Top Ten Comic Strips from the Sunday Roanoke Times: Hooray for Agnes

Greetings to our blog readers in Sweden, South Africa, and Cyprus......

It's perhaps fitting that this week's Sunday comic strip "Pearls Before Swine" which features its Goat character in the lime light (well in a dim limelight) is the top finisher in our weekly survey of Sunday comic strips from "The Roanoke Times" as there are some cool pygmy goats from Cameroon at the Mill Mountain Zoo in Roanoke, Va.

For those who have never traveled to Roanoke, it is a city of 100,000 people which is an hour north of Martinsville, Va., home of the Rev. Johnny Robertson who is rumored to have the most over-the-top Southern Baptist church in the world, well at least in Henry County.

Our third-place finisher is "Agnes," which is why we have an image of the late Agnes Moorehead who played the mother in the late 1960s sitcom "Bewitched."

Fifth place goes to Get Fuzzy, which has some knock knock jokes, so we went with an image of Mormons.

Liberal comedian Bill Maher is actually coming to Roanoke on Friday for the first time, we hope he really socks it to Donald Trump, who was brilliantly lampooned in today's (Monday) "Zippy the Pinhead."

Here is the list:

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. Speed Bump

3. Agnes

4. Dilbert

5. Get Fuzzy

6. Doonesbury

7. Funky Winkerbean

8. Garfield

9. Zits

10. Jump Start

http://www.mmzoo.org/

http://www.visitroanokeva.com/things-to-do/

http://www.visitmartinsville.com/

Tweets Considering All Things DC (1 of 2): Interesting Suggestion About the Creation Museum

A tweet from LOLGOP, which makes fun of the Tea Party and Republicans, posted a tweet today about one thing conservatives would want in the federal government; it concerns the Creation Museum in Hebron, Kentucky. When I saw liberal folk singer Billy Bragg play at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro (Chapel Hill), NC, I was amazed he visited the Creation Museum! But, again, so has Bill Maher.

Here are the tweets about Washington, DC:

1. The Fix: "(Imagine) The government shutdown debate as a game of ping pong."

2. LOLGOP: "#GOPDemands: Move the Creation Museum into the Smithsonian and/or depict the Founders as riding dinosaurs."

3. Ambassador Namik Tan (Turkish ambassador to the USA): "President Abdullah Gul's interview with "The Washington Post"....Assad must go."

4. Ezra Klein: "The falling deficit has been a disaster for the GOP."

5. The Daily Edge: "#GOPDemands: National buyback program to replace dangerous video games with assault weapons." (This is meant to be satirical).

6. Roll Call: "OMG!! A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN. Or maybe not."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/

http://creationmuseum.org/ (Not an endorsement)

http://www.rollcall.com/

10 People Who will Decide Election_Pennsylvania

Today, we continue our series with a look at Pennsylvania as we also feature this 1996 presidential campaign button featuring Bob Dole and the late Jack Kemp.

Here is a look at our fictional voter of the day:

Name: Rev. Paul Frederickson

Occupation: Baptist Minister

Residency: Scranton, Pa.

Will Likely Vote for: Mitt Romney

"Politico" reported at last check that Barack Obama is winning Pennsylvania 48.3 % to 42.3 %, but an alarming new story from "USA Today" shows that Romney is closing the gap there as well as in Michigan (hey if Fox News can be biased and pretend to be objective, why can't we?).

Though Pennsylvania is primarily a Catholic state, there are a fair number of Baptists and Jews in the demographic mix. Most evangelicals are supporting Romney even though many of them have negative views of Romney's Mormon faith. This was made evident when Romney was invited to give the commencement at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., which has become a mecca for college students from very religious families.

But, Bill Maher made a controversial comment when he said Liberty University was not really a real college because it is not fully accredited; the school also has negative views on Charles Darwin and evolution, from what we gather.


http://www.scrantonrevivalbaptistchurch.com (the web site for an actual Baptist church in Scranton, Pa.; the minister's name is not Paul Frederickson. Yeah, we checked!

Quote of the Day/Week- Christopher Hitchens

On Dec. 15, 2011, the world lost a very vocal person who everyone likely either agreed or disagreed with at one point or another irregardless of where one stands in the political landscape. That was very vocal person was renown essayist/intellectual/pundit/culture critic Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011).

This month, we are quoting famous people who died in 2011. And, we start with a controversial figure as we did with Dr. Jack Kevorkian (1928-2011) on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire."

Hitchens was perhaps most known for being one of the world's leading atheists, and in the process, he outraged Christians, Muslims, Jews and even Hindus and Buddhists alike. Other atheists and many secularists were also uneasy about Hitchens' outright disdain for religion which he articulated in his book "God is not Great" (2007).

Though Hitchens was not only liberal, but even a Marxist in his younger years where he gained prominence for covering the war between Turkey and Greece over the island nation of Cyprus as a young journalist in 1974, he did end up supporting many neo-conservative causes, most notably the War in Iraq.

But, where exactly Hitchens stood politically or philosophically at the time of his death age 62 may still be a source of debate. Interestingly enough, he supported Ralph Nader (2000), George W. Bush (2004) and Barack Obama (2008) in the last three American presidential elections. Many perceive that Hitchens went from left to right, but there is some dispute to that because he was an ironic supporter of British conservative Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher, also known as "The Iron Lady," in many areas, including the UK's highly controversial war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.

Hitchens would disagree with liberal atheist Bill Maher, whom he was reportedly close friends with, over the War in Iraq, yet he would also argue with the likes of Sean Hannity on the right about the existence of God. He was also critical of both the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and Noam Chomsky. In his lifetime, Hitchens' work took him to 60 countries, including North Korea.

Here is his quote from "God is not Great," these are the views of the late essayist, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog:

"Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did."

Nominations for Person of the Year

"Time" magazine has just named Barack Obama as its Person of the Year.

For all intensive purposes, it is a choice I agree with, but it is our unwritten policy to choose someone else besides the person who Time selects.

Last year, I chose poet Nikki Giovanni for her inspirational fortitude during the Virginia Tech tragedy.

This year, our three choices are Congressman-elect Tom Perriello of Virginia who upset the incumbent Virgil Goode, one of the most notorious members of Congress, Bill Maher who always stands up to the hypocritical religious right and Colin Powell who stood up to the right wing of the Republican Party.

Your input will help me decide!

UPDATE 12/18: Perriello is now officially the congressional rep for the fifth district of Virginia! He won by less than 730 votes, so hence there is truth to the cliche about how every vote matters.