POPE FRANCIS: A MAN OF HIS WORD (2018) – The DC Comics movies just keep getting worse and worse. Some looser named Francis gets superpowers from washing the feet of poor people and little boys (creeper) and gets his own kind of Batcave called Vatican City.
Yeah, right, like with so many starving people in the world any kind of superhero would live in his own city with such opulence when they could give away 90% of their money to help the poor. It wasn’t realistic at all. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, humor, Superheroes
Here are the nine teams participating in the 2018 NAIA College World Series.
UNIVERSITY OF NORTHWESTERN OHIO RACERS
SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY FIRE
GEORGIA GWINNETT COLLEGE GRIZZLIES
UNIVERSITY OF ANTELOPE VALLEY PIONEERS Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball
FOR PART ONE OF THIS LOOK AT THE KREE-SKRULL WAR (1971-1972) CLICK HERE
THE AVENGERS Volume One, Number 93 (November 1971)
AVENGERS ROSTER: THOR (Donald Blake, MD), IRON MAN (Tony Stark), CAPTAIN AMERICA (Steve Rogers), ANT-MAN (Hank Pym, PhD), THE SCARLET WITCH (Wanda), GOLIATH (Clint Barton), QUICKSILVER (Pietro), THE VISION (Not Applicable), CAPTAIN MARVEL (Mar-Vell, Kree Captain)
NOTE: CAPTAIN MARVEL IS THE HERO THAT NICK FURY SUMMONED TO FIGHT THANOS IN THE POST-CREDITS SCENE TO AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.
THIS BEACH-HEAD EARTH
Synopsis: We open at Avengers Mansion. Iron Man has summoned Thor, Captain America, the Wasp and Yellow Jacket in response to an alarming and confusing letter that Tony Stark (Iron Man) received. That letter was from Jarvis, the Avengers’ butler, resigning his position since – as we saw last time around – Thor, Iron Man and Captain America expelled the Scarlet Witch, Goliath, Quicksilver and the Vision from the team.
Iron Man, Cap and Thor make it clear they have no idea what Jarvis was talking about. Obviously some imposters threw out the four expelled Avengers using their apparent complicity in Captain Marvel’s flight from S.H.I.E.L.D. as the excuse.
Suddenly the Vision bursts into the room. He has clearly been in a fight and is badly wounded. Before he can tell Thor, Iron Man and Captain America what happened he collapses into unconsciousness. The Big Three get the Vision to the Avengers’ infirmary and are alarmed to realize that he no longer has a pulse.
Ant-Man (Hank Pym, PhD) arrives from Alaska, where he says his wife the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) is laid up with an illness after the Avengers’ recent battle with Kree forces there. Since Ant-Man created Ultron who in turn created the Vision, Hank’s expertise is called upon to see if the Vision can be repaired.
Ant-Man shrinks himself down the most that he can and enters the Vision’s body through the android’s nostrils. This begins an adventure through the Vision’s body in which Ant-Man will face the android’s dangerous artificial defenses. Obviously the whole setup is an intentional homage to the sci fi movie Fantastic Voyage. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
Memorial Day Weekend is just a week away.
In keeping with my blog’s theme of addressing items that slip through the cultural cracks I’m showcasing a few of the Congressional Medal of Honor winners from the neglected war fought in the Philippines from 1899 to 1902.
HIRAM BEARSS (Correct spelling) – This Captain won the Medal for his actions on November 17th,1901 during a battle at the confluence of the Sohotan and Cadacan Rivers in Samar. Bearss led his men in a surprise attack on the enemy positions in the fortified cliffs. Relying mostly on bamboo ladders the Captain and his troops drove their opposition from their entrenched positions, literally “charging uphill” against enemy fire.
They also had to contend with the countless booby-traps lining the hills, many of which had been in place since the Spanish- American War of 1898. Those deadly traps took the form of pits, poison- tipped spears, trip-sprung vine nets loaded down with literally tons of stones and many others. The opposition in the caves honeymooning the cliffs needed rooting out as well with various forms of death lurking around every twist and turn in the caverns.
Following that Bearss and his men kept up their advance, seizing gunpowder and arms in addition to food and other supplies before driving the enemy forces out of their secondary positions in the cliffs. The U.S. forces had never penetrated so far before. Bearss went on to serve in World War One.
FRANK L ANDERS – Corporal Anders served in the storied unit remembered as Young’s Scouts. He was decorated for actions taken on May 13th, 1899 in Luzon. The Corporal and ten other Americans stormed 300 – yes – THREE HUNDRED – of the enemy and, in a case of truth REALLY being stranger than fiction, they attacked so ferociously they drove their hundreds of foemen into retreat. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – The title game in the USCAA (United States Collegiate Athletic Association) was played between the 6th seeded PENN STATE AT DUBOIS NITTANY LIONS and the 2 seeds – the NEWPORT NEWS APPRENTICE SCHOOL BUILDERS.
The Builders forced this decisive game after defeating PSU-Dubois 4-3. Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball
Here’s another blog post where I take a break from pointing out how the American Left’s unbearable pomposity and snobbery have driven away so many of us who used to consider ourselves part of it. This time my points are being made in a New York Times Op-Ed by Gerard Alexander, a professor of political science at the University of Virginia.
