Can we start this mess over again?

Today's Tids Issue 3,712

For Slowing Down and Taking it Easy:

Cities Bustle, and suburbs hustle, but give me a small town to relax my brain muscle. Give me a greying barn on a family farm and old guys on a porch telling a yarn. I like an old plaid shirt, stuff growing in dirt, and general store clerk who willing to flirt. Yes, I love uncomplicated, a town PG rated, the beauty of nature that keeps me sedated.

What‘s going on in sports? Golfers totaled 30 Million in 2005 was down 20% to 24.1 million last year. They are anxious at the NFL Golden Place HQ as they watch TV ratings tumble by 11% so far this year. They want to blame it on anything they can except perhaps the real truth. New generations look at the world differently. New High School sports are growing at the expense of good old standby’s. Do new generations want to get the ball in the hole on a screen instead of a green? Things change. Always have. If the real truth for the decline is generational lack of interest, then the problem is big. Real big.

That Internet shutdown last week was particularly scary considering how that vulnerability could make us easy prey for something seriously damaging from any enemy we have in the world.

If you missed Friday’s 10/11 Tids, there’s a lively version of Orange Blossom Special at the end which will get your sprits soaring for the week. No, the Orange Blossom Special isn’t a fruit smoothie. It is just the greatest fiddler’s tune of all time.

If you are really tired of Presidential bickering, watch the real contests of importence, the Senate “toss-up” races in New Hampshire, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The feeling is that Dems will take back seats in Illinois and Wisconsin, and then have to hold their seat in Nevada. If they do that, then they only need 2 of those five toss-up states, which many at this time think is a sure thing. But, politics is weird. Stay tuned.

The Question:

Before the Film success, Robert Redford made it real big on Broadway in what Neil Simon play? Who was his costar in that play? What was the name of his first movie? His first Golden Globe winning role? What movie made him a huge box office star?

The Headlines:

--Markets Look To Open Week On Healthy Note: Banks Beginning To Close Hundreds OfRetail Branches.

--Politicians And Competitors Rising Up Against AT&T, Time-Warner Merger; AT&T Says Content Will Be Open To All Distributors.

--13 killed As Tour Bus Returning From Casino In Cal Rams Back End Of Semi; 5 Dead In Wrong Way Crash On I495 In Middleboro Mass.

--Las Vegas Review-Journal First Major Newspaper To Endorse Trump: Says US Economy And Supreme Court Are At Stake; Could Alter Nevada Senate Race..

--Fonda-Ex And Anti War Activist Tom Hayden Dead At 76.

--TD Ameritrade, Toronto Dominion Buy Scottrade For $4 Billion.

--Iraq-US-Kurd Forces Within 5 Miles Of Mosul; Kurds take Key Town Bashiqa; ISIS Attacks Small Town North Of Mosul In Another Diversionary Move; Iraqi Leader Resists US Push For Turkey Role In MosulFight..

--EU-Canada Trade Deal In Jeopardy As Belgium Wallons Reject Deadline.

--White House Skeptical Of Sending heavier Weapons To CIA Backed rebels In Syria.

The people are truly tired of politics and want it all to end, and I have to believe in particular the people of New Hampshire are saying “not soon enough.” I was sitting in the Manchester NH 99 Restaurant enjoying my $9.99 special as the end of the Patriot’s game faded away to the 60 Minutes report on the Ohio Race. Immediately, I heard rumbles of “Turn of the sound, I can’t take it anymore. Sure enough, within seconds a good old folk song was drifting my way. The management of eateries up hear know their people, and they know their people have had it.

How great is the Cubs-Indians series from a Boston Red Sox viewpoint. The president of the Cubs, Theo Epstein and the manager of the Indians Terry Francona were the GM/Manager team that broke the “curse of the Bambino” in 2004 which bought the Sox their first title since 1912. Now Epstein has put together a team to do the same for Chicago wo hasn’t seen the trophy since 1908. But Cleveland under Franconia is equally as hungry though not quite as dramatically. And there are lots of some of my favorite old Sox players on both sides.

