For high speed rail

 Item from ITV News -- "Deutsche Bahn's 200mph ICE train is unveiled at St Pancras International ahead of Channel Tunnel service to Frankfurt." See the video.

That German rail company plans to have a high-speed train running from Germany to England by 2013. The train is to carry passengers through the Channel Tunnel to Belgium, and to other destinations.

We, in America, don't have a high-speed train running from Washington to New York --  Not a truly high speed train, running from anywhere to anywhere.

The Germans, the Europeans, are moving ahead, and Uncle Sam is sitting on his fanny, while America is lagging behind in the field of public inter-city and regional transportation.

Buses just don't do it, and they're slow, and carbon deficient. The passengers rail system that we have is not doing the job.

Rail requires a greater initial investment than air travel. Miles of track to support high speed trains have to be laid, but in the long run, rail travel is cheaper, and more environmentally friendly

If the USA is going to be the big boy on the block, during the 21st century, Uncle Sam has to get off his fanny.

Bob Guccione, R.I.P.

Bob Guccione the founder of Penthouse magazine died yesterday, Wednesday, in a hospital in Plano, Texas, after a long illness. He was 79.

It was cool to subscribe to Playboy, to have it delivered right in the mail box of your very own bachelor apartment. The magazine came in a wrapper. I guess the wrapper may have been another brilliant brain child of Hugh Hefner, the Playboy founder and publisher, who didn't want to encourage the mailman to keep of all the copies for himself. Maybe?

Penthouse was a magazine, you brought from the news stand. You didn't mind others in the store seeing you buy it. The news stands that sold Penthouse, back in the day, catered to male customers, who knew why you were in the store. Going into the store was the trick. Before you went in, you stood back away from the shop, looked in both directions, to make sure no persons who you knew were around, and no person who looked like people you knew were looking. Once assured that the coast was clear, you darted into the store. You didn't spend too much time in the store. You knew exactly what you wanted, the magazine that you came in the store to get. You got it, paid for it, then you stood at the door. You looked in all directions, and if the coast was clear, you darted out of the shop. If the coast wasn't clear you waited until it was. Sometimes there were a line of a half a dozen dudes waiting to exit the shop.

Hugh Hefner's Playboy was all about reading the very interesting and exciting articles, about getting hip, learning how to be cool, about many things, and about sex, especially about sex., Penthouse was just about sex and raunchy pictures. The mag didn't require much use of the brain, just the eye balls, and, well, maybe, a tiny, little, wee bit of the imagination, and the mag was a big hit with us then younger dudes.

In an obit for Mr. Guccione there is this line -- Penthouse magazine "came on the scene in 1969 with a dash of tabloid sensibility and more graphic images, billing itself as "the magazine of sex, politics and protest."

I don't remember the "politics" and the "protest."

Anyway, Bob Guccione, you old dawg, R.I.P.

It Aint Legit?

Florence Henderson, not one known to be a sour grape mama, said she is "surprised" that grizzly mama Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol didn't get voted off the ABC's show, Dancing With the Stars. The talented Ms. Henderson was eliminated on Tuesday's show.

Ms. Henderson told Us Magazine that she "was a little surprised, but you know I've watched this show since it began, and I've seen absolutely shocking things happen on it, so somebody has to go."

Well it could be politics? What do you think?

From UsMagazine.com --"Palin, 19, who scored the lowest on Monday's show for the jive, tells Us, 'I'm so relieved. It is like a big weight was lifted off my shoulders. I was scared and nervous going into the night, but we got through so that's very exciting ... I was definitely surprised and shocked when they said we were safe... with our low scores and stuff, it was pretty stressful.'

She says she thinks that voters saw her "rawness and vulnerability" and that's why they kept her in.

Maybe her mama grizzly is the thousand pound gorilla behind this amazing thing?

Tom Bosley, R.I.P.

When I first heard the title of the series, Happy Days -- before it debuted -- I thought of the old 1930s song, that became popular with FDR and the New Deal,Happy Days Are Here Again, and I thought: 'Okay, here it comes. Something to cheer us up and to get people from thinking of how bad things are. Simple entertainment for the masses, something to do to waste thirty minutes.' Those were my thoughts.

