Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Sicilian Thoughts Under the Fedora, Holes , Neighborhoods, Cuomos and Presumption.

Posted: December 14, 2021 by datechguy in catholic, culture
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There is a big hole where they are planning to build condo’s/apartments across the street from the old Romano’s Market (Now Lopez’s Market excellent Hamburg there btw they only do ground round) as the prepare to pour the foundation.

My first thought as I saw the hole was wondering if they would find anyone there. After all this was the Sicilian neighborhood of Fitchburg for many decades and the car dealership that was once there wasn’t there forever.

I often joke that you can tell you’re in a Sicilian Neighborhood because the shovels and lime are at the front of the hardware store. It’s one of the reasons why the urban riots you’ve been hearing about never quite manage to reach Italian/Sicilian neighborhoods

Unexpectedly of course

Of course Sicilians aren’t the only people who manage to keep their neighborhoods safe, to wit:

Toledo [a gang banger killed by police] was from Little Village, the main Mexican neighborhood in Chicago. During the George Floyd Memorial Riots last May, Latin Kings gang members took up armed patrol of Little Village and drove off carloads of potential black looters. So, in retrospect, it’s easy to see why black / Mexican solidarity turned out to be a chimera.

It’s almost as if the Democrats’ Coalition of the Fringes doesn’t quite jibe with the Democrats’ assumption of Black Supremacy.

It’s the certainty of punishment that prevents such crime and the certainty of no punishment that encourages them.

I have been saying since the Democrat crime ways began that if the various Sicilian Mafias offered to provide actual protection to a neighborhood from the Democrat crime waves hitting major cities they would have a major cash cow potential, The shop owners would find it worth the cost, the police would be happy to not have to deal with these problems when they know the local DA’s will not prosecute anyways and the various Insurance companies would be thrilled to not have to worry about giant large scale payouts.

More importantly for the mob is that people who are actually being protected are less likely to do anything to the people protecting them nor are likely to complain about other, shall we say less savory income streams said mobs are generating for themselves.

I’d not be surprised if this is already happening very quietly and unofficially, sort of like the deal between the mob and the feds during WW2 to keep enemy spies out.

Speaking of Sicilians apparently at least one of the Cuomo brothers is no fool:

You can be damn sure he kept more than emails as I suspect his brother the Governor has and they will have no compunction about using them to bring down people if and when they decide the time is right.

Anyone who is surprised by this knows nothing about Sicilians. As Tom Hagan said to a Senator once “All that’s left is our friendship.” When that friendship is gone look out.

Finally one of the hardest things about being both a devout Catholic and a Sicilian is the giant conflict that comes about when one is wronged.

The Sicilian wants vengeance and wants it badly while the devout Catholic sees vengeance for what it is and resists it.

Of course for some this conflict is easily solved:

I suspect the end quote of that clip is very popular in mob circles

“It was great to be Catholic and go to confession, you could start over every week”

Of course such a person needs to be informed about the sin of presumption. But for those who don’t bother to know their faith ignorance is bliss, at least on earth.

Seven Let’s Go Brandon stores in NEW ENGLAND?

Posted: December 13, 2021 by datechguy in American Success Stories, culture, politics
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Last week when I heard about a “Let’s Go Brandon” store in MA. I thought it was funny but no big deal. One such store in a deep blue state isn’t so odd. Trump got 32% of the vote which is more than a million so yeah one store might be a fun oddity.

That one store in Massachusetts is now six:

Let’s Go Brandon retail outlets have popped up in seven locations just in time for the holiday season, offering T-shirts, hats, hoodies, mugs, magnets, stickers, flags and other merchandise inspired by the viral political euphemism.

The seven shops — six in Massachusetts, one in Rhode Island — are the brainchild of Keith Lambert, founder of New England for Trump, who said the stores are resonating with customers eager to tout their opposition to President Biden.

