Breaking News Tweets: Riots in Baltimore

Here are some of the latest tweets regarding the riots in Baltimore stemming from the police custody death of Freddie Grey, 25. The pictured images of Anderson Cooper from CNN, the Baltimore Oriole, and Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md). Here they are:

1) The Hill: Maryland Governor Hogan: Things are going to be different today in Baltimore.

2) Talking Points Memo: The right piles on Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake over her quote about letting protestors 'destroy.'

3) National Review (a right-wing publication): If you allow lawlessness to go unchallenged: You get more of it."

4) Mother Jones (a left-wing publication): Rand Paul blames the Baltimore riots on absentee fathers.

5) The Baltimore Sun: Tomorrow's Orioles game will be played at 2:05 p.m., and be closed to the public.

6) Slate: CNN's Baltimore coverage is dreadful and shameful.

7) David Swanson (liberal activist): Send the whole police force and National Guard to Camden Yards. Watch peace break out.

8) Newsweek: Update numbers from Baltimore riots: 202 people arrested, 20 cops injured, 144 cars set on fire.

9) Chicago Tribune: Obama on rioting: 'They aren't protesting, they aren't making a statement, they're stealing.'

http://www.thehill.com

http://www.baltimoresun.com

10 Things to Know for Today and This Week: Children's Day in Turkey

Here are 10 Things To Know for April 23rd, 2015:

1) Today is National Children's Day in Turkey (top image from Kusadasi, Turkey)

2) Today is William Shakespeare's 451th birthday (center image)

3) Arda Turan (Turkey, pict. bottom) got a red card for Atletico Madrid late in yesterday's Champions League game versus Real Madrid.

4) Bayern Munich (Germany),  Juventus (Italy), Barcelona and Real Madrid (Spain) advanced to the semi-finals in Champions League play.

5) Freddie Gray's death after an arrest by the Baltimore Police Department has sparked city-wide protests in Baltimore, Maryland.

6) Michael Moore, America's leading liberal documentary filmmaker, turns 61 today.

7) Popeye is called Temel Reis in Turkey.

8) The original pilot episode for "Mister Ed," an American tv comedy about a talking horse, cost a mere $70,000 to produce in 1961.

9) Odense is the third largest city in Denmark.

10) Claudio Bisogneiro is the Italian ambassador to the United States.

7 Words in Norwegian (4 of 7): Dolphin

Dolphin=Delphin

I first became aware of dolphins by watching reruns of "Flipper" during the two years when I lived as a child in Turkey (1977-79) on TRT (Turkey Radio Television), which also aired Jacques Cousteau documentaries.
 
One can see dolphins and other living sea animals at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, Ga. (see link below):

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org

or the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland: http://www.aqua.org

For our "7 Words in Turkish" series, go to: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

Sunday Comics Dialogue_ A Cameo from Big Bird

Greetings to our friends in Baltimore, St. Louis, Denver and San Diego here in the USA, and to those of you in London, Frankfurt, Istanbul and Dubai.........

Today's entry looks at funny pages dialogue from the Sunday, Nov. 18th edition of "The Charleston Gazette-Mail" in Charleston, W.Va., which still carries the wonderful comic strip "Mother Goose and Grimm," which features a cameo from Big Bird, but Mitt Romney was nowhere to be seen (to think 47-percent of our fellow Americans wanted Mitty Rich to be prez.....wow!).

Oh...but, first an update on how former American gold-medal winning gymnast Shawn Johnson is doing on "Dancing with the Stars," drats, someone changed the channel!

Here we go:

1) "Just a turkey hallucination. I get them this time every year" (from "Garfield")

2) "Ok, I'll need to but a turkey," (from "Grand Avenue")

3) "It's not proper for a girl to call a boy on the telephone" (from "Peanuts")

4) "They're trying to kill me out there. They want to cut my head off. I'm going to die!!" (from "Mother Goose and Grimm," a turkey is talking)

5) "What a great cook! I'm the luckiest man in the world!" (from "Hagar the Horrible")

6) "It says here that more Americans are eating something besides turkey for Thanksgiving." (from "Over the Hedge")

7) "Our invitation for tonight is lit up........more than 200 and climbing!" (from "Rex Morgan M.D.")

8) "Very nice?! Are you kidding?! She's world-class!!" (from "Blondie")

9) "I'm still fond of soft-spoken intellectuals" (from "Shoe")

10) "She asked me to put up the holiday lights while she was gone." (from "Dilbert")

11) "When I come back, I'll show you some trout holes you won't believe." (from "Judge Parker")

12) "What are those funny-looking birds?" (from "Hi and Lois")

http://www.wvgazette.com

http://www.grimmy.com

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.blondie.com

Friday Night Tweets_ Marijuana and Unemployment

A few weeks back, we were going to start a series on interesting U.S. Congressional races, and our first one was to be the race between Cong. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), perhaps the most conservative Democrat in Washington, DC, against Mia Love (R), the black Mormon mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah. The Beehive State is about three percent African-American, and Mitt Romney, who is also a Mormon, is expected to win Utah by a wide margin. But, surprise, today "The Salt Lake Tribune" endorsed President Barack Obama! This was according to a tweet from Democratic strategist Dana Vickers Shelley.

Here we go:

1) @TheOnion ("The Onion" is a faux news publication): "WARS FOR THE WHITE HOUSE: "Romney's Terrifying Google Search History Leaked."

