War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
A couple of celestial phenomena have graced eyes and telescopes most recently, especially this evening as the longest total solar eclipse this century swept across Asia, starting in India, sweeping east across China and into the Pacific Ocean. A blogger/astronomer who chased the eclipse from a mountain outside Hangzhou, China: 8:05 a.m. (8:05 p.m. E.D.T.) We…
All the blubbering coming from broadcast news last night on the death of Walter Cronkite yesterday made me want to grab a barf bag and run away. These talking twit-heads on TV are nothing but smoke and mirrors — not at all connected to the news business, but a shadow, a sham and shit-long-way from…
End of trust and straight-talk – Walter Cronkite died today at age 92.  (Illustration found here). In memory, Ben Bradlee with a piece posted today in Newsweek on Cronkite and Watergate: In October 1972, Cronkite devoted two segments, back to back, to the Watergate story. The first was 14 minutes, the second eight. I think that second night…
I didn’t think the Emmys had the grapes — not like that time they nominated Vince Edwards: He’s just a damn doctor, Jim. (Illustration found here). Who said Seth MacFarlane is imbecilic? Go ahead, you homo, tell me and I’ll trim his toenails with an axe. A nomination for Best Comedy was heaped upon Family Guy this…
Still more grim news, but today’s particular sack of shit is more ethics and morals than anything else. Three stories that reflect our times — strange/bad and getting worse — and how lopsided situations have become as if a giant screw is being tightened down. The first item concerns a near-invisible US horror — coal ash dump-ponds,…
Still more bad news from the war on weather. Changes in climate the next few years will create a disaster scenario beyond even the old chesnut of “biblical proportions” as all kinds of bad shit will force the mass movement of many peoples. From Agence France-Presse today (via Raw Story): Tens of millions of people…
Apparently, this global-warming scenario seems to be getting worse. This morning from the Washington Post: Sea levels could rise faster along the U.S. East Coast than in any other densely populated part of the world, new research shows, as changes in ice caps and ocean currents push water toward a shoreline inlaid with cities, resort…
Here on the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion comes an odd historical look at the Normandy landings from an altogether different perspective: The civilian inhabitants along that particular French Coast. And according to history, the Allies acted like barbarians — high saturation bombing of cities, villages and even blowing the shit out of a…
In 1956, there were less than 170 million US peoples, unemployment was at less than 5 percent, a first-class postage stamp cost less than a nickel. And Dinah Shore was hawking the Chevy brand. In the illustration at left (found here), she is seen with her national, prime-time TV pitch-line, “See the USA in Your Chevrolet,” in…
Villager #1: We have found a witch. May we burn her? Crowd: Burn her! Burn! Burn her! Burn her! Bedevere: How do you know she is a witch? Villager #2: She looks like one. Crowd: Right! Yeah! Yeah! Bedevere: Bring her forward. Witch: I’m not a witch. I’m not a witch. Bedevere: Uh, but you…