Thursday, June 29, 2017

Melania Trump's platform

Hey, Melania, isn't it time for you to get your husband to stop his cyber-bullying?
After all isn't that what your platform is supposed to be about??????????????

He is the Number 1 cyber-bully in the entire world!

Wake up!

Quote of the Day------Goodreads





And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.


Antoine de Saint-Exupéry



In the beloved French novella The Little Prince, a pilot who has crashed in the desert encounters a young prince visiting Earth from his home asteroid. The premise was inspired by author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's (born June 29, 1900) own desert crash. After three days without water, he was saved by a passing Bedouin. 

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Who Pays for YOUR Health Care?



Hey Mitch, Sit Down, Shut UP and LISTEN to the Majority of Americans!

Who PAYS for your Health Insurance?  Are you covered by the U.S. Government health plan?  IF so, then I think I and millions of Americans are funding YOUR health coverage!  Maybe WE should take YOUR coverage away!!!!!!

Saturday, June 24, 2017

What else is "New"?

Well, Ryan said it!

Back at the beginning of May, I noted that a number of American Military men and women had lost their lives serving their country, and the President had not once had the American Flag lowered in their honor.  Since that time several more American Military men and women have lost their lives serving their country, and STILL the President has not seen fit to honor their dedication, nor their memories, by lowering the American Flag!  WHAT A DISGRACE HE IS!

And Paul Ryan you are a disgrace to, to give him such a stupid excuse to ignore our Military men and women, and their families.

You both need to fixate on the REAL things that are important NOT YOUR inflated EGOS!!!!!!!!!

GROW UP and be a concerned HUMAN BEING!


Thursday, June 22, 2017

Finally some "good" news we can all SMILE about



Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik, Jim Parsons, Melissa Rauch and Simon Helberg star in “The Big Bang Theory.”

Stephen Hawking is clearly a fan of “Big Bang Theory.”
The famed physicist tapped the long-running CBS sitcom as a recipient of this year’s Stephen Hawking Science Medal for science communication

Friday, June 16, 2017

The Greatest "What"?

Does he really think he is the Greatest, doing the Greatest, making the country the Greatest?

What about compassion, understanding, kindness, wisdom consideration of others, being sympathetic to those less fortunate?

Proverbs 4: 5-7  King James Version
Get wisdom! Get understanding!
Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth.

Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you;
Love her, and she will keep you.

Wisdom is the principal thing;
Therefore get wisdom.
And in all your getting, get understanding.


Well, I can only hope and pray that someone will give him some direction, that he will actually listen to, because from this writer's point of view, he is doing nothing except creating a greater divide in our country. Which he doesn't seem to understand, nor does he listen to the overwhelming majority of Americans telling him just that. 

Quit TWEETING, and listen for a change!

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

The Piano in a Factory ---- Chinese movie

The Piano in a Factory - a Chinese movie.

We watched this film over 2 evenings.
Very interesting. 
Premise - couple in the beginnings of a divorce with a young daughter (who plays piano) caught in the middle.
Father believes if he can obtain a piano his daughter will choose to stay with him - mother is only marginally in the film, she has a "wealthy" boy-friend.
Father is a member of a musical troupe that performs at various events (funerals, weddings, etc.) he enlists his fellow musicians and friends to assist him in obtaining a piano - when that "fails", he devises a plan to build a piano.
There were many scenes that reminded us of a Charlie Chaplin film, the music is always interesting and the ending will have you applauding.
Hope you will try it - yes, it does have subtitles, but many scenes don't really require conversation to convey what's occurring.
The main male actor won Best Actor award at the Tokyo Int'l Film Festival.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Quote of the Day ------ Goodreads




Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.


W.B. Yeats


William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet and dramatist who became one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature, was born on this day in 1865. 

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Quote of the Day----Goodreads





We're all in this game together.


William Styron



Novelist William Styron (born June 11, 1925) was both admired and controversial. Black activists called for boycotts of The Confessions of Nat Turner, written from the POV of the leader of a slave revolt. The sexually explicit Sophie's Choice, which won the National Book Award, was often banned in schools. 

