Sunday, December 9, 2018

Candy Canes Banned! They Look Like "J" For Jesus!




An elementary school principal in Nebraska was suspended for telling teachers not to have "J" shaped candy canes decorating the classroom. Reason? The "J" looks like Jesus! Do you think she went through all other candies to make sure there was nothing else that might offend?

Maybe if the kids promised to hold them upright that might be OK?  I mean what's offensive about this? (below)



 Or maybe if the kids joined them together to make a heart there would be no offense?





I read another said that they're supposed to be what they're called....CANES. They  suggest candy companies made them that way so it'd be easy to hang them on things. Not sure if this school principal considered this?  (below)







Makes you wonder though. If "J" looking things are banned than what about people needing real canes to help walking? Maybe we can kick them out of their hands or allow only walking sticks with no hook on the end?  After all.....we certainly don't want to see people offended. :)

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Republicans Stunned LIke Heston In Planet of The Apes!!



Strange Bizarre and Weird (SBW-2)

Could many Republicans  be looking at the future of their party in the same way Charlton Heston did  in the movie  "The Planet of the Apes" ??? You'll recall the scene where he looked up at that lone figure, the  Statue of Liberty that he saw half buried in the sand bringing him to the shocking realization that this was his world, not some other .....and that somehow it tragically met it's  demise...all he held dear....destroyed!

 Perhaps  Republicans can relate to that apocalyptic. scenario.  With the rise and win of Trump all notions that things would continue  business as usual   have been brought to nought and perceived expectations came crashing down.  This was to be the year when someone like a Chris Christie or a Jeb Bush were to strut their stuff and presumably get the nod.  When it comes to Jeb,  he was after all a Bush and surely the electorate most certainly would consider it best to let the dynasty  continue. His father became President, his brother, so his turn BUT.... no.  He hit the wall.  The Donald Wall! 



The electorate  drew the line and said enough! Out with the old...in with the new! The GOP is not the same and maybe never again will be. It's ruins lay out there much like Lady Liberty fallen over in the Heston film. Donald Trump is not considered as a true Conservative and Republican party members in mass  feel flabbergasted.  The real question they're poised with now is can they rebuild what they considered their once grand party or surrender to their disillusionment and question why even bother?


  The party is being morphed into something different, a beast of a different type and sort and one wonders if the old guard even have the capability of surviving the transformation.  Their day may be done and their names may serve only now as memorials on headstones in the political graveyards speaking of the past. Rest In Peace??  Or will they have  to settle with unrest  of a perpetually kind!

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Oz Experts To The Rescue!





(For "Once Upon a Time" fans)

Are we all sure all these "ONCE" characters in the UW are truly dead? I'm reading that Dorothy from Oz will be in Storybrooke in 5B and with that being the case I'm thinking she should bring some of the Munchkins. In the 1938, Judy Garland "Wizard of Oz" when Dorothy killed the Witch of the East the Munchkins made sure they did their due diligence making doubly sure one is genuinely dead before pronouncing them so, as found in this song that the Munchkins sang about the Witch being dead,

"We've got to verify it legally to see if she is morally ethically, spiritually physically, positively absolutely undeniably and reliably dead."

Then the Coroner sang, "As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her and she's not only merely dead she's really most sincerely dead."

So the story goes that Hook, Cora, Pan and some others met their demise some time ago. As I say I think it'd be good to see some "OZ" experts first verify that this is the case!

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Katherine & Fredrick : Great Story Line Missed??




 (For "Once Upon a Time" fans)

Was a really great storyline missed at the beginning of the series that might have been good? I'm speaking about Katherine Noland. During the first curse Kathrine we know didn't know who she was and had all the false memories of her and David as being married. We saw Fredrick her true love in a few scenes in Storybrooke in Season 1 appearing in places where she is, although their true memories were eradicated. When EMMA broke that curse you see everyone coming into contact with those they knew reconnecting. David with Snow etc..

Katherine would have sought out Fredrick and would have found him, and yet we saw nothing of that. Some haven't liked the character of Katherine but keep in mind in the Enchanted Forest she did seek to protect and save David's life from both of their fathers. And David risked his life and brought Fredrick back from being the gold stature. At that point they did become not lovers but great friends, Once the Storybrooke curse was broken they then had a shared experience of being used by Regina so David and her went through quite a lot.


