as the sky darkens and the thunder booms...

A few posts back, I mentioned that I was spending a good deal of time updating the almanac I started years ago on another site. Well, I've decided that I might as well post it, or portions of it, on my blog. Over the years, the birthday list part became a multi person effort. Two guys, different in age, Ricola and - oh, dear, where has that little bit of memory gotten to, ah! Ricola and Todd, pushed it past my efforts by adding in all the younger folk I didn't know. Other board members were requested to add to the list by posting things they knew, or graphics they might have,corrections, etc. (The initial posts came from a list that turned out to be unreliable.) After awhile, I had to give it up and the guys took over completely. Eventually they turned it over to night cub, and now it's back to me. Many of the images go back to my original posts. They need updating. I would often list birthdays of note for which I did not add photos or write about the subject. Over the years, pics were added, a number of people were dropped (I guess they were too esoteric for some),etc. I'm adding them back in. Of course.

Ta Dah!




July 18th Birthdays:
William Makepeaqce Thackeray (1811-1863) novelist. Vanity Fair, The Book of Snobs, The Luck of Barry Lyndon, etc.


Margaret Brown (1867-1932) Activist, philanthropist, Titanic survivor. The Unsinkable Molly Brown was actually called Maggie by her friends. The gentleman in the photo is Arthur Henry Rostron, Captain of the Carpathia. 



Richard Dix (1893-1949) – actor


George "Machine Gun" Kelly (1895-1954) small time criminal whose wife promoted his image into that of a top gangster.


Chill Wills (1903-1978) – actor



Clifford Odets (1906-1992) playwright, socialist, helped found the Group Theatre. Waiting for Lefty. Awake and Sing! Golden Boy. None But the Lonely Heart. Named names - that were already known.




Harriet Nelson (Peggy Lou Snyder) (1909-1994) – actress / singer. Ozzie hired her to be the girl singer with his band under the name of Harriet Hilliard. They married three years later.



 
Hume Cronyn (1911-2003) – actor


Red Skelton (1913-1997) – Circus clown, vaudeville, movies, radio comedian and tv great.




Dick Button – figure skater / commentator / took a walk on the wilde side at NYC's Central Park Ramble.


Hunter S Thompson (1937-2005) – writer  




Dion (Dion DiMucci) – singer. oh..jeez, Dion. Early rock and roll was sooo much fun, and seemed to have a thing for Italian boys. God knows I never complained.






Martha Reeves – singer




Hmmm, yes, well this is never gonna fly. Changing the You Tubes and pic sizes are going to take too much time to do everyday. And I've only done my parts. Yeesh! When I retire, when I retire. (If I do half the things I've put off 'til then I'll be so damned busy, it's already out of hand...)

The part posted is way too long, too.
But I'll try to put something from it up every day.
While I've been writing all of this out, Austansapce and my 'umble self have been having a fun conversation about our interpretation of our reactions to the final Harry Potter, recently making a wild left turn into the old movie theatres of NYC. That conversation should be a post. See, that's what's wrong with blogging. I want more of a conversation, a come back to it later evolving thought kind of thing. Like the old discussion boards. Anyone remember, ofh jeesh, there went the name, the uh, ah I Link board? (There were others.) You'd download a worldwide discussion you were part of,  take some time to write your answers, log back online and upload you "packet" and get the next one. You needed a special text reading program, I had, ummm, I justah! Speed Read!. Well, before I start getting into old days of Use Net, I'd better refocus. Where was I?

Oh, jeezus christ. There a param command in the html which isn't set right. Crap! Sonof a bitch...

Okay, it's been a couple of hours and I have everything back - sort of. It just won't look the way I want it to. And the Hunter Thompson quote won't enlarge when clicked. ETC.
By the by, it never rained.
But the sky is darkening again.

When the temperature goes way up...

                  
It's getting hot. It's the kind of hot that causes men to duel. (As a matter of fact, today is the anniversary of the  Burr/Hamilton show. ) This heat is causing people to go crazy. Impatient. Self-centered. Ready for something. Once such person, a truck driver, was  so impatient with a traffic light delay (the train must have been arriving) that he thought of driving up onto the sidewalk where he could get around the tie-up, and drive merrily away while raising a middle finger in defiant genuflection at the receding cars. The problem was that he did more than think about it. He tried to do it. And in the trying, savoring that joyous moment of self-expression, the truck ripped the marque of the Latchis Theater apart. That was at one o'clock and the temperature is still rising.

This picture was purloined from The Brattleboro Reformer, and is credited to Bob Audette

I'll have to write down a history of the Latchis soon. It was quite a showplace once upon. The anchor of the corner of Main and Flat Streets is the Hotel, housed in one of Vermont's two or three Art Deco buildings. Money was splurged by the family in celebration of an immigrant father who did well. Even the bathrooms are trimmed in terrazzo marble. The theater's opening was delayed by the 1938 hurricane, and houses a vaudeville stage - and the upstairs movie theatre which used to be a ballroom.

Anyway, it's hot. There's a mean and nasty heat wave out there and it's probably headed straight here. We're gonna pay for that week of nice weather.  And our patience is near its end. The 40 hour work week, the 8 hour workday, is gone save for some office workers and Federal Employees. The economy is falling apart. Ten years of Foreign Wars - three or is it four now? - and wealth redistribution upwards have created new monsters of the Upper Class, who drained off damn near well everything else they could get their hands on. The 99 weeks of unemployment help (I reject it being called a benefit or entitlement) is ending. Medicare and Social Security are now up for budget slaying discussion.

Out of every $10.00 in most Americans pockets last year, $2.00 was from Government programs. 2 out of ten. What happens when that money stops? The tilt of wealth to the rich is slowing - no one has money anymore to buy thieir goods or services. Where unions still exist, they are finding their rights to negotiate for themselves have been squandered like oil into a river. Or gulf coast. And all those people still have their jobs. The dreams and ideals of my country, as well as a collective belief in a better world, have been trampled from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay to the Mexican border, China, into Russia, and back down to Afghanastan (and on to Lybia! Wait, No, I meant Somalia, or uh...). And who paid the price? A couple of low level military miscreants. Who among the bosses lost their jobs? And the banks and insurers who together purposefully played mortgage monopoly? Who lost their jobs? Who pays the price? We were told to forget all those lives destroyed. Forgive. It'll be dealt with. Meanwhile, we're all set for a new feudalism. Er, Federalism. Something.

It's too damned hot.

"The Devil is Dancing Tonight"

                                
The latest many headed hydra of media attention has been the Caylee Anthony muder trial (ohhhh - what a fourtunate typo). I'm not going to write much about it, because if I ever re-read this I will hopefully have forgotten this sorry business completely and can read on in peace. I really don't want a world where real reality trumps tv show reality by degrading what is left of the nobler instincts of the human race.  I just wanted to take note of the superb quote from one of the media slut commentators. 
I doubt that it was an an-lib, but I like it anyway:

 "The Devil is dancing tonight".

It's got a ring to it.

 

           
                 
                          

If I had a firecracker 12 feet high...

So. The thing is it's July the 4th and I'm not ready to write a July 4th post. Maybe it's because I don't believe anymore.

I should have dug through the boxes of photographs and found a few to scan and post. I barely remember July the 4th in my hometown in southern New Jersey. Maybe that's because I always seemed to be in it - marching with the cub scouts or boy scouts.

Or pics of my years in New York. During the bicentennial (or was it the Reagan relighting the torch year?) I remember being in Battery Park as the crowds swelled and swelled. I remember how it was an almost all white crowd. Then suddenly a large number of Hispanics joined us after their parade in Brooklyn. Most were still in costume, and suddenly there was color and sound everywhere. I loved it. But the crowd grew too large, fights started breaking out, things went bad. I got out as fast as I could - which took awhile as everyone was shoulder to shoulder. That may have been the moment I could no longer be in such crowds and had (to this day) to have a circle of personal space around me. Around the same time, there was a special sneak preview of the first "Taking of Pelham 1-2-3" movie. The audience of cast members, extras & etc. was mostly black. Every time a white person got killed, the crowd erupted in cheers, hoots, hollers, laughter & etc. I've never been comfortable or felt secure in large crowds since those two events.

Anyway, I did the July 4th thing when I first moved to Boston. The parade there winds through the old streets, past historic sites, and ends at the Old State House (old as in British). There, someone (it was a great honor to be selected) would emerge onto the balcony and read the Declaration of Independence,  just as it was originally done in 1776. The year I photographed it, one of the freedom fighters from China's Tianimen Square revolt was present. Was he the one who put a flower in the barrel of a tank? Or was that another war? It all blends together after awhile.