“Sales are very good. We’ve got a lot of support. There’s a lot of excitement,” Mr. Lambert told The Washington Times. “People absolutely love coming out. Being in the atmosphere of a store, it’s a lot of fun.”

Plus one in Rhode Island.

This is a problem for the left because a lot of their power comes from fear. One enough people in a state decide that they aren’t afraid of showing what they believe then sustaining the fictions that the left’s power is based on becomes untenable.

If these stores are still hoping after Christmas, then if I’m a MA dem I’d start worrying.

Pintastic Day 3 We’ve Got the Band Back Together

Posted: November 21, 2021 by datechguy in culture, entertainment, fun, gaming, special events
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Saturday at Pintastic NE is always a busy day. You tend to draw the largest crowds and there is plenty going on.

One of the more popular games was the Beatles 1964

Not only is the gameplay of this machine great but it of course has the best sound track of all the games here

A lot of people bring Pinball games here to sell but one of the problems is: If you sell a game how do you get it home? Well that’s where Dino of Shipmypinball.com comes in

Getting the machine from point A to point B is something that always needs to be considered when buying a machine.

Of course there are those who offer an alternative to buying game, RENTING THEM

I’m thinking the Bushey Brothers may cut the Gordan knot for many guys like me whose wives don’t want a game in their house or big money spent but might actually go along with getting a game in the house if it’s only for a month or two and someone else moves it in and out for you.

Of course there are some thing that shouldn’t be forgotten during Pintastic NE and such as God and the Sacraments. Luckily for a Catholic like me there is St. Anne’s Shrine only a mile away down the road.

If you’re wondering where the hat is , hey I’m at a church of course I have it off.

Of course if you’re buying an old game or even if you need an newer one there is always the need for the parts, that’s where Mayfair Games (not to be confused with the old wargame maker) comes in.

You will see them as the first dealer on the left at every Pintastic

Of course while the old game are big here It’s the new ones that draw eyeballs. One of those new players is American Pinball and I talked to their man David Fix.

He was in high demand and I didn’t have a chance to talk to him until the vendor room was closing. But it worked out very well because he moved one of the Legends of Valhalla games to the Extra Ball Lounge were my youngest and I started playing.

Alas my son is too good so we couldn’t show the full game

Of course I’m not the only guy filming here Todd Tuckey was Livestreaming

While the Guns and Roses Tribute Band: Welcome to the Jungle who played the event played on…

They came in to celebrate the release of the new Guns and Roses game from Jersey Jack who for some reason I didn’t manage to interview this year (more from the band later).

You might recall I talked to Michael two years ago when he brought a bunch of games, well he and Emily have graduated from hobby to Pinball Museum Proprietors in Pawtucket RI

You heard that right 28 of the machines people were playing came from them and it’s worth noting that on day four those machines were still here to play as they’re invariably the last folks out (next to Gabe of course).

But while the hobbyists and game providers are big the real question is what did the folks who paid their money to play think. I ran into four such folks who were attending Pintastic for the first time

When people are willing to come 3000 miles and say they’ll do it again next year you’ve got it right.

By this time is was late and I finished my work day talking to the tribute band after their 2nd performance.

after that I finally got to play the popular Sonic the Hedgehog homebrew which won best Homebrew game and can be played either via flippers or from a Sega controller

2 AM came very quickly and checkout is 11 AM so it was time to crash and prepare for the final day of Pinball.

How long can MSNBC viewers fall for the lies?

Posted: November 14, 2021 by John Ruberry in culture, economy, media, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

Sometime in her early 20s my wife, aka Mrs. Marathon Pundit, realized she’d been fed a stream of lies from the Soviet Union. The state media and the government schools put forth this whopper, for instance, that Estonia, Lithuania, and her own Latvia voluntarily joined the USSR in 1940, after the Red Army moved in

What else had they lied to her about?

Plenty of things. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was one colossal series of disinformation. And she grew up with the false belief that Soviet citizens enjoyed a standard of living that was among the world’s highest. And some information was left out. While we were still dating we were looking up with amazement at the stars on a crystal clear and moonless night in rural Michigan. Then she asked me, “Did the Americans really send men to the moon?”

