Tag Archives: humor

Americans and Iranians are alike about illegal aliens

Posted on June 18, 2014 by | 4 comments

Trailer for Baran  on YouTube:  http://youtu.be/T5UGItdsqUI

Hi readers.  I’d never thought about it until I watched Baran on Netflix.  How similar Iranians are to Americans.  In this Turkish movie while building a site in Tehran, Turkish worker Lateef is drawn to young Afghan worker Rahmat, who is dangerously in disguise.   A female illegal alien, refugee from Afghanistan.

And those Iranians don’t put up with anyone giving jobs to those wetback Afghans any more than Arizonians who aren’t needing yard work done don’t condone anyone hiring Mexican illegal aliens.

 What’s surprising is the number of ways Mexicans and Afghans are similar outside the mere shared illegal alien status.  Both are bad about shooting things up in their own countries, they’re both rather dark skinned, and they both speak languages the average US citizen can’t understand.  Then there’s the matter of cutlery.

But the amazing corollary is the many ways other than their views about illegal aliens Americans are similar to Iranians.  Each has a ‘special’ relationship with Israel and the Israelis, for instance.  Each is preoccupied with nuclear weapons.  Each sits atop one hell of a lot of oil.  And each tends to go overboard over religion and religious matters sufficiently to get religion and government confused.

See it on Netflix:  Baran, 2001 PG 95 minutes, starring:Hossein Abedini, Zahra Bahrami.  Director:Majid Majidi

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America

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Pakistanis and Americans are alike about 2nd Amendment

Posted on June 18, 2014 by | 4 comments

Son of a Lion Trailer on YouTube:  http://youtu.be/hdRCmNn3joc

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

One of the coolest aspects of Netflix is the foreign film availability.  Even though the films are just movies, they tell a lot about what movie-makers worldwide thought audiences in their countries would willingly watch.  What, in fact, their national populations would pay money to see.  Their beliefs, their likes and dislikes.

So a Netflix watcher can discover, for instance, how similar a lot of Americans are to Pakistanis by watching  Son of a Lion.   It’s a 2007 movie in which the primary characters are involved in a family business of gun making, gunsmithing, and gun sales and have been for several generations.   Expected to go into the family business, the 11-year-old son of a strict Muslim father runs away from home, determined to get an education instead.  In the location in Pakistan where they live everyone is a 2nd Amendment devotee.  Nobody bothers with signs or bumper stickers because they just raise their AK 47 or 1911 Colt and loose a few rounds into the air when the mood strikes.

Starring:Niaz Khun Shinwari, Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad, Director:Benjamin Gilmour. 

It’s comforting knowing how much we have in common with Pakistanis for the most part.  The father in the story is mujahedeen and fought against the Russians in Afghanistan and is extremely concerned where, should he allow his son to take to school, it would be located.  “Those schools are magnets for American bombs!” 

Probably a lesson there somewhere.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure

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Compared to Mexicans, American Indians don’t like stoop labor

Posted on June 16, 2014 by | 8 comments

Hi readers.

I’ve noticed American Indians prefer doctoring, or motel owning jobs over stoop labor, mowing grass, carpentry and other grunt jobs preferred by Mexicans.  My VA physician is an American Indian, and so’s my cardiologist.  Both of whom speak English at 7-9 on an understandability scale of 10.  Better than the clerk down at Walmart.

This got me wondering about Indians ‘back home’ where they came from and whether everyone in India is a doctor or motel owner.  I figured the Indian film industry would be a good start.  So I searched “India” on Netflix.  One of the [quaint word] films recently released by the Indians is EXPRESS TO CHENNAI.

http://youtu.be/4O4mNdMoxDM

Fun, interesting film.  WEST SIDE STORY, THE GODFATHER,  and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC all wadded up into the same excellent movie.  Those Indians made me consider how much better off Hollywood would be if they just handed moviemaking over to the Indians, the way we’ve done with inventiveness, patent applications, doctoring, motel owning etc etc etc.

It’s a movie about the Indian mafia, about love and romance, about tourism, and it’s done in song and dance part of the time.  Freaking great movie.

I wouldn’t mind staying in a motel or getting a doctor working on my vitals if he comes from the country where EXPRESS TO CHENNAI was made.  Or his parents or grandparents came from there.

Unless they were poor, or huddled masses.  I’ve got no use having a Mexican doctor working on me. 

http://youtu.be/suJTY94dH1I

EL INFIERNO’s the best Mexican movie I’ve seen lately and I don’t care anything about having the people who made that one doing my cutting and pasting bodily.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America

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Sure I’m poor, but I came by it honest.

Posted on June 13, 2014 by | 6 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

The 20-30 people down at my physical therapy are surprisingly homogenous and I’m not saying anything about sexual preferences.  We’re all white, all but three are men, and all but two are above the age of 60.  The nurses, also are all white, but their ages cover a spread from around 30 to a cautious guess of 60.

So when I asked one of the nurses, “Where do you keep all your ethnics?” while she was taking g my blood pressure it seemed an obvious question.  An expression of surprise crossed her face and she flinched, or sort of jumped, then her eyes scanned the room and the people on all the machines. 

