Friday, November 11, 2011

Good-bye Cain and Perry.

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

November 11 is … Air Day



Isn’t every day air day? I would hate to deal with one without air



I wish all veterans a Happy Veterans Day. Thank you to all veterans and those currently serving.



In the USA, Veterans Day annually falls on November 11. This day is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice, which ended the World War I hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany in 1918. Veterans are thanked for their services to the United States on Veterans Day.



Veterans Day is intended to honor and thank all military personnel who served the United States in all wars, particularly living veterans. It is marked by parades and church services and in many places the American flag is hung at half mast. A period of silence lasting two minutes may be held at 11am. Some schools are closed on Veterans Day, while others do not close, but choose to mark the occasion with special assemblies or other activities.



Veterans Day is officially observed on November 11. However, if it falls on a week day, many communities hold their celebrations on the weekend closest to this date. This is to enable more people to attend and participate in the events. Federal Government offices are closed on November 11. If Veterans Day falls on a Saturday, they are closed on Friday November 10. If Veterans Day falls on a Sunday, they are closed on Monday November 12. State and local governments, schools and non-governmental businesses are not required to close and may decide to remain open or closed. Public transit systems may follow a regular or holiday schedule.



On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 an armistice between Germany and the Allied nations came into effect. On November 11, 1919, Armistice Day was commemorated for the first time. In 1919, President Wilson proclaimed the day should be "filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory". There were plans for parades, public meetings and a brief suspension of business activities at 11am.



In 1926, the United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I and declared that the anniversary of the armistice should be commemorated with prayer and thanksgiving. The Congress also requested that the president should "issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples."



An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) was approved on May 13, 1938, which made November 11 in each year a legal holiday, known as Armistice Day. This day was originally intended to honor veterans of World War I. A few years later, World War II required the largest mobilization of service men in the history of the United States and the American forces fought in Korea. In 1954, the veteran’s service organizations urged Congress to change the word "Armistice" to "Veterans". Congress approved this change and on June 1, 1954, November 11 became a day to honor all American veterans, where ever and whenever they had served.



In 1968 the Uniforms Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 250)) made an attempt to move Veterans Day to the fourth Monday of October. The bill took effect in 1971. However, this caused a lot of confusion as many states disagreed with this decision and continued to hold Veterans Day activities on November 11. In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which stated that Veterans Day would again be observed on November 11 from 1978 onwards. Veterans Day is still observed on November 11.



Penn State University, where to start? The Trustees were late in making the right call but on Wednesday night it fired the University President and Head Football Coach Joe Paterno.



The trustees did slap the coach in the face by firing him over the phone. You would think 46 years deserved a face-to-face contact. Most of the trustees were not born or quite young when Joe Paterno became the head coach.



The debate Wednesday night was clearly the end of the road for Rick Perry. One of his biggest programs calls for the elimination of three government agencies. He could only recall two of them. He forgot one third of his platform. That seems important to me.



Herman Cain did not do much better. He hammered away at 999 until it became sickening. He never explained the plan or dealt with the criticism experts have heaped upon the plan, he just kept saying it was a bold plan   999   999   999   999. This guy merely diverts attention toward his “bold plan” 999. He ignores all other issues. He lies to everyone. He refuses to answer the questions asked. He treats the audience as idiots. Hey Herm, go hit on another woman. It is all you appear to be good at.







Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011





VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"The most important thing in life is to see to it that you are never beaten." - Andre Mairaux


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Our military cannot climb the highest tree any more.

November 10, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

November 10 is … Forget-Me-Not Day



I will not forget Paul!



On this date in 1969 my cousin Paul Woolford was killed in Viet Nam when the jeep he was driving was blown up by a hand grenade. I miss you Paul and have for a long time. Will that damn war ever really end? My cousin and thousands like him climbed the tallest tree.



The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The Viet Cong, a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People's Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery and airstrikes.

The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government and National Liberation Front viewed the war as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. U.S. military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were withdrawn as part of a policy called Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.



U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities. Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from less than one million to more than three million. Some 200,000–300,000 Cambodians, 20,000–200,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.



Another example of the incompetence of our military is in the news. The Vietnam War lasted twenty years and we lost. The Korean War is still going on without victory. It took the military ten years to find and kill bin Laden. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are nearly ten years old without victory, we are just giving up. Now this.

The Dover military mortuary entrusted with the solemn duty of receiving and caring for America's war dead twice lost body parts of remains shipped home from Afghanistan, the Air Force revealed Tuesday.