He uses the out of date term Liberals to describe them. If anything they are Illiberals and Left-Wing Archie Bunkers. The link is below, but first some excerpts:
“(Left-Wing Archie Bunkers) are not as smart, or as persuasive, as they think.”
“Liberals dominate the entertainment industry, many of the most influential news sources and America’s universities. … But this makes liberals feel more powerful than they are.”
“In fact, liberals may be more effective at causing resentment than in getting people to come their way.”
“Liberals are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. When they use their positions in American culture to lecture, judge and disdain, they push more people into an opposing coalition that liberals are increasingly prone to think of as deplorable. That only validates their own worst prejudices about the other America.” Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
It’s another edition of Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead! This time it’s Duran Duran with their James Bond song A View To A Kill.
Filed under opinion, Uncategorized
DAY THREE: GAME ONE – The 2 seeds – the NEWPORT NEWS APPRENTICE SCHOOL BUILDERS – battled for survival against the top seeded UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI AT CLERMONT COUGARS.
The 1st Inning ended in a 1-1 tie before the Cougars went on top 2-1 in the 2nd and 3-1 in the 4th. The Builders made it a 3-2 game in the 5th Inning only to see UC-Clermont pull away to 4-2 in the 6th. A 4-run 7th Inning for Newport News Apprentice School wound up giving them a 6-4 victory for Pitcher Mike Brumfield. Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball
FOR PART ONE OF THIS LOOK AT THE KREE-SKRULL WAR (1971-1972) CLICK HERE
THE AVENGERS Volume One, Number 92 (September 1971)
AVENGERS ROSTER: THOR (Donald Blake, MD), IRON MAN (Tony Stark), CAPTAIN AMERICA (Steve Rogers), THE SCARLET WITCH (Wanda), GOLIATH (Clint Barton), QUICKSILVER (Pietro), THE VISION (Not Applicable), CAPTAIN MARVEL (Mar-Vell, Kree Captain)
NOTE: CAPTAIN MARVEL IS THE HERO THAT NICK FURY SUMMONED TO FIGHT THANOS IN THE POST-CREDITS SCENE TO AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.
In this superhero-crazed world you readers have made it clear you want more Marvel items.
ALL THINGS MUST END
Synopsis: We pick up several days after the Avengers and their old civilian ally, rock singer Rick Jones, saved the world from Ronan the Accuser. Ronan was the new ruler of the alien Kree Empire after a coup d’état. When his plan was stymied by the Avengers, Ronan was forced to retreat back to Hala, the homeworld of the Kree Empire, because the Kree’s ancient foes the Skrulls had launched attacks on every Kree-held planet in the galaxy.
The Scarlet Witch, Goliath (formerly Hawkeye), Quicksilver, the Vision and Captain Marvel are enjoying down time at Avengers Mansion. Soon their butler Jarvis brings their attention to newscasts stating that the Avengers are being investigated by the U.S. government and the U.N.
Word has leaked from a Senator named H Warren Craddock and from the technicians the Avengers swore to confidentiality following last issue’s action. The entire world now knows about how the alien race called the Kree attempted to destroy the Earth.
Captain Marvel’s status as a renegade Kree captain helps draw attention to the Avengers and his place with them. Not helping the situation is the way Captain Marvel – aka Kree Starfleet Captain Mar-Vell – impersonated Earth scientist Doctor Walter Lawson as part of his original mission to infiltrate NASA at Cape Canaveral.
That circumstance inevitably leads to suspicion about how many other alien Kree may be infiltrating Earth bases, fanning the inevitable Witch Hunt.
Of course, our heroes know that eventually Mar-Vell sympathized with us primitive Earth creatures and sided with US against his own homeworld. Evidence links Captain Marvel to the frequent hostile alien activity at Cape Canaveral in recent years (in Mar-Vell’s own comic book) but in reality Captain Marvel was fighting that hostile activity, not participating in it.
Craddock’s fiery public accusations against the Avengers even imply that the reason the Avengers tried to impose a National Security blackout on the Kree attack in northern Alaska was really just to try to protect their member Captain Marvel from suspicion. (Marvel Comics has ret-conned several times if Mar-Vell was officially an Avenger by this point. I’m proceeding with him as a member since the whole story makes more sense if he is.) Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
DAY TWO: GAME ONE – The 5 seeds – the CLEARY UNIVERSITY PROWLING COUGARS – faced the top seeded UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI AT CLERMONT COUGARS to start Day Two.
An action-packed 1st Inning ended with the Prowling Cougars on top 3-2, with UC-Clermont tying things up at 3-3 in the 2nd. Unfazed, Cleary University piled on FIVE runs in the 3rd Inning and 1 more in the 5th, then rode those runs to a 9-3 Upset win. Gunnar Gail pitched an entire game for the Prowling Cougars.
DAY TWO: GAME TWO – From a case of Cougar on Cougar violence to a battle of cats and dogs. The 6th seeded PENN STATE AT DUBOIS NITTANY LIONS took the diamond against the 10 seeds – the SELMA UNIVERSITY BULLDOGS.
The Bulldogs grabbed a 2-1 edge in the 1st Inning and then made that a 3-1 advantage in the 4th. In the bottom of the 5th Inning the Nittany Lions went up 5-3 and added 2 more runs in the 6th while shutting out Selma U the rest of the way. PSU-Dubois won it by a final score of 7-3 for Pitcher Toner Corl. Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball
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