Missing aviator Amelia Earhart probably captured and executed as spy by the Japanese

When famous female pilot Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan didn’t arrive at Howland Island in the Southwest Pacific in 1937, it was thought that they had run out of fuel and crashed to their demise.

Researchers have proven otherwise. Witnesses claim that they had landed off-course near the Marshall Islands and taken into captivity by the Japanese to Saipan Island.

Noonan was allegedly beheaded and Earhart either faced a firing squad or died from disease.

The two flyers were nearly completing their round-the-world trip aboard a twin-engine Lockheed Electra at the time of their disappearance.

The Fascinating Photographs of Crissy Terawaki Kawamoto

Crissy Terawaki Kawamoto is an amazing person. She lives in Hawaii with her husband Todd, step-daughter Danielle and lapdog Mochi. I stumbled upon her online Flickr photograph account by accident. Taking and posting pictures is one of her passions and since 2005 she has displayed over 15,000 images to date.

Her eye for composition is incredible. Her digital shots are both colorful and captivating. The landscape of where she resides in Hawaii is most beautiful but her collection has visuals from all around the world.

As a project director at the University of Hawaii’s Cancer Center, she has traveled extensively for meetings and also pleasure. She has taken images of SafeCo Field in Seattle. She has snapshots taken from atop the Space Needle, also while flying in a Seattle Seatour plane. Mount Ranier at sunset. Shots of Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center showing surrounding modern artwork as well as memorabilia of the former baseball manager.

She is especially fond of photographing exotic and varied food dishes that she encounters. Scrumptious visuals of all types of food and drink. You would think that she was a well-renowned food critic by all the culinary delights plastered upon her pages.

While going to school in the midwest, Kawamoto became a huge Chicago Cubs and Blackhawks fan. She has many pictures both from Wrigley Field and from the United Center. Her two favorite Cub players are Darwin Barney (now with the Dodgers) and Anthony Rizzo. She first attended Northwestern University in Illinois before transferring and graduating with distinction from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu.

She’s been to Ohio to attend a Lance Armstrong Foundation conference and met with Dr. Sanjay Gupta while there. Much of her focus and dedication to the field of oncology is due in part to the 2009 loss of her nineteen-year-old cousin, Troy Terawaki, who passed away after a three-year fight with rhabdomyosarcoma.

According to her own website (http://www.crispyteriyaki.com) she has also been spotted in episodes of “LOST” and “Hawaii Five-0”; on the cover of TIME Magazine; and on Capitol Hill, advocating for increased federal funding for cancer research, prevention, screening, and treatment.

Her travels include Boston, Wisconsin, Austin, Las Vegas, Maryland, Oregon, California, Florida and Japan. Everywhere she goes, the self-admitted nerd brings along her Canon digital camera and takes an endless number of keepsake captures.

She also happens to be an FCC-licensed emergency amateur radio club enthusiast.

Check out her Flickr page (below) and be prepared to be amazed!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/crispyteriyaki/page1

Cell Phones Are Human Tracking Devices

According to reporter Ronald Bailey, police can find out where you are, where you’ve been and where you are going all thanks to that handy little human tracking device which we carry called a cell phone.

Authorities use International Mobile Subscriber Identity locators (IMSI) that act like a cell towers to enable government agents to download data from thousands of subscribers as they hunt for an individual’s cell signal. These electronic devices are called Stingray, Hailstorm or dirty boxes and can precisely triangulate cellphone signals within an accