So yesterday came the last big block of state voting for the nominees to be President of the United States and the big winner was Hillary Clinton. Not only does she now unquestionably have enough delegates to claim the mantle of Democratic Nominee, but she also took California, a very large, delegate-rich state which her rival Bernie Sanders was hoping to snatch from her.
You will find plenty of articles about yesterday in all major news media. Here’s one by Stephen Collinson from CNN.com…
While I am usually loathe to dive into politics, it is nonetheless worth noting the historic nature of yesterday’s events.
Like her or not, Hillary Clinton represents the very first female nominee for a major U.S. political party and it is amazing that we may follow the first African American nominee and eventual President, Barack Obama, with the first female nominee.
Based on the bad news trailing the presumptive Republican nominee these last few days, we might well have our first female President.
I enjoy lists. Some say they’re a lazy way of filling up space or creating conversation (I guess they are guilty of that) but building lists has always fascinated me…so long as one realizes that it involves opinions and, like all opinions, there is no absolute “right” or “wrong”.
Having said that, this is one of the more fascinating lists I’ve run into in a while. The headline above gives it away. From Fortune magazine, we have…
Going into the article and while trying not to give everything away (you should read it!), I could guess certain companies which might be on liberal hate lists. Primarily, Walmart (due to their minimum wage/anti-union policies) and probably several oil companies (there were), and probably Wall Street/Banking related companies. As for companies on conservative “hate” lists, Target was on it (perhaps due to their bathroom policies?!) as well as Freddie Mac and Fannie May (both of which have been derided plenty of times by conservative talking heads).
But forget about all that.
The main reason I pointed out this article is because of this:
Conservatives listed a dislike for Pepsi-Cola while Liberals expressed a hatred for Coca-Cola.
Really?!
While their dislike for either company isn’t “high” on their lists, it was most curious to see what conservatives and liberals felt regarding soda companies. The big question is: Why would that be? The article concludes with this:
Perhaps (the respective dislike for soda companies) has to do with their corporate colors. (Coke is red. Pepsi is blue.) Or maybe it has to do with the general political leanings of where the companies have been based. Coke is in the South. And Pepsi’s headquarters is in the Northeast. But for whatever reason, the Coke-Pepsi political divide is just another sign that when it comes to politics, commerce is less immune than ever.
Very weird.
I’m a liberal but I have to admit to finding it hard to build up any “hate” toward a soda company.
I knew her for exactly one school year, our sophomore year, in High School.
I was a stranger to that town and for years didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin. Moving from country to country has a way of making you both introverted and shy. You don’t want to reach out to others for fear they’ll soon be gone.
She was in one of my classes. I don’t recall which, but we got to be friends. Perhaps she took pity on me. She was very attractive and had the eyes of many others, including some of the more popular people in the school and I was, compared to them, a quiet oddball.
I admit it, I was smitten.
The year ended and we left on good terms (she even signed my yearbook!) and when I returned to school for our junior, then senior years, I hoped to reconnect with her but that was not to be. Apart from that first year we didn’t share another class together. I saw her here and there on campus but we never had another conversation and never shared another laugh. She had her circle of friends and they didn’t include me or my geeky friends.
I saw her one last time on perhaps the very last day of High School. It was an outdoor get-together for the graduating Seniors and we were milling about or sitting on the lawn and hanging out in groups. I saw her sitting with one of her female friends and by a teacher I knew and decided to formally say goodbye to her.
I was still painfully shy but built up my courage and sat down near her. My shyness had my mind in overdrive and I tried to work into talking to her by first acting like I sat there with the intention of talking to that teacher. I caught her eye but we wound up not saying anything to each other. Another friend of mine -one many students didn’t like because he was even more of an oddball than me- sat down next to me a moment after I sat and effectively broke whatever plans I had.
I never did get to say goodbye.
Many years later another friend of mine from High School told me -though my memories were vague about this- that she was in an accident and subsequently hospitalized and in a coma.
These were the days before the internet and given how far away she was from me by this point versus where I lived, there was no way to verify the information and so I could do nothing but hope my friend’s information was incorrect.
Fast forward to last weekend and some twenty two plus years later. My youngest daughter is about to go to College and she chooses one that coincidentally happens to be a short fifteen minute drive from my old High School.
