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The events of the past day bring to mind the end of the Marx Brothers movie, “Duck Soup.” There aren’t any exact parallels, other than the absurdity of it all and the undeniable glee of seeing the other side get what it deserves.
Author: DOuG pRATt
Rummy Good Riddance
Well, at last. Donald Rumsfeld resigns — and Bush accepts the resignation. It’s a good sign that Bush didn’t waste any time after the GOP loss of majority in the House of Representatives. Virginia is now all that stands between the Democrats and a slim majority in the Senate.
Rumsfeld should retire and go away quietly. Or maybe he can hang out at the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute. I certainly hope that Rumsfeld doesn’t secure any sort of academic position at a well-known university.
Mass. Appeal
(Graphic cropped/rearranged/reduced — apologies to the artist)
For the first time since Mike Dukakis left office 16 years ago, Massachusetts has a Democrat for a governor. And he isn’t a classic Boston-style pol, either. He’s Deval Patrick, our first black governor.
As the map shows, Patrick’s victory was by a wide margin, but not in our town. It’s hard to read, but Patrick had 46% to Republican Kerry Healey’s 45%.
I expected Healey to win, actually, because Hopkinton is mostly a GOP town. It’s home to EMC2 Corp. co-founder Richard Egan, who occasionally hosts Dick Cheney at his home.
Tiny Pieces From Some Cruddy Blog
“DEMS TAKE HOUSE!”
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Last night’s tag-team coverage of the mid-term elections by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central was fun. Here are the segments where these two top-of-their-game pundit comedians overlapped. An interesting bit in there where Stewart seems to be acknowledging that Colbert’s popularity is eclipsing his own.
Robinson Crusoe on Mars — 2
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Part 1 of the fondly remembered, but rarely seen, movie Robinson Crusoe on Mars is at this link. Here is part 2. It’s 30 minutes long.
This is my favorite part of the movie, after Mona the monkey is found and before Friday is introduced. Animal characters are usually a turn-off for me, but Mona’s contribution to Draper’s survival makes her an integral part of the story.
Special Guest Blogger – Bonds of War
Note: This commentary is by Dennis F. Rogers, who wrote it after reading a Boston Globe article at this link. If that doesn’t work, try this one.
Philip, Alma, and Anthony Pasquale.
Sixty years later, war still makes an impact. You wonder about the guys over in Iraq now. The guys from Vietnam paved the way for public problems — they were always there but previous generations kept it hidden.
Even back to the Civil War — many veterans were never the same. But this is interesting, as it is triplets — two of whom served in WW II — one with no problems at all and the other still haunted to this day. The troubled brother was never in ground combat, he was on a Navy command ship for the amphibious assaults.
However, the ship received many of the wounded and dead from Iwo Jima — and was off Okinawa — with the non-stop kamikaze assaults, the mental wear-and-tear must have been tremendous. Two of the worst and deadliest battles in WW II — and of course the reasons why the atom bomb was deemed necessary. “If it’s this bad just invading two islands, how much worse will it get invading their actual homeland?”
– Dennis Rogers