Meerkat Manor: The Next Generation

Amazing Race is my favorite reality TV show. Meerkat Manor is a close second.

Meerkat Manor is all about a family of Meerkats known as the Whiskers and their travails in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. The last season of Meerkat Manor's most dramatic plot point was the murder by a cobra of the Whisker's dominant female, the Queen of the Kalahari known as Flower.

After Flower's murder, her daughter, Rocket Dog, took over. Flower's widower, Zaphod, found himself no longer the top dog in the manor and had to stoop to doing menial chores, like babysitting, til he finally decided to head out on a search for a new mate.

Zaphod almost successfully nailed another Meerkat Mob's top mama, but he was thwarted before he could get the job done.

Zaphod then made it back to the Whiskers. If I remember right that is about where we left the Whiskers when the last season ended. A new season called Meerkat Manor: The Next Generation is supposed to start June 6 on Animal Planet.

Below is a YouTube tribute to Flower.

Memorial Day and the Last Doughboy, Frank Buckles

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day. The holiday first came to be to honor Union soldiers after the Civil War. After World War I the holiday was changed to honor all veterans of all of America's wars.

Speaking of World War I. Frank Woodruff Buckles is the last known American-born veteran of the First World War. Mr. Buckles was only 16 when he convinced an enlister that he was 21.

Mr. Buckles did not get stuck in the trenches during the war. He was stationed stateside, then the UK, France and Germany where he helped return prisoners of war back to Germany.

Frank Buckles was born February 1, 1901 which makes him one of the few men who were alive for both turn of the century September 01 terrorist attacks, that being the September 14, 1901 anarchist terrorist assassination of President William McKinley and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

At 107 years old Frank Buckles still fires on all cylinders, daily giving interviews. He thinks the worst president in his lifetime is not George W. Bush, or Richard Nixon, but his very first president, that being the aforementioned William McKinley. Why, I do not know.

Mr. Buckley lifts weight daily and does about 50 sit-ups each morning in addition to his stretching routine.

Mr. Buckley has said he believes America should only go to war "when it's an emergency." He met President Bush at the White House on March 6, 2008. I don't know if Mr. Buckle let Mr. Bush know what he thought about the War in Iraq.

Frank Buckle wanted to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. But he was not eligible. Friends and family took up his cause and eventually Ross Perot learned that Frank Buckle was being denied an Arlington burial. Within 2 weeks Mr. Perot had the White House giving Frank Buckle special approval to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Dick Martin Laughed Out

This blogging falls into the category of time quickly passing and feeling old. This morning's surprise was to learn that Dick Martin was 86 when he died yesterday after a long bout of respiratory problems.

I was just a young whippersnapper when Dick Martin became known to pretty much everyone in America due to his super hit TV show known as Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. There had been nothing on TV like Laugh-In prior to its debut in 1968.

It was the 1960s, the Hippie era of Love-Ins and Be-Ins. Hence, Laugh-In. Laugh-In had a psychedelic look to it and seemed very fast paced compared to what we were used to seeing on TV. Dick Martin and Dan Rowan were sort of the hosts, sort of observing the nuttiness around them with Dan Rowan being the straight man to Dick Martin's not so straight man. Laugh-In is where America first met Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin. And Tiny Tim and his Tiptoe Through the Tulips song.

Laugh-In brought all sortsa things to American culture. Catch phrases like "Verrrry Interesting!" "I didn't know that." "Easy for you to say!" "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall!" "Go to your room!" "You bet your sweet bippy!" "Here comes de' Judge!" "Beautiful downtown Burbank!" "Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?" "I just wanna swing!" "Blow in my ear and I'll follow you anywhere!" "Now that's a no-no!" "The devil made me do it!"

And the most famous Laugh-In catch phrase of all obviously is "Sock it to me!" Hubert Humphrey believed he lost to Nixon because Hubert declined being on Laugh-In, while Nixon agreed and to the amusement of the nation we got to see and hear Nixon say "Sock it to me?", turning the phrase into a quizzical question.

Dick Martin's sidekick, Dan Rowan, died in 1987. Over 20 years ago. Time flies way too fast.

Heading to New York via Athens

It is Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. I'm in Texas. I've not done anything new and different in way too long. Or gone somewhere I've not been.