The TV classic sit-com Happy Days debuted in 1974, during the White House years of Gerald Ford, following the drama of Nixon, and during an economic recession. I remember the spin around the series. A 1950ish kind of show for the 70s set, wanting happier times. Happier times?

What the show is was / is (in re-runs) fun to watch.

The show had zany characters and it had Henry Winkler, as the Fonzi, and it had the actor Tom Bosley, as the dad that only Richie Cunningham could have and America wanted. "TV Guide ranked Bosley's Happy Days character, Howard Cunningham, at No. 9 on its list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" in 2004."

Mr. Bosley died today, Tuesday. He was 83. He had a long career. He was an accomplished stage actor, won a Tony. He appeared in many Tv shows. He made a few movies. But what he is most remembered as is Richie Cunningham.'s dad in the 1970s comedy series Happy Days.

Ron Howard, who played Richie Cunningham. on the series said in a statement to the press, "Tom's insight, talent, strength of character and comic timing made him a vital central figure in the 'Happy Days' experience. A great father and husband, and a wonderful artist, Tom led by example, and made us all laugh while he was doing it.,"

Tom Bosley, for so many hours of entertainment, R.I.P.

June Cleaver, Role Model

In this weekend's media there were many tributes to Barbara Billingsley, noting the passing of America's mom, June Cleaver as played by Barbara Billingsley, who passed away on Saturday morning at the age of 94.

I like that show. I really like it. Why? Because it is funny. It it easy to take. It is the ideal. The ideal is forever simple and filling too. The show is entertaining, not in a foolish way. It's been called Tom Sawyerish. June Cleaver has been called the mom who everybody want their mom to be.

I just watched on-line the Today show interview Jerry Mathers who played the Beaver.

Jerry Mathers from the Interview said of Barbara Billingsley --

"She was just a wonderful person. She was as nice as she was on the screen and you think she would be, she was even better than that. She was a mentor to me and I'm just so sad at her passing. She was just the most gracious, wonderful person. to me. She was like a mentor. She was always very helpful. She always looked out for me. One of her things was, she loved manners and she was always telling me the proper way to eat, the things -- the way to set up the silverware, put your napkin on your lap, and just little things like that to help a boy that, as I say, had -- was there with her. I had my own mother, my own family, but Barbara was just the most wonderful person I ever knew. like your most favorite teacher except I got to be in that same class for six years and know her my whole life. I'm just deeply saddened."

Why is the passing of the actress who played a mom on a TV show so important, even a classic tv show? Jerry Mathers has an opinion on that:

"Leave It To Beaver the "longest running show, scripted show, in television history." has "never been off the air in 52 years. It shows all over the world. it shows in about 40 languages and has shown in i think it's 170 countries. when " Leave It to Beaver" was on, a lot of people -- television was new. television really only came in in the '50s. people in other countries had an idea that either Americans were cowboys or Indians or gangsters because that's what a lot of our tv shows, cops and robbers and westerns. " Leave It Io Beaver" presented the American family to a lot of foreign countries and I think it may have changed how they thought about how we lived."

Well said.

See the video.

Well darn! I may have to go see a 3-D Movie.

"It's official," reports the Hollywood Reporter, "Hobbit greenlighted."

So it must be official.

Others have the story too. The labor trouble, the dispute with the unions (New Zealand Actors’ Equity and SAG ) that held up the production has not been resolved, but Warner Brother said that The Hobbit is coming to the screen, Peter Jackson - J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit to be shot somewhere, if not, in New Zealand. Fans of the middle earth know that Peter Jackson did the Lord of The Rings trilogy, shot those three excellent films in New Zealand. The thinking is that this movie has been delayed long enough and the show must go on

The Hobbit, is to be shot in 3-D. As of this date, I have refused to go to any 3-D movie, frankly, because of the extra ticket cost. 3-D is a means Hollywood uses to shake down the audience for extra money. But I probably will cough up the dough to for The Hobbit, to see something that may be worthy of the extra expense.

Was It All For A Car?!

Remember Terry Jones? Him -- that troublesome Florida buffoon of a pastor, of a church of fifty members, who had the world holding its breath, had overseas bullies busting their buttons, as bellicose bursts of butt wind, bubbled from their mouths, had others wringing their hands and begging, until their faces turned blue, had the world media dancing to the beat of his bongo, surrendering the air waves, the cables, the wireless, the net, all the tubes to him, because he threatened to burn the Quran on 9/11 -- remember?