After the Storybrooke curse I would have thought Katherine, Fredrick, Snow and David would have got together to compare notes to comfort each other from the shared trauma the four of them had gone through. Maybe they all should have become great friends and I'd say Regina should have really tried to make amends especially to Katherine for subjecting her to the things which she did. Who knows....maybe Katherine and Fredrick would have wanted to babysit David and Snow's child Neal when they went to the UW, When Neal gets older although they're not related he might have referred to Katherine and Fredrick as almost an aunt and uncle.

Monday, October 19, 2015

14 Hilarious Things Which Could Happen In Storybrooke!


14)  Zelena plans to DESTROY EVERYONE'S HAPPINESS if it's the last thing see does. . She creates hundreds of clones of herself and releases them in Storybrooke.

13)  ANTON the Giant or "Tiny" as he now has been called considers that everyone's lives in Storybooke suck! They need a stress reliever heroes and villains alike. His answer? He opens up a golf course....much like somebody else we know did in "LOST"!



12)  The people of Storybrooke are shocked to discover just who was the first Dark One. Star Wars happened a long time ago in a galaxy far away but it's learned that Darth Vader Once Upon A Time paid Earth a visit as he was just passing through.

 11)  Mr Gold discovers his Pawn Shop was broken into and all his goods stolen. He ends up in the mental institution in Belle's old room, spinning what he thinks is gold but in reality it's only  cotton.


10) Robin becomes the new Sheriff, marries Regina but sells her posh house and gives the money to the poor. Regina begins to wonder if being with Robin was such a good idea!

9) Belle who loves books becomes a famous author who writes a book, "Why I Just Couldn't Leave Someone Who Broke My Heart  A Million Times!"


8) Regina starts a business that does everything with apples, apple juice, apple turnovers etc

7) Emma become a hairdresser with an expertise at doing extensions. She does her mother's hair for free.

6) Astrid the Nun who was a before Nova the fairy finally decides her and Leroy are going to be married. When the blue fairy complains they tell her to get a REAL life and stop living in a fantasy world.




5)  Henry becomes a computer geek and creates a new game program. The whole town gets addicted to it and before they know it they've all lost touch of reality living in this make believe world  he's created! Good thing about it the people of Storybrooke can physically stay in their town not having to jump in body from world to world. True they might look like zombies walking up and down the street playing  his game with hand devices BUT it's not too much different than our REAL world.




4)  Grannie and Red find a way to expand their diner beyond the border of the  town  turning it  into a franchise which goes from coast to coast. Dishes would be named after every character in Storybrooke.

3) Dr Whale  creates a drug which stops the citizens of Storybrooke from getting amnesia every 6 months.

2) The IRS find out the people of Storybrooke haven't  been paying federal taxes but when they go there to investigate Regina ships them off to a different world. All Storybrooke now love their once hated queen!

 1) When Storybrooke becomes known to the outside world some in the country view them as illegal immigrants who failed to enter the country through proper channels. The same want to see everyone of them deported.

More To Come 

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 Perhaps you'd enjoy my blog, "Wilson From Cast Away Discovered On Lonely Blog Island!" Just click on the link,

http://bob-richards.blogspot.ca/2010/10/wilson-from-cast-away-discovered-on.html

Monday, September 14, 2015

Unlocking The Flash Side Ways Universe of "Lost"




I had been reading some old posts on a web site in regard to the mystery of the television series LOST. It's quite peculiar that discussions of the series still takes place but it was a show enjoyed by many a few years back. The issue I'd like to explore  is just what was the nature of the "flash sideways" universe, timeline or whatever else one might want to call it which was introduced into the story at the beginning of Season 6. I'll refer to it here as the UPPER timeline as well. It seemed to start or find it's beginning point of existence when Juliet in the last  episode of Season 5 blows up the hatch or the research station with an atomic bomb no less.  
 
 
Her reason for doing so was her belief that all that took place before would be changed....that Flight 815 would never have crashed and that past events of TIME would be changed, thus sparing them from the difficulties they'd been through. This last episode of Season 5 ends with a bright flash of white light to set the stage for the next Season of LOST. Fast forward to Season 6, 1st episode and we see the answer to the question...or so one would think watching the first few minutes. Episode 1 shows the white flash of light and presto! They're aboard Flight 815 presumably before the crash of 815 but this time the plane doesn't do so. One therefore could be quick to conclude it worked that they succeeded in their goal, that they had in effect....changed time.  




