Saturday, March 24, 2018

Biden vs. Trump -- Not Quite the Rumble in the Jungle but Maybe the Septuagenarian Scuffel

Has everyone been following in the News the back and forth between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump about who would win a fist fight between them.

You got to admit, it's somewhat humorous to watch two confirmed cowards debate each other about who would win a fistfight. Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden went through so many obscene machinations to dodge the Vietnam draft it was breathtaking. They did everything short of maiming themselves which neither had the guts to do and when they actually received their Draft Notices after their 5th deferments ran out and were unfortunate enough to pass their draft physicals, they were undeterred by that small setback. Both went shopping for a sympathetic doctor who successfully “discovered” an undetected disqualification so they could send a less eligible (and definitely poorer and less educated) replacement in their stead.  Thinking about it, Trump and Biden might have a lot more in common than people realize.

Now, as long as we’re naming Vietnam era Draft Dodgers in the here, let’s not forget Clinton, Romney, Sanders, Cheney and most current Members of Congress. Seems Draft Dodging was a bi-partisan character flaw that afflicted politicians at a much higher rate than the rest of the general population. By comparison, those cowards make "W" look like a war hero! (Bush flying antique Air National Guard Convair F-102s was probably in more danger than I was during my extended CIB-earning tour in Vietnam!).

As for Draft Dodging Members of Congress that come from that 1941-1950 cohort (the prime service age during the war), there are still 27 Senators from that age cohort of which only three (3) saw active military duty and only one sports a Vietnam Service Ribbon. In the House there are still 99 from that cohort with ten (10) having seen active duty but only four (4) Vietnam Vets. Then there’s Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) who claimed to be a Vietnam Vet but was really a reservist whose only active duty was a short stint for training. In his defense, he had seen a HBO rerun of the Oliver Stone movie “Platoon” and he was very active in his unit’s “Toys for Tots” campaign so might be suffering from PTSD.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

The Day After - Weighing-In on the 2018 Academy Awards Best Picture Winner - The Shape of Water - 5 March 2018


It’s that time of the year again when the Old Colonel gets to weigh in on the Academy Awards and I truly appreciate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences telling me what the best motion pictures of the year were but in the ONLY category that really countsMONEY MADE – it appears the American and International audiences have made different decisions.  When it comes to picking movies, I always "trust the mob" so here is how the movie going and paying public ranked this year’s movies as of 5 March 2018, the day after the Academy gave the Best Picture award to The Shape of Water!


Notice NONE of the nine nominated pictures is even among the ten top money maker of the past year, or even close for that matter. According to the Mob, the Best Picture of 2017 was Star Wars: The Last Jedi taking in $1.33B Worldwide which was more than ten times what the winner, The Shape of Water, made and over two and a half times what the top nominee, Dunkirk, took in.  Star Wars made 35 times more than Phantom Thread earned.  Although some of the nominees might earn more between now and the end of their theater run, none including Dunkirk will crack the Top Ten earnings list where the poorest performer, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, earned $794.9M.

One thing I'm confident of is that the producers of The Shape of Water would gladly trade their Oscar for the $1.33B Star Wars: The Last Jedi earned.