FLORES OF THE DROVERS SIGNS WITH THE BREWERS

usao_drovers_150px31CHICKASHA – Another Drover is headed for his chance to make it in the pros after signing with the Mikwaukee Brewers franchise.

University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma pitcher Jose Flores followed the MLB Draft eagerly last week, waiting for a call that never came.

“I was getting nervous just watching the draft and talking to my agent,” Flores said.

Flores’ agent told him to keep his head high and assured him the right opportunity would come.

“Sure enough, a couple days later, I was just sitting here watching TV and I got a call from the Brewers,” Flores said. Continue reading →

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MALDOROR 5:3 – INTERMITTENT ANNIHILATION OF HUMAN FACULTIES

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror.

INTERMITTENT ANNIHILATION OF HUMAN FACULTIES

Maldoror 5 3We are now on the 3rd Stanza of the 5th Canto. Our protagonist is railing against sleep, which he describes as “the intermittent annihilation of human faculties.”

He further pronounces that a person who sleeps is “less than a castrated animal” and makes it clear that sleeping is no different than binding ourselves on a sacrificial altar called a bed and leaving ourselves helpless at the hands of a malevolent God.

Maldodor claims he has gone 30 years now without sleeping, ever since he realized that those nightly rest periods are nothing but an opportunity for his archrival God to cement his hold on us. Through sleep God whispers his commands and his demented philosophies to his creations, according to Maldoror. Continue reading →

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ODDBALL SUPERHERO: DR HORMONE


Doctor Hormone
With the emphasis on superhero movies every summer these days I’ll periodically look at some of the stranger costumed crime-fighters  who have come down the road over the years. The Black Condor will remain my blog’s Official Weird Superhero, so have no fear. 

Doctor HormoneDOCTOR HORMONE  

Career: Popular Comics 54 through 60

Years Active: 1940 into 1941

Comment: This bizarre superhero had the most convenient last name this side of Dr Stephen Strange. The good doctor was 75 years old before he perfected a special treatment that restored him to age 25, possibly for good. (His series got canceled long before the writers had to worry about retconning or sliding time-scales.)

Dr Hormone injected his own elderly self with special hormones he had been whipping up in his lab and followed that up with exposure to Vita Rays “Angstrom Rays”, thus de-aging himself. With great hormones come great responsibility, however, and our intrepid hero decided to fight the forces of evil with his new youthful body and his scientific genius. His hormone chemicals allowed our hero to change his opponents’ height, weight and manipulate their anatomy in other weird ways. (This guy would have made a better villain!)   Continue reading →

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RAMADAN BODY COUNT: 22 DAYS IN

Muhammad as a pig, the way he deserves to be remembered!

Muhammad as a pig, the way he deserves to be remembered!

The month-long Ramadan holiday is a long celebration of those Muslim sacraments of killing and maiming, whether it be preying on non-Muslims or other Muslims who interpret the ridiculous Koran differently. We are into the Ramadan Murder-Palooza for 2015 and as an Atheist I’ll be periodically updating the violence perpetrated in the name of that reactionary pack of savage superstitions called Islam.

THERE IS NO GOD NAMED ALLAH AND MUHAMMAD WAS A FALSE PROPHET … NOT TO MENTION A CHILD RAPIST.

DEAD SO FAR: 2,177  WOUNDED: 2,655    

The religion that forever retards the social progress of the rest of the world is logging more than 200 victims per day this Ramadan! And this is a LOW estimate since plenty of acts of Muslim violence go unnoticed and unreported in the nations where Islam holds sway. 

JULY 6th – In Quetta, Pakistan, Muslims reminded the world how their record of treating minority groups continues to be AT LEAST as bad as anything the Western World was guilty of. In this case the oppressed minorities were the Hazara, a crowd of which were gunned down by Sunni Muslims.

ALSO JULY 6th – In Jos, Nigeria, Muslims set off bombs in a restaurant and at a rival mosque, killing at least 40 people.

JULY 7th – Muslim savages attacked Soko Mbuzi, Kenya, throwing grenades into homes and setting fire to tents housing laborers.

And, in the most savage example of all:    Continue reading →

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WNBA STANDINGS: THE LATEST

Minnesota Lynx logoWESTERN CONFERENCE – 1. MINNESOTA LYNX (8-2)    ###    2. TULSA SHOCK (9-4)    ###    3. PHOENIX MERCURY (6-5)    ###    4. SAN ANTONIO SILVER STARS (3-8)    ###    5. SEATTLE STORM (3-10)    ###    6. LOS ANGELES SPARKS (2-9)    ###   Continue reading →

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TEN NEGLECTED GUNSLINGERS OF THE OLD WEST

MASCOT COWBOY 2

“Hold it right there,” the gunslinger exclaimed, “We got us some apparent paradoxes and their effect upon contemporary philosophy to discuss … you savvy?”

JUST 30 DAYS UNTIL FRONTIERADO! As always Frontierado is about celebrating the myth of the Wild West and not the grinding reality. Part of the fun each year is an examination of neglected gunslingers from the 1800s. 

The likes of Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Calamity Jane and Jesse James have been the subject of a variety of movies and folk tales. Unfortunately some figures from the Wild West led lives at least as interesting as the big names did but have not gotten nearly as much attention. Here is a look at ten such men and women.

Rattlesnake Dick

Rattlesnake Dick

10. RATTLESNAKE DICK – No, he’s not a porn star. Dick Barton was originally from England but migrated with his family to the United States.In 1849 he joined the California Gold Rush but, having no luck at prospecting, formed an outlaw gang and took to robbing gold and payroll shipments instead. His second-in- command Cyrus Skinner was once shot down in a gunfight with Wells Fargo detectives and the stolen gold that Skinner had hidden before dying was fruitlessly sought after for years. Continue reading →

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MALDOROR 5:2 – FOUR SOULS ERASED FROM THE BOOK OF LIFE

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror.

FOUR SOULS ERASED FROM THE BOOK OF LIFE

dung beetleMaldoror, our supernatural protagonist, encounters four men whose lives were all ruined by the same seductive sorceress. The first man has been transformed into a horse-sized dung beetle and rolls along the mangled corpse of the sorceress the way such beetles usually roll clods of dung. 

Our narrator follows this oddity at a distance and eventually the huge dung-beetle encounters a man with the head of a pelican. (No, it’s not Jay Leno, who used to be described as “the pelican-headed comedian” early in his standup career.) The two bizarre creatures stand and converse in heated tones for a time and it slowly becomes clear to Maldoror what caused their mutual hostility and their current physical condition.   Continue reading →

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BALLADEER IS BACK!

puck1Thank you to everyone who inquired about me during my uncharacteristic lack of posts for a few days. I was laid up with an injury but I’m back!

Later today I will resume regular posting.

New material is coming in a few hours! 

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HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY 2015

American flagBalladeer’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 4th’s 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.

JULY 4TH, 1788 – Continue reading →

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INDEPENDENCE DAY: TO THE FOURTH POWER

To the 4th PowerTO THE FOURTH POWER (2013) – This film was one of the sleeper hits of last year. You’d think it would be impossible to do something creative with the mock documentary format at this point but To The Fourth Power proves to be a thought-provoking and inventive piece set “just a few years from now”.

The movie depicts a near future in which the Continue reading →

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