I like Don Surber, he is one of the best writers on the net and his substack site is one of the first places I go to when I wake up in the morning or get back from Mass if I wake early enough to go and I recommend you read him every day too, but I think that his statement that we have no choice but Trump in order to fight the false prosecutions against him is not only incorrect but the wrong way of looking at things.
Basically his argument is we have to embrace Trump because of the Democrat attacks, I reject this because it’s the same argument that took place when Rushtie was attacked, you HAVE to buy the book because he was attacked by terrorists or you don’t support him.
I reject that argument because it’s still subsuming my decision making to someone else rather than deciding for myself. Furthermore I reject throwing away folks like Kurt Schlichter because you don’t win by shrinking the voter pool.
There are many good arguments for Trump, primarily his record and there are arguments against him, his sticking with Facui and others and electability due to irrational Trump hatred. It doesn’t matter if the irrational hatred is unfounded or wrong, it exists and has to be considered.
I have no problem with him as the nominee but my primary concern and the primary concern of all those who see the political prosecutions of Trump for what they are should be one thing: WINNING!
If we win we have a shot at stopping this, if we don’t then we won’t.
Some say we owe Trump the presidency because the last one was stolen from him, which it was. I say we owe it to ourselves to defeat the Democrats so that this doesn’t happen again and if Trump is the best vehicle to do so fine, but if we have a candidate who is better choice what happened in 2020 should not prevent anyone from voting for him.
We need to look at this election the way Lincoln looked at emancipation and let me close by paraphrasing him on the subject of this election
My purpose is to defeat the Democrat agenda by electing a republican to the white house in 2024 and it is not to re-elect and avenge or defeat and humiliate President Donald J Trump.
If I can defeat the Democrat Agenda by embracing and nominating Donald Trump as the GOP candidate in 2024 I will do it.
If I can defeat the Democrat Agenda by rejecting Donald Trump and nominating someone as the GOP candidate else I will do it.
and if I can defeat the Democrat Agenda by having a long primary with a drag out fight between Trump and DeSantis or another candidate and then standing by the winner who survives the test for the nomination whoever he or she is I will do that too.
That is how this election should be looked at by any person who wants the Democrats stopped, any conservative who decides to sit out the election if Trump is the nominee or decides to sit out the election if Trump is NOT the nominee is going to end up with the Democrat agenda that they rightly deserve and will have the added pleasure of knowing that they inflicted it upon themselves.
Three days ago, the Marathon Pundit family saw the revival of The Who’s Tommy at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.
The original The Who’s Tommy was directed by Des McAnuff, who collaborated with Pete Townshend for the musical. Townshend, the Who’s lead guitarist wrote most of the songs for the Tommy rock opera. The original theatrical production was first performed in 1993, and that was directed, as is the Goodman Theatre production, by McAnuff.
While not the first rock opera, most rock scholars give that honor to Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow,Tommy was a commercial and critical success for the Who; they had struggled to gain attention in America, as did some of the other bands who emerged at the tail end of the British Invasion, such as Small Faces and the Move.
The plot of Tommy, the rock opera, is quite clunky. The atmosphere of Tommy is of the late 1960s, and it is a reaction to the guru culture of that strange time, which was filled with charlatans such as Timothy Leary, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and much more darkly, Charles Manson. A better guru was Meher Baba–Pete Townshend remains a follower of his teachings.
However, inexplicably, Townshend set the story of Tommy to begin shortly after the end of World War I.
Tommy Walker becomes deaf and blind at around age four after he witnesses his father, who his mother believed was killed in the Great War, shooting her lover to death. Tommy’s parents look for a cure for their son, those attempts include bringing him to a “gypsy,” the Acid Queen, who fails to cure Tommy with LSD. Two relatives abuse him, Uncle Ernie, sexually, and Cousin Kevin, who tortures him. Tommy, despite his deafness and blindness, becomes a pinball champion and a celebrity. Tommy’s mother notices that her son often stares intently at mirrors. She smashes a mirror during one such gaze, which cures Tommy. He then becomes a cult leader, but eventually his followers reject him. Finally, Tommy realizes that he isn’t special, but everyone else is, as he sings in “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
Listening to you I get the music Gazing at you, I get the heat Following you I climb the mountains I get excitement at your feet.
But it was the songs, despite some dull filler such as “Underature,” that made the Tommy rock opera a smash. And the Goodman Theatre makes the most of the best-known numbers–along with some stupendous dancing–including “I’m Free” and of course “Pinball Wizard,” but also lesser-known tunes, such as “Amazing Journey” and “Sensation.” With a church backdrop, “Christmas” shines.
For those Who purists out there, beware, some of the lyrics of the songs have been altered to fit the adapted narrative of the musical.
There are many stand-out performances, foremost by Ali Louis Bourzgui as an adult Tommy, Alison Luff as Mrs. Walker, and Adam Jacobs as Captain Walker. The supporting cast is also superb, particularly Christina Sajous as the Acid Queen and Bobby Conte as Cousin Kevin. There are no casting mistakes here, unlike Ken Russell’s over-the-top Tommy film from 1975, which, like The Who’s Tommy, begins the story right after World War II. While Russell got it right with Who lead singer Roger Daltrey as Tommy, Tina Turner as the Acid Queen, Elton John as the Pinball Wizard, and Ann-Margaret as Mrs. Walker, there were some serious casting disasters in that move, including Eric Clapton (not an actor), Jack Nicholson (not a singer), and Oliver Reed, a drunk who played a drunk, but on the flipside, Reed couldn’t sing either.