2) @SFWeekly ("San Francisco Weekly"): "City's first Union Medical Marijuana Dispensary Opens_ Finally!"

3) @current (Current-TV): "Pot & politics: @GovGaryJohnson joins @TYTCurrent in 10 min to talk marijuana laws #Election2012" (Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico, has switched parties and he is now the Libertarian Party nominee for president)

4) @WSOC_TV (WSOC TV, the ABC affiliate in Charlotte, NC): "Unemployment rates drop in both North Carolina and South Carolina."

5) @dcweatheralerts (Weather Gang Alerts, for Washington, DC-metro area): "Tornado warnings for Baltimore County until 7:30 p.m."

6) @nprscottsimon (Scott Simon of NPR): "I like GQ's defense of debate moderators: 'You sit there and try to rein in two egomaniacs....' "

Image of the Day- Je Suis Tres Fatigue

Yes, we thought we owed you the blogging public a due explanation as to why we haven't been posting much lately. And, here is it is!

SIDEBAR:
We read this interesting tweet from "The Baltimore Sun" earlier in the week: "Who's better on gay rights, Mitt Romney or Barry Goldwater?"

Colleges Nicknames: Big Dogs on Campus

Today's list of college team nicknames continues with a list of 12 schools that have dog-related nicknames, including the three pictured here: Albany Great Danes, James Madison University Dukes and the Southern Illionois Salukis.

The Loyola (Md.) Greyhounds out of Baltimore are assured of a NCAA bid as they won the Metro Atlantic Conference tournament earlier this week.

The North Carolina State Wolfpack which won their ACC tournament opener over Boston College (not to be confused with Boston University which is on this list; for those of you in Malta, they are seaprate schools!) while playing in Atlanta today are among the 'bubble teams,' which may or may not make the NCAA field.

Here is our list of schools with dog or dog-related nicknames:

1. Alabama A & M Bulldogs, SWAC, Normal, Ala.

2. Albany Great Danes, America East, Albany, NY

3. Arkansas State Red Wolves, Sun Belt, Jonesboro, Ark.

4. Boston Uniersity Terriers, America East, Boston, Mass.

5. Georgia Bulldogs, SEC, Athens, Ga.

6. JMU Dukes, Colonial Athletic, Harrisonburg, Va.

7. Loyola (Md.) Greyhounds, Metro Atlantic, Baltimore, Md.

8. Marist Red Foxes, Metro Atlantic, Poughkeepsie, NY

9. Nevada Wolf Pack, Western Atletic, Reno, Nev.

10. North Carolina State Wolfpack, ACC, Raleigh, NC

11. Southern Illinois Salukis, Missouri Valley, Carbondale, Ill.

12. Washington Huskies, PAC-12, Seattle, Wash.

Quote of the Week- Pablo Picasso

You know an artist is a legend when he or she has two major exhibitions going on in two totally different parts of the globe simultaneously. And, that is the case for the late Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) who was the first artist I had ever heard of as a child (saw his name in a kid's book, textbook or magazine, I think). Currently, one can see his paintings at either the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Switzerland, until Jan. 30 or the Ben Brown Fine Arts Center in Hong Kong (China), until Jan. 28.

Here is the quote which folks at Project Plase, a homeless organization in Baltimore, Md., would definitely disagree with, especially since there could a ton of snow in Maryland starting tomorrow. But, though we disagree with Picasso's sentiment here- unless someone wants to bring their cousin Charles Manson home for Thanksgiving, it is certainly amusing:

"Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?"

Quote of the Week- Andy Warhol

Today we feature a quote from Andy Warhol (1927-1987) who was known for soup cans and for funky painting of folks ranging from Elvis Presley to Che Guevara.

There is currently a special exhibit dedicated to one of Warhol's other favorite subjects, Marilyn Monroe at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Similarly, The Baltimore Museum of Art is featuring Warhol's later works in an exhbit that is named: Andy Warhol, the Last Decade. It runs through Jan. 9, 2011.

Here is the quip, which I can relate to since having a girlfriend these days seems harder than planning a trip to Tashkent, Uzbekistan:

"When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about personal relationships."

One has to wonder what Warhol would have made of Facebook!

We also want to wish another renegade and legend, French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard a belated happy 80th birthday (it was on Friday).

Know Your Mayors (19 of 21)- Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore

Today, I am profiling Baltimore's newest mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake who is the same age as me as we are both 39 (alas, I turn 40 tomorrow). The mayor herself turns 40 on St. Patrick's Day.

Rawlings-Blake became the the 49th mayor of Baltimore on Feb. 4, replacing Sheila Dixon who was forced to resign due to embezzlement allegations.

According to "The Washington Post," the new mayor emphasized the need for a disciplined budget as the city faces a $120 million deficit during her first address to the citizens of Baltimore. She also said it was time for the community to act together:

"Our city is in a time of healing," Mayor Rawlings-Blake said. "Now more than ever we are challenged to come together, rededicate ourselves to a common cause and make needed reforms."

Rawlings-Blake also recognized city firefighters who came through during the recent the snow storms which affected both Baltimore and Washington DC and put local constraints on both cities' municipal budgets.

The new mayor's father was Maryland House of Delegates member Howard "Pete" Rawlings. She is a 1988 graduate of Western High School in Baltimore.

Dixon's predecessor, former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley is now the governor of Maryland.