SOTU Blogathon: Republicans Against Cancer Prevention

We bring back an image of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to make fun of the new house speaker who failed in his attempt to unseat Julia Louis-Dreyfus as vice president of the United States (for those of you in Romania: yes, we are kidding. Joe Biden is our veep)....

You will figure out why we dumped an image of Thomas Jefferson (pict. top) when you read this. As for Miss Piggy, even though her presence may hurt our hits coming from Dubai, we think it is a great way to make fun of Congressional pork and the fact that her show was on right before the State of the Union (SOTU).

Here are the tweets:

1)  WNYC: Obama: It's one of the few regrets of my presidency--that the rancor has gotten worse instead of better.

2) Roll Call: Obama: We've got to make it easier to vote, not harder, and modernize it for the way we live now.

3) Talking Points Memo: Obama: ISIL doesn't threaten our national existence.

4) Washington Post Politics: Obama: This isn't a matter of political correctness. It's a matter of understanding what makes us stronger.

5) Peter Sagal (NPR talk show host): This is true! Our Founders were a bunch of jerks who hated each other! (Yeah, that's the reason for TJ).

6) Colorado Avalanche: Tampa scores again. (the Tampa Bay Lightning won the hockey game 4-0).

7) Colorado Dems: Obama: We need to reject any politics that target people because of race or religion.

8) Cong. Mark Sanford (R-SC): Obama mentions closing Gitmo while he lacks the legal authority to take such actions.

9) Rachel Blevins (conservative college student from Texas): For his 8th and final SOTU, Obama promises to shut down Gitmo yet again....

10) Paul Ryan: For too many, the American dream is slipping. Nothing I've heard tonight is very reassuring.

11) The Onion (satire news): Obama Praises Own Resiliency in the Face of Hardship During the SOTU.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/

http://www.rollcall.com

https://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

http://www.theonion.com

The Top Ten Saturday Night Live Cast Members (according to "Rolling Stone"): Norm Macdonald is a bit miffed.....

Greetings to our blog readers in Finland, Romania and the Bahamas.........

Tonight, we list the top cast members of "Saturday Night Live" as listed by Rob Sheffield of "Rolling Stone," that was written in conjunction with the sketch comedy show's 40th anniversary. The show actually first aired in October of 1975, but (perhaps for the sake of ratings) the event was celebrated by NBC on Sunday.

Norm Macdonald, a former cast member from 1993-98 who also hosted  the show's standard 'Weekend Update' segment, tweeted live during the event. It has also been reported that he was displeased to learn that Sheffield had ranked him as number #135 in a list of 141 cast members (Robert Downey, Jr., surprisingly finished last). Tim Meadows, who came in 48th, made the list known during a cameo of the 40th anniversary special.

For better or for worse, here in Sheffield's top ten:

1) John Belushi, 1975-79. (pict. top; he died in 1982)

2) Eddie Murphy 1980-84. (pict. center)

3) Tina Fey  2000-06 (pict. bottom)

4) Mike Myers (1989-95)

5) Dan Aykroyd (1975-79)

6) Bill Murray (1977-80)

7) Phil Hartman (1986-94, was murdered in 1998)

8) Amy Poehler (2001-08)

9) Gilda Radner (1975-80, she died in 1989 from cancer)

10) Chevy Chase (1975-77)

Here are some other cast members and how they ranked according to Sheffield:

Maya Rudolph (#19)

Fred Armisen (#23)

Dennis Miller (#34)

Jane Curtin (#37, we would rank her higher)

Joe Piscopo (#66, we would rank him much higher)

For the full list, check out Sheffield's article in the current issue of "Rolling Stone," it's one that has John Belushi as the Samurai warrior who was inspired by the late Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune ("Rashomon").

http://www.rollingstone.com

Last Ten Songs We've Listened To on Steve-FM in Roanoke, Va: Everything Except Kenny G

Greetings to our fans in Sweden, Croatia, Ukraine, Egypt and Greece (kudos on your new prime minister.........). Now that we have perhaps officially entered the world of The Jetsons (but, where are the flying cars?), it is actually possible for people in Anchorage, Alaska, and Bucharest, Romania, to listen to an eclectic pop-rock fusion radio station in Roanoke, Va.

So, with that in mind, here are the last ten songs we heard on 106.1 (SteveFM-Raonoke, Va) from the 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. hour on Friday afternoon. These songs are in reverse order:

1) Dark Horse. Katy Perry. 2013.

2) Keep on Loving You. REO Speedwagon. 1980 (pict. bottom)

3) Bohemian Rhapsody. Queen. 1975.

4) Never. Heart. 1985.

5) Clocks. Coldplay. 2002 (pict. center)

6) Janie's Got a Gun. Aerosmith. 1989. (pict, top)

7) Your Smiling Face. James Taylor. 1977.

8) Tainted Love. Soft Cell. 1981.

9) Moves Like Jagger. Maroon 5. 2011.

10) Hold on Loosely. 38 Special. 1981.

http://www.1061stevefm.com

http://www.visitroanoke.com

http://www.roanokedoesntsuck.com

http://www.aerosmith.com

http://www.speedwagon.com

Comic Strips Survey from the Roanoke Times: Will Anyone in Portugal Read This

Yes, we are wondering if anyone in Portugal or Romania for that matter reads our Sunday comics strips, but if you are checking us out from Lisbon or Bucharest, we hope the weather is nice in your respective nations today.

We are featuring photos of a random exotic fish, a Siamese cat, and Cong. Morgan Griffith (R-Va), because each of them pertains to the top three comic strips in "The Roanoke Times." (I suppose the next time we choose a photo of a House of Representatives members we will go with Cong. David Price, D-NC, to show we are nonpartisan, even though we make no secret of our center-left politics here).

"Speed Bump" by Dave Coverly was this week's winner as his strip showed a fish who had combed his hair just for his date, who was also a fish. Second place went to "Get Fuzzy" which depicts a mad Siamese cat named Satchel. Finally, the bronze medal goes to "Pearls Before Swine" which ventured into new territory by making fun of how corporate donations to members of Congress taint the political system. "Pearls" is usually an apolitical strip!

"Blondie" edged out "Dilbert" for tenth place. The two comic strips seem radically different, but unusually enough they are the two comic strips which seem to focus most on the workplace, except we never actually see Mrs. Dilbert (if there is one) in Scott Adams' strip.

Here is our top ten:

1) Speed Bump

2) Get Fuzzy

3) Pearls Before Swine

4) Doonesbury

5) Non-Sequitir

6)Funky Winkerbean

7) Garfield

8) Zits

9)  Agnes

10) Blondie

To see our Washington Post comics survey, go to our sister blog: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

Let's Check Out the Times Around the World Again

Since we listed various times from around the world like two weeks ago when the time last changed (forgiven the Americancentric sense of humor, well really it's just our own actually).

The images above are a map of Rotterdam, The Netherlands (Holland), the Dubai Mall and an antique grandfather clock that one may find at the Wheatland Antique Mall in Topeka, Kansas, where it's 9:00 p.m. now (Monday).

But, rather than Topeka, we will use New York as the city of comparison; it is now 11:00 p.m. in the Big Apple right now.....all times sprang an hour forward in the United States yesterday.


Here we go:

Athens, Greece: 5:00 a.m.

Barcelona, Spain: 4:00 a.m.

Auckland, New Zealand: 4:00 p.m.

Beijing, China: 11 a.m.

Bucharest, Romania: 5:00 a.m.

Cairo, Egypt: 5:00 a.m.

Dubai 7:00 a.m.

London 3:00 a.m.

Moscow 7:00 a.m.

Paris 4:00 a.m.

Rotterdam, Netherlands 4:00 a.m.

Tel Aviv, Israel 5:00 a.m.


http://www.visittopeka.us

http://www.shopbrookwood.org

http://www.antiquesoftopeka.org


http://www.mw.nl

Our Favorite Gymnasts_ Goksu, Vanessa, Aly, et al.