When I first lived in NYC's Greenwich Village, there was one event I greatly enjoyed.  Not far from my apartment there was one street which would be cordoned off. Old Italian men would cover every square inch of the roadbed with firecrackers. Then after darkness had fallen, they would put a match to a master fuse. The street would come alive with flashes of light and loud booms which could be heard, I suppose, from great distances. It only lasted a few minutes, but I loved it. Of course, it was outlawed "for safety's sake". Later at night, about 10:15 pm, I would tune my radio to WOR, where  Jean Shepherd would read his short story "Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb That Struck Back". It's about a small town's celebration of the 4th, from an era now gone by. Shepherd would leave WOR in 1977, but his annual celebration lives on in recordings.

When you have about 42 minutes available, click here : http://www.snuhfiles.com/sound/jean-shepherd-lud_kissell.mp3 
for memories of a small town boys' 4th of July. You won't regret it.
                         

Something this way comes

So I was sleeping most peacefully the other night, er, morning. It was about 12 hours after the solstice. Something woke me up  - a bat had somehow gotten into my room and was flying around trying to find a way out. At least, that's what I was hoping it was doing. It did stop long enough for me to get a good look at it. It was a bat alright. But it was sorta white, and its wing span was greater than the usual bats around here. After several hours of playing hide and seek, I went back to bed, maybe a little concerned - it had, after all been only inches above me, swooping in a bombing run when it woke me. I left two doors open. I assume it left, for I haven't seen it since. Normally, I'd think that a bat flying around the place would be an auspicious sign. And on solstice? Does the whiteness of the bat reverse the lucky portent? It's not like I've been obsessed with this or anything, but...

On Saturday night , I guess it was after 10pm or so, there seemed to be a change in the light from Putney Road. It was like a streetlamp had gone out. Professor Dumbledore, is that you? I had made my way to the screen door and was about to open it to walk out onto the balcony. That's when I knew. I moved back quickly. Something evil was passing by. I've no idea if these things are connected, or what they mean. But something is building up and about to happen.

Do you suppose the gods were overplaying the signs and symbols as a way of noting that Miclelle Bachman was about to join the presidential race?

     
     

It's been just the most beautiful day. Temperature in the mid 70's(F), a slight breeze, sun shining with a clear blue sky. It's the kind of day people write about, the memory that never quite sticks. Staring down the solstice tomorrow, it's the last day of Spring.

And that God-damn money worshiping conservative Supreme Court had to go and ruin it. First they threw out the equal pay for equal work discrimination lawsuit on behalf of its female employees against Wal-Mart. So let's see - we had businesses to big to fail on one side, and Women's rights, Civil rights, and Consumer Groups on the other. Wal-Mart basked in triumph and noted : its policies prohibit discrimination and that it has taken steps since the suit was filed to address problems, including posting job openings electronically. Uh, huh. Works, unless you're poor and can't afford a computer. Or if you spend time to ferret out the web address where jobs are posted.

The court  also threw out a suit by states and conservation groups trying to force cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The reason? That's the EPA's job. The Environmental Protection Agency? Well, the 'mental' part fits. The same agency that uses non-scientists to work on air quality reviews? The same EPA that let a lobbyist from The American Petroleum Institute "edit" their global warming research? I could go on and on, but what's the point?

Looking for a little news to lighten my day, I found this:

"A dating website that prides itself on matching only the best-looking individuals has deleted the accounts of more than 30,000 users after a computer virus accidentally allowed them to skip the site's screening process.

BeautifulPeople employs a strict community voting system that only grants accounts to good-looking applicants, but the aptly-named "Shrek" virus changed that, letting new users skip the screening protocols and begin interacting with the "beautiful" people.

Now I feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, holding safe in the sacrosanct halls of churches. Sanctuary!


One woman closed down all flights at the Cincinnati Airport when she told them a bomb had been planted there. She later noted that she had been told about the bomb by God.

and so it goes...

I'm stopping now and going to watch how the sun light reflects and bounces in the birch trees just outside my balcony window. Mountain laurel blooms under the canopy of leafs. I may not turn the news on tonight... sometimes it's just best to not know for awhile.

Father's Day

   
So, okay it's father's day. I can't say that my Dad and I had a great relationship. Distant is a good word. Well, maybe more like detached. Whatever. It's a long story. But here's what I can tell you to get the flavor of it.

I was in my 30's and living in Boston when I took up gardening. My great grand father (i.e. my grandmother's father) had been a farmer and had done quite well for himself. He developed a really nice pole Lima bean I'd love to taste again. He had eventually retired from farming and moved into town. He bought a place just two houses down on Allen Street. I wonder if that's how my grandfather met Nana? He had a large backyard where he grew vegetables. At any rate, my Dad once asked me how it was that I got into gardening while in my 30's. "Well," I said. "When I was little I used to weed for grand pop Beckett...". "You couldn't remember that," he said. "You were too little. You must have heard someone talking about it." "Okay", I said as I closed my eyes and began pointing: "the rhubarb was there, the lima beans and corn were there, the raspberries there, the grapes over in that corner, and the strawberries were right there." I looked up to see his eyes had narrowed a little bit. "NO!" he said, and pointed just to the right of my last spot, the strawberries were over there!" End of discussion.

That was pretty much our relationship in a nutshell. I did, of course, remember Grand pop and Nana Beckett. I remember the garden. I remember sitting on the side porch of his house, shelling lima beans and shucking corn. I can hear the old wooden screen door snap not quite shut as my Grandmother came outside with a pitcher of iced tea.

 Reading from right to left, Nana (my Grandmother), Wilbur Beckett (her father & my Great Grandfather), Dad (her son - Wilbur Beckett Twiss), myself (standing) and my brother Lewis.

I would have been 8 years old then. Grand pop Beckett was in his 90's and living in what we used to call "The Old Age Home", Shady Rest. He would pass the following year.

This was taken in September 1961, on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ. I'd know that boardwalk's pattern anywhere. And I know the date because on the back of the photo is this stamp:

I must admit that I was quite flummoxed by this pic - I couldn't remember that building anywhere. And then it hit me, I usually saw it with the store front opened up. It was a sort of beach shop, full of Coppertone, paperback books, magazines, etc. It was near the northern end of the Boardwalk. I feel so much better now.

The date stamp on the top of this pic notes: Jan 61. That sure isn't January weather. This has to be Lewis'  8th grade graduation, which sounds okay for June 1960. They are standing on the sidewalk in front of Dad's house on Lakeview Drive. It's all built up now, of course, even adding a cross street named "Redroe Ave." And there's also Dad's car. I loved that car. I want that car. Jeez - wide white sidewalls on the tires. (Sigh) I think the car appealed to a little seen sporty side of my father.

Here's a great pic of Dad, sitting in front of the Christmas tree at the house on Allen Street, looking sporty, taking a cue from Frank Sinatra,  He looks happy here.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

   

Reason #1 to become vegetarian and/or demand clean food.

Pic of the Day

Thanks to austanspace!

Once every eternity...

Happy Birthday, Judy.

Some times ya just have to

On the front page of the Brattleboro Reformer the other day, there was this picture of some guy demonstrating a local optical company's new improved 3D glasses.










I didn't need to read the caption, I knew right away who it was. With his wife, he used to own and run a handmade chocolates shoppe downtown.

Now about 16 years  ago, I worked for a science toy store right next door to their shop. He seemed, in my opinion, to spend most of his time being a self-aggrandized  pompous asshole (and I wish I could think of another descriptive word to use, as I feel like I'm devaluating the word 'asshole').

Once, while standing in more than a foot of snow, we got into a screaming match out on the sidewalk of Elliot Street.  I was using a broom to move the snow, and he started yelling at me, hurling insults about my intelligence and so on and so forth (there was no shovel, so I was using the broom). He aggravated me enough that I let him have it. I then announced that I refused to play this game anymore and went inside the store. He followed me in, still screaming. That someone would stand up to his bullying must have sent him into a state of shock as he had stopped mid word with his face in an unbelieving contortion of venomous hatred. I remember it well. He hasn't forgotten, either. There were times when his was the only company hiring in town. I interviewed with Sally at least four or five times. She'd excuse herself after a bit and go to where Tom was sitting. He'd look over at me and scowl. Sally would suddenly remember that the job was already taken. Once, he wasn't there and after a long interview she said she wanted to interview one more person and that she would call. And she did. Same day. Asked me to come in for a second interview. This time Tom was there, saw me from a distance, and scowled and scowled some more. Oops! - he'd already given the job to someone else. Un-huh.

Last year, he and Sally sold the business. One day, about 6 months later, I saw him all dressed up in a bad cheap blue suit.  He was having an interview at my place of work, a grocery store. And now here he is, front page of the paper, practically gritting his teeth, looking uncomfortable, like he'd rather be someplace else, and more than a little humiliated. He'd fallen so far. And you know what? When I saw the picture I involuntarily yelled HOORAY! It's been 16 years, and as far as I'm concerned, it serves the bastard right.