We headed up there for that college’s orientation and in my free time I get curious and, thanks to the magic of Google, start looking up old friends from High School. I look up that girl I was so smitten with for that one magical year and what I find breaks my heart.
She passed away at the age of 34 in the year 2000.
I searched for more information but couldn’t find much. Her obituary simply states the date she passed away and lists her immediate family as relatives. There is no mention of a husband and, I suppose it was for the best, any children.
I searched even harder but the fact is she passed away just as the internet was about to become the fountain of information it is now and there was precious little I could glean about her years following High School. What I did find was that she went to college, joined a sorority, and was there for four years. Between her graduation from College in approximately 1988 and the year she died there was little else to find.
I contacted my other High School friend, the one that told me years before that she had been in a car crash and in a coma, and asked him for more details. Could he remember when exactly he found out about this? Was there any more he learned? Anything at all?
Sadly, he couldn’t.
Based on estimations and guesswork, we guessed he must have found out about her accident and subsequent hospitalization in and around our 10th year High School reunion, perhaps 1994.
Which crushed me all the more.
I’ve worked with victims of accidents and head trauma and any number of debilitating conditions and the sad fact is that one can live (though there is a bitter irony to using that particular word) for years in such a condition before passing away.
Had this happened to her?
I could only guess that perhaps it had. It explained why she had no significant other or children listed among her family and relatives in her obituary.
And it made me all the sadder.
While my old friend passed away 16 years ago (ironically, in and around the likely age we were when we first met), finding out about this now made the loss immediate. 2016 has been a terrible year, so far, for deaths and this one hit me just as hard.
Harder.
Rest in peace, Julie.
I hope what life you lived in those too short years was as beautiful as you were in my childhood eyes.
Years ago I recall seeing this magazine on the newsstands with what was then a surprising image/interview of actor Cary Grant.
The image was surprising to see because it had been years since Mr. Grant retired from acting and to suddenly see him re-appear and have this “silver fox” look was stunning. To many, like me, he was frozen in time thanks to the magic of cinema and might be recalled by the way he looked in the mid-1960’s, in his last movie role before retiring…
Or perhaps in his prime, one of the more handsome Hollywood lead actors ever…
Shortly after this GQ article came the sad news of Mr. Grant’s passing, and I distinctly recall reading another magazine offering a tribute to the legendary actor. While I can’t remember the exact details of the entire article, one line at the start of it really hit me.
It went something lIke this: “The actor you thought would live forever has passed away.”
I could understand the sentiment and the shock of seeing someone I had seen so many times before on the silver screen in their “prime” suddenly looking so old…so frail.
These sentiments came back really strong when images of another favorite actor of mine, who interestingly enough is tangentially tied in to Mr. Grant, was caught out and about shopping with his wife…
There are plenty of others pictures out there to show (it appears paparazzi followed this individual and his wife around for a while), but suffice it to say that if I wasn’t aware of who this is, I likely never would have guessed.
The above picture is of Sean Connery and his wife Michelle Roquebrune out shopping.
As I said above, Cary Grant and Mr. Connery share a tangential relationship. Though they were never in a film together (to the best of my memory!) the Cary Grant film North By Northwest (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) was a big inspiration for the James Bond films. In fact, when the producers of the Bond films were working on developing the property, they wanted Cary Grant to play the secret agent but he ultimately declined because he didn’t want to tie himself to more than one film, thus paving the way for Sean Connery (who effected a Cary Grant-like suave style).
Interestingly enough, like Cary Grant, Mr. Connery also retired from making films and has stuck to this promise, thus also “freezing” himself in time, making us remember him like this…
The image above is from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mr. Connery’s last movie role before retiring. Of course, we also may remember Mr. Connery like this…
I truly hope Mr. Connery is enjoying his retirement. I presented the above image not to shock but rather to show, as if anyone needs to be reminded, that the passage of time affects us all.
…if I didn’t show this, an image currently making some folks on the internet crazy:
What you have here is a brick wall (that’s the obvious part) with a hidden object in it. Took me at least five minutes to figure out what the hidden object was and, of course, where it was. Now I can’t “unsee” it.
For those having trouble figuring it out, I’ll offer a hint…
WARNING
HINT BELOW!!!
