Friday, December 2, 2016

Vintage Cary Grant and Sophia Loren Romantic Comedies

Just finished watching two of them.  Houseboat, where Washington lawyer and widower, with three small cute children, meets up with Sophia Loren, who first charms the children, and then wins Cary Grant's heart.  With a few amusing mishaps, like when moving a house, they get it stuck in a grade crossing, and then a diesel powered express train roars thru, blowing the house to splinters.  Which results in the family moving into a beat up house boat on the Potomac. 
   Then there is The Pride and the Passion, a movie set in Napoleonic war Spain.  Spanish guerrillas come into possession of an absolutely humongous cannon.  They set about dragging the mountain of metal clear across Spain to the siege of some-where-or-other.  Sophia Loren is the BFF of the guerrilla leader  (Frank Sinatra).  Cary Grant is the English naval officer who is the only man with the guerrilla army who actually knows how to work the gun. 
   Heartwarming movies the likes of which they don't make anymore.  Houseboat is the better of the two, Sophia Loren gets a better role.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

New Buzzword, WWC

Stands for "White Working Class"  They started using it late in this election.  Prior to this election I had not heard it anywhere.  Strange.  Back when I was growing up, every kid's father  worked, at the Dennison plant, at the GM assembly plant, at the Roxbury carpet company, at truck farming, at auto repair.  None of them had a college degree.   No blacks lived in  Framingham MA in those days.  I went to public school and I don't remember a single black kid in any of my classes. I didn't meet any blacks until I joined the Air Force.   So,  back then, everyone in town was white, and worked and so the white working class was everybody. 
   The other thing I don't like about the buzzword is the "working class" part of it.  Has an unpleasant Marxist sound to it.  Or is it an attempt to revive the idea of Communist class war? 

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Words of the Weasel Part 49

Bipartisan  (n) or bipartisanship (adj).   Noun or adjective.   Generally perceived as a "good thing"  or at least the pol using the word hopes that is what the voters perceive.  At it's strongest, bipartisan is a code word meaning vote for my bill.  A weaker form of the word means I will talk compromise with my political opponents rather that just yelling at them.  
   If a pol has nothing better to offer than bipartisanship,  you ought to vote for the other guy.

Secretary of State

I hope who ever Trump picks can manage the State Dept, a goofy bureaucracy stuffed full of democrats, know-it-alls, and peaceniks.  They all have snivel service protection against firing.  Many of them are scattered all over the world where it is harder to keep track of, and ride herd on them.   Flinty old John Bolton might be able to handle them, but  I'm doubtful of Romney, Guiliani, and Corker.  Petraeius might be tough enough.
  As it is, a lot of 'em are getting ready make leaks embarrassing to the incoming Trump administration,  and the MSM are sitting up, wagging heir tails,  and begging for some dirt to print.
   Although the secretary of state cannot fire them, he could announce a policy of unaccompanied overseas tours in unpleasant places for State Dept leakers.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Do we really need a law against flag burning??

Burn a flag in most places and you WILL get punched out.  Which is one reason why flags don't get burned very often.  Why make life more complicated by passing laws? 
   And for the Supremes who have opined that flag burning is free speech.  It ain't speech, it's action.   Some how we have nine lawyers, men of pure speech, who don't understand the simple things in life, like the difference between talk and action. 

Publicity for vote recounts

  I doubt very much that any number of recounts will change the election results.  But one of the minor losing candidates is calling for them, and the MSM are giving her, and the recounts, as much publicity as The Donald ever got on campaign.  (And The Donald got a lot of publicity from the MSM) 
   I wonder why the MSM is pushing this issue.  Do they think it will weaken the Donald after inauguration?  They are all so locked in to doing election stories that they want to stretch the election out some more?  They are all so brainwashed that election stories are the only kind of story they know how to write?

Who to send to Fidel Castro's funeral?

How about Al Sharpton and that football player Colin K-something-or-other?