Catastrophic storms and weather events are not just a recent phenomenon. This 1927 news photograph has the following caption: Continue reading
The late Clayton Christensen (1952-2020) of Harvard Business School made this one and a half minute video in 2014. Considering the breakdowns in civility and law we are witnessing today it is well worth watching.
My personal views not withstanding, a friend once said religion “is the opium of the people.” Oh, sorry that wasn’t my friend, that was Karl Marx in his critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of the Right.
My real friend said that religion prevents Continue reading
Queen Elizabeth II died September 8, 2022 at age 96 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Continue reading
This 1926 photo by Dickson & Thurber shows the Swim-Easy Girls on their way to Bard’s Bathing Beauty Contest at Bard’s Theatre in Pasadena, CA. Continue reading
There are many children who are afraid of clowns. Not me. I just don’t like clowns. My bodyguard Klaatu, has even had to punch out a few when they have come too close to me.
But there are few adults that suffer a severe fear of clowns. The name for this rare condition is Coulrophobia, the excessive fear of clowns.
Paintings of clowns may not bring about fear so much as repulsion. How anyone could appreciate unfunny comedian Red Skelton or his art, often involving self portraits of him dressed as a clown has always been a mystery to me.
What is worse than a painting of one clown?
A bad painting of four clowns.
While recently in Maine, I stumbled across this monstrosity. If you wish to possibly induce a case of Coulrophobia in someone here is a prime candidate.
The artist’s name Continue reading
While today it might be considered very creepy, “Old Blue Eyes,” Frank Sinatra did marry Mia Farrow on July 19, 1966. Frank was 50-years-old and Mia was 21. Continue reading
We see that marriage by capture, either as a stern reality or as an important ceremony, prevails in Australia and among the Malays, in Hindostan, Central Asia, Siberia, and Kamskatka; among the Esquimaux, the Northern Redskins, the Aborigines of Brazil, in Chile and Tierra del Fuego, in the Pacific Islands, both among the Polynesians and the Fijians, in the Philippines, among the Arabs and Negroes, in Circassia, and, until recently, throughout a great part of Europe.
In Australia little real affection exists between husbands and wives, and young men value a wife principally for her services as a slave. In fact, when asked why they are anxious to obtain wives, their usual reply is, that they “may get wood, water, and food for them, and carry whatever property they possess.”
The position of women in Australia seems indeed to be wretched in the extreme. They are treated with the utmost brutality, beaten and speared in the limbs on the most trivial provocation. Few women, says Eyre, will be found, upon examination, to be free from frightful scars upon the head, or the marks of spear wounds about the body. I have seen a young woman who, from the number of these marks, appeared to have been almost riddled with spear wounds. If at all good-looking their position is, if possible, even worse than otherwise.
The Origin of Civilisation And The Primitive Condition Of Man – Mental and Social Condition Of Savages by Sir John Lubbock, Member Parliament, Baronet, Fellow of the Royal Society. Author of Prehistoric Times, etc. Vice President of the Ethnological Society, Fellow of the Linnean, Geological and Entomological And Other Societies. London: Longmans Green and Co. 1870
You have just read a small sample of historic inhumanity not unique to Australia.
Europe, Asia and the America’s furnish abundant examples of similar behavior in uncivilized societies.
The frightening aspect of this, is that the reality of cultural relativism has been conveniently forgotten. Continue reading
What am I tired of? Protests. And Signs.
Maybe these signs will sway people. Maybe not.
How will kids settle who’s the fastest?
It’s about time that someone spoke up for the Morlocks. The privileged Eloi get to live above ground, even if they do eventually become dinner for Morlocks. Continue reading
Lovely Diana Dors who plays her first dramatic screen role as a woman prisoner in the new Associated British-Marble Arch production, “The Weak and The Wicked” starring Glynis Johns and co-starring John Gregson, Diana Dors, and Jane Hylton with Sidney James, A.E. Matthews, Anthony Nicholls, Athene Seyler, Olive Sloane and Sybil Thorndike. Screenplay by J. Lee-Thompson and Anne Burnsby in collaboration with Joan Henry, author of “Who Idle in Gaol” from which the film is freely adapted. Directed by J. Lee-Thompson and produced by Victor Skutezky. photo: British Pathe June 5, 1954
Diana Dors was only 22-years-old during the filming of The Weak and The Willing. Yet Dors had already appeared in nearly two dozen British films; mostly uncredited bit parts. When The Weak and The Willing, was released in the United States it was re-titled Young and Willing.
Dors resemblance to Marilyn Monroe Continue reading
Here’s a two minute clip from a 1966 British newsreel entitled, A Little Of What You Fancy.
The bikinis of 1966 look discreet compared to the dental floss beachwear some women display themselves in today.
The mini-skirt presented a real danger Continue reading