Well, this Florida hustler pastor of bluster, Mr. Terry Jones was offered a brand new automobile by an enterprising automobile dealer, if he would only not burn the Quran.

Reports the Associated Press -- "New Jersey car dealer Brad Benson made the pitch to Florida pastor Terry Jones in one of his quirky radio ads: If you don't burn a Quran, I'll give you a new car.He was surprised, though, when a representative for Jones called to collect the 2011 Hyundai Accent, retailing for $14,200. 'They said unless I was doing false advertising, they would like to arrange to pick up the car,' Benson recalled. At first he thought it was a hoax, so Benson asked Jones to send in a copy of his driver's license. He did."

Called on this, Pastor Jones told the Associated Press that he will "donate the car to an organization that helps abused Muslim women."

Right?!

Monster High Dolls are Squee-Worthy Cute!

I may get shoved into a locker or given a swirlie for admitting this, but those little Monster High dolls are beyond adorable. I don’t mean the Barbie-like dolls pictured at left, which I still think are sort of cute in a very disturbing way (I would love to at least be able to get their familiars without the dolls, anyway)—I mean the plush dolls of Frankie Stein, Clawdeen, and Draculaura found at the link above.

I should probably clarify that I had no idea what Monster High was until I saw these plush dolls at Target. Apparently they were released this past summer, and include cartoon movies, stationary, and plenty of other merchandise to market at kids—joy. They’re also made by Mattel of Barbie brainwashing fame.

They even have their own website where you can play games, listen to a really stupid theme song, get text messages from the monster girls, and even “Monster” your photo to look like one of theirs. As silly as it sounds, I suppose it’s better than morphing yourself to look like Barbie—or the whole “nothing tastes as good as thin feels” theme that the pretzel companies seem to be loving these days, for that matter. Still, I’d much rather girls (and boys) be taught that they look wonderful they way they are—especially with Love Your Body Day coming up next week.

Aside from the “change how you look” theme, marketing madness (including cartoons I haven’t watched yet and probably won’t ever do), and the general sameness and thinness of the plastic dolls, their bodies are also made from PVC, which may concern many parents.

All of that aside, I still am madly in love with the plush Monster High girls and intend on buying myself one (or perhaps even making my own version, with tweaks?) for my birthday next month. These are just the creepy-cool things that Tim Burton lovers like me would have loved during our own childhoods; the best I had was a Gremlin doll. (Of course, those creepy dolls, or living dead dolls, or whatever came out when I was in high school, and by then I considered myself too old for them—even though they were pretty cool and my dear friend “Spooky” owned a couple of them. They have these goth dolls now, too.)

Each doll is based on a classic monster rather than a girl, and sort of look like the Ugly Dolls that have become so popular—only, in my opinion, cuter. What do you think of the Monster High creatures? Would you buy one?

Pumpkin Brewing

I've seen a few sites recently devoted to making beer and/or ale from pumpkins. (Here's one.)  As Halloween, the season of the Great Pumpkin, is upon us, I thought I would share one of the more disgusting videos on pumpkin brewing- or should I say pumpkin spewing? I'll let you decide. 

Good News from Chile; Great News for Mankind

All 33 Miners in Chile Rescued.

This is happy news. It is good news for the families of the once trapped miners, good news for Chile and good news for people everywhere. It speaks well for the survivability of man and for the resourcefulness of man, to overcome hard obstacles, and to do what would have seemed to be impossible. It speaks well for the communal effort, of man pulling together to save those thirty-three lives.

Well done to Chile, and to all the folks who helped in the rescue.

Item: from The New York Times  --"Rescuers Pull All 33 Miners to Safety in Chile. Two months, nine days and eight hours after their excruciating ordeal began, the last of the 33 miners trapped in an apartment-sized hole a half mile under Chile was delivered safely to the earth's surface, capping one of the most dramatic survival stories in mining history. With the entire nation rapt and much of the world riveted,the last miner, Luis Urzua, rose smoothly out of the small hole in the ground, prompting an eruption of applause and cheers that seemed just as heartfelt as the outpouring that followed the emergence of the first miner nearly a day earlier."

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