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Eugene Robinson's editorial 6-6-17



Robinson: Trump’s tweets a gift to lawyers fighting travel ban

By Eugene Robinson

The statements President Trump issued on Twitter in recent days lead to a chilling conclusion: The man is out of control.

I know that is a radical thing to say about the elected leader of the United States, the most powerful individual in the world. And I know his unorthodox use of social media is thought by some, including the president himself, to be brilliant. But I don’t see political genius in the invective coming from Trump these days. I see an angry man lashing out at enemies real and imagined — a man dangerously overwhelmed.

On Monday, he started at 6:25 a.m. to comprehensively undermine his own legal team in its quest to win Supreme Court approval for a travel ban targeting Muslims. I can call it that, without legalistic hemming and hawing, because the president did so. Emphatically.
“People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN,” Trump wrote.

Maybe he thinks that tweets, somehow, don’t count. But of course they do. These are written statements typed by the president himself, and as such should carry more weight than a processed release from the White House press office, not less. Trump’s lawyers — arguing in support of the blocked measure, which would bar visitors from six majority-Muslim countries — contend it is not a “travel ban” as such. Attorneys on the other side will surely use Trump’s own words against him.

And he had plenty more to say:
“The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C. [Supreme Court]”
“The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court — & seek much tougher version!”
“In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political!”

Let that last one settle in for a moment. Has a president ever publicly dismissed the entire judicial branch of our government as “slow and political,” even in a moment of pique? Does Trump grasp the concept of separation of powers? Has he even read the Constitution he swore to preserve, protect and defend?

Whether Trump’s statements during the campaign — calling for a surely unconstitutional blanket ban on Muslim visitors from anywhere — should be taken into account by courts considering the current “watered down” version is debatable. His written statements as president, however, are clearly germane. Opponents of the ban might want to send him flowers.

Trump first let the cat out of the bag Saturday night, following the terrorist attack in London, when he wrote, “We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!”

He went on to express compassion and support for “London and the U.K.” But by Sunday he was off the rails: “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’”

What rational head of state attacks the mayor of a city that has just been hit by terrorists? Why would Trump do such a thing, in the process taking Mayor Sadiq Khan’s words out of context in a way that totally changed their meaning? Because last year Khan, perhaps the highest-profile Muslim public official in a non-Muslim country, criticized then-candidate Trump, saying that his “ignorant view of Islam could make both our countries less safe.”

What Khan actually said Sunday was that the public had “no reason to be alarmed” about an increased police presence on the streets — not, as Trump suggests, that they should be nonchalant about terrorism. Khan’s stoic and defiant response is in the tradition of Churchill’s during the Blitz of 1940 and 1941, or Thatcher’s during the Irish Republican Army’s terror campaign. Londoners have rallied around him. Trump, by contrast, sounds like a ridiculous Chicken Little squawking about the coop.

Words have consequences. Trump’s may hurt British Prime Minister Theresa May in Thursday’s election. Assuming she survives, she will have learned a lesson about getting too close to a volcanic president who might at any minute erupt.

We already knew that Trump had a narrow mind and a small heart. Now we must wonder about his emotional stability, his grasp of reality, or both.

Eugene Robinson’s email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com. 

Monday, June 5, 2017

This Ain't No Mouse Music - a documentary




Chris Strachwitz has been "detecting" American music since the 1960's. He has been recording music for 50 years - plus he has his own "indy" record label Arhoolie Records. He loves ethnic music of the American south, Cajun from Louisiana, Tex-Mex of Texas.
Blues, jazz, country - you name it he loves it.
Some of his "finds" or those who have been put to the forefront of our musical heritage are the following  











Ry Cooder






Michael Doucet


Garrison Keillor's editorial 6-4-17



Last paragraph of Garrison's editorial from 6-4-17


Other countries have lived with leaders who are ignorant, poorly tutored, self-obsessed and corrupt, and why can't we? Let Congress hash things out, with the courts as safeguard, and Him of the Golden Hair and Mighty Eyebrows, go bear his Torch of Greatness to Benighted Peoples in Distant Lands and don't hurry back.




Thank you Garrison!!!!!!