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John Maxwell

David Mitchell

Wow!

You guys are way ahead of me. I'm still back on how Mike could possibly have confused a twanger for a plunker. I mean really man, what's wrong with you? 

But J. J. was quick to save the day. We are in his debt.

And speaking of "save the day", what Saturday morning cartoon character used the words,

"Here I come to save the day" 

Jodelle Sims

Dave, I believe the answer is Mighty Mouse!!

James Hamilton, M. D.

Everyone, 

Since we are on a mid-century nostalgia trip it was in December, 1947 - about the time when many of us were entering the blastula stage of our embryonic existence - that transistors were developed and gave our generation those pocket-sized radios that were a dominant factor of our pre- and teenage lives and allowed us to listen to those great songs of the 50's and 60's as we walked about and hung out at places like the Olympic swimming pool.

I wonder if any of us  still has one of those and if it is still tuned in to AM 1230?

Jim

David Mitchell

Jodelle, 

It' reassuring to know great minds think alike.

Wasn't Mighy Mouse on just after - or before - "My Friend Flicka"? Or was it "Fury" something about a gild and a horse?

-------------

Jim, 

I can recall having one of those "transistors" about twice the size of a pack of cigarettes. I would listen to it at night under my pillow - mosty to "W A Beatle C" in Boston, or the station in Pittsburgh  (KDKA I think) and loved hearing Bob Prince (the "Gunner") call teh Pirates games. "Brough to you by Iron City Beer", and also Duquesne Beer - "Have a Duke, Have a Duke, Have Duke - Duquesne"

But I also snuck it into class and would have the ear piece in my ear withtehradio down in my lap, in the back of some class where I was seated in the very farthest back row corner. I was always catching the mid-day "countdown" of the top 10 songs on WCOL (the "Big C"). It seems the Beatles would have abut 6 of those top 10. Wish I knew what I did with that tiny litle "hit machine". 

Joseph Gentilini

I had one of those transistors also and remember using it while I scraped off off paint on our wooden fence in our backyard.  I was to afraid to use it in a school class. This does bring back some memories at St. Agatha.  

Susan Lally (Boulware)

I consider Flippo one of the greatest entertainers in history. He is one of my heroes. I realize that there is going to be immense jealousy among our classmates when I inform you that Flippo's grandaughter was in one of my history classes. Hopefully, I was able to repay a little of the debt we all owe Flippo.

Susan Lally (Boulware)

oops!!!!! This is Mike Boulware, not Sue. I posted under her name in error. I don't want her to receive credit for teaching Flippo's granddaughter. Sue is a fine lsady and was a marvelous teacher, but I won't permit her to steal my claim to fame.

Michael McLeod

Hey Mike nice post but looking at that photo my obvious question is what was it like to go through sex reassignment surgery and congrats for coming out about it. 

In all seriousness I'm jealous of anybody who paired up with a hs sweetheart and weathered all these years together. I did not find the love of my life until my sixties. Up until then it was bumpy as hell. I would say through no fault of my own but that would be the precise opposite of the truth. 

Michael McLeod

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jc8MjksEPiI

well said!

David Mitchell

I could not wait to get home and turn on the TV to watch Flipppo.

I wish my grandkids had access to something that was that much light hearted fun. 

(and P.s, Mike B. I can't spell any better than you can - Ha!)

David Mitchell

For any one following our local legendary (now world-wide news) murder case - Alex Murdaugh found guilty of murdering his own wife and son today - on top of about 80 other lesser convicttions. What a bizarre tangled web of power, priviledge, and utter disfunction.   

Absolutely no one around here is surprized. Shocked at the outset a few years ago, but not now at the final outcome.

Simply amazing!

Joseph Gentilini

This is response to David M's two comments.  One, I also could not wait until I got home from school to watch Flippo.  He was funny.  I have been following the Alex M murder trial and am not surprised by the verdict - he lied to everyone - why would he not be lying about this. He had it all planned and everything he did was to try to convince others that he was innocent.  I was surprised at the quick verdict, however.  Now we will see what the judge gives him for a sentence.

Michael Boulware

Dave,  those words that were not spelled correctly were on Sue's post.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Re: post #12250.....the more illegal border crossigs, the more illegal drugs .https://www.oaoa.com/local-news/romano-more-than-4-million-illegal-border-crossings-since-biden-took-office/ 

James Hamilton, M. D.

HAPPY WORLD WILDLIFE DAY!

