I love history.
Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s Monday Night Open Thread.
What’s on your mind?
I love history.
Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s Monday Night Open Thread.
What’s on your mind?
Suggested by Dave Drake:
[To the tune of Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” by Irving Gordon]
♫
Unelectable . . .
That’s what you are
Unelectable
So near, so far
Like a gambler clinging to hope
And drowning the resounding “nope”
Never before has someone been more . . .
Unelectable
In every way
And forever more,
That’s how you’ll stay
That’s why karma can be horrible
When someone so deplorable
Thinks that I am deplorable too.
It’s delectable
In every way
As for falling short,
Well, that’s what they say
Noways tired nor regrettable
That someone so unforgivable
Finds it unlivable too.
♫
“As God is my witness, I thought baseball fans were unflappable!”
Ten-Cent Beer Night (1974)
The Free DictionaryTen Cent Beer Night was a promotion held by Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians during a game against the Texas Rangers at Cleveland Stadium on Tuesday, June 4, 1974. The idea behind the promotion was to attract more fans to the game by offering 12 U.S. fl oz (354.9 ml) cups of 3.2% beer for just 10 cents each (regular price was 65 cents) with a limit of six per purchase.
Note: “Per purchase,” not per person or per game.
During the game, fans became heavily intoxicated, culminating in a riot in the ninth inning which caused the game to be forfeited due to the crowd’s uncontrollable rowdiness and because the game could not be resumed in a timely manner.
Background
Although the Indians had previously held such promotions without incident, beginning with Nickel Beer Day in 1971, a bench-clearing brawl in the teams’ last meeting one week earlier at Arlington Stadium in Texas left some Indians fans harboring a grudge against the Rangers. . . .
The game
. . . Cleveland’s Ten Cent Beer Night promotion drew 25,134 fans to Cleveland Stadium for the Indians/Rangers game, twice the number expected. Many attendees arrived at the game drunk and/or stoned.
. . . throughout the game, the inebriated crowd grew more and more unruly. . . . A woman ran out to the Indians’ on-deck circle and flashed her breasts, and a naked man sprinted to second base as Grieve hit his second home run of the game. A father and son pair ran onto the outfield and mooned the fans in the bleachers one inning later.
As the game progressed, more fans ran onto the field and caused problems. Ranger Mike Hargrove, who would later manage the Indians and lead them to the World Series twice in 1995 and 1997, was pelted with hot dogs and spit, and at one point was nearly struck with an empty gallon jug of Thunderbird.
. . .Someone tossed lit firecrackers into the Rangers’ bullpen.
. . . with a crowd that had been consuming as much beer as it could for nine innings, the situation finally came to a head.The riot
After the Indians had managed to tie the game, a fan ran onto the field and attempted to steal Texas outfielder Jeff Burroughs’ cap. Confronting the fan, Burroughs tripped. Texas manager Billy Martin, thinking that Burroughs had been attacked, charged onto the field, his players right behind, some wielding bats. A large number of intoxicated fans—some armed with knives, chains, and portions of stadium seats that they had torn apart—surged onto the field, and others hurled bottles from the stands. Hundreds of fans surrounded the outnumbered Rangers.
Realizing that the Rangers’ lives might be in danger, Ken Aspromonte, the Indians’ manager, ordered his players to grab bats and help the Rangers, attacking the team’s own fans in the process. Rioters began throwing steel folding chairs, and Cleveland relief pitcher Tom Hilgendorf was hit in the head by one of them. Hargrove, involved in a fistfight with a rioter, had to fight another on his way back to the Texas dugout. The two teams retreated off the field through the dugouts in groups, with players protecting each other.
. . .
The bases were pulled up and stolen (never to be returned) and many rioters threw a vast array of objects including cups, rocks, bottles, batteries from radios, hot dogs, popcorn containers, and folding chairs. As a result, umpire crew chief Nestor Chylak, realizing that order would not be restored in a timely fashion, forfeited the game to Texas. . . . He later called the fans “uncontrollable beasts” and stated that he’d never seen anything like what had happened, “except in a zoo.”
. . . And now, the punch line:
They did it again a month later.
The next Beer Night promotion on July 18 attracted 41,848 fans with beer again selling for 10 cents per cup but with a limit of two cups per purchase. American League president Lee MacPhail commented, “There was no question that beer played a part in the riot.”
In moving about [South Africa] in the trains, I had opportunity to see a good many Boers of the veldt. One day at a village station a hundred of them got out of the third-class cars to feed.
Their clothes were very interesting. For ugliness of shapes, and for miracles of ugly colors inharmoniously associated, they were a record. The effect was nearly as exciting and interesting as that produced by the brilliant and beautiful clothes and perfect taste always on view at the Indian railway stations. One man had corduroy trousers of a faded chewing gum tint. And they were new —- showing that this tint did not come by calamity, but was intentional; the very ugliest color I have ever seen. A gaunt, shackly country lout six feet high, in battered gray slouched hat with wide brim, and old resin-colored breeches, had on a hideous brand-new woolen coat which was imitation tiger skin —- wavy broad stripes of dazzling yellow and deep brown. I thought he ought to be hanged, and asked the station-master if it could be arranged. He said no; and not only that, but said it rudely; said it with a quite unnecessary show of feeling. Then he muttered something about my being a jackass, and walked away and pointed me out to people, and did everything he could to turn public sentiment against me. It is what one gets for trying to do good.
