DISCLOSURE DAY (2026) – Did Steven Spielberg forget what he accomplished with the ending of Close Encounters of the Third Kind? How does he think that an elderly alien getting brought out in a wheelchair even compares, let alone equals, the wonder of his earlier film? Maybe if Disclosure Day ended with Richard Dreyfus’s character having returned to Earth and standing there beside the alien, he might have had something noteworthy.
Did Steven Spielberg forget that long before he condescendingly acted like his aliens/ Jesus angle would shock people that Ridley Scott already pursued such concepts in Prometheus? Or that even by then it had already become a trope after movies like Aliens from Spaceship Earth, God Told Me To and others.
Long time Balladeer’s Blog readers may recall that I’ve already reviewed science fiction stories from the 1800s that dealt with the Jesus/ aliens concept. Why did Spielberg think he was serving up anything that would – as he boasted – make Christians question their faith?
Television shows from The Invaders and U.F.O. to The X-Files and dozens since have worn out all of the material that Spielberg deluded himself into thinking he was pioneering in this movie. His own 2002 television miniseries Taken reworked all those cliches long before this year’s Disclosure Day. Continue reading
THE ADAMS CHRONICLES (1976) – This mini-series of 13 50-minute episodes looked at historical giant John Adams and his descendants from the American Revolution up to the 1890s. Michael Tolan narrated 8 episodes. 
EPISODE ONE: JOHN ADAMS, LAWYER (Jan 20th, 1976) – As a young man, John Adams (George Grizzard) suffers setbacks in his career as a lawyer, so he returns to the farm his father left him. His fiery cousin Samuel Adams (W.B. Brydon) tells him he made a mistake and should go back to practicing law. John meets Abigail Smith (Kathryn Walker), daughter of a Reverend (Addison Powell). He marries her and as they raise their children he returns to his career as an attorney. 
Yes, 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.
THE NOSTOI aka THE RETURNS is a neglected epic in the Trojan War cycle. It is attributed to Agias or to Eumelus of Corinth. In the Epic Cycle, The Nostoi comes after 
My, how time flies! It’s already been a year since anti-Donald Trump loons were claiming that celebrating the army’s 250th anniversary was Trump supposedly “acting like a dictator” by having a military event “celebrating his birthday.” It was wrong, of course, like roughly 90% of the shrill accusations against President Trump always turn out to be. Here’s my post from 2025 addressing that situation: 
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. 
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. 
Susanna M. Salter was born March 2nd, 1860 in Lamira, Ohio. In 1872 she and her family moved to Kansas, settling near Silver Lake. 
THE SHIELD 
Powers: The chemical formula that the Shield rubbed onto his skin followed by bombardment with flouroscopic rays endowed him with super-strength plus invulnerability. The Shield also wore an indestructible costume which encased his torso like a shield.
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