Bull elk, looking for a fight during the autumn rut in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Mother moose and two calves walking along the wrong side of the Peak to Peak Highway.

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep in Garden of the Gods.

Yep, snakes are wildlife too! In our garage. Fortunately a non-venomous garter snake.

Jim

Michael McLeod

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8nwlhGlWzc&ab_channel=MSNBC

dumbing down higher ed

Michael McLeod

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AlX2t7n2ts&ab_channel=BrianTylerCohen

dumbing down congress

Michael McLeod

I just realized something. this is all I'm asking:

www.facebook.com/reel/867139014367272/?s=single_unit

John Jackson

MM, there are many reasons to be concerned by the wave of migrant border crossings (legal and illegal), but your suggestion that the fentanyl crisis is due to smuggling by illegal border crossers is yet another piece of right wing disinformation.

Some 372 million people and 150 million vehicles legally cross the US - Mexico border every year (some of these individuals and vehicles cross multiple times, even daily),  and according to the Cato Institute (which is definitely conservative but, unlike Fox News and other right wing media, does pay attention to facts), fentanyl smuggling is done almost entirely by U.S. citizens crossing legally: 

https://www.cato.org/blog/fentanyl-smuggled-us-citizens-us-citizens-not-asylum-seekers

Some quotes from the Cato piece:

-   Fentanyl overdoses tragically caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths last year. Many politicians who want to end U.S. asylum law claim that immigrants crossing the border illegally are responsible… A more accurate summary is that fentanyl is overwhelmingly smuggled by U.S. citizens almost entirely for U.S. citizen consumers.

-  Just 0.02 percent of the people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl whatsoever.

-   Over 90 percent of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes, so U.S. citizens (who are subject to less scrutiny) when crossing legally are the best smugglers.

-   The government exacerbated the problem by banning most legal cross border traffic in 2020 and 2021, accelerating a switch to fentanyl (the easiest‐​to‐​conceal drug).

The last point is why fentanyl is so difficult to intercept at the border - it is so potent that even tiny quantities (for example, the volume of a marble) can comprise thousands of lethal doses.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Perhaps I should clarify, John.  Mike's link specifically claimed that Biden was making America safer because more illegal drugs were seized at the border under his administration. The point was that more drugs were seized by virtue of the fact that millions more persons have entered illegally at the border over the past year and a half, therefore more illegal crossing, more drugs seized. Biden's open border is not making America safer.,

Michael McLeod

Well I guess I should weigh in. To me that video represents the sheer idiocy of MTG, representing a very small, small-minded, self-serving, and worst of all terribly unrepresentative slice of a very complex issue 

One thing that is obvious is this: the tragedy is that both parties, instead of cooperating to deal with the issue, persist in shooting down each other's efforts to deal with it. Republicans have voted down Biden's efforts to alleviate the problem. Democrats have resisted Republican solutions. 

I haven't researched this enough to draw this conclusion as well as I'd have to if I were writing a story about it, but it certainly looks like an enormous humanitarian issue is being kicked around like a political football instead of being dealt with. MTG's little staging to draw attention to herself without doing a damn thing to solve the problem symbolizes the hideous state we are in as a nation - and once again that point I am making, which I should have spelled out better in the first place, was not meant to favor either party, though I can see how it was taken that way.

I wasn't trying to claim that Biden solved the problem. I was mainly mocking what strikes me as an incredibly self-serving and misleading bit of political theater. The humanitarian crisis is appalling. There was a time when this country might have addressed it as such. Marjorie Taylor Green's self-serving hypocricy and wild doistortion of the truth -- the grab-bag of crazy, baseless conspiracy theories she sat down and dumped on everybody instead of rolling up her sleeves and doing or saying something constructive -- is just one small representative slice of a much larger issue. 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Perhaps if we stopped focusing on the self-serving personalities of our politicians, and simply apply the laws that our already on the books, we might just stumble upon some solutions and in the process re-unite Americans across all political entities.

Michael McLeod

I'd love that. Teaching a writing class at the moment and having them write about The New Deal and how the country pulled itself out of a global crisis nearly a hundred years ago. People argued about it but didn't undercut each other as we seem intent on doing these days. 

I certainly won't have them writing about MTG.

James Hamilton, M. D.

From a health care/medical and non-political viewpoint, I am more concerned about the amount of fentanyl (and other illegal drugs) that somehow arrive here undetected, or are manufactured from components that do, and make their way into the (often dead) bodies of people in America than how much is seized at our borders. 

Jim