Let’s move up a few decades to MSNBC, the most reliable mouthpiece for leftist Democratic politicians and their supporters. 

Watching MSNBC you’ll be told that Critical Race Theory is not being taught in public schools. As I explained last week, while the original CRT texts probably aren’t being presented, lessons are being rammed down kids’ throats that put them into two camps for instance, oppressors and oppressed. And that America is incurably racist–well there is a cure. And that is of course CRT, even though it might be labeled “equity training.”

That conversation is morphing into their belief that conservatives don’t want racial history, including slavery, taught in schools. That’s just made-up nonsense. 

Just this morning on some MSNBC program called Velshi, one of the panelists made the claim that many of the protesters who spoke up at school board meetings aren’t parents, or perhaps she said they don’t have children at those schools. No matter. For instance as taxpayers these patriots have a right to voice their opinion on how the biggest part of their property tax bill is spent. Secondly if we take that twisted logic further, then Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who has no children, should have no voice in how are youngsters are educated. 

MSNBC and CNN pushed the Trump-Russia collusion fallacy for most of the Trump presidency. It is the Elvis-sightings of political scandals. Elvis Presley died in 1977 and there was no Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Here’s another MSNBC fable–that Kyle Rittenhouse, in the words of one commentator on that network, was “arguably a domestic terrorist.” The MSNBC talking heads were infuriated that Rittenhouse crossed a state line from Antioch, Illinois–which borders Wisconsin, to travel during the riot (oops, unrest) in Kenosha, where his father lived and where Rittenhouse worked. The truth has since emerged that the then-17-year-old was just trying to help out in a lawless zone who was forced into a situation where he had no choice but to defend himself.

Oh, just so you know, I don’t believe that minors should be waking around with an AK-47. 

For months MNSBC has been following the Democrat Party line that inflation was all but non-existent, then it was “transitory,” and now while it is real, inflation is not a problem. After Velshi MSNBC’s next program, The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart came on. His first guest was the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who discussed rising prices. “Part of the reason that people are talking about inflation is that there are costs rising for American families across the county.” Duh! Her party’s solution? Of course it’s the expensive Build Back Better bill that includes child care money–and that will bring down costs for Americans. Wow. Give Jayapal her Nobel Prize for Economics now! Capehart didn’t bother to challenge Jayapal’s idiocy.

You probably believe that the typical MSNBC viewer is a hardened leftist who is immune from logic. Yes on the first and no on the second. MSNBC is telling its core audience what it wants to hear. But untruth can only be carried so far. Imagine for a moment a brothel that caters to men in their 50s like me. (Disclosure–I have not been to such a place.) You walk in and the women comment on how handsome you are–and that you are in incredible physical shape. They laugh at your jokes and when you bring up politics, “Republicans are racists, Biden is the best president since FDR,” one of the women winks at you and says, “Let’s continue this conversation upstairs in private.” And upstairs you go.

Eventually you learn that you are being played at that imaginary brothel–you ascertain that the sex workers are coyly reconfirming beliefs that you already have. “I’m a great looking guy.” Even though you’re not. You’re a guy in your 50s. Duh! They just want your money so they tell you want you want to hear.

MSNBC just wants your time. With so many choices for time–hundreds of cable channels, streaming services, podcasts, the internet, not to mention old school choices such as books and actually sitting down and having a one-on-one conversation with another person, time is an ever-precious finite resource. MSNBC is reconfirming the false beliefs–Trump colluded with Russia, Rittenhouse is a vigilante, inflation is not a problem–of its viewers to steal that time.

Sure it’s a trite expression, but time really is money.

What will MSNBC say if runway inflation–not to mention Jimmy Carter-era stagflation–is with us in a year? 

How many of its viewers will switch the channel? Forever.

MSNBC’s ratings are already way below those of Fox News. CNN is in even worse shape.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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