So tell me again, exactly why did we (The Sox) trade away John Lester?

Liberals have smothered socialism with so much tempting fluffy whipped cream that millennials don’t appear to have any idea of what it really means. How close it is to communism, that pleasing sounding Marxist theory that has buried every society in which it has been practiced. A new survey says that a full 48% of this very smart younger generation would elect a socialist. Could it be that the NEA in combo with the USA Department of Education is teaching the wrong thing or avoiding the reality upon which the greatness of America is based? A very definite possibility. Another question on the survey asks, “Who killed more people, George W. Bush or Joseph Stalin? They answered Bush, obviously never having learned that Joseph Stalin was as evil and murderous as Hitler, killing an estimated 34 to 49 Million, deaths directly related to the Man. Name the first person killed by Bush? See how the politics of hatred can change history. See how kids never learning history will become confused, not be able to discern the fabrications, question the lies and misconceptions.

Liberal democrats love to tout their cradle to grave government care. They just make it hard to get to the cradle. --Anonymous

I loved playing football from the first time I spied an old set of my uncle’s shoulder pads in my parent’s upstairs closet. I put them on that day, overwhelming my slight 8 year old shoulders, and rarely took them off until I was in my twenties. I loved football, the dirt on the face, fighting through the pain, the hitting, the diving catch. But now, even I think there is way too much on the tube. I just can’t watch it all. It has become a blur. (And, not because I was hit in the head to many times.)

One of the reasons college graduate millennials are having problems finding jobs meeting their visions of glory is that there are more kids than ever going to colleges and not enough jobs that require college degrees. That may be the reason why some in the new generation are thinking capitalism sucks.

On a similar note, IPO’s are down. Analysts say one of the main reasons is that investors on Wall Street are very cautious about overpaying, and young entrepreneurs eyeing previous success stories think they are worth way more than they are worth. It’s part of the “I wanna” syndrome. It is nice, though, to know that Wall Street isn’t being entirely sucked into dreams as they have been in the past.

I watched the special on “Hamilton” last night and got tired of it. I think “blather” is a good word for the presentation. This, the most capitalistic of all plays, prides itself on diversity and equal opportunity degrading of America’s heroes. Hamilton is a “nationwide sensation” that only .001% of the nation has ever witnessed. As one reviewer of the reviewers says, “The New Yorker writes in praise of books that nobody wants to read, but at least you can buy Them.” The same reviewer of the reviewers concludes, “The endless swirl of online Hamilton buzz shows the comical extreme of cultural insularity in the New York and D.C. media. The ‘cultural event if our time’ is totally unknown to nearly all who live in our time.”

After last night, I started looking into the Hamilton phenomena because the members of the cast and creators of the play that only billionaires can afford said they were most pleased that they exposed all of the flaws of the founding fathers and made them equal to everybody else. I detested that philosophy because it totally misrepresents the courage of people who stood up for all in the face of adversity where others cringed in the corner. In looking for more, I found what I wrote about above, and I saw it as an excellent example how powerful media influences can be. How people are at the mercy of the opinions of the self-appointed cultural elite, whether it be politics, entertainment, religion or personal lifestyles. Think for yourself. And, don’t take away our heroes. America needs them more than ever.

The Answer:

Redford opened eyes wide in “Barefoot in the Park” as husband to Elizabeth Ashley. His first movie was War Hunt, he won the GG for Inside Daisy Glover and the movie that real made him was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Like him or not, he made some great movies. Personally I liked “3 days of the Condor.”

There are too many dreams being promised. People become conflicted when they see what they see opposing what the they know they feel. The dreams are within selves, along with an extraordinary beings capable of surpassing them.

I really like to look at an old fashioned paper map before turning on the car Navigation system. There is just is something about a disconnected voice telling me where to go without having a sense of know it myself that bothers me.