The 2012 London Olympics are coming to a close and we are perhaps the last people in the world to see Eric Idle reprise the famous Monty Python song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"

But, we wanted to look at six Olympic gymnasts from around the world who left an impression with us during the summer games:

1) Goksa Uctas, 21, Turkey (pictured top)_ Since I am a Turkish-American, and each of us watched helplessly in agony during the days of the horrific 1999 earthquake, the Uctas story is a particularly moving one. But, one does not need to be of Turkish heritage to identify with this remarkable athlete and her accomplishments. Uctas was nine years old when the earthquake struck the part of Turkey she was living in. She has gone on to become the first gymnast to represent Turkey at the Olympics. Uctas was recently profiled in "The New York Times." Prior to the Olympics, where she competed on the balance beam, Uctas won a silver medal at the 2009 Mediterranean Games in 2009.

2) Vanessa Ferrari, 21, Italy (pictured center)_ London: With a butterfly tattoo on one of her heels, made more noticeable because most gymnasts perform barefoot, Ferrari represented Italy with an entertaining floor routine. Alas, it was not as technically strong as many of the other gymnasts' routines, so she finished seventh in the competition with a 14.900. Prior to the Olympics, Ferrari, who has a Bulgarian mother, won the 2006 world championships in all-around in Denmark.

3) Aliya Mustafina, 17, Russia, London: Mustafina will leave the Olympics with three medals, including a gold on the uneven bars apparatus, a silver from the team competition and a bronze for the all-around. Mustafina won a tie-breaker with American gymnast Aly Raisman for the bronze. Ironically, Raisman would win a bronze from Romanian gymnast Catalina Ponor for a similar situation.

4) Aly Raisman, 18, USA. London: With three medals, including two golds (team, floor exercise) and a bronze (balance beam), Raisman will leave the UK as the most decorated American gymnast at the Olympics. Her floor music was performed to the Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila" much to the crowd's delight.

5) Sandra Izbasa, 22, Romania. London: Izbasa, a veteran from the 2008 Olympic team that won bronze in Beijing, won a gold on vault and a bronze for team competition. Izbasa finished fifth in the all-around.

6) Oksana Chusovitina, 37, Germany (pictured bottom). London: Yes, that is not a typo, the German gymnast who has also represented Uzbekistan, her home country, and even the Soviet Union (she has been around for quite a while) came to London for a record sixth Olympics. And, Chusovitina performed quite respectfully as she finished fifth on vault right behind her German teammate Janine Berger, 16, who is 21 years younger than the lady from Tashkent.

http://www.dailyhurriyet.com

http://www.vanessaferrari.com

http://www.aliyamustafina.com.ru/english

http://www.rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.com

http://www.muslimwomeninsports.blogsot.com

http://www.london2012.com

http://www.usagym.org

http://www.alyraisman.com

http://www.jewishjournal.com

Kudos to Team USA aka The Fab Five for Winning Gold in Women's Gym

Congratulations to both Team USA, also known as the Fab Five or the Fierce Five for winning the team gold medal in women's gymnastics and to Team Canada as our neighbors to the north finished in fifth, the highest ever placement for a Canadian team in the sport.

The team victory is perhaps especially sweet for Jordyn Wieber (pictured above) since she could not qualify for the all-around competition because of a highly controversial, perhaps even dubious rule, which only allow two competitors per country based on qualifying scores, irregardless of how high those scores might be.

For Team America, McKayla Maroney paved the way with a 16.223 score and Aly Raisman, who won the highly coveted second slot instead of Wieber, assured team victory with a fluid floor routine. Gabby Douglas, who had the highest score for Team America in the first round, competed on all four events with high scores on each of them. Kyla Ross (pictured below) held steady as well.

For Team Canada, the fifth place finish will make headlines in national newspapers tomorrow even if the team did not get a medal for their historic accomplishment.

Various Canadian media sources said the team members were overjoyed. Kristina Vaculik (pictured middle) tweeted that 'Canada rocked the house,' while teammate Domique Pegg tweeted that she was proud of the team's accomplishment.

Russia finished a distant second in large part because top gymnasts Anastasia Grishina and Ksenila Afanseva had very disappointing floor routines and Aliya Mustafina stumbled on the balance beam.

