Top Ten Comics from Sunday, March 29th Washington Post: An Homage to The Far Side

Greetings to our blog readers in New Zealand, Croatia and Turkey.........and to our friends in North Carolina (listening to the song "The Man I Used To Be" by John Howie Jr. on "Back Porch Music" on WUNC-FM (NPR-Chapel Hill, NC).

We are going into our back stacks for a great comics section in the March 29th edition of "The Washington Post," which was remarkable at every level.


Our top strip from this section is "Lio," which featured a tribute to Gary Larson's "The Far Side" comic strips from the 1980s; cows, house pets and aliens were both featured on a residential front lawn in suburbia.

Scott Hilburn's "The Argyle Sweater" depicted two teenage frogs coming into mama's kitchen after a baseball game in which 'they caught a fly.' Perhaps, Kermit the Frog would be proud.

The bronze goes to Denmark as the cheese nation's import illustrated why it is perhaps not a good idea to be a clueless highway department worker when you are paving a road around a place like the Grand Tetons mountains in Wyoming (pictured bottom).

Here is our comics survey:

1. Lio

2. The Argyle Sweater

3. WuMo

4. Rhymes with Orange

5. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

6. Barney and Clyde

7. Prickly City

8. Sherman's Lagoon

9. Knight Life

10. Reply All

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

University of Mississippi Theatre Play Disrupted..............and, a cell phone is not to blame

In case you are wondering, the image above is apparently of a quilt to stop homophobia.

It was homophobia, rather than a cell phone, which disrupted a since-concluded production at the University of Mississippi of "The Laramie Project," a play being performed in Washington, DC http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com by Ford's Theatre at an alternative venue due to the federal government shutdown.

According to various students, the disruptive students, which consisted of some 20 Ole Miss football players who were taking a freshman introduction to theatre class, heckled the actors on stage which various hateful, homophobic profanities.

Garrison Gibbons, the only gay student in the production of a play about the murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard who was gay, said the incident reminded him of how much intolerance remained in the Magnolia State.

"The Laramie Project" was also protested by the radical, fringe Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kan. Members of the cult held up homophobic hate signs up in front of a venue that was performing the play in Durham, NC, in 2005.

The play was written in 2000; Shepard's murder occurred in 1998.

SIDEBAR: The federal government shutdown which has closed many national parks, including tours of the Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, did not stop the Air Force-Navy game which was played in Annapolis, Maryland, on Saturday. Navy won the game 28-10 thanks in large part to quarterback Keenan Reynolds who ran for 126 yards and scored three touchdowns.

http://www.nohomophobes.com

http://theatre.olemiss.edu/

http://www.fordstheatre.org/

http://www.navysports.com/sports/m-footbl/

Presidential Quotes, John Adams

Our quote from John Adams, America's second president who was made more famous by actor Paul Giamatti's portrayal of him for an HBO mini-series, reflects some irony as his son John Quincy Adams became prez too:

"I must sudy politics and war so that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."

We gather that today John Adams is busy fly-fishing in Montana and Wyoming with Dick Cheney (yes, that is a joke).

Blogging in 3.5 minutes of Less_ The Six Largest 'Cities' in Wyoming

Greetings to our blog readers in Mexico, New Zealand and Peru.

We wrote 'Cities' as opposed to Cities in the header because most 'cities' in Wyoming have a low population unlike major cities.

We found out today that the state flower of Wyoming is the Castilleja Linuriifolia (hurray, it looks like we spelled it right; cartoonist Keith Knight calls these things 'life's little victories).

This flower will be in view at the upcoming Crested Butte Wildflwoer Festival in Crested Butte, Colo., from July 8-14th.
 