Even the sounds of the German tanks

In 1950, just after I was born, my father, my brother and myself moved in with Uncle Bob and Aunt Lorraine in what had been my Grandfather's house. My Grandfather, who died two years before I was born (almost to the day), had been Swedesboro's Justice of the Peace. One small section of the house had a an outside entry door that led to a waiting room and then an office. You can see just a bit of it in this photo, which includes a little part of the screened in porch. The tall guy in front is my brother Lewis. I can't quite come up with the name of the little guy with the Mickey Mouse t-shirt, but he was my age (I was taking the picture).

 Uncle Bob had an ever present twitch of his head and neck. He would go into rages at sudden unexpected sounds and loud noises. Anything loud, even the tv or the record player. You had to be quiet and soft-spoken. 

Uncle Bob playing with my Brother Lewis,
 who was born in August of 1945.

                                                                                                                 

Uncle Bob and Aunt Lorraine
 on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ.

My father built his own house, and we moved in about a month before my eighth birthday. In this photo, I'm 9 years old standing in front of the garage at Dad's house. The  area just beyond the garage shows Lake Narraticon.

One day, not long after I turned 11, I was visiting with Uncle Bob and Aunt Lorraine. When I went into his office, Uncle Bob was at work. There were papers and notes everywhere. He told me that he was writing about his experiences in the army, and asked me to not mention it to anyone. And I never did - until now.

Uncle Bob's army photograph.

He then asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with him. Uncle Bob never went to the movies. I happily agreed, and we drove down to the nearest movie theatre in Woodstown. The movie was one of those big budget pictures, and I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed that it was in black and white. Big movies in CinemaScope were usually in color. The movie was one of those all star cast jobs called "The Longest Day", about the June 6th 1944 D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy and the parachutists further into France.

I was surprised that Uncle Bob was able to get thru all the war noises without going off. On the way back home, he told me that as a young soldier he had landed at Omaha beach. He also let it slip that he had, at one point, been a prisoner of the Germans. He never mentioned any of it to me again.

Uncle Bob by his portrait painted in France during the War.

At his funeral, one speaker mentioned that Uncle Bob had started telling his war stories to my cousin Michael. I wish I could have heard them.

He had grown old gracefully, and with his dash of style.

Before he passed away, Uncle Bob took a trip with Aunt Lorraine to show her the battlefields and towns he'd been in during the war. On June 6th, 1994, he took part in the 50th anniversary ceremonies at Omaha beach.

 

Not long after, while visiting for the holidays, I noticed that he had a VHS copy of "Saving Private Ryan". I think it was the only video he ever bought. He told me that it was the only WWII movie that had gotten everything right. Even the sounds of the German tanks.



Oh, Jesus H. Christ...

Is this really what we've come to?

another Memorial day.

Ahh, Memorial Day. A few days back, the emerging Spring propelled itself from rainy getting warmer right into mid summer. And it's humid already. When I first moved here in 1995, there was one, maybe two weeks of high humidity in late July. Now it starts in the Spring. In the next several years, I expect we'll probably see a population shift northwards. And to think that a few years ago we still used to have killing frosts in late May. It wasn't considered safe to plant until Memorial Day. And one may permissibly now wear white without being horribly gauche. Interesting the color white - depending on the geography it can symbolize purity and virginity or death and transformation. K/Cool virginity just doesn't fit with the idea of summer. If you're lucky, it's time to get that escape of one week with pay. The rest of us no longer even try to dream. Where was I?

Memorial Day. Back when I was a kid, the new Federal three day weekends hadn't started yet. Memorial day was always May 30th. I guess it was in my mid teens that the observance of Memorial Day moved to the last Monday of the month. Most of the new three day weekends were celebrations. They became special sales weekends almost immediately. But to my mind, at least, Memorial Day wasn't a day for celebrations. Celebrations always seemed to be festivities of rejoicing. The darker more solemn meaning seems opposed to festive, ya know? Memorial Day was a day when everyone took off. It wasn't just government desk jobs that got the day off. Even grocery stores closed for the day No one seemed to be bothered by the idea that they would have to plan at least a day ahead to fill their needs. There wasn't that kind of a sense of immediate entitlement yet. And no one seemed to catch on that having special sales weekends meant that everyday workers began losing their rights - somebody had to work. In a local economy like this one, it means giving up further rights to a peaceable life so we can get those very important people with money, tourists, to spend it here and keep the part-time jobs flowing. It's an economy based on debasing subservience as a way of life.