Three mortuary supervisors have been punished for what the Air Force called "gross mismanagement," but no one was fired in a grisly case reminiscent of the scandalous mishandling and misidentifying of remains at Arlington National Cemetery. The Air Force, which runs the mortuary at Dover, Del., acknowledged failures while insisting it made the right decision in not informing families linked to the missing body parts until last weekend – months after it completed a probe of 14 sets of allegations lodged by three members of the mortuary staff.



Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, told a Pentagon news conference he and the service's top civilian, Michael Donley, are ultimately responsible for what happens at Dover and for its mistakes.

"There's no escaping it," Schwartz said. However, an independent federal investigative agency, the Office of Special Counsel, said the Air Force had fallen short on accountability. That office, which forwarded the original whistleblower allegations to the Pentagon in May and July 2010 and reviewed the subsequent Air Force investigative report, faulted it for taking an overly narrow view of what went wrong at Dover between 2008 and 2010.

"Several of the Air Force's findings are not supported by the evidence presented and thus do not appear reasonable," the special counsel's office said. "In these instances the report demonstrates a pattern of the Air Force's failure to acknowledge culpability for wrongdoing relating to the treatment of remains."



This failure comes to light just months after the military acknowledged that Arlington National Cemetery mismarked graves, lost bodies and lied about it with a cover-up. We can no longer prosecute a war successfully, kill the bad guys or properly handle our own fallen heroes.



What a disgrace. Screw political correctness; let’s get back to “might makes right” and show the world how it is going to be. We do not need a global economy or global police force. The world needs us. We should show the world why, starting in Iran and North Korea. Africa is not a threat, leave it alone.



Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011



VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book should be available later this year, in late 2011. More information will be forthcoming.



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



"He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit." - Sir Walter Scott

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

So long Smokin' Joe!

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

November 9 is … Chaos Never Dies Day



Sounds like the title to a James Bond movie!



I have several performers I will not listen to because of the content of their music. I have added the Boston Pops to that list, too much Sax and Violins.



RIP Smokin’ Joe Frazier. He beat Muhammad Ali in the Fight of the Century, battled him nearly to the death in the Thrilla in Manila. Then Joe Frazier spent the rest of his life trying to fight his way out of Ali's shadow.



That was one fight Frazier never could win.



He was once a heavyweight champion, and a great one at that. Ali would say as much after Frazier knocked him down in the 15th round en route to becoming the first man to beat Ali at Madison Square Garden in March 1971. But he bore the burden of being Ali's foil, and he paid the price. Bitter for years about the taunts his former nemesis once threw his way, Frazier only in recent times came to terms with what happened in the past and said he had forgiven Ali for everything he said.



Frazier, who died Monday night after a brief battle with liver cancer at the age of 67, will forever be linked to Ali. But no one in boxing would ever dream of anointing Ali as The Greatest unless he, too, was linked to Smokin' Joe. "You can't mention Ali without mentioning Joe Frazier," said former AP boxing writer Ed Schuyler Jr. "He beat Ali, don't forget that."



They fought three times, twice in the heart of New York City and once in the morning in a steamy arena in the Philippines. They went 41 rounds together, with neither giving an inch; both giving it their all.

In their last fight in Manila in 1975, they traded punches with a fervor that seemed unimaginable among heavyweights. Frazier gave almost as good as he got for 14 rounds, then had to be held back by trainer Eddie Futch as he tried to go out for the final round, unable to see.



"Closest thing to dying that I know of," Ali said afterward.



I sure do not agree with this. The Christmas off argument does not work since Christmas is celebrated world-wide on an enormous scale that is a real economic stimulus and therefore good for all.



Some Massachusetts public school students have a day off this week, but it has nothing to do with power outages or snow. The Cambridge school system is believed to be the first in Massachusetts to give all students a day off for a Muslim holiday.



Students are getting Tuesday off for Eid al-Adha, also known as the Festival of Sacrifice, the Boston Globe reports. Read that again; students are getting a Muslim religious holiday off from school. I wonder if they got Columbus Day off or Veterans Day? This would not and did not happen under President Bush, our last American President.



"We’re ecstatic about this," Atif Harden, interim executive director of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, told the newspaper. "This is the first year that it’s going to occur. This sort of recognition of our existence and the population we have, we feel very good about."



The day off was approved by the school committee last year because of the district's sizable Muslim population. Superintendent Jeffrey Young told the newspaper that honoring the holiday is in line with the district's values of "inclusion and respect."



