Putin Shaves his Chest

It’s fun to stay at the… 

June 6, 1944 D-Day

Click here to watch an actual high school video project on D-Day (who said video games are a waste of time?)

Today was the day that a lot of people got all shot up so that others could be free.  Amazingly, as time goes on, many young people today do not know much about it.  Is that an indictment of our current education system?  Perhaps.  

The guys who did this are the guys from my dad’s generation.  Every one of my uncles and my dad’s friends, it seemed, were in this fight.  Some Europe, either France or Italy.  Some the Pacific.  Some in India in the CBI theatre.  But they were all in it.  This generation is rapidly passing into history every day now and we owe it to them not to forget these deeds.

Oh, and the rumor is not true that CNN has demanded a posthumous apology from Dwight D. Eisenhower and an admission that, “mistakes were made” on D-Day.

To quote a popular song of 1944: “Praise the Lord and pass the amunition and we’ll all stay free…”

–fog 

Joe Morgan is a great entertainer

I have changed my tune on Joe Morgan. I no longer Mute him and curse the set out. Now, I view him as entertainment and I listen for just the sheer, breathtaking stupidity that has now really made the Sunday night game special for me.

And it’s apparently not only me. Check out this excerpt re Josh Hamilton. This kind of rockheadedness still exists out there in the wild.

From the Yahoo fantasy column By Jeff Erickson and Christopher Liss:

Both Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips talked about how Hamilton “needs to pay his dues” and “earn” the major league spot at the minor league level, and not leapfrog other guys who might not have the same talent but have put in their time. Putting aside the ignorance of the Rule 5 proviso (especially on Morgan’s part), this is unseemly from a couple of other angles. They’re suggesting that building baseball teams shouldn’t be a meritocracy, but rather like the tenure system, where one is promoted on the basis of time put in. I can’t imagine making a decision on a dumber basis. The other side is that while both pay lip service to wanting Hamilton to get his life together, they don’t “really” want that – they want Hamilton to be punished above and beyond the suspensions he already served.

***

Addendum: 

In the interest of journalistic integrity (unlike Rather), below is a photo of the man who managed the Boston Red Sox AND went by the name of “Joe Morgan” (Left).

If I recall correctly, his catchphrase was, “Six Two and Even…[blah, blah, blah]“

I always (well, not always) wondered just where in the heck that phrase came from.  I mean it was just so durned goofy.  I had never heard of it.  Not even from my parents, who’s speech is peppered with Depression-Era expressions.  Then one day I rented either “The Maltese Falcon” or “The Big Sleep” with Humphrey Bogart, and in it, Bogey says something like, “Six Two and Even they shoot this mug”… or something of that nature.  But that was it.  It came from that era, or from that film perhaps.  BTW, both of those films must be seen.  Amazing Film Noir.  Mega-classics.  I defy anyone to watch “The Big Sleep” all the way through with no stops or rewinds and explain the twists.  You can’t do it.  And there are some hilariously, over-the-top moments in them as well.  Pulling out the whiskey bottle to drink with the shopkeep in the bookstore is among the most silly scenes in any movie.

This Joe Morgan was a nice and guy and I suppose that our currently vexing Joe Morgan is too, but he won’t take a breath and let me find that out.  One game my wife and I play with Morgan is to pick up the “catchphrase” of the minute with him and then hold up fingers for each repetition of it in succession.  If you do it deftly, you can rack up 4 or even 5 fingers very quickly.  That’s like a Masters Degree in Joe Morgan. –fog 

Twinbrook-1, 0112, please…

As many may know, Mrs. Pinetar and I have moved into my grandparent’s home. My grandpa was a lifetime employee of “The Phone Company”, as it was known. He did allright, especially in the depression when they only cut him back a few days a week.

What Exit, Liberty?

 

Mrs. Pinetar and I went to Princeton, NJ today just to look around and shop and see what there was to see. It’s a unique and historic American town (and it’s in New Jersey–no “exit” jokes, please~) I liked this marker placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

GI Joe you can shave

The recent Six Million Dollar Man Squad 51, Station 51 post brought up the whole action figure thread and when you think about it, these things are a little strange. For the most outlandish, there’s no question for me. It’s this:

Dark Side of Oz

Click to see how it’s done

This may be old news to some. I had read of this at least 5 years ago but recently came across a site (linked above) devoted to it. I am almost proud to say that I have never done it or even thought about it but I want to throw it out to the readers, as we have a (ahem) “mix” of readers here at The Pinetar Rag and someone may know something. Has anyone done this? Results? Just random coincidences? It sounds like someone had a lot of time on their hands and it shouldn’t be a big deal but it just continues to have legs so I wonder. This website even offers presynched DVD’s (Copyright, anyone?) of Wizard set to Dark Side (if anyone has one, can you burn one for me?)

I once bought a 4 movie boxed set on ebay for the original, silent, Wizard of Oz. I never knew the original story was a long series (of books, I think) and so I picked them up for like 5 bucks. They were beyond bad. Unwatchable and didn’t even really make sense actually.

My favorite Wizard of Oz myths are that Buddy Ebsen got the part for the Tin Man but was allergic to the silver makeup. And I shudder to think of what that stuff was. Hey, in 1939, they’d have coated you in asbestos to get a shot, I’m pretty sure it was a good break for Buddy.

These and other myths, especially the ones that people embarrassingly forward out in mass emails, are all explained, verified and or debunked beautifully on the website snopes dot com, which is linked in the blogroll at right top. If you haven’t been to this site, you probably should hit it, especially if you’re an email forwarder of the “Microsoft will send you money for forwarding this to ten friends” variety.

The college myths are amazing too. I had personally heard several in my college days. The engineers didn’t figure the weight of the books and the library was sinking was heard all over University of Delaware (Snopes didn’t tackle the other UD library legend which was that the 3rd floor was a place George Michael would have frequented) .

I also recall hearing that the head janitor in our dorm complex was the head monkey in The Wizard of Oz and then was amazed to read that in the snopes college legend section. Yea, I bought that one and probably repeated it myself. Shame on me. –fog

Bullet Proof Man

For anyone who watched “The Prestige” and wondered if turn-of-the-century vaudeville magicians really died in tricks-gone-awry, the answer is yes. While reading the Houdini bio recently, I came across the story of “The Bullet Proof Man”. His act was wearing a suit filled with pockets of ground up glass and having a guy from the audience come up and shoot him with a gun and he’d “take” the bullet and not get hurt…er…until a wiseguy shot him in the groin (where the suit didn’t protect him) and he died. When Houdini went to London for the first time, he took the Bullet Man’s vacated spot on the bill. (And no, none of the tricks in The Illusionist ever went wrong, but I still liked it much more than The Prestige) — fog

Sacred Treasures: Russia’s Pink Floyd (it’s like I’m living in Dr. Zhivago)

Recently, in my boredom with everything I own musically, and with some fearless clicking, I turned up

“America’s Sweetheart” was Canadian!

About five years ago, I saw a piece on the History Channel on Mary Pickford. In it, they said that she was the first woman in the world to make a million dollars a year.