That conclusion is brought into question however a few minutes later when another scene ahead reveals the residents of Lost are still back on the island. The bomb did go off and yet they were still alive albeit greatly dishevelled. So now viewers are faced with a glaring contradiction. The writers of LOST are throwing you into a quagmire of confusion. As I've said I'm going to refer to them as time lines, one where the characters of LOST are  continuing on their Flight 815 without crashing...the other where the bomb didn't achieve the desired  end result!

 It was the writers objective at this time,  one could say to have us on the ropes! When one examines closely the first scene of what I'll call the "upper timeline" where the LOST characters are flying once again aboard the plane that is before the original crash, you'll see embedded in that scene a clue or key on how to unlock the mystery, however even that must be held onto to right to the end of Season 6....the very last episode.

At that point the  pieces of the puzzle can be seen to clearly fit together. What's the clue? Jack on board the plane goes to the rest room and is surprised to find a small abrasion on his neck, drawing blood. That's it. That's the clue which will eventually unlock the mystery.  You'll notice that CLUE of the blood on Jack's neck is repeated more than once  in other episodes that is in the flash sideways reality. You keep seeing this small amount of blood on Jack's neck  in different scenes but here's one more very revealing clue in the Flash side ways....Jack looks in the mirror and raises his shirt to look at his side. He doesn't see anything but he's sensing something isn't quite right, with his side.





All right, so how does the small amount of  blood on Jack's  neck and something wrong with his side relate as the clues and key? One doesn't find out until the Season's grand finale, It's revealed in the fight between Jack and Locke on the island in the lower time line. Recall that they're both fighting at the edge of the cliff and Locke plunges a knife into Jack's side. He then turns him over and seeks to bring the knife down upon Jacks neck. The camera stays on this shot for considerable time where Jacks resisting but the blade does draw a small trickle of blood from his neck.

[remember now...the blood on Jacks neck he notices when aboard Flight 815 AT THE START of the flash sideways]

Kate in the lower time line shoots Locke from behind with a gun, BUT Jack from that point, from that exact moment..is in the process of dying.
 
Here's the thing...many have said in the flash sideways Jack was dead at the time. True? Not exactly, although true to a point. Let me put it this way...he was as some might say  as good as dead. You have to understand a concept here which the writers considered valid or they had at least heard of this phenomena, which is right before some dies they're STILL HERE in a sense...and yet they're seeing over into the other realm, the other place, the other reality...they're sort of in a mix between two worlds. Let's just say from the time that Jack and Locke had their fight on the cliff until the time when he closed his eye for the last time....and died...pretending all this wasn't fiction we could say it was about 45 minutes from the point Jack was stabbed until he drew his last breath. From our vantage point in the lower time line that's how long his experience was from start to finish in the side ways state of existence.


For Jack however it seemed days and from his vantage point in what we could call the UPPER realm, it was. Desmond Hume was the first of the group to experience....the flash sideways place. You'll recall Charles Widmore subjected him to the power of electromagnetism in the shack with the solenoid coil. He felt he was gone for hours but in fact it was a mere few seconds. This same principal held true for Jack. His whole time in the sideways reality was truly less than an hour, again to the time of his fight with Locke on the cliff until he closed his eye for the last time having died.

To confirm this once again  you'll recall the last few seconds before Jack died....he's walking in the jungle stumbling while doing so, then a quick flash scene of him  walking to greet Locke in the church, then in a flash he's back on the island falling down on the ground to die and then a quick flash to the UPPER place where he moves his body to sit down with Kate in a pew. All his actions in both realms are simultaneously taking place. Every thing is lining up. The whole time line of the flash sideways, UPPER place I've called it truly started at the time of the fight between Locke and Jack.

Technically he isn't dead and yet he's more on the other side, the eternal, than the lower physical world. Once he closes his eye, he's technically truly dead or disconnected from the earthly realm. So what of all the others on the island. Just to mention a few Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Syid, and Locke, plus others.....some died before Jack and some afterwards.

All die at sometime however but as they would or had they found themselves in the UPPER place...the flash side ways. On another note is't interesting the writers of LOST claim they didn't put any real focus on any one particular religion in the upper time line where things were being orchestrated to bring them all together although I take issue with that and contend  they did. Yes in the church in the FS they did incorporate symbols of various religions but take special note of the one who was the KEY speaker taking the Losties into the LIGHT. Christian Sheppard.