Romania won bronze, and the team's chances of winning gold were diminished because of an injury to standout gymnast Larisa Ioardoche. But, Catalina Ponour, 24, one of the oldest gymnasts competing at the Olympics and the lone remaining member of the 2008 Athens Olympics gold medal-winning team had an impressive balance beam routine.

Astonishingly, China, a team that won gold at home at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, finished fourth.

http://www.usagym.org 

http://www.jordanwieber.com

http://www.gymcan.org

Quote of the Day/Week-Mary Lou Retton

Today, we continue quoting American athletes who won either gold or silver medals at the Summer Olympics with a quip from Mary Lou Retton, 44, whose image with a red, white and blue leotard is making its way back to Wheaties cereal boxes.

We will be quoting international athletes, including perhaps Nadia Comaneci of Romania, who was a major influence on Retton, who won both team and individual gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Retton is from Fairmont, West Virginia, and she is a member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, which is slightly ironic as Retton is a Republican as she attended the 2004 Republican convention.

Gymnasts of today have also been influenced by Retton as she developed 'the Retton flip' move on bars.

Here is her quote:

"If I had a bad performance in a particular leotard, I threw it in the trash."

SIDEBAR: People in Retton's home state of West Virginia are likely not to happy today as West Virginia University lost to Gonzaga in the NCAA tournament yesterday.

I was also disappointed to see Harvard lose to Vanderbilt 79-70 though President Barack Obama, a graduate of Harvard, said he had to reluctantly pick Vandy since that school has just won the SEC Tournament.

But, there is happy basketball news for my home state of Virginia because Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) 'upset' Wichita State 62-59 in Portland, Oregon, in the NCAA tournament last night.

UPDATE: When we posted this entry earlier in the day, we did not know the first name of Mary Lou Retton's sister who was a great gymnast in her own right at West Virginia University. Her name is Shari Retton.

As for the current Mountaineers gymnastics team, they head to Baton Rouge, La., tonight for a meet with SEC power LSU. For WVU, current gymnast Kaylyn Milick was named EAGL Conference Gymnast of the week. The Mountaineers also have an exceptional, nationally-ranked gymnast in Hope Sloanhaffer.

Things We Learned on Google Today- Chisinau is the Capital of Moldova

Well, since we couldn't find any good images of Chisinau, the capital of Moldova which has a population of 700,000 people, we thought we'd go with this image of Iana Varnacova, who is 19 or 20 years old. She happens to also be known as Miss Moldova 2008.

This is the eighth entry in our series of looks at countries that were republics in the Soviet Union. Turkmenistan, which is quite far from Moldova, was our last entry.

Moldova is a landlocked country between Romania and Ukraine. Romanian is Moldova's official language, and the main religion is Orthodox Christian. Stuffed cabbage rolls are a popular dish in Moldova.

SIDEBAR ONE: We loved this tweet from comic actor Rainn Wilson of tv's "The Office" yesterday: "Obama single-handedly kills 87 Al Qaida militants with Dragon-style kung fu. GOP questions why he didn't fight Tiger-style." Yeah, I imagine Michele Bachmann would say something like that!

SIDEBAR TWO: While we are profoundly kiskanc (Turkish word for jealousy) of Thomas Mars, lead singer of the French band Phoenix, we wish him and his new wife, filmmaker Sofia Coppola well. They were married yesterday in Italy. We weren't able to find out if Bill Murray, who starred in Sofia's most famous film "Lost in Translation" was among the guests.

Things We Learned on Wikipedia This Week- Capital of Kazakhstan

We are continuing our look at former republis of the Soviet Union today with Kazakhstan. The second largest former Soviet republic behind Russia was made famous/infamous by the film "Borat" (2006) starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the fake television reporter from Kazakhstan.

The film, which was in my top five list for the best films of 2006, will always be a special to me because the rodeo scene where Borat/Cohen tricked rodeo-goers into singing a butchered verison of "The Star Spangled Banner" was filmed at a rodeo in my hometown of Salem, Va. And, just today, I saw that the Internet Movie Database indicated one of the film's factual goofs is that it shows Salem, which neighbors the larger city of Roanoke, as being in the eastern part of Virginia as opposed to southwest Virginia.

