OUT – Rapping their knuckles with a ruler. IN – Pumping the little bastards full of lead.
WORLD WAR ONE: SOME INTRIGUING BOOKS
With today’s marking of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War here are some books on that often neglected topic. (I will omit Barbara Tuchman’s Guns of August because of how well-known it is.)
THE HAT IN THE RING GANG: THE COMBAT HISTORY OF THE 94th AERO SQUADRON IN WORLD WAR ONE – Written by Charles Woolley, this excellent book covers America’s 94th Aero Squadron aka The Hat in the Ring Gang.
When it comes to Flying Aces of World War One the Americans in the Lafayette Escadrille get the lion’s share of the attention. That’s ironic since Eddie Rickenbacker, America’s greatest ace of the war, served in the Hat in the Ring Gang along with many other famous paladins of the skies. To buy it click HERE
DOUGHBOY WAR: THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN WORLD WAR I – Written/ edited by James H Hallas. I feel this book is perfect for people who are just diving into World War One and don’t want inundated with all of the overwhelming details of more involved works. Doughboy War covers every aspect of American soldiers’ experiences in the Great War, often in their own words.
Follow them from enlistment, training and crossing the Atlantic to facing action in Europe, including accounts of the ordeals faced by wounded Doughboys. To buy it click HERE Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
HAPPY VETERANS DAY 2018
Well, it’s been ONE HUNDRED YEARS since November 11th, 1918 saw the end of World War One, or the Great War as it was called before anyone knew a second global conflict would occur. As we all know the date eventually became designated as the day for honoring the people who make it possible for the rest of us to lead our lives in relative safety.
Irrational political partisans often forget that the only reason any of them have the luxury of sitting back and making pompous, self-righteous pronouncements is because of the men and women who go out and actually DO something. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
COLLEGE FOOTBALL RESULTS FROM NOVEMBER 10th
HEADLINES
NUMBER THREE GETS TAKEN DOWN – In NCAA Division Two the 6th ranked VALDOSTA STATE BLAZERS played host to the nation’s number 3 UNIVERSITY OF WEST GEORGIA WOLVES. A 10-7 1st Quarter edge for the Blazers turned into a 34-21 lead at Halftime. After the break Valdosta State coasted to a 47-31 upset of the Wolves.
DEFEAT FOR TWO NUMBER NINES – Over in the NAIA the number 14 BAKER UNIVERSITY WILDCATS took the field against the visiting 9th ranked EVANGEL UNIVERSITY CRUSADERS and toppled them 19-7 ### And down in NCAA Division Three the (22) BETHEL (MN) ROYALS downed the (9) UNIVERSITY OF SAINT THOMAS TOMMIES 21-15. Continue reading
Filed under college football
MIDTERMS 2018 EXPLAINED FOR OVERSEAS READERS
Balladeer’s Blog provides a look at the midterm elections for overseas readers since so many of you have asked for clarification amid the Democrat versus Republican smoke-blowing since Tuesday night. As always I’m a bit moved and humbled when you readers ask me to cut through some of the confusion since you know that I dislike both parties equally. So I will be 100% sincere with my impression of the 2018 midterms.
ONE – There was no “Blue Wave” despite the corporate media’s 24/7 propaganda blitz.
TWO – Historically the political party that does NOT have the White House does very well in the midterms and it is always noteworthy when the President’s party does NOT lose large numbers of seats in Congress.
For instance, in Barack Obama’s first midterms he lost SIXTY-THREE seats in the House of Representatives AND lost 6 Senate seats. Bill Clinton ( Full disclosure: I liked Bill Clinton almost as much as I like Trump.) lost FIFTY-FOUR seats. Here in Trump’s first midterms he lost 30-some.
That math makes it indisputable that he did better than Obama and Clinton in their first midterms. Does this prove he’s more popular than those two? I don’t think so, but I also would not have felt it made him LESS popular than them if he had done WORSE than those two. Too many variables in midterms, especially with a de facto Third Party Wild Card like Donald Trump in the White House.
In addition, Trump’s nominal party, the Republicans, defied the usual midterm results by GAINING seats in the Senate.
THREE – The Democrats’ usual, tired and so-transparent “chance discovery” of thousands of “uncounted” votes has become expected at this point in close races. (Look up Broward County, Florida’s long history of this anywhere you like.)
“Miraculously” this only ever happens in districts controlled by the Democrats and equally miraculously these “discovered uncounted votes” ALWAYS help the Democrat candidates. This has been going on for AT LEAST two decades but the clueless Republicans have always failed to do anything about it.
If Republican districts did this every two years by discovering boxes full of uncounted votes that help THEIR candidates they would rightfully be nailed to the wall by the media, but the Democrats’ media outlets so massively outnumber the Republicans’ media outlets that the Dems’ obvious chicanery is never given the coverage it deserves.
This all goes back to the biggest failure of the money and power people on the Republican side – the failure to keep up with the opposition party in the media arms race. In typical fashion, Republican rich pigs’ obsession with profits to the exclusion of all else caused this. Since you can’t measure media impact on a profit and loss sheet the GOP plutocrats let the Democrats get so far ahead in this area that it causes the loss of many, many OTHER battles in the political arena.
