan and Nancy struggle to keep their romance alive against the backdrop of historical events like the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere’s Ride, the Battle of Bunker Hill and many others.Various actors portray figures like John Hancock, Samuel Adams, William Pitt, King George III, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and, of course, George Washington. Continue reading
Filed under Revolutionary War
WOMEN’S COLLEGE GOLF CHAMPIONS FOR 2019
Here’s one last round of congratulations to this year’s women’s golf champions in the 7 divisions covered here at Balladeer’s Blog:
NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics)
National Champions – UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA THUNDERBIRDS
Runners-Up – Keiser University Seahawks
2018 Champions – Savannah College of Art & Design Bees
NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association)
National Champions – BIOLA UNIVERSITY EAGLES
Runners-Up – Erskine College Flying Fleet
2018 Champions – Dallas Baptist University Patriots Continue reading
Filed under college sports
Balladeer's Blog 