So, I think I'll take off for Athens and then go on to New York. I've not been to Athens before. It's supposed to be scenic.

Athens is about 30 miles south of Canton. Canton is about 100 miles east of Fort Worth. New York is about 13 miles east of Athens, near Lake Palestine.

So, what's the attraction in going to the Texas version of New York City you ask? Well, there's this Guided Adventure Tour thing with 6 ziplines called NY TX Zip Line Adventures. "Sky-High Thrills---Texas Style." I've long thought ziplines look fun, ever since seeing them on The Amazing Race.

From the NY Tex Zip Line Adventures website----

"Leave your fears behind..............as you experience the thrill of a lifetime at New York, Texas ZipLine Adventures. You will be on a guided adventure tour with 6 ziplines topped off with some of the most breathtaking 30-plus mile views of the East Texas Countryside. Your zipline adventure will take you soaring through towering pines, hardwoods and high above the rocky hillside of one of the highest elevations in East Texas."

Doesn't that sound fun? The New York area of Texas is known as the Piney Woods Region. It's the part of Texas that to me looks the most like parts of Western Washington, hilly and green with trees.

Hillary & the RFK Assassination

A brouhaha erupted on Friday over some unfortunate Hillary words. Campaigning in South Dakota Hillary was meeting with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader when she was questioned about why she was staying in the race.

Hillary: "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just, I don't understand it," she said in regards to abandoning the race.

Well, I sort of understand the reason for the brouhaha, what with raising the spectre of Barack Obama possibly being assassinated and thus, with her still in the race, I guess that would mean she would get the nomination by default. Or so her thinking goes.

I'd figured that Hillary was gonna keep plugging away gambling on the hope that gaffe prone Obama would commit a Super Gaffe between now and August, something that the supportive media would not be able to ignore, unlike when Obama said multiple times, with no sense of the obvious wrongness, that over 10,000 people had died in a tornado that struck a small Kansas town. Or recently when Obama let it be known he did not know how many states were in America when he said he'd been to all 57 states during his campaign. Does he think some of the Canadian provinces are states? Has anyone asked him.

Now, with Hillary's, to me, minor gaffe, this was not the first time she said the RFK thing. Back in March, in an interview in TIME magazine, she said pretty much the exact same thing. No brouhaha erupted that time though. Why? I can't help but wonder.

Impeach Bush?

On Friday, in front of the White House, presidential wannabe, Ralph Nader, called for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Ralph said George has, "dishonored the White House and brought a pattern of waste."

A meager crowd of supporters held signs like "Resign Bush-Cheney, Like Nixon-Agnew" and "From Katrina to Iraq, Colossal Failure."

Nader claimed Bush and Cheney are currently committing 5 impeachable offenses on a daily basis.

1) Criminal use of offense against Iraq.
2) Condoned and approved systematic torture.
3) Arresting thousands of Americans, then denying them habeas corpus and violating attorney/client privilege.
4) Signing 800 signing statements, precluding the president from actually having to follow the laws he signs.
5) The systematic spying on Americans without judicial approval.

I don't quite get #3. Thousands of Americans have been arrested? Why was I not informed of this? Who are they? Why were they arrested?

During my time on the planet there have been 2 impeachment attempts. Richard Nixon got in trouble being involved in a break-in at the Watergate. And then plotting to cover up the crime. No one died due to Watergate as far as I know. There were some other impeachment issues with Nixon other than Watergate, but none of those would have brought on impeachment hearings on their own without the Watergate Scandal. Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.

Bill Clinton was impeached over lying under oath regarding his nasty shenanigans with Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky. The Clinton impeachment, in hindsight, seems terribly stupid and wrong. Though it was sadly entertaining at the time. And, again, no one died due to Clinton's little fib while under oath.

And now you have our current president. Believed by the majority of Americans to be woefully incompetent. Incompetence is not an impeachable offense. Maybe it should be. Of Nader's 5 impeachable offenses the only one that seems impeachment worthy is the Iraq debacle. As in why has there been no investigation into all the misinformation that was spewed by the administration to justify our first war ever where we were not the victims of an aggression, but were instead the aggressor?

In the words of Gerald Ford, his first spoken after taking over for Nixon, come next January it will be a happy day for America when our long national nightmare is over. If impeachment could hasten that day, that would likely be a good thing.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Before yesterday I had not watched a movie in a theater this century. That would still be true had I not come into possession of a free movie pass that included a bucket of popcorn with a large Pepsi.