The hidden object is a cigar. Now go back to the picture and figure it out for yourselves.
Oh, I get it, when big-shot Noam Chomsky says it, people pay attention but when I say the same thing for years now, everyone ignores me.
Seriously, though, I very much believe this to be true. The conservative movement, for ill in my opinion by the way, has moved the country so far to the right that the Democratic Party is at this point effectively a moderate Republican Party.
I noted before that Bill Clinton and (yes) commie/socialist/whateverthey’recallinghimnow Barack Obama would very comfortably fit into a moderate Republican party circa the late 1960’s or early 1970’s.
On the plus side, a prediction: Like many things, I also very much believe in the whole pendulum concept, wherein a pendulum (or popular thought) tends to have a surge (or swing), reaches its apex, and then loses its momentum and the other side surges.
Starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt and for much of the middle 20th Century, Liberalism was the popular political thought. While it sputtered in the 1960’s it ran out of gas as a movement roughly around the time Ronald Reagan became president. From that moment on, the conservative movement began its ascent while liberalism seemed to go into hiding.
I certainly don’t want to count chickens before they hatch, but I suspect the Donald Trump presidential bid may wind up crashing and burning the Republicans -and by extension the conservative movement- this coming electoral cycle.
The reason is simple: It’s become too much crazy for people to tolerate.
However, the future isn’t decided and things could well turn out differently.
If that should be the case, I may have to investigate returning to Canada.
Over on Facebook, director/writer James Gunn posted the following, a quote by Steven Spielberg regarding his hit film Guardians of the Galaxy:
Understandably gobsmacked by this wonderful comment by Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Gunn wrote:
Steven Spielberg just said this about Guardians of the Galaxy in Cannes. Probably the greatest compliment of my life. I learned what a director was because as a kid I loved Raiders of the Ark so much I wondered who the guy was behind it all, and I’m making movies today because of it. (Forgive some of the spelling in the translation, please).
If you were ask me who I considered the greatest living movie director, my answer might well mirror Mr. Gunn’s: I would unhesitatingly name Steven Spielberg. Though I don’t consider every one of his films a “classic” (indeed, there are a few I haven’t bothered seeing and a number I’ve seen once and wouldn’t see again), nonetheless Mr. Spielberg was the man who truly introduced me to both the magic of cinema and storytelling. While it may seem an exaggeration, I believe his first big successful film was instrumental in influencing me into being the author I am today.
The film? Duel. It premiered in 1971 on TV and I was five years old at the time and was captivated by it…
Though it wouldn’t be until years later (remember, these were the days before the internet and instant information at your fingertips!) that I realized this film was directed by the same man who made Jaws and E.T. and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind and, yes, Raiders of the Lost Ark, it was the smash success of Duel that proved Mr. Spielberg’s big “breakout” feature and paved the way for his future successes. Indeed, in watching Duel you have a landlocked version of Jaws!
Duel shook my very young mind to the core. This was the very first movie I saw from start to end and realized it told a story. A damn good one, to boot! There were other things that influenced who I am today but there is little doubt my watching Duel at such a young age was one of the key influences in my desire to create my own stories.
I lay out my deep respect and admiration for Mr. Spielberg and his place in my heart because I want to be very clear about where he stands in my personal estimation.
The reason being what I’m about to say: I hated Guardians of the Galaxy.
Hated, hated, hated that damn film.
I know I’m in an incredibly small minority. The movie currently sits at a lofty 91% approval among critics and a 92% approval among audiences on rottentomatoes.com. It made a boat-load of money in theaters and even today many point to the movie as one of the very best Marvel films ever released.
And for the life of me, I don’t get it.
I missed the film when it was in theaters but based on the positive reactions bought the BluRay when it was released. Together with my wife and daughter we sat in the living room, fired the BluRay up, and…
About thirty or so minutes into the film my daughter bailed on us. (She would later tell me she hated what she saw of it and had no desire to see the rest)
When the movie was over my wife turned to me and said: “You like that?!” From the tone of her voice and subsequent conversation, it turned out she hated it, too. The only reason she hung around and watched it was to keep me company. She assumed I liked it and when I told her I didn’t, she shook her head and asked me why I didn’t just shut the thing off well before it ended and be done with it.
I told her I should have done just that.