School committee member Marc McGovern says he got some criticism and even threats when he approved of the holiday. I bet he gets more and I bet this is a one-time mistake.



Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011





VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?





Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Cain, you just are not able.

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

November 8 is … Dunce Day



Boy, we can have some fun with today. Remember, everything is in good humor. You will know it if I am serious.



Herman Cain has pretty much lost any opportunity he had to be President. I never thought he had much of a chance but his inability to get a hold of the sexual harassment situation shows a clear lack of leadership, ability to hire competent staff and a lack of intelligence on his part. Many more women will come out, some telling the truth and some just gold-diggers.



He has mow put a story out to the press complaining about the toll these stories are having on his wife. He is not worried about the affect his conduct on his wife just the reporting of the stories. This has been compared to the Clarence Thomas matters of nearly two decades ago. Both are black men vying for important jobs historically held by white men. The biggest difference is only one woman complained about Justice Thomas and she was discredited. In this case four women have come forward with more to follow. Justice Thomas dealt with one reported case told by a liar. Cain is dealing with a pattern of behavior.



Sharon Bialek, the fourth woman to come out and make sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain, appeared alongside her attorney Gloria Allred at a press conference on Monday. A fifth woman came forward late on Monday.



According to Bialek, the Republican presidential candidate exhibited inappropriate behavior when he was serving as head of the National Restaurant Association more than a decade ago.  Bialek said the alleged incident in question occurred down the street from the NRA headquarters. Describing what happened she said, "Instead of going into the offices, he suddenly reached over and put his hand on my leg, up my skirt, and towards my genitals." She recalled that when she protested the advances, Cain said, "You want a job right?"



Bialek alleged that Cain also "grabbed [her] head and brought it towards his crotch." She said that she was "shocked" by the behavior.



This guy was not just making rude or distasteful comments. He was not trying to be funny and it did not work. He was looking for head from a white woman.



Cain’s campaign only response is to call the accusers liars claiming the accusations are false. I bet they are not all false, probably none of them are false. Justice Thomas stated that the accusations against him were an effort to keep “an uppity black” in his place. Cain claims he is the sole beacon of truth and everyone else is a liar. Like Rocky said to Bullwinkle, “…but that trick never works.”



Catholics get ready. Most church going Catholics are aware of the upcoming changes. Most Catholics do not attend Mass regularly so this may be a surprise at Midnight Mass.



Each Sunday for decades, Roman Catholic priests have offered the blessing – "Lord be with you." And each Sunday, parishioners would respond, "And also with you." Until this month.



Come Nov. 27, the response will be, "And with your spirit." And so will begin a small revolution in a tradition-rich faith. At the end of the month, parishes in English-speaking countries will begin to use a new translation of the Roman Missal, the ritual text of prayers and instructions for celebrating Mass. Get ready fellow Catholics.



Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011





VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"I thank you God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes." - E. E. Cummings


Monday, November 7, 2011

Walter Winchell

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

November 7 is … National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day



“Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea? Let’s go to press.” Who said that to open every broadcast? Answer to follow.

Walter Winchell was replaced at the Miami Herald by Larry King. Damon Runyon was a sports writer, novelist and short story writer. He wrote the short story, “The Lemon Drop Kid” Bob Hope later made it into a movie. The movie introduced the song Silver Bells. Damon Runyon died in 1946 of cancer. Walter Winchell teamed up with Bob Hope, Marlene Dietrich, Milton Berle, Marilyn Monroe, and Joe DiMaggio to establish the Damon Runyon Cancer Memorial Fund, later renamed the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

ANSWER:

Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was an American newspaper and radio commentator. Born Walter Winschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."

His career in journalism was begun by posting notes about his acting troupe on backstage bulletin boards. Joining the Vaudeville News in 1920, Winchell left the paper for the Evening Graphic in 1924, and in turn was hired on June 10, 1929 by the New York Daily Mirror where he finally became a syndicated columnist. He made his radio debut over WABC in New York, a CBS affiliate, on 12 May 1930. (John Dunning, Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, p. 708)

By the 1930s, Winchell was "an intimate friend of Owney Madden, New York's No. 1 gang leader of the prohibition era, but " in 1932 Winchell's intimacy with criminals caused him to fear he would be 'rubbed out' for 'knowing too much.'" He fled to California, "[and] returned weeks later with a new enthusiasm for law, G-men, Uncle Sam, [and] Old Glory." His coverage of the Lindbergh kidnapping and subsequent trial received national attention. Within two years, he befriended J. Edgar Hoover, the No. 2 G-man of the repeal era. He was responsible for turning Louis "Lepke" Buchalter of Murder, Inc. over to Hoover.