And so, in the same way I suffered Six Flags over Texas, twice, due to free passes, I suffered the new Indiana Jones movie.

Suffer, I say, because it was like being stuck on a multi-hour roller coaster ride. I gave up roller coasters for life back in 2000.

I enjoyed, for the most part, the previous Indiana Jones movies, particularly the first one, Raiders of the Lost Ark. I did not care for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for much the same reason Indian Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull wore out its welcome, that being both being way too frenetic. And ridiculous.

The new Indiana Jones movie is set in 1957, so for villains we get Soviet KGB baddies instead of evil Nazis, with the KGB baddies led by Irina Spalko, aka Cate Blanchett. The movie starts in Nevada where Mr. Jones miraculously survives a nuclear bomb blast. This after he'd discovered a crate holding the remains of an ET.

With the arrival of ET, early on in the movie, I had concerns with where the movie was heading. Where it was heading turned out to be Peru, after a guy named Mutt Williams, aka Shia LaBeouf, a shortie with a Brandoesque puffed up pompadour, tells Indy that an old colleague, Harold Oxley, aka John Hurt, has gone missing whilst looking for a crystal skull in Peru where he is not missing, but is locked up, nutsy kookoo, in a Peru insane asylum.

The powers of the skull were explained, but it was far too convoluted for me to remember. Suffice to say it had something to do with some long ago Conquistador and it has some supposed mystical powers that the Soviets want to acquire, much like the Nazis' desire for that Lost Ark.

Indy gets help from his girlfriend from the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Marion Ravenwood, aka Karen Allen. She's aged fairly well over the last 20 so years. During one of the many laborious, yet well done vehicle chases, Marion reveals to Indy that Mutt is his son. Didn't see that one coming.

Eventually Mr. Jones and his crew end up in a Mayan temple with 13 crystal skeletons. one missing its head. There's triple cross by a character I should have mentioned earlier, an old Indiana crony named Mac, who is a double agent pretending to work for the Soviets and then when they are in the Mayan temple Mac reveals he really is working for the Soviets, making him a triple agent.

Then the KGB baddie, Spalko, puts the crystal skull on the skeleton with the missing head. The skeleton then begins to talk. In an ancient Mayan dialect which Indy is able to translate. Something about a great gift. Spalko demands to know more, so the skeleton starts shooting info into her eyes. Which causes her to shake.

A portal to another dimension opens over the room. Oxley regains his sanity and matter of factly explains that the aliens travel between dimensions and taught the Mayans their advanced technology (the Mayans had advanced technology? What? TVs and airplanes?). Indy, Marion and their son, Mutt, narrowly escape the temple as the Soviet triple agent, Mac, gets sucked to another world.

The skeletons then morph into a single alien being that overflows the KGB baddie, Spalko, with too much knowledge, killing her. (I've always believed knowing too much was deadly)

And then as the temple falls apart, a flying saucer rises above the rubble and takes off into space. (I'm not making this up)

Indiana Jones is then made Associate Dean of the Archaeology Department. And marries Marion. ET did not attend the wedding.

Yet One More Fort Worth Star-Telegram Basher

Currently 65% of my thousands of readers want me to continue bashing the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Lord knows it deserves it. And Lord knows I love to be obliging. But sometimes I am just not able to muster a good healthy level of umbrage over things that are very umbrage-worthy.

So, today I will use a Guest Star-Telegram Basher. Before I get to that, I must tell you that awhile back the Startlegram (misspelling intended, that's what locals often call this paper) had a makeover to supposedly improve the paper's readability. This changed the look of the paper and made it more in line with its content. As in it now it both looks and reads like a very small town newspaper, not the newspaper of record of a city of almost 700,000 people.

And then a few months ago, as the Startlegram continued to bleed money, and lose subscribers, they did a cost cutting move. They cut back on features, axed columns and fired employees, including their liaison with their readers, David House. These moves made the paper even thinner and even faster to read. As in there is much less to read.

And so, in today's Startlegram, in a Letter to the Editor, a reader from Arlington voiced his disdain regarding the Startlegram's plummeting quality.

Here is that letter-----

Voice of Reason Lost

I think the Star-Telegram has a death wish.