FOUR – Democrat fanatics are ALREADY pushing ridiculous conspiracy theories that Trump will declare a crisis when his two terms (if he gets two) are up and cancel all further elections. I despised George W Bush AND Barack Obama but I NEVER bought into the ridiculous conspiracy theories claiming each one of THEM was going to conjure up an excuse to cling to power when their two terms were up. CAN WE AT LEAST SHOW ENOUGH SANITY TO NOT GO DOWN THIS SAME ROAD A THIRD PRESIDENT IN A ROW?
FIVE – Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
COLLEGE FOOTBALL RESULTS FROM NOVEMBER 8th
Getting a jump on the weekend …
THE FIRE THIS TIME – In the NAIA the 25th ranked SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY FIRE hosted the FAULKNER UNIVERSITY EAGLES (should be the Furies). A 13-10 1st Quarter edge for the Fire turned into a 16-13 lead for Faulkner U by Halftime. The 3rd Quarter ended with Southeastern University back on top 28-19 and from there the Fire won it 31-26. Continue reading
Filed under college football
ROBERT MUELLER AND HIS BIZARRE COLLUSION WITCH-HUNT: SUPERCUT
Readers of Balladeer’s Blog have been asking me for a new take on accused rapist Robert Mueller’s Russian Collusion circus. I’ve covered my view of it exhaustively in the past and consider it as inane as Newt Gingrich’s anti-Bill Clinton snipe-hunt long ago.
Here’s a supercut of my blog posts on “Murky” Mueller and his Funky Bunch of Hillary Donors:
ROBERT MUELLER: GANGSTER BOSS
Murky Mueller and his Funky Bunch of Hillary donors continue their criminal antics. Mueller and his fellow thugs have so many conflicts of interest that I would not blame any reasonable person who rejects anything and everything peddled by those gangsters.
The more that comes out the more clear it becomes what a pro-Hillary and anti-Trump hit job Mueller’s work is. The following is a terrific piece. The link is below, but first some excerpts:
“From 2001 to 2005 there was an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
A Grand Jury had been impaneled.
Governments from around the world had donated to the “Charity”.
Yet, from 2001 to 2003 none of those “Donations” to the Clinton Foundation were declared. Now you would think that an honest investigator would be able to figure this out.
Look who took over this investigation in 2005: None other than James Comey; Coincidence?”
“Guess who was transferred into the Internal Revenue Service to run the Tax Exemption Branch of the IRS? None other than, Lois “Be on The Look Out” (BOLO) Lerner. Isn’t that interesting?
But this is all just a series of strange coincidences, right?” Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
GOO GOO DOLLS: BROADWAY
Balladeer’s Blog’s recurring feature Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead returns with this look at the Goo Goo Dolls’ song Broadway aka Broadway’s Dark Tonight.
Filed under opinion
IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN (1904): LIKE A FORERUNNER OF INDIANA JONES
IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN (1904) by Robert W Chambers. Previously Balladeer’s Blog examined Chambers’ underrated horror classic The King in Yellow. The work we’re looking at this time around is a collection of short stories about Francis Gilland the Zoologist. Gilland was a forerunner of the real-life Frank “Bring ’em Back Alive” Buck and the fictional Indiana Jones.
Our daring hero worked for the Bronx Zoological Gardens and was frequently dispatched by Professor Farrago to try to bring in dangerous crypto-zoological specimens or disprove their existence if they were hoaxes. The stories in this volume:
I. THE HARBOR MASTER – Gilland is sent north to Hudson Bay where a Harbor Master has reported capturing a pair of Great Auks, flightless birds which went extinct in the mid-1800s. The two-fisted scholar finds the Great Auks are for real but the Harbor Master harbors (see what I did there) a sinister secret.
This story also features the Harbor Master’s beautiful secretary, who naturally catches Gilland’s eye, and a gilled merman (shades of Creature From The Black Lagoon), who wants to mate with the lovely lady himself. Gilland’s not having it, of course, and must do battle with the creature.
II. IN QUEST OF THE DINGUE – The Graham Glacier melts, unleashing a number of animals from species that were long thought extinct. Among the crowd of academics converging on the unexplored area are Gilland and Professor Smawl. The Professor is a sexy, strong-willed female scholar that our hero has been forced to accompany into the region.
The battle of the sexes bickering flies like shrapnel as the pair encounter Woolly Mammoths and other creatures, find a primitive bell called a dingue and run afoul of a gigantic super-powered woman who calls herself the Spirit of the North. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction, Pulp Heroes
FOUR AMERICAN SERVICEMEN WHO WERE KILLED IN WORLD WAR ONE
This Veterans Day, November 11th, will be the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. Here is a look at four Americans who met their death during that conflict.
CHARLES AUSBURNE
Ausburne joined the United States Navy February 25th, 1908 and had risen to the rank of Electrician First Class by the time of his death on October 17th, 1917. Charles was serving on the Antilles, which was sunk by torpedoes fired by the German U-Boat U-105.
Ausburne stayed at his post manning the vessel’s emergency wireless station while the ship slipped beneath the waves. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. Two naval craft were named after the 29 year old.
ALBERT E BAESEL
Baesel got his first military experience in peacetime, serving in the Ohio National Guard beginning in 1912 when he was 22. In 1918 he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
Albert was killed on September 27th, 1918 during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. For the details of his death here is the citation for his Medal of Honor: Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