— Mark Twain, “Following the Equator”
Bayer AG pulls ads from Laura Ingraham’s show
The Hill | March 31, 2018Bayer AG announced Saturday that it has stopped advertising on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, and has no plans to do so in the future.
The pharmaceutical company is at least the 16th company to pull its ads from “The Ingraham Angle” following the host’s attack on Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg.
“Bayer US has stopped advertising on Laura Ingraham and we have no plans to resume any time in the future,” the company wrote in a tweet.
.
Months After Some Marketers Pulled Out, ‘The Ingraham Angle’ Is Gradually Making Its Way Back
Bayer and Jenny Craig ended their boycott of the show, but many others haven’t returned
Wall Street Journal / Dec. 21, 2018Bayer and Jenny Craig resumed advertising in “The Ingraham Angle” by the summer, running commercials there dozens of times each, according to iSpot.tv. And prime time paid ad time began increasing again in the fourth quarter, iSpot said.
Fox’s Brett Baier Walks Back Assertion That Clinton Foundation Indictment Is “Likely”
Zero Hedge | Nov 4, 2016 | Tyler DurdenFox’s Brett Baier has come under attack over the past couple of days after making comments on his show that his FBI sources confirmed they had an “avalanche of evidence” against the Clinton Foundation and that “barring obstruction they’d likely continue to push to try for an indictment.”
Well, apparently Baier has been exposed as just another covert Russian agent and has been forced to walk back his previous comments. Here’s what he had to say earlier on Fox:
“That just wasn’t inartful, it was a mistake, and for that I’m sorry. I should have said they will continue to build their case.”
“Indictment obviously is a very loaded word, Jon, especially in this atmosphere, and no one knows if there would or would not be an indictment no matter how strong investigators feel their evidence is.”
.
Fox News Anchor Bret Baier in Serious Car Accident
Townhall.com | January 22, 2019 | Katie Pavlich
.
Just sayin’.
To be fair, it may sound to them like “Ken-Turkey”:
ABC News “Slaughter in Syria” Footage Appears To Come From a Kentucky Gun Range
Washington Examiner | October 14, 2019 | Becket AdamsAre you distrustful of the coverage of what is happening now in northern Syria between the Kurds and the Turkish army? You have good reason to be.
ABC aired supposedly shocking footage Monday morning purporting to be from the frontline battle between the Syrian Kurds and the invading Turks. The only problem is the footage appears to come from a nighttime demonstration at the Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point, Kentucky.
After seeing a comment from Wojciech Pawelczyk, I began making some calls. As of this writing, it appears that this video is a hoax, and ABC has pulled it down.
“We are still investigating,” a representative for the gun range told the Washington Examiner Monday, adding the images aired by ABC “looks to be” from the Kentucky property.
“As of right now,” the spokesperson added, “it seems to be our footage.”
A spokesperson for ABC conceded it made a big mistake.
“We’ve taken down video that aired on ‘World News Tonight Sunday’ and ‘Good Morning America’ this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy,” a spokesman told the Washington Examiner.
“ABC News regrets the error.”
See if you can spot any attempts at editorializing or bias in ABC’s news reporting:
“This video, obtained by ABC News, appears to show the fury of the Turkish attack on the border town of Tal Abyad,” senior foreign correspondent Ian Pannell, who is in Syria, said Monday on Good Morning America.
As he spoke, ABC aired footage showing undisclosed gunmen firing tracer bullets at undisclosed targets, causing massive, fiery explosions. Furious stuff indeed.
Earlier, on Sunday, ABC News anchor Tom Llamas also aired the allegedly shocking footage, claiming it showed a fierce Turkish attack on Kurd civilians.
“The situation rapidly spiraling out of control in northern Syria. One week since President Trump ordered U.S. forces out of that region, effectively abandoning America’s allies in the fight against [the Islamic State],” he said.Llamas then described the video as it aired on-screen.
“This video right here appearing to show Turkey’s military bombing Kurd civilians in a Syrian border town. The Kurds, who fought alongside the U.S. against ISIS. Now, horrific reports of atrocities committed by Turkish-backed fighters on those very allies,” he added.
The “reports of atrocities,” on closer examination, are based on a grainy VHS copy of the Monty Python crew dressed as women, re-creating the Battle of Pearl Harbor in a mud puddle.
Like Biden, ABC clearly chooses “truth over facts.”
Can we dance on the grave of ABC’s Kurdability now?

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at Walt Disney World
One of my grandsons — the 4-year old — really loves Winnie the Pooh. Well, the Walt Disney version of the character anyway.
I’ve taken him to Walt Disney World a couple of times and one of the rides he always wants to ride — usually the first one he mentions — is The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. And, when he’s over at the house, he loves the Google Home device that is linked to a Chromecast. He doesn’t know or understand all that, but he knows that if he says, “Hey Google, play The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh,” that it will say “Okay” and that Walt Disney movie will start playing.
The boy loves Walt Disney’s Winnie the Pooh.
What brought this up? Well, the first Winnie the Pooh book (titled Winnie-the-Pooh) was first published on October 14, 1926. My grandson has never read the book. I’ve read the book to him, anyway. But the fact the book was published this date 93 years ago was the first in a series of events that eventually led to my grandson and me having some fun times together.
Will you or I do something that impacts others some 90-something years from now? Maybe not. Probably not. But we might.
Is that too deep for a Monday?