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15 PRESIDENTS DAY ITEMS

presidents day bitToday is Presidents Day, so here are several articles about America’s executive branch. 

democrat republican otherAMERICAN PRESIDENTS FROM EISENHOWER TO TRUMP – Be forewarned that my takes on U.S. Presidents can offend members of both major parties since I’m an Independent Voter. Anyway, don’t try accusing me of belonging to either party. I go after both sides’ presidents. Click HERE

U.S. PRESIDENTS FROM WASHINGTON ONWARD – If you want takes on our presidents from the very beginning this is the post for you. Click HERE.

VICE PRESIDENTS: JOKES ABOUT THESE ULTIMATE SECOND BANANAS – Prefer to see jokes about America’s various Vice Presidents instead? Click HERE.

THE FOUR MOST INCOMPETENT PRESIDENTS IN HISTORY – There are two Republicans and two Democrats on the list. Click HERE.

1912: BATTLE OF THE THREE PRESIDENTS – My take on the 1912 election, which pitted Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft against each other. Click HERE.

FIVE MOST UNQUALIFIED PRESIDENTS IN HISTORY – This post does not go by how these presidents performed in office, just their levels of experience before the presidency. Click HERE. Continue reading

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Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

COOL-NAMED COLLEGE SPORTS TEAM: COLUMBIA-GREENE COLLEGE

For some random fun, here’s another college with cool-named sports teams and a cool logo.

columbia greene twins logoCollege: COLUMBIA-GREENE COLLEGE

Team Name: TWINS

Location: Hudson, NY Continue reading

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CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON: 1970s CLASSICS 8 – FINAL BATTLES WITH THE SECRET EMPIRE AND MOONSTONE

For Part One of this series click HERE

ca f 174CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #174 (June 1974)

Title: It’s Always Darkest …

Villains: The Secret Empire

Synopsis: This story picks up right where the previous issue left off. The disguised Captain America and the Falcon, posing as drifting, mutant-hating goons for hire have been recruited into the Secret Empire. That villainous organization has been plotting to take over the United States and has also been hunting down and capturing mutants in furtherance of that goal.

The Empire’s operative Number 13 is escorting the disguised Cap and Falc via elevator into their secret headquarters far beneath the New Mexico desert. (Where the group has been lurking ever since their first battles with the Hulk in the 1960s.)

As our undercover heroes are led by Number 13 throughout the high-tech and armament-loaded lair, Captain America reflects to himself how this whole convoluted saga began with the public campaign against him by the Viper and his crooked colleagues on Madison Avenue. Continue reading

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CRATES: ANCIENT GREEK COMEDIES

Balladeer’s Blog takes another look at the surviving fragments of an ancient Greek comedian, in this case Crates.

CratesCRATES – Crates’ career spanned from approximately the 450s B.C. to the 430s B.C. We have fragments from nine or ten comedies from an unknown total output. From other sources we know that comedies as stage productions began sometime around 500 B.C. or earlier so Crates came fairly early to the artform.

Crates was credited with being the first Athenian comic poet (the comedies were written in verse and included songs) to introduce drunken characters, still a comic staple over 2,400 years later. Aristotle himself credited Crates as being the first to abandon the “glorified comic monologues” approach of the oldest comedies and introducing fleshed-out plots and storylines.

Be that as it may, there is still a great deal of academic arguing over whether or not Crates’ work simply reflected the influence of Epicharmus, who may well have been the TRUE innovator.

Crates was supposedly an actor before he began writing comedies (But I’m sure he really wanted to direct. – rimshot – ) and his brother was Epilycus, one of the Epic Poets. Eusebius’ Chronicles stated that Crates was a well-known comedian by 451 B.C. and Demetrius Lacon in his work On Poetry indicates that Crates may have acted in some of Aeschylus’ tragedies before switching genres. 

KNOWN WORKS 

NeighborsNEIGHBORS – We do not have even a hypothetical year for this work, unfortunately. Since titles sometimes referred to the all-important Chorus of a Greek comedy there is speculation that the chorus members were “Neighbors” of some sort (Duh!) but nothing is known about the plot.

 Athenaeus argued that Crates’ use of a drunken character in this comedy PRE-DATED Epicharmus’ use of stage drunks, so apparently even back in ancient times this was being debated.    Continue reading

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DEATH GAME (1977) – MICRO-REVIEW

death game picDEATH GAME (1977) – Also released under the title The Seducers, this horror movie/ psychological thriller was filmed in 1974 but not released until 1977 due to assorted legal entanglements. Sondra Locke and cult queen Colleen Camp starred with Seymour Cassell in this thoroughly bizarre exploitation movie.

Death Game was remade decades later as Knock Knock starring Keanu Reeves. The 1970s original may have been a trippy exploitation flick which spotlighted titillation and violence but so was the Eli Roth remake. And the original actually feels more honest and less cringe because it lacks the corporate cinematic feel of the Keanu Reeves movie, despite Locke co-producing and Camp making a cameo appearance.   

death game posterAfter the oft-invoked nonsense about the film being based on a true story Death Game begins.