Many of the Kazkakhstan village scenes for the movie were actually filmed in Romania. In one of the scenes, the audience is introduced to Borat's neighbor Nursultan Tuyakbey, who is a cross between the names of the current Kazak president/dictator Nursultan Nazabayev and his political opponent in the mid-2000s Zharmakan Tuyakbey.

In April, Nazabayev ran virtually unopposed and got close to 100 percent of 'the vote.'

Today's question is what is the capital of Kazakhstan? Is the answer:

A) Alma Ata

B) Astana

C) Chimkent

D) Pavlador

This is the fifth of 17 entries in this series, and the first one presented in trivia question form. The other four Soviet republics in this series were Uzbekistan, Russia, Kyrgzstan* and (the) Ukraine.

*-This has to be one of the hardest countries in the world to spell!

SIDEBAR: My friend Bruce Piephoff, a folk singer in Greensboro, NC, may not be heading out to Kazakhstan for a concert anytime soon, but he will be performing a live set for WXDU (88.7-FM, Durham), the student-run radio station of Duke University at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. My personal favorite song of his might very well be "I Remember Asheville," even though I've only been Asheville, NC, one time!

Ten Films to Look for on DVD

I have combed through the last two issues of "Film Comment" and there is some great stuff that is coming out. Alas, Netflix made a highly unpopular decision yesterday to arbitrarily raise prices considerably. 72 percent of those surveyed said they disagreed with the company's move in an AOL survey. An exceptional article by Jonathan A. Knee in the current issue of "The Atlantic" illustrated how the company has grown massively, thanks largely to online streaming. According to Knee, the company now has 23 million subsribers, up from nine million in 2008, and Netflix is projected to make $3 billion this year.

Among the films I've chosen here are teh ultra-violent cult film "Hobo with a Shotgun" and the very depressing film "Another Year." I went with the image of anti-depressants for Mike Leigh films because I had technical problems with an image of a very big tree in Bursa, Turkey, that I was intending to use for the film (the poster for "Another Year" featured a big tree).

We also recommend the disturbing, but brilliant documentary "Cul de Sac: A Suburban War Story" that I saw on the Sundance Channel a few years ago; a tank features prominently in the film.

And, since Morgan Spurloc's new film "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" is a documentary that examines product-placements in films, we just had to post an image of a Mars bar.

1. "Marwencol" (2010. doc. dir- Jeff Malmberg)

2. "Another Year" (2010. dir- Mike Leigh)

3. "Somewhere" (2010. dir- Sofia Coppola)

4. "Hobo with a Shotgun" (2010. dir-Jason Eisener)

5. "Cul de Sac: A Suburban War Story" (2002. doc. dir-Garrett Scott).

6. "How I Ended the Summer" (2010. Russia. dir-Alexie Popogrebsky)- Sarah Mankoff highly recommended this film in the May/June issue of "Film Comment."

7. "David Holzman's Diary" (1967. dir- Jim McBride)_ This is a brilliant experimental art film, which is perhaps in my top 100.

8. "Police Adjective" (2009. Romania. dir-Corneilu Porumbaiu). Romania has been making some surprsingly exceptional films, including this one, lately.

9. "Damnation Alley" (1977. dir-Jack Smight).

10. "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" (2011. doc. dir-Morgan Spurlock).

PSA- Take a Bite Outta Crime

Today, we focus on crime prevention for our Thursday PSA entry. Of course, McGruff the Crime Dog actually uses this motto which came of age (we believed in the late
'70s).

But, the late Greek-American actor Telly Savalas was the ever-hip sleuth "Kojak" on CBS. The series lasted 105 episodes, and it ran from 1973-78.

The show was remade with black actor Ving Rhames playing the title role in 2005 on the USA Network, but alas it was only around for a year.

In Hungary and Romania, according to Wikipedia, a kojak is slang for a lollipop!