“What do you mean?”   Seemed more of an accusation than question.

“Hey, we all look alike in here.  Everyone here seems to be old, male, white and other than me, well-to-do.  All except me are fairly unpleasing to the eye.  Don’t people with skin pigment get cardiac problems?”  I was just wising off.  I already knew Olathe’s an affluent community and area.   But watching her facial reactions kept me at it.

 Anyway, the old guy at the NUSTEP machine next to me felt the need to set me straight when she went on to other matters.  “We’re not all well to do!”  He ground his teeth a bit.  “I used to be but I lost it all in 401Ks.”  His face was reddening and the blood vessels on his bald scalp were becoming visible.

“Sure I’m poor.  But I got that way through honest hard work, good credit, bad marriages, and trusting the 401K people.  Not like these people who got born into it and didn’t get out because of shiftless laziness and rotten attitude.”  I finished my time about then and just grinned.  Couldn’t think of anything to say.

Damn I love that Physical Therapy at Olathe Hospital.  I’m going to be sorry when it runs out.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, America

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City of Adventure

Posted on June 10, 2014 by | 4 comments

hydrox june 2014

He’s too old to cut the mustard anymore.

Hi readers.  Thanks for the visit.

Jeanne’s next door neighbor saw us on the back porch the other day:  “Hi.  Is that big, fluffy-looking black and white cat yours?”

Me:  “He came with me from Texas.”  No point giving my cat-ownership philosophy dissertation.

Neighbor grinning:  “We watch television late at night with the front door open.  He comes by every night and sticks his head inside, looks at us a moment, then leaves.  It’s eery when he meets your eye.”

Hydrox is evidently as determined to milk as much living out of this life as I am.  Even if it means spying on the neighbors.  They’re older than him, but barely.

Old Jules

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Posted in Adventure, America

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Rally Round the Flag Boys, by Max Shulman

Posted on June 10, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

1959, 1960, I was reading everything Max Shulman wrote because of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  In that one he introduced Maynard G. Cribbs of later fame, and gave most people their first look at Beat, Beatniks, and much of the como se llama life outside anything most had considered.  Although Dobie Gillis had a TV series in his name, the Maynard Cribbs character lived longer in another vapid TV series about an Island somewhere.

So when I encountered Rally Round the Flag Boys in a box of books at a garage sale recently I happily paid out a quarter for an unexpected delight far in excess of my memories of the book from 50 years ago.

In a 278 page yarn filled with laughs and poignant human insights Shulman peels away the 21st Century fantasies of how America ‘was’, “Thank you veterans, for your service“, and any lingering thoughts you might have about romance, marriage and the American dream when  the citizenry saw career military men as “too lazy to steal“.

A wonderful, hilarious book before during and after its own time.  Story of a small Yankee town in Connecticut where the US Army needs to place a Nike Missile Site.  A brutally honest story of the wealthy people running the town and why they oppose a sanitary landfill because of the cost, oppose sex education in their public schools because of the danger of KNOWING, oppose anything that stands in the way of development of real estate into more neighborhoods for NYC commuters.  Neighborhoods located in quarries, bogs, swamps, with names like Powderhorn Hill and Patriot Valley.

What a fun book.  I’m finished with it and will happily mail it to you if you’d care to read it.  Contact me by email.

Old Jules

Afterthought note:  This book teeters on the brink of upcoming events, but barely pre-dates them.  No Berlin Wall until 1961, no Cuban Missile Crisis until 19 what?62?, no Vietnam War until 1965, no Kennedys assassinated yet, no Martin Luther King, no Watergate.   No Fidel Castro.   Cuba was still clean sandy beaches for US tourists.  And the book is the “How I view the world” of those US citizens back before things got nasty.  J.

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Posted in 2014, America

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Hi diddle diddle – Google driverless cars

Posted on June 8, 2014 by | 10 comments
If you live in one of the states darkened in blue you might have already seen a Google-driven car as you gnashed your teeth over traffic jams. They've logged over 700,000 miles on public roads as of April, 2014.

If you live in one of the states darkened in blue you might have already seen a Google-driven car as you gnashed your teeth over traffic jams. They’ve logged over 700,000 miles on public roads as of April, 2014.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Probably I was the last person on the planet to find out this is happening.  And I should have guessed it, anyway.  There’s a particular place in New Mexico where a police car sits around with a dummy in uniform at the wheel to discourage speeding.  The inevitable next step was to replace the drivers of cars going past, standing their cars on their noses when they saw the police cruiser.