First, the management dumbed down and tarted up the format so that it looks like the My Weekly Reader that I read in elementary school.

Then, in an apparent effort to attract young readers, it emasculated the opinions section and changed another section heading from “Business” to “Work and Money.” Why not change from “Sports” to “Fun and Games”?

I find myself more and more reading opinions on The New York Times’ Web site. I didn’t think of doing that before the “new and improved” Star-Telegram debuted.

You’ve offended serious readers and haven’t attracted new, young readers. So what do you do when circulation nose-dives? Cut payroll costs.

This resulted in the final blow to mature, serious readers: Management, in an effort to appease the bean-counters, terminated several senior staff members, notably ombudsman David House.

David was a loyal supporter of the Star-Telegram. I had many conversations with him about the direction that the paper was taking, and he always defended management’s decisions. Too bad the loyalty didn’t cut both ways.

His was a voice of reason and one to whom many readers expressed their concerns. He was a good reader advocate and will be sorely missed by readers who actually read the paper.

— Brian Fels, Arlington

David Cook Wins American Idol

It is late. I am seeing if I can semi-coherently do this blogging thing when it's bedtime. Likely not.

So, despite earlier saying I was not going to watch the finale of American Idol, I did catch the last 5 minutes.

One of the reasons I wasn't interested in watching was the so over the top pimping of the little high school David guy, last name Archeletta. On Tuesday the judges made it seem like the other David, Cook, was doggy doo-doo. And that Archeletta was a shoo-in. That seemed the consensus everywhere.

I remember thinking if there is any sense of good ol' American Justice in the viewing public this should piss them off and those fools who actually vote will vote for the Cook option. Cook is the one I earlier said, early on in the season, that he reminded me of one of my runty, ugly cousins.

And it's not just me who, early on, did not see anything positive about David Cook. That obnoxious, though amusing, Brit, Simon Cowell, early on told the one who used to look like my runty, ugly cousin, that he had no charisma.

Well, the one who used to look like my runty, ugly cousin is the winner, by millions of those pseudo votes which determine the winner, you know, votes where people can vote over and over again.

David Archelleta seemed to take the loss well. His dad, not so well.

Dallas Cowboy Scandal Feedback

A week or so I YouTubed a video of the current state of the Dallas Cowboy stadium construction, interspersed with photos of the rubble of all the homes, apartments and businesses destroyed by Jerry Jones and the City of Arlington's Bulldozer Blitzkrieg in the worst case of eminent domain abuse in American history.

YouTube lets viewers make comments about the videos. The Dallas Cowboy Stadium video has gotten several. I'll share a few and stick the video in question down below.

COMMENT #1
"Corporate greed eh? do you have any idea how much revinue is going to be brought in the entire region by that stadium? can you even comprehend the economic impact to the town? You are a propagnda extremist and not very well educated."

(Is this a Canadian I can't help but wonder? What with that "eh?" at the end of his first sentence. I've been bitch slapped by a Canadian? That hurts. The poor Cheesehead seems unaware that the existing Cowboy stadium, in Irving, has not brought any great impact to that town. The area around the current Cowboy stadium is pretty much devoid of development. This person is right about one thing though, as in it is pretty obvious I am not very well educated.)

COMMENT #2 (responding to the Canadian's comment)
"I'd guess this spelling/grammar challenged fool, with a simplistic concept of the economic impact of a football stadium, has been told many a time that he/she is not very well educated. Or just plain stupid."

COMMENT #3
"I'm as disgusted as you are about what was done in Arlington to get the Cowboys a new stadium. Don't these morons realize this isn't how this type thing is done in the rest of the country? Eminent domain exists so that the public can take private land for the public good. Like roads, hospitals and schools. Not for football stadiums. A person should be secure in their home and should be removed from their home for only the best of reasons."

COMMENT #4 (from one of Jerry Jones' victims)
"Thank you for this. My family were among the Dallas Cowboy's and Jerry Jones victims. We were forced out of our home of over 25 years. I will never forgive or forget this. A stadium could have been built without doing this to people. There is plenty of open land in Arlington. The shame of this will forever stain the town of Arlington and the Dallas Cowboys with Jerry Jones answering to God, in the unlikely chance that that it is to heaven he is going when he dies."