Top Ten from this Week's Father's Day Washington Post: Denmark Rules the World

Greetings to our blog readers in Malta, Colombia, and New Zealand............

Before we get to this week's comic strips survey, we want to encourage those of you here in America to support your local National Public Radio (NPR) station. Earlier tonight, we were both informed and entertained by "Radiolab," a radio show about scientific and psychological topics and trends, produced by WNYC (New York) and co-hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. The show even has listeners in Iran!

This week's image are of the following: 1) For the Danish import "WuMo" we have an image of skywriting as the strip has a skywriting message saying: "Stop Looking At Home;" 2) The Lazy Boy recliner is our image for "Brewster Rockit" as the Buck Rodgers/Flash Gordon wanna be talks about how sitting reduces our lifespan (????!!!, sorry for breaking the fourth wall) and 3) Cumulonimbus clouds are for "Frazz," to find out exactly why, just try to find the strip at: http://www.gocomics.com/frazz

Here is our top ten:

1) WuMo

2) Lio

3) Brewster Rockit

4) Frazz

5) Rhymes with Orange

6) Doonesbury

7) Knight Life

8) Foxtrot

9) Prickly City

10) Pearls Before Swine

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.radiolab.org

http://www.wnyc.org

http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

Chuck Norris vs. Cuneyt Arkin- Turkish Star Wars

Known of "Cuneyt baba" (Father Cuneyt) or "Cuneyt abi' (Big Brother Cuneyt), Cuneyt Arkin is a legendary cinematic icon in Turkey; of course, one should point out that there are valid reasons why he has never won a Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

We are continuing our series, which has a matching entry featuring Arkin's counterpart Chuck Norris, at our other blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com in which we look at which actors actually won Best Actor Oscars during the years that these actors made some of their most famous films.

The answer to our last entry is Dustin Hoffman who won in 1979 for "Kramer vs. Kramer," needless to say neither Norris or Arkin were nominated.

Today, we are asking which actor won Best Actor in 1982, the year Arkin made "Dunyayi Kurtaran Adami/The Man Who Saved the World," which is best-known as "The Turkish Star Wars" in the West since it ripped off the George Lucas film, and it also borrowed Queen's theme song from "Flash Gordon." Copyright laws are now more rigorous in Turkey.


So, is the answer?:

A) Michael Caine

B) Ben Kingsley

C) Paul Newman

D) Dustin Hoffman

E) Peter O'Toole

http://www.chucknorris.com

http://www.cuneytarkin.com.tr/

From the Album Collection (3 of 8)_ Queen's "The Game"

Today's album feature of the day is Queen's "The Game" (1980), which features two number-one hit singles in "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."

The British band consisted of the late Freddie Mercury (1946-1991; lead vocals and guitar), Brian May (quitar), Roger Taylor (drums) and John Deacon (bass).

Deacon wrote the lyrics for "Another One Bites the Dust," and though Queen is most well-known today for their earlier song "Bohemian Rhapsody," it was actually "Another One Bites the Dust" that became the band's biggest hit as it sold seven million copies.

Christian fundamentalists went on to accuse Queen of having a backwards message on "Another Bites the Dust," in which they allege the band is telling listeners to: 'decide to smoke marijuana.' Interestingly enough, Queen does have a PSA song on "The Game" which is called "Don't Try Suicide" (the song was not relased as a single).

"Crazy Little Thing Called Love," a rockabilly tune which differed Queen's other songs artistically, also became a huge chart-topper and the song was a regular part of the band's lineup up until the last days of the original lineup.

After this record, which also contained "Play the Game" and "Need Your Loving Tonight," Queen went on to record the soundtrack for "Flash Gordon" and the single "Under Pressure" with David Bowie.

Mercury died of complications from AIDS at age 45 in 1991. While researching this piece, we were surprised to find out that there is a statue of Mercury overlooking Lake Geneva in Montreaux, Switzerland.

A recent issue of "Rolling Stone" ranked May, who has a doctorate in astrophysics, as the 26th best guitar player of all time. The magazine cited his work on the single "Keep Yourself Alive" (not on "The Game") as some of his best work.

Things We Learned on the BBC Today- Fidel Says It's Good to Be Alive

According to the BBC, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who is reportedly sharing a Cuban cigar with Glenn Beck in Provo, Utah, as we speak, says that he was at the grim reaper's door during his long illness.

Castro actually made those comments in an interview with the Mexican newspaper "La Jornada" in which he also said that it was difficult for him to aspire to live much longer.

The long-time Cuban president, who many have deemed to be a dictator for his long-standing human rights abuses, first got sick in 2006 when he suffered from intestinal illness.

But, Castro says that he's made a full recovery and that he can now walk without a cane.

One can always hope that he may venture from Havannah to Frederick, Md., (an hour from Washington, DC) to see a minor league Frederick Keys game with right-wing pundit George F. Will, who will probably still believe global warming doesn't exist when it's 98 degrees in Bethesda in late January. The Keys are actually having community food drive from now until Sept. 3. Last night, the team lost a home game to the Kinston Indians by a 9-2 score. The two teams plays each other again tonight.

As for Castro, there are always a number of interesting musings about him on Cuban-American blogs which generally lean to the right politically. There was this quite radical one we used to glance at now and then that pretty much compared President Barack Obama to Gargamel (the villain in "The Smurfs").

We lost track of that particular blog, but we did find one today called BabaluBlog (http://www.babalublog.com) which is also understandably quite critical of Castro, but we have no idea if they have compared Obama to Gargamel, Iago or Ming the Merciless. But, if they do, we will kindly remind them that George W. Bush was as bad as Gargamel, Iago and Ming the Merciless!

This is Exam Week!

I RULE!!!!

It's so nice to be the teacher this time of the year.