Two predatory young women, Agatha Jackson (Sondra Locke) and Donna (Colleen Camp) insinuate themselves into the home of 40 year old George Manning (Seymour Cassell) on a rainy night when his wife and family are out of town. After seducing him they refuse to leave and behave in increasingly menacing and psychotic ways, subjecting him to physical and psychological abuse. Continue reading

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JIREL OF JOIRY: STORY FIVE

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the stories of pulp heroine Jirel of Joiry, the Medieval French woman-warrior created by female author C.L. Moore in 1934. For the first story click HERE.

jirel picQUEST OF THE STAR STONE (1937) – It’s crossover time! C.L. Moore decided to do a story in which her two most famous pulp creations – Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry – meet each other. Trouble is Jirel’s adventures take place in Medieval times while Northwest Smith’s stories are set around 2500 A.D. Any reader of pulp fiction knows that’s no real obstacle so let’s dive in.

The story opens in Jirel’s time. She is leading her obedient soldiers in an assault on the castle of a sorceror named Franga. Our sword-wielding heroine battles her way through to Franga’s chamber where she seizes a mystic gem called the Star Stone. That jewel is so powerful but so unfathomable that even Franga was still trying to discover how to harness its arcane energies.

Jirel defeats Franga and forces him to flee between dimensions, but as he leaves he promises Jirel that he’ll return to get revenge on her and get the Star Stone back – just as soon as he finds a champion capable of matching Jirel’s courage, cunning and force of will. “No matter what world or what time I find them in” he adds, letting the reader know what’s coming up.  Continue reading

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NJCAA COLLEGE BASKETBALL RANKINGS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG

In recent weeks I presented college basketball rankings in the NAIA and USCAA. This time around it’s all three divisions of the NJCAA. (National Junior College Athletic Association)

indian river state college pioneersNJCAA DIVISION ONE –  1. INDIAN RIVER STATE PIONEERS     ###    2. SALT LAKE CITY COLLEGE BRUINS    ###     3. DODGE CITY COLLEGE CONQUISTADORS    ###     4. JOHN A LOGAN COLLEGE VOLUNTEERS    ###    5. KILGORE COLLEGE RANGERS    ###     

southeastern ia college blackhawks6. SOUTHEASTERN (IA) COLLEGE BLACKHAWKS    ###     7. INDIAN HILLS COLLEGE WARRIORS    ###    8. HUTCHINSON COLLEGE BLUE DRAGONS    ###     9. OTERO COLLEGE RATTLERS    ###    10. ODESSA COLLEGE WRANGLERS    ###      Continue reading

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MEDA: A TALE OF THE FUTURE (1891) – ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

medaMEDA: A TALE OF THE FUTURE (1891) – This sci-fi tale of the year 5575 AD was first written in 1888 but read mostly among the social circle of the author. Its first official publication came in 1891.

Artist Kenneth Folingsby is flung forward in time to the year 5575, when he can tell that the pull of gravity has lessened substantially. Following a canal, he comes across the ruins of Edinburgh and sees what people of future Scotland – who call themselves Scotonians – look like. This is another of those 1800s novels which absurdly assume that less than 4,000 years will be enough time to bring on enormous evolutionary changes to the human body.

To be fair, though, Meda: A Tale of the Future does use mutation following a planetary disaster to justify the rapid physiological changes. 

The Scotonians have stubby bodies with large heads shaped like hot air balloons and are no taller than four feet. The people themselves are practically lighter than air, with some needing weighted down with lead or stones to prevent them from floating off into the upper atmosphere. Continue reading

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CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON: 1970s CLASSICS 7 – MOONSTONE, BANSHEE AND THE X-MEN

For Part One of this series click HERE.

ca f 171CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #171 (March 1974)

Title: Bust-Out!

Villains: Stone-Face and Moonstone

NOTE: This is the first story with the Falcon using his new wings in action.

Synopsis: We pick up right where we left off last time. The country is heatedly divided regarding the jailed Captain America’s guilt or innocence on the murder charge. We readers know that Cap was framed by Moonstone and Quentin Harderman (a former colleague of the supervillain the Viper) as the capstone of their smear campaign against our hero.

falcon and redwingA gang of armed men have blasted their way into Captain America’s jail cell, claiming to be on his side and offering to help him escape. Cap is torn, apprehensive that people will conclude he’s guilty if he escapes but fearful that if he stays nobody will be able to prove his innocence.

Our hero ultimately decides to stay in his cell to let the legal process play out. It is then that the supposedly “pro-Cap” armed men reveal that they are really part of Harderman’s organization and tell him he has no choice: come with them or they’ll kill him. Continue reading

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JIREL OF JOIRY: STORY FOUR

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the stories of pulp heroine Jirel of Joiry, the Medieval French woman-warrior created by female author C.L. Moore in 1934. For the first story click HERE.

jirel of joiry on horsebackTHE DARK LAND (1936) – In her tower bedroom at Castle Joiry, Jirel lies in bed, mortally wounded while leading her men at the Battlefield of Sorrow. A pike wound in her side has grown infected and the weak, delirious warrior woman is surrounded by her chambermaids, all of them weeping over their lady’s condition.

Father Gervase, whom we met back in the first Joiry story, arrives to cleanse Jirel of her sins as part of her Last Rites. He and the chambermaids are shocked to see that Jirel of Joiry’s body has disappeared from her death bed.

The priest and the maids are overcome with fear that the mistress of Castle Joiry may have been taken away body and soul by Satan. Father Gervase whispers his suspicion that Jirel had too often dabbled in forbidden things and defied too many unearthly powers during her lifetime and had finally paid the price. Continue reading

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