Burt how in the world do you survive in the in this business with all this truth. You should be ashamed. I must admit though, I love it thanks.

Burt:

If one decries the fact that the politicians (our betters, donchaknow?) haven't read some bill or memo or state statute, isn't one tacitly assuming that said politician CAN read?

In truth, I wonder.

Love your stuff. You make me chuckle constantly and make me think, too, which is why you do it.

It worked.

Burt, you brought back some memories. How well I remember those newsreels as well as a double feature (usually cowboy movies), a cartoon (or a boring travelogue), and a serial all for only 12 cents.

Before the lights went on to collect March of Dimes donations, there was always a short showing a kid with polio in an iron lung viewing the world reflected in a slanted mirror. For kids like us who ran around outside all day playing one game or another, being contained in that hideous machine was a nightmare. And I probably was not the only one who actually did have nightmares about it.

Prior to becoming a member of the House of Lords (AKA Senate) Corzine was the head of Goldman Saks. For those who don't know Goldman Saks is a brokerage house, they handle investments and stocks and bonds. While Corzine was in the Senate he was against people putting their retirement funds into stocks or bonds instead of Joe Stalin's best friend FDR's scheme. I therefore must assume, Corzine while at Goldman Saks told his clients to put their money under the mattress.

Have you also noticed Burt that we only have one party?

Burt,

Great column as usual, I can just imagine the look of horror the your folks must have had watching you "goose step". It's hilarious now, butI'm sure it sure wasn't then. By the way, while I'm reasonably sure it was a rhetorical question, I believe I know what MF stands for.

You keep impressing me Burt---Andy Varipapa--Andy Varipapa? I didn't think anybody would ever remember him outside of the bowling community. My Dad was the pin-setter for Andy when he came to Minnesota. He sat at our supper table once when he was here. My Dad being an avid bowler and later myself, never good enough to gain anything, admired him for his skills. I don't think we will see the likes of these people in sports again. Back then beer was the drug of choice not this enhancement crap they take now. I too liked the news-reels. The first movie I was ever allowed to see was Ben-Hur, do to religious reason, but because it was religious my mother said I could go. The next one was The Great Escape, in Taipai Taiwan. There they showed newsreels of the great progress they made in building their country. Now that Barney Frank isn't going to run, we can only hope it goes Gop. Thats what they do when they know they can't win, they retire. Hopefully it will catch on. Thanks for the nostelgia.

Jim--No, I haven't noticed. If we had one party, there wouldn't have been an inevitable stalemate on the Super Committee...and Romney, Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum, etc., wouldn't be so much more appealing than Obama.

To everyone else: Thanks for the kind words and for remembering Andy Varipapa.

Best, Burt

Well said, well said...

Nothing to disagree with here. I had almost forgotten about Andy Varipapa, but used to love watching his trick shots. I also remember Don Carter, who bowled with his arm locked at the elbow, because he said he figured if a machine were made that could bowl, that's how it would work. He's still around at about the age of 85. Varipapa only made it to 93.

Burt: I can't imagine those guys (Chu, Biden, Waters, Holder, Obama, et al.) reading anything at all that doesn't have pictures. Surely they cannot read. I can imagine their whooping it up, though, at a showing of Loony-Tunes. And that's today, not when they were kids. (Or is it "Loony-Toons"? It HAS been a long time since I enjoyed that.)

Burt - I am cynical enough to believe the dmocraps and republicrats agreed to say they were stalemated. Anyone out there who does not believe it was a ploy to get votes?

sjvet: Don Carter was my favorite bowler. His problem was an injury to his arm that prevented him

from playing baseball. He likely would have made it to the Majors, but found his niche in bowling.

Someone mentioned having to pay 12 cents to see a movie. Down in Mississippi we only had to pay a dime. But, as I told my kids, a dime was hard to come by. I paid that dime to see "Gone With The Wind." I was nine years old. I also have told my kids that I once found 15 cents in the slot of a "One Arm Bandit." I told them that paid for a movie and a bag of popcorn. By the way, when I said I paid a dime, it was really my parent's dime, usually.

Burt, thanks for the memories!

