Image to Fill Space: A Dalmation

Greetings to our blog readers in Senegal, South Africa, Honduras, Jamaica, Chile, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Australia, Japan, France, Iceland, Bulgaria and Slovenia.

Tomorrow, we shall have something more substantive.

Silly Photo to Fill Space- A Day Without Shoes 2013

Today is the one day of the year where George Jetson can act like Fred Flintstone and go into work barefoot to recognize the plight of starving children in Honduras and Zimbabwe, but we imagine Cosmo Spacely would not appreciate the gesture, as it is 'One Day Without Shoes' Day.

Of course, for those of you who actually reside in Honduras and Zimbabwe, we should point out that we are making references to two vintage American cartoons of yesteryear: "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons."

But, since the world is literally becoming a smaller place, we expect many of you in Honduras and Zimbabwe- hopefully all of you have at least one pair of shoes, are familiar with those animated entities.

We do appreciate the cause, but since one of us here had a tetanus scare as a child for walking barefoot and stepping on a nail, we are not personally participating in this global cause/event today.

And, we hope you like this image of two barefoot lovers in the rain, which would also be great for a community theatre production of Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park;" it was surprisingly tough to find a great photograph for this entry!

Links:

http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com

Quote of the Day/Week-Maya Angelou

First of all, thanks to our blog-readers in Bulgaria and Honduras. I've been to one of those countries-Bulgaria, though it was when I was a child 35 years ago. And, I've been close to Honduras with visits to Belize and Guatemala.

Today, we are quoting the great poet Maya Angelou who turned 84 yesterday. This is also National Poetry Month in America.

Angelou spent several years in Ghana during the 1960s. The poet, who is also known for being a Civil Rights activist, has in recent years been a professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, and she recited her poem "On the Rushes of Morning" during Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993.

Here is her quote:

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean."

Silly Picture to Fill Space- Honduran Blue Frogs

Today, we honoring Leap Day with a photo of the Honduran blue frog, well that is not the species' scientific name but Tilly Gokbudak, the managing of this blog, only made a C in biology at Central High School in Woodstock, Va. (not really where I went to school).

We have also decided to list the sunset times for eight American cities, including Greensboro, NC, and Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as Barrow, Alaska, which, being that it's in northern Alaska, may be one place where there are no Red Box dvd machines.

Here are the sunset times for today (Leap Day); the earliest one is for Nashua, NH, and the latest one is for Hilo, Hawaii (all times are local):

Greensboro, NC 6:13 p.m.

Nashua, NH 5:34 p.m.

Madison, Wisc. 5:46 p.m.

Tulsa, Okla. 6:18 p.m.

Salt Lake City, Utah 5:39 p.m.

Tacoma, Wash. 5:54 p.m.

Barrow, Alaska 6:19 p.m.

Hilo, Hawaii 6:25 p.m.

Top 10 Favorite Songs from John Lennon

Since yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon, we thought it would be neat to list our ten favorite songs by him. The fact that our intern Javier from Honduras* is inept at remembering song titles made this a bit challenging, but I'd like to think we pulled it off.

We wonder if some of these songs are played on Oldies KVID in Russellville, Ark., but Javier had to arrange an interview with Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson in her hometown of West Des Moines, Iowa, so he is not able to confirm that and we are too busy (or lazy) to fool with, really.

Amazingly enough, Yoko Ono--- of all people, follows us on Twitter (this true!). Ono herself chose "Oh My Love" as her favorite Lennon song for a 'lists' issue in "Rolling Stone."

*-Javier is not an actual person. The joke is that if something is factually wrong in the contents of this blog, we blame him! BTW, since he is fictional, he is not interviewing any Olympic gymnasts.

Here are our favorite Lennon tunes (either solo or with The Plastic Ono Band):

1. "Instant Karma"

2. "No. 9 Dream"

3. "Watching the Wheels"

4. "Imagine"

5. "Nobody Told Me"

6. "Jealous Guy"

7. "Woman is the N of the World"

8. "Oh Yoko"

9. "Mind Games"

10. "Cold Turkey"

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- Movie Critic Talks Politics

One may assume that legendary Chicago film critic Roger Ebert might be tweeting about how much he hates "Jackass 3-D," but instead he was talking politics tonight.

Ebert has made headlines for his groundbreaking surgery which allows a new artificial voice-box to speak for him since he lost his real voice to cancer as well as criticism of California high school students who were wearing American flag t-shirts on Cinco De Mayo. Of course, those t-shirts were probably made in Honduras (hmm...., we probably lost some members of the Tulsa Tea Party for that remark!).

Here was the tweet from Ebert which was in reference to (he provided a link) a column from Frank Rich of "The New York Times" about how President Barack Obama is perceived by many Americans to be subservient to elitists even though he provided a tax break for 95 percent of all Americans. This was the exact tweet from Ebert:

"Obama won't go after Wall Street thieves: GOP should be applauding. Ordinary people get screwed."

Perhaps, tomorrow Ebert will tell us who will win the World Series between the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants. I suppose I am a bit of a fervent center-left political person because I'll be rooting for the Giants merely because the Rangers were once owned by George W. Bush!

50 Beers Around the World- Barena (Honduras)

We stay here in North America for our next Beer Around the World which is Barena, a popular brew in the Central American country of Honduras which has experienced political problems within the last year. But, we'll let smarter people like David Brooks and E.J. Dionne sort through that (forgive the NPR listener in-joke).

We learned about Barena Beer through Don Godo, a blogger from New Orleans who now resides in Honduras. He says that beers in the country has substantially improved in recent years.

Honduras was also in the recent World Cup in South Africa.

I actually know the name of their capital, but it is too hard to spell and alas we don't have interns to verify these things for us (it does however start with a "T").