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

The Weekly Grocery List

Here is our grocery list for the next coming week or so. We should point out that we thought of Donald Duck Orange Juice, which is either difficult to find or no longer in existence, when we came upon what we thought were Finnish Donald Duck comic books, but we now think they are actually Swedish. If you really wanna know, Donald Duck is called Kalle Anka is Swedish.

Bulgarian yogurt is a bit of an in-joke. My feeling is that if a grocer here in America put Bulgarian or Turkish yogurt beside Greek yogurt, neither would sell nearly as well even if it was the better product.

Here is our list:

1) orange juice

2) Life cereal

3) bagels

4) yogurt

5) ginger ale

6) coffee

7) stamps

8) toothpaste

9) cucumbers

10) cat food

Billy Bragg on the Death of Margaret Thatcher

On April 10th, Billy Bragg, an English left-wing folk/rock singer whose political anthems made him a recognized voice in the mid 1980s, will play in Winnipeg, Canada. He made a statement regarding the death of England's first female prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who was known for her right-wing politics.

Here is a condensed version of his statement: "This is not a time for celebration. The death of Margaret Thatcher is nothing more than a salient reminder of how Britain got into the mess that we are in today.................Raising the glass to the death of an infirm old lady changes none of this. The only real antidote to cynicism is activism. Don't celebrate---organise."

David Frum (pictured center), a center-right conservative figure in America who is actually a Canadian, posted many tweets about the woman who also helped Meryl Streep win her well-deserved second Best Actress Oscar.

One of them read as follows: "When people told Thatcher to jump, she did not say 'how high?' She said: 'Well, watch.'

SIDEBAR: We are currently listening to the BBC which is asking young people in South Africa if they are concerned about the ramifications of what they might post on a social media site like Facebook or Twitter. As one might expect, some of these tweenagers are concerned and use caution while others don't fret too much. But, one of the interviewed subjects states that she will remove Facebook posts of her drinking alcohol when she looks for a job.

http://www.billybragg.co.uk

http://www.frumforum.com

Remembering Roger Ebert- the Great American Movie Critic

With this image of the historic Byrd Theatre in Richmond, Va., which along with the Grandin Theatre in my hometown of Roanoke is one of the oldest movie palaces which is still in existence, we pay tribute to Roger Ebert.

The great American film credit died after a long bout with cancer today at age 70.

Many heart-felt tributes have been pouring in from the likes of movie blogger Ali Arikan, a personal friend, and documentary filmmaker Erroll Morris. Ebert and his "At the Movies" co-host the late Gene Siskel brought Morris' acclaimed late '80s documentary film "The Thin Blue Line" a greater public awareness than it may have normally recieved.

Here is a quote from Ebert:

"Every great film should seem new every time you see it."

Thanks, Roger.

http://www.byrdtheatre.com

Top 10 Things 2 Do in the Next Week (or so..........)

On occasion when something we want to post becomes too complicated, we resort to our proverbial old bag of tricks, which might also work for David Copperfield (for those of you in Tajikistan, he is an American magician).

And, one of our traditional entries, even dating back to our earliest entries way back in the stone ages of 2005, was a Top 10 Things To Do List; this effectively postpones our hopes to make fun of conservative newspaper columnist Cal Thomas.

So, here is our latest installment, we imagine at the BBC, they are never this desperate:

1) Taxes (the reason for the image of the vintages Mr. Professor children's calculators from the 1970s; I don't live in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, but if I did, I'd check in with Ronald A. Weiss)

2) Watch a tape of the University of North Carolina-Clemson baseball game that we recorded on Monday from ESPN-U (this is the reason for the image of a tiger; the Clemson mascot is a tiger with no name, but finding a suitable image of that tiger proved to be difficult and time-consuming as is this explanation)

3) Go to West Virginia

4) Eat a gyro

5) Get new library card

6) Read the Torah (It should be pointed out that I am not Jewish, but I did get a copy of the holy book for one dollar at an estate sale; the image below is of a synagogue in the Czech Republic).

7) Go through old records........as in stuff from bands like The Bee Gees

8) Write a poem (for myself, not for a woman- that never seems to work in real life)

9) Get stamps

10) Read the current issue of the Sunday "Washington Post." (We personally love how the woman always says the man that she is hooked up with in 'Date Lab' is never good enough or lives a few many Metro stops away from her!).

Tilly Gokbudak is NOT Moving to Bulgaria (It was an April Fool's prank)

Perhaps, next year, we will tell that little green men have landed in Fargo, North Dakota!

Tilly Gokbudak is Moving to Bulgaria in August

We are extremely pleased to announce that our boss, our own Spacely Sprokets if you will (forgive "The Jetsons" reference) Tilly Gokbudak is going to be teaching English in Sofia, Bulgaria, at the start of this year.

And, we also hope he finds himself the perfect woman for him while he is there!