Back to The Who’s Tommy at the Goodman: Not to be overlooked, the lighting, the costumes, the sparse but effective scenery, and the computer graphics are dazzling.
The play ends in an undefined, presumably fascist, future, with Cousin Kevin looking a bit like Joseph Goebbels. And with an attack, somewhat understated, on today’s celebrity and social media influencer culture.
Last week, Bourzgui explained to the New York Times his interpretation of his Tommy portrayal, “He gets filled up by his followers,” adding “He keeps feeding off that, getting more gluttonous with power, until he realizes they’re following him because they want to feed off his trauma.”
The key word, in the 21st century context, is “followers.”
On the downside, a couple of songs, both penned by Who bassist John Entwistle and performed in succession, fall flat, “Cousin Kevin” and “Fiddle About.” In the latter, Uncle Ernie [John Ambrosino], sings about, well, I said what it is earlier. Both tunes are perfect times for a bathroom break, assuming you will be let back in before the end of first act. Mrs. Marathon Pundit dozed off during these tunes.
Townshend, since the release of the Tommy LP, said he was molested as a child. He was not charged after logging in a few times to a for-pay website that was advertising child pornography, stating at the time his motive to visit the site was “purely to see what was there” and that he was researching sexual abuse. In 2003, Townshend was placed on a sexual offenders registry for five years and he received a caution from the London Police. Townshend strongly denies every possessing child pornography. Citing those two sadistic Entwistle songs, Townshend said that he is too traumatized to ever perform Tommy again.
None of the other reviews of The Who’s Tommy I’ve read mentioned Townshend’s legal issues, but on the other hand, I paid for our tickets to this show.
Although not seen, the nine-piece band, led by Rick Fox, has some big shoes to fill by performing these songs–particularly those of Who drummer Keith Moon–is spectacular. I saw The Who in concert twice, in 1979 and 1980, with Kenney Jones on drums, Moon passed away in 1978. Entwistle died in 2002. Both of concerts were fantastic–and loud. My ears were ringing for days afterwards both times.
Yes, it was a Sunday matinee performance, but it was a geriatric audience, reminiscent of the crowd on the Lawrence Welk Show, in attendance for the Goodman of The Who’s Tommy that day. Earplugs were available for the “loud” music at the Goodman–which wasn’t that loud. Oh, have times ever changed.
The Who’s Tommy has been extended twice at the Goodman, some upcoming shows are sold out, the final Chicago performance is scheduled to be on August 6. The production is believed to be a dry-run for a return to Broadway, and presumably, a whole bunch of well-deserved Tony Award nominations.
Apparently the storms that went though the area knocked out a critical piece of equipment on the tower.
The good news is we had a spare.
The bad news is the spare isn’t working.
So we will have to order a replacement (and hopefully an extra spare that works) and so until that part comes in our station will be streaming only.
So if you want some excellent catholic radio but can’t get the signal feel free to listen to the stream here. We will continue to produce original programing during this time so it’s well worth your while.
And feel free to throw a prayer our way, it is much appreciated.
At a time when it is virtually impossible to find a publication that engages in serious investigative journalism, PJ Media highlights one of the best of all time.
Adam Andrzejewski and OpenTheBooks.com provide an ongoing view of government waste and misconduct.
As a former investigative reporter, I commend the operation, whose motto is “Every Dime. Online. In Real Time.” OTB also encourages its readers to “join the transparency revolution.”
A former publisher from Illinois, Andrzejewski, and OTB use the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to various government data and analyses that someone has tried to keep away from prying eyes.
As PJ Media notes: “There are legions of advocacy and activism groups in America that raise hundreds of billions of dollars each year based on claims of working to make government better. But not one of them can match the monumental accomplishment of Andrzejewski and OTB.”
Using federal law and similar laws in many states takes time and effort. Simply put, governments don’t like anyone looking over their shoulders. In most cases, the government will play the waiting game, knowing that a significant delay in providing documents will tire most journalists of the search. The government will often charge excessive amounts to duplicate the information. In other cases, a journalist or private individual must be prepared to sue the government to get the information.
In 2022, OTB filed 50,000 FOIA requests and captured 25 million public employee pension and salary records.
The organization also plans to obtain “data in all 50 states down to the municipal level. We won’t stop until we capture every dime taxed and spent by our government.”
OTB also collects investigative reports from other news outlets, such as Forbes.
Here are the four most recent reports issued by OTB’s investigators and auditors:
—“Earmarks: The Return of the Swamp Creatures.” This analysis dug into the 7,509 earmarks worth more than $16 billion in that massive Omnibus Spending Bill last year. All of those earmarks are on an OTB pin map to enable anybody who wants to see comprehensive details on every one of them.
—“Improper Payments: At Least $528 Billion Wasted During the First Two Years of the Biden Administration.” Every year, federal bureaucrats issue checks to recipients who are dead, ineligible, or fraudsters. “Since 2004, 27 federal agencies have wasted $2.9 trillion (inflation adjusted to 2022) in improper spending, giving away tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money every year to people who shouldn’t have received it,” OTB reported.
—“The Militarization of the U.S. Executive Agencies.” The mission of the IRS is to collect taxes legitimately owed by citizens and corporations. So why did the federal tax agency need to spend “$21.3 million on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between fiscal years 2006 and 2019? The agency stockpiled 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition.”
—“Export-Import Bank: 2007 – 2021.” Did you know U.S. taxpayers handed Boeing Aerospace more than $66 billion during those years via subsidies for foreign airlines to buy commercial jets and the maintenance parts and equipment required to keep them flying?
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