Now, the point I’m making here is this: We all have opinions.
As much as I admire and love many of the works of Mr. Spielberg, I have no doubt his views on Guardians of the Galaxy are as sincere in their praise as mine are opposed. I bought the Guardians of the Galaxy BluRay fully thinking/expecting this film to rock my world or, at the very least, entertain me. Going into the film I had nothing against Mr. Gunn or Marvel films in general (indeed, I like almost all the ones I’ve seen). But whether it be due to my mood or the time of day or the phase of the Moon, Guardians of the Galaxy proved a wretched experience to not only me, but my wife and daughter as well..
As I said above, we all have opinions and sometimes what works for you (indeed, for 91-92% of people) may not work for me.
Just because Mr. Spielberg likes Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t suddenly mean I renounce the man and now hate his works and reject the impact Duel had on me. Or Jaws. Or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Mr. Spielberg obviously found something he liked in this movie which totally eluded me. And you know what?
Its fine.
So for those out there who get into such heated squabbles over what’s “good” and what “sucks”, bear this in mind: Everyone has opinions, especially about works of art and/or entertainment.
It should be obvious but it bears repeating. Sometimes over and over again.
…the question becomes, how far back in time could you travel and still understand English?
Fascinating stuff, though I suspect if you could create a time travel machine creating some kind of device to translate all languages (even very old English) should be a cinch.
As a kid I used to love reading about anything “mysterious” out there. Be it the Bermuda Triangle, Oak Island, lost civilizations, ancient treasures, vanished individuals (Amelia Earhart, etc.) I loved the stuff.
Still do, though at this point in my life its clear many of these so-called “mysteries” may amount to quite a bit of fanciful thinking. For example, much as I’ve enjoyed watching The Curse of Oak Island, I do so only to scratch a childhood itch. I first read about the supposed Oak Island buried treasure in the mid 1970’s and while watching The Curse of Oak Island I’m still fascinated to see the actual island and the places I read about so long ago. Having said that, its become abundantly clear the only buried “treasure” this island contains is in peoples’ minds.
So, having said all that, here’s a fascinating link, via aol.com, to
What’s most fascinating, unlike the Oak Island treasure, is the fact that these things are visible, albeit via satellite. Of the ones listed, this is the one that I found the most interesting:
If you watch the video found at the link, it describes the above as being in Eloy, Arizona. Its obviously a landing strip which, according to the narrator has “no significant buildings or refueling apparatus nearby”. The narrator states that Arizona is “overflowing” with abandoned airstrips, many of them dating back to World War II and this strip could very well be one of them. However, it does appear remarkably well preserved if it was indeed abandoned. If it wasn’t abandoned and it is being cared for the question becomes: By who and why?
Now, something somewhat different, 10 Places Google Earth is Hiding From You:
Last night Republican candidate for President Ted Cruz dropped out of the race with the grace and agility of Larry, Curley, and Moe…
I swear, sometimes it feels like we’re living in a Zucker Brothers and Abrahams movie.
Laugh all you want at the above clip, but this means the Republican candidate for office of the President of the United States is Donald Trump. And you know what that means (memes?!)…
Here’s one:
Man, there are so many of these to choose from. One more:
Seriously, and with all due respect, I find this incredibly scary news. The fact this man is as close as he is to even the possibility of becoming the President of the United States is damn frightening to this liberal, but it appears to not sit all that well with many lifelong Republicans…
The incredible irony of the above article is that many of these lifelong Republicans, who in their own way helped to make the party what it is today and no doubt relished their hatred for all things Clinton, are now in the uncomfortable position of maybe/possibly having to actually…vote for her?!
As startling as Mr. Trump’s success in taking the nomination is, plenty of pundits (and polling) suggests the odds are against him to win the general election…
And this website, 270towin.com, which tracks polling and electoral vote counts, currently has Clinton winning 300 electoral votes (270 are needed to win) versus Trump’s 109. 129 electoral votes are too close to call:
I hope this stays as is. Mind you, I’m not a HUGE (he said in a Donald Trump voice) fan of Hillary Clinton but this election, to someone like me, is a complete no-brainer. (I’m so tempted to make a snide comment regarding that!!).
So, anyone got a fast forward button so that we can get to November already?!