Admittedly the Google Driverless car doesn't have the snazzy appearance, the pizzazz of the average cracker boxes and 1948 Dodge-looking cars running around the roads in 2014. But I think if I had a car and a few bucks to spare I'd paint it white, install a fake antenna array on the top, darken the windows, and go around ramming into things just to blow the foam off the top of a long life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car

Admittedly the Google Driverless car doesn’t have the snazzy appearance, the pizzazz of the average cracker boxes and 1948 Dodge-looking cars running around the roads in 2014. But I think if I had a car and a few bucks to spare I’d paint it white, install a fake antenna array on the top, darken the windows, and go around ramming into things just to blow the foam off the top of a long life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car

Things do have a way of making the full circle.  Half the drivers today are being directed by the voices of their friendly GPS devices while they text their wives, mistresses, husbands, boyfriends, parents, kids, and people they’re trying to buy something from on Craigslist.  A nice Google package would relieve them of the burden of having to be distracted by red lights and road rage.  In fact, the model that’s not equipped with steering wheel or pedals would go a step further to allow them to spend every waking minute texting and talking on the cell.

Put a mannequin in the driver seat and give it a cell phone to talk on and this thing will be lobbying for the right to vote and get mechanical insurance.  With an inflatable girl-friend sitting in the passenger seat we wouldn’t need Americans anymore.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America

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Might as well face it: China isn’t a credible threat

Posted on June 6, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers:

Despite the fact the US military budget needs a second potential front we can fight wars on to justify being the war material overkill superpower we insist we are, China’s just not going to fill the bill.  Yeah, as Yahoo News reports, they’ve got a lot of military spending going on.  Whoopteedoo.

Fact is, China doesn’t win wars.  Maybe has never won a war in the entirety of Chinese history.  Didn’t win against the Japanese in WWII.  Didn’t win the Chinese Revolution thoroughly enough to take the Nationalists out of the picture.

Didn’t win the Korean War enough to make it all North Korea.  Didn’t even win in 1978-1979 against war-weary Vietnam.

Yeah, Washington and the threat-hungry news services would give a testicle if China could get out there and run someone off a piece of real estate they wanted.  But the Chinese have had their asses whipped so many times and in so many places they’re just hoping if they have to fight someone bigger than Tibet they can bluster enough to scare them off.

China ain’t going anywhere.  Might as well try to stir up some trouble with Mexico if we’re going to have a credible threat to justify a military budget capable of taking over all the banana republics and oil sheikdoms everywhere when the mood strikes us.  Even the Muslims are falling down on the job these days.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Real synthetic meat

Posted on June 6, 2014 by | 20 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Sitting around waiting rooms exposes a person to a lot of reading material he’d proabably never encounter otherwise.  Popular Science magazines are a favorite example for me.  They’ve always been great predictors of how our lives will be in the not-too-distant future.  As John Prine observed, “We’re all driving rocket ships and talking with our minds” here in this future we’re living in.

Anyway, the November, 2013 edition of Popular Science had a series of articles I found fascinating about some folks who are in the final phases of development of synthetic meats to replace those that came off living animals and poultry.  Indistinguishable from the real item.  Columbia University’s one of the places it’s happening, not because of better health, but because of the greenhouse gasses resulting from grazing livestock.

Evidently it’s so far along in getting it going they’re already producing real leather that never rode a cow for use on automobile upholstery, etc.  And they’re doing well with chicken, since almost everything tastes like chicken.

Naturally, if this doesn’t happen now it well be because the cow industry went in at night and destroyed everything they couldn’t buy up and squash.  It won’t be the fault of the lousy record Popular Science has in predicting the future.

Still, it’s nice to think of future generations being able to walk around in the woods without stepping on cow manure if they ever go outside.  And driving along rural highways in the west not having to see a yellow sign with a cow on it to warn there’s a rancher feeding his black cows on the pavement at dusk for the insurance.

Interesting stuff, and it ought to get more interesting.  Human beings ought to get a lot more violent in a world where there was no real meat that needed killing to take the edge off natural inclinations.  And thus far there’s been no mention of where Kosher fits into it all.  Synthetic pork might come from the factory Kosher and Jews and Muslims could start sitting down together to a nice ham instead of shooting one another.

Old Jules

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Posted in America, Animals

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The Korean Korean War to protect Japan

Posted on June 5, 2014 by | Leave a comment

  [The Front Line is available on Netflix]

Hi readers.  Although the Korean War wouldn’t have happened if General Douglas MacArthur hadn’t been so preoccupied about protecting Japan, the Japanese film makers have never said thank you by making a movie about it.  Although MacArthur’s, “Korea is a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan” assertion got a lot of US, British, Chinese and other soldiers killed, no Japanese died in it.  And no Japanese money, troops, anything, has supported then non-war existing during the half-century since.

Thanks to the Korean film industry and the Chinese film industry a whole new perspective on the Korean War is being handed out to anyone interested enough to watch some movies.  I’ll throw one in from the British film industry just to spread the wealth around.  A Hill in Korea was Michael Caine’s first movie role, and as it happens he was a British Army Korean War Vet.

GIs and Korean women:

A Chinese movie about a hard fought battle against US troops during the Korean War:

Two brothers are drafted into the South Korean Army during the war.  Excellent film.

Here’s one about British troops fighting in Korea to protect Japan:

But it’s just movies.  Fact is, once Japan quit slaughtering troops from all over the planet, other troops from all over the planet began dying to protect the Japanese.  And 20-30 thousand US troops are still in Korea prepared to die to protect Japan.

Thank you for your service.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 1950's, America

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