His newspaper column was syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, and he was read by 50 million people a day from the 1920s until the early 1960s. His Sunday night radio broadcast was heard by another 20 million people from 1930 to the late 1950s.

Winchell, who was Jewish, was one of the first commentators in America to attack Adolf Hitler and American pro-fascist and pro-Nazi organizations such as the German-American Bund. After World War II, Winchell began to denounce Communism as the main threat facing America.

During World War II, he attacked the National Maritime Union, the labor organization for the civilian United States Merchant Marine, which he said was run by Communists. In 1948 and 1949 he and the influential leftist columnist Drew Pearson "inaccurately and maliciously assaulted Secretary of Defense James Forrestal in columns and radio broadcasts.". Winchell also labeled African-American-French entertainer Josephine Baker as a communist after she took him to task for not questioning the racial-discriminatory policies of the Stork Club in New York. His relentless campaign against Baker prevented her from getting her visa to enter the US renewed.

In 1948 Winchell had the top rated radio show when he surpassed Fred Allen and Jack Benny. During the 1950s Winchell favored Senator Joseph McCarthy, but he became unpopular as the public turned against McCarthy. He also had a weekly radio broadcast which was simulcast on ABC television until he ended that employment because of a dispute with ABC executives in 1955. A dispute with Jack Paar effectively ended Winchell's career, signaling a shift in power from print to television.



During this time, NBC had given him the opportunity to host a variety show, which lasted only thirteen weeks. His readership gradually dropped, and when his home paper, the New York Daily Mirror, where he'd worked for thirty-four years, closed in 1963, he faded from the public eye. He did, however, receive $25,000 an episode to narrate The Untouchables on the ABC television network for five seasons beginning in 1959.



Many other columnists, such as Ed Sullivan in New York and Louella Parsons in Los Angeles, began to write gossip soon after Winchell's initial success. He wrote in a style filled with slang and incomplete sentences. Winchell's casual writing style famously earned him the ire of mobster Dutch Schultz, who confronted Winchell at New York's Cotton Club and publicly lambasted him for using the phrase "pushover" to describe Schultz's penchant for blonde women. Some notable Winchell quotes are: "Nothing recedes like success," and "I usually get my stuff from people who promised somebody else that they would keep it a secret."



Winchell opened his radio broadcasts by pressing randomly on a telegraph key, a sound which created a sense of urgency and importance and the catchphrase "Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press." He would then read each of his stories with a staccato delivery (up to a rate of 197 words per minute), noticeably faster than the typical pace of American speech. His diction can also be heard in his breathless narration of the Untouchables television series as well as in several Hollywood films.



Winchell feuded with New York radio host Barry Gray, whom he described as "Borey Pink" and a "disk jerk." When Winchell heard that Marlen Edwin Pew of the trade journal Editor & Publisher had criticized him as a bad influence on the American press, he thereafter referred to him as "Marlen Pee-you."



For most of his career his contract with his newspaper and radio employers required them to reimburse him for any damages he had to pay, should he be sued for slander or libel. Whenever friends reproached him for betraying confidences, he responded, "I know — I'm just a son of a bitch."



On August 11, 1919, Winchell married Rita Greene, one of his onstage partners. The couple separated a few years later, and he moved in with June Magee, who had already given birth to their first child, a daughter named Walda. Winchell and Greene eventually divorced in 1928. Winchell and Magee would never marry, although the couple maintained the front of being married for the rest of their lives.



Winchell and Magee successfully kept the secret of their non-marriage, but were struck by tragedy with all three of their children. Their adopted daughter Gloria died of pneumonia at age nine, and Walda spent time in psychiatric hospitals. Walter, Jr., the only son of the journalist, committed suicide in his family's garage on Christmas night, 1968. Having spent the previous two years on welfare, Winchell, Jr. had last been employed as a dishwasher in Santa Ana, California, but listed himself as a freelancer who for a time wrote a column in the Los Angeles Free Press, an alternate newspaper published in the 1960s and 1970s.



Walt just was not what he seemed to be and apparently was not a nice human being. If he had not loved himself so much, no one would have loved him, except may be his mother. He did help establish the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011





VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success." - Brian Adams