Author: DOuG pRATt

Mass. Appeal

MassGov
(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.

bondsofwar
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

No Respect

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Us bald guys get no respect. The viewer is led to believe for a moment that the nerdy-looking bald dad in this commercial is the victim of a huge bird dropping. Then it’s revealed to be dripping ice cream. But it seems odd, doesn’t it, to try selling ice cream by associating it with bird droppings …