Well, what I'd planned as a sort of jolly perambulation down the streets and alleys of memory didn't quite come off as planned, did it? Ah, well. at least one can wear white again.

Keeping busy

Several years ago, while unemployed, I started a daily almanac on a web site where I hang out. When I no longer had available time to keep it going, it was taken over by others. It now has a minimum of three people working on it. About a week ago, the fellow who was doing the daily birthdays gave it up and it fell back into my lap. Working on it has kept me fairly busy. Luckily, I saved many of my old "today's birthdays" files.  Here's an example from today's list:


G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) English writer, the Father Brown detective stories."Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."


Max Brand (1892-1944) - western fiction author


Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969) - filmmaker


Beatrice Lillie, Lady Peel (1894-1989) - comedian/actress "Noel [Coward] and I were in Paris once. Adjoining rooms, of course. One night, I felt mischievous, so I ed on Noel's door, and he asked,'Who is it?' I lowered my voice and said 'Hotel detective. Have you got a gentleman in your room?' He answered, 'Just a minute, I'll ask him.'"

The list gets very long, so I won't publish it here - I just wanted to give you an idea of what I've been up to.  It's actually been a bit of a bitch to get it going, files spread out over two computers, changes in Windows 7 which have left me trying to figure out how to make the programs do what I want them to do, that sort of thing.

My wonderful fulfilling and rewarding career position as a grocery store cashier has me working from 1pm to 9pm today, so I'd better be going. I'll get back here as soon as I can - probably tomorrow. See ya.

The Hour is Nigh...

If you've been around the media portals recently, you've probably heard a prediction made by Harold Camping, president of Family Radio Network, which states that "The Rapture" (being taken up to heaven to be with the Lord) begins this evening at 6:00pm. I wonder if that's Daylight Savings Time? The Rapture is tonight and those who are left on Earth are condemned to live thru several months of Apocalyptic horrors until October 21st, 2011 when the Earth will be completely destroyed.

The media is in love with the story, especially considering that Mr. Camping has made the prediction before and his vision didn't quite work out as he believed. So, you ask, since he's been wrong before, why would he risk public embarrassment and the disillusionment of his money donating followers?

The truth, discovered after much research is this: it's a diversion. Camping is CIA. Lookit, "Family Radio Network" is three words - just like: "Central Intelligence Agency"!!! And what, you might ask, is this a diversion from? That Osama bin Laden mess.The Whites House keeps changing the story of what actually happened. But in every version they tell, the Central fact is that Osama bin Laden is dead. Buried at sea. You can't check anything, the evidence is gone.

Well, here comes the shocker: Osama bin Laden never existed. It's been a ploy all along. Back when the U.S. storm troopered its way intro Iraq, the soldiers ousted the Taliban and Osama and his men escaped over the only mountain pass into Northwestern Pakistan. The only one. Why weren't soldiers stationed there? It's simple. There was no Osama bin Laden. If his men escaped using that route, that would take away the do-evilers and their Taliban friends, Get 'em out of the country with the least possible amount of effort. There is no other explanation which makes sense. Bin Laden was a fiction.

Using this idea, the men who really run the country got the government to hand them billions of dollars for the undeclared war efforts. Billions, and probably more, something like a trigazillion bucks. Under the watchful eye of the Republicans, these men are bankrupting our nation. And no one seems to notice. The question we should be asking ourselves is "to what purpose"? Why do they need all these funds? What are they up to?

Some of you may think I'm pulling your legs, so to speak. But really, think about this for a moment: How do you know that Osama bin Laden existed? Because someone told you so? Because you saw it on ABC News? ABC News is a division of The Walt Disney Company. The rare nature documentary aside, The Disney Company doesn't deal with reality. They're entertainers, for Christ's sake. They package and sell dreams. Look it up. IT'S TRUE !!!

Okay, so it's now well past 6pm and I'm still here. There haven't been any earthquakes. Cars drive by on Putney Road. The Nuclear Plant is still intact. It didn't happen. Or did it? How would we know that souls had been ruptured?

To be continued...

(P.S. - the above information is obviously a very sensitive thing. If I just seem to vanish in a couple of days, you'll know. They're watching. You're next.)