Here are the six largest 'cities' in Wyoming, a state where it is very difficult for Democrats to win elections; it is after all the home state of Dick Cheney (biting my tongue):

1. Cheyenne (the capital) 59,446

2. Casper 55, 316

3. Laramie 30,816

4. Gillette 29, 087

5. Rock Springs 23, 036

6. Sheridan 17,444

SIDEBAR: Since we are, for some reason, popular in El Salvador, I wanted to congratulate their under-21 national soccer team for stunning Australia 1-0 in Trabzon, Turkey, yesterday, where the U-21 World Cup match was played.

http://www.crestedbuttewildflowerfestival.com

http://www.wyomingtourism.org

http://www.colorado.com

http://www.wyomingdemocrats.com

http://www.knightlifecomic.com

Bonus Road Trip (4 of 10)_ The Prarie States

Today, we continue our Bonus Road Trips series as we look at the distances between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. These are the two largest cities in their respective states. Cheyenne is also Wyoming's state capital and home to the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo that will next take place between July 20-29, 2012.

Pierre is actually the state capital of South Dakota, and with a small population of 13,646 people, it is second smallest state capital behind Montpelier, Vermont.

For this series, we are looking at the distances between Latitude 44 in Sioux Falls and the Outlaw Saloon in Cheyenne.

So, the answer is:

A) 9 hours, 15 minutes
B) 9 hours, 30 minutes
C) 9 hours, 45 minutes
D) 10 hours, 15 minutes

Quote of the Day- E.E. Cummings

Today, we start our series with quotes from famous Americans in honor of the Fourth of July. This month, we will focus on eight quotes from people associated with the six New England states.

Since the late poet e.e. cummings (he actually preferred having his name in lower-cased letters) was born in Cambridge, Mass., and he died at his estate in North Conway, New Hampshire, we are going to quote him.

Cummings (1894-1962) was considered to be an avant garde poet when he wrote his most famous poems, such as "Buffalo Bill's," which helped immortalize the Wild West legend from Cody, Wyoming, in the 1920s. But, today, his work is considered to be standard fare in English literature classes.

Here is his quote which makes one think of another New Englander, the late children's author Dr. Seuss:

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."

Things We Learned From the BBC This Week- Turkish Embassy Hostage-Taker in Jail

Given that relations between Ankara and Jerusalem have soured since both countries elected far-right prime ministers in Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Benjamin Netanyahu respectively, the last thing neutral observers in Washington, DC, would have wanted indeed happened this week.

The BBC reported that Nadim Injaz, a Palestinian man, took hostages in the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday in a misguided effort to seek political asylum.

Injaz, who reportedly suffers from mental illness and attempted a similar effort at the British embassy in Tel Aviv four years ago, took two hostages who were later freed. He entered the embassy with a knife, a can of petrol and a toy gun.

Tensions between Turkey and Israel, once the best of friends, has been considerably tense since Israeli commandos raided the Marmara flotilla on May 31 and killed eight Turkish nationals, including a Turkish-American college student from New York state with dual citizenship, who were attempting to give food and aid to Palestinians in the West Bank. The incident set up a fury of demonstrations in Turkey from all sectors of the country, but the most vocal ones were from conservative Muslims.

The BBC updated the story today by saying that Injaz will be held in jail for at least one week. Injaz's lawyer Avital Horev made a surprising statement when he said that his client was wanted by Palestinian authorities for collaborating with Israeli security agents. This claim was denied by the Israeli government.

SIDEBAR: Yes, yes, yes, it is a running gag on this blog now because I frequently name a given high school somewhere in the United States as The High School of the Week. But, if one pays attention, they will notice that no two schools ever come from the same state.

For Wyoming, we are thus choosing Kelly Walsh High School in Casper- a town that was not named after a certain Harvey Comics character ("Casper the Friendly Ghost").

We have no idea who Kelly Walsh was, but the high school that's named after him/her opened in 1965. The school nickname is The Trojans, and they have 1, 500 students.

Brad Diller is the school principal, and Jim Horne is the football coach.

Interestingly enough, rodeo is offered as a sport at Kelly Walsh High School!