 

Kate in the flash sideways made a special mention of his name, by saying to Desmond, "You're kidding!" He wasn't. The name of Jack's father was Christian Sheppard which had to be code words for meaning, 'Christ The Sheppard'. And what does Christ the Sheppard do? He's the one who ultimately takes people into the light, which is what Jack's father did. Naming Jack's father Christian Sheppard was I'd say a subtle way and really if you think about it a not so subtle way of highlighting Christianity as being the way into the light.

Putting all political correctness aside it does seem to be the slant or way of thinking the writers of LOST wanted to convey, although some might disagree, or to put it this way...one may not agree that Christ  is the exclusive light bearer, but I think it can be hardly denied that such in a subtle way is what the writers of LOST tried to convey. It does seem regardless of claims to the contrary they were favouring a Christian direction to end the series. Whether it's because they felt the largely U.S. viewership would respond to it more favourably I wouldn't know...BUT it does seem clearly apparent.


The flash sideways place or upper timeline as I've called it...what was it's actual purpose? It's been acknowledged to be a place for the LOST characters to come to terms with loose ends about their earthly existence...things that still needed to be worked out and addressed about their characters before moving on. Swayer felt the need to be a more honourable person...thus in the UPPER timeline he found himself as a police officer. Kate needed to stop running and demonstrate a willingness to be a help to another....thus her being with Claire and helping her through difficulties.

Claire felt the need to become a good Mother and Jack felt the need to become a caring and compassionate father. Benjamin Lions was one who felt the need to be a support and encouragement and so we see him helping John Locke in the upper time line. One can see how much he wanted to be a good Father in support to his daughter Alex and her mother Danielle. Yes I know. One might claim the writers said they didn't create a purgatory idea but everything they put into the flash sideways must be acknowledged is basically the same thing.



 
So in conclusion....did they bring the series to an end which was satisfying to most fans? In regard to Season 6 it was quite a unique manner or approach in story telling to say the least. The first scenes and start of S-6 was really a flash forward of what would become created.... in the last episode of Season 6. Flash forward, flash backwards flash forward, flash backwards...WOW! I wonder however if most of their fans had lost patience with the writers in not bringing any type of closure within a reasonable matter of time over the many unanswered questions.

You can see my evidence for believing this to be the case in the blog I wrote in 2014 as we examine the shows ratings from year to year. [click link]

http://bob-richards.blogspot.ca/2014/05/my-thoughts-on-tv-series-lost-2004-2010.html

I would say LOST was a bold attempt to do something different, something out of the ordinary. If this was their intent than I suppose one could say their goal was achieved. I did find the series entertaining however there was many themes introduced which seemed to be mere filler to keep the show afloat. Would it more than likely have been better to end it after three seasons instead of six? Perhaps so. 

Friday, August 28, 2015

Teacher Late 111 Times And Keeps Their Job!!

 
 

How about this for a laugh....a teacher in New Jersey will keep his job despite being late 111 times! Not a bad achievement seeing in other professions one might be fired after only one such incident. I suppose though educators should be granted a special allowance, that is with all their book learning and all, I mean give the guy a break!
 
 
This faculty member made the claim that the quality of his teaching was more important than inconsequential things like setting a good example for students to exemplify. I suppose this should be brought into consideration, after all...the last thing his superiors should want is to be is short sighted in seeing the bigger picture. It might have served them right if they lost the great talent that every once in awhile he was bringing to the table! Who knows? Perhaps his students would have dropped out of school at the dismay of not being educated by the best...the best that is according to him. Or maybe his boss is guilty of the greater wrong?




That's indeed what the lackadaisical teacher claims...that he should have been entitled to progressive discipline prior to being terminated. His superior after all demonstrated so little oversight not touching bases on the most basic thing...that his employee is showing up for work. Could his boss had been always late them self therefore wouldn't had been aware? NOPE. Wouldn't work! He surely would have met him in the parking lot each day long after the bell had rung.

 
Oh well...let's deal with solutions. I'd propose due to the fact...or suggestion that the students would suffer an incalculable loss if he were canned that it'd be only fair they should take it upon themselves to do every thing possible to retain his service as mentor.  How about one team of students be responsible to give him an early morning call on the phone each day... just to keep things on track!
 
He might even provide a key to his residency so his students can actually go and drag him out of bed on those more difficult mornings. It sure isn't easy staying up all night grading papers so yes what's required is a little help from his friends. One thing for certain...he's been one of the pillars of the school according to him  and he'd be sorely missed if fired.  What a great role model that students can pattern after for years to come!

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Perhaps you'd enjoy my blog, "Wilson From Cast Away Discovered On Lonely Blog Island!" Just click on the link,