Certainly it was a tragedy with roughly 129 murdered and roughly 320 injured. It wasn’t on the scale of the World Trade Center in New York City, where thousands were killed and thousands more injured, but it was offensive and diabolical enough.
And Saturday’s night’s attack comes on the heels of the Russian airliner explosion that killed more than 100 people, mostly Russians.
Now, it appears that the Islamic extremist group ISIS is “taking credit” for both events. The members are taking “credit,” they say; not the blame, as it should be.
No, no one should say they are happy this terrorism occurred. But it is a bit “ballsy” for ISIS to now have messed with the Americans, the French and the Russians. These aren’t usually a trio of nations to offend if you value life or freedom or a bright future.
But the die has been cast, and, for once, perhaps, France and Russia, often extremists across the table from the U.S., are smart enough to recognize that we all—and the rest of the world—have the same enemy, and that it is time to deal with ISIS in a permanent manner.
Certainly between the U.S., France and Russia, there is enough intelligence and firepower to wipe ISIS off the map.
ISIS is a group of Muslim extremists. But it doesn’t matter who they are. If they were Irish or Swedish, Catholic or Jewish, Aussies or Turks, Canadians or Italians, they have no right to carry on with mass murder anywhere on this globe.
Wouldn’t it be nice if these three superpowers could use their strength and their allies to rid this world of the cancer known as ISIS?
This may be the one time in my lifetime to watch these three superpowers pull together to make this a better planet on which to live, thrive and be free. What a joy that would be to watch.
Maybe these nations as well as our own Democrats and Republicans can work together toward a better end.
Let’s all hope, pray and wish!
Then let’s get on with it!!!
“The Little Mermaid Jr.” as put on in Meeker last week by the Meeker Arts and Cultural Council (MACC), the Center Stage Youth Theatrical Group (CSYTG) in cooperation with the Eastern Rio Blanco Metropolitan Recreation and Park District was tremendous.
I know of one couple who went to the Thursday and Friday night performances because they enjoyed it so much. I went to the Saturday matinee at Meeker High School and thoroughly enjoyed the performance, which was presented before a full house.
As is the usual case in a small town when attempting a play/musical of this sort with such a large cast, there are stronger performances by some actors/singers than others, but the few low points in this play were few enough not to detract from the overall performance, which was magical when you see how many performers it took to complete the staged musical.
The staging was superior, including having set up a seafront, a place to allow for the necessary ocean swimming, a sea-faring ship that brought its captain, Eric, to the island and the underground witches’ lair.
The costuming and makeup were nearly flawless.
And while there were no noticeably “off” performances, there certainly were many “on” theatrics with King Triton (played by Zagar Brown), Prince Eric (Cooper Main), Grimsby (Porter Hossack), Ariel (Annelise Amack), Chef Louis, Aquata and Princess (all played by Kolbi Franklin), Sebastian (Ruby Holliday), Ursula (Mason Holliday), Flounder (Gage Richardson) and so many others.
The casting was outstanding, but there just isn’t room enough here to name all 53 roles and all 30 members of the production staff.
The musical was not disappointing in any way.
I was also fortunate enough to have seen “Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr.,” last year and I, as a local theater neophyte, now have to declare the performing arts are well and thriving in the professional and more-than-capable hands of Laurie Zellers, the capable assistance of Shana Holliday, producer Gary Zellers, technical director Bob Amick and, again, countless others, many who worked in production and in the production.
Meeker should stand tall and proud following the production of “The Little Mermaid” and look forward to the next production put on by the groups.
Whew! The Broncos stunk on Sunday at home against Kansas City.
Manning stunk! The defense stunk! The running game stunk! The receiving game stunk! The special teams only smelled bad.
It was so bad that it was Manning’s worst overall game as a pro—and it ironically came in the game in which Manning passed Brett Favre for the most total years passing in National Football League history.
Now comes word that Manning had three injuries and that coach Gary Kubiak is taking all the blame because he went ahead and started Manning instead of Osweiler.
I’ll let Kubiak take that blame—at least for not making the change earlier. Clearly, five minutes into the third quarter, Manning wasn’t going to save the day.
Osweiler did a pretty decent job. He at least prevented the Broncos from going scoreless and ending the longest-running game-scoring streak, which, gratefully, is still owned by Denver.
We may be seeing the end of the short Manning era and the beginning of the Osweiler leadership. Or we may be seeing just a short lapse on the way to Denver still winning AFC West (they have a three-game lead as of this week), and not knowing how far they can go.
Let’s all hope for things to turn around for the Broncos and see if we can march on to the end of the season, winning it all.
Thanks again to owner Mitch Bettis and computer phenom Niki Turner, who filled in for me last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, while I was in Grand Junction for some procedure called an aneurysm of the abdominal aorta. I was back at work on Friday morning and keep getting to where I feel better each day.
Maturity isn’t everything it is cracked up to be in all ways, and one doesn’t always bounce back as quickly as suspected.
Go Broncos!!!