RobRoi - a much better deal was going to Ebbet's Field to see the Dodgers play. It was 75 cents to get into the bleachers and 25 cents for a hot dog and 10 cents for a coke. We would get to the park about a hour before the game started to see Carl Furillo play catch with Roy Campanella. Roy would be behind the plate and Carl would be in right field. Furillo would throw the ball to Campanella on the fly. Furillo wasn't called the Redding Rifle for nothing. We used to bet how many batters Don Newcombe would deck or if Jackie Robinson would try to steal home.

RobRoi: When my son was a little boy, he loved to watch bowling on TV, so I got to see a lot of Don Carter in his heyday. But I'm with Howard...I'd rather pay 75 cents to see a baseball game than a dime to see "Gone With the Wind," which I have always regraded as the most over-rated movie of all time.

Burt

"It appears that nobody involved with this administration will read anything but a menu." Change "will" to "can" and I believe you'll be 100% correct.

It's a shame ole Barney "never saw a shaft I didn't like" Frank isn't hanging(no pun intended) around long enough to be indicted for the crimes he has committed during his infamous career. I am still trying to decide if he is operating on one brain cell or is evil incarnate. I'm leaning towards a large dose of evil and a smidgen unadulterated stupidity.

Oh Burt, if you think GWTW is the most over-rated movie of all time, you must not have seen CITIZEN KANE.

Mike: Actually, I enjoyed "Kane" when I first saw it, and even after multiple viewings, I still find it engrossing.

FreeDame: You make a good point.

Terry: I am delighted that Barney Frank is leaving next year. No way he'd ever be indicted. As much as we might wish it so, being a liberal blockhead isn't an indictable offense.

Best, Burt

The more I read about the brazen corruption of this current administration, the closer I come to blowing a gasket.

Now, Burt, I appreciate the fact that you are apparently the only columnist on the Patriot Post who is interested in following up on us commenters.

After reading keywiki.com last night (suggested by Trevor Loudon, a site that exposes who is behind BHO), I feel powerless to do anything. At least you can network with some of your cruddy-buddies in the conservative punditocracy, and have some kind of influence with them, and convey to them the urgency we all feel about this national detour we've been diverted to.

What I'm saying is, I am 100% almost certain that this entire Obama/progressivist/liberal swoon we've been waltzed into is wholly deliberate. And they seem to be doing a good job of pulling the country down. Please speak to your fellow columnists and spread the word that we have to get the true facts (not the false facts) out to our fellow countrymen.

These cunning and crafty far-left progressivists are several moves ahead of us!

Greg: I don't hang with other pundits...and on those rare occasions when I've written to them, they have rarely written back. That said, they are all free to read my articles, which appear in several venues, or my books, which, unfortunately, are rare commodities.

Burt

Mr. Prelutskey: You are on a good humor roll there, my friend, and I want to thank you for it! I really enjoy your brand of it and have also taken encouragement from your statement in another article that you were once an old style Democrat who nows sees the light thru different conservative eyes. Like the news reels you speak of, there are still some good old things to remember about the moviehouse and we are richer for them...remember having birthday parties in the upstairs balconeys? I often wonder if we or our kids will remember YouTube similarly. It's got some good fascinating stuff going, but some really awful stuff as well.

Burt: When I came around (b. 1950) newsreels were on their way out, and I learned to read at 3 from watching TV. But I've seen them. Seems we were so blissfully uninformed with only newsreels and newspapers, but it was a different time. Attitudes were different then, generally. People knew, pretty much, what they needed to know. And now with nonstop "information," so many are misinformed. Except for some conservatives, journalists (so-called) and media stooges (I repeat myself) flood the cybersphere with half-truths and rubbish.

The point is, how can we counteract the inundation of Progressivism? I feel like Mr Smith in Washington, or rather like the newspaper boys getting hazed by Claude Raines' thugs.

It's probably a good thing your contact with the pundit pantheon is limited. It keeps you pure, and we love you the way you are.

I apologise for the misspelling of your name - I even looked in the post above mine and added the "e" somehow!

That would be Mr. Prelutsky.

As for reading, remembering Pelosi's advice to pass Obamacare so then they would find out what was in it?

Obviously reading is above their pay grades.

Mr. Last -

Those Ebbett's Field afternoons you mention were truly magical. Sometimes scary though. I was there for the doubleheader in which PeeWee Reese broke his leg and I never really recovered from Vince Scully supplanting Red Barber.

When the team moved to LA I abandoned baseball till the Red Sox in '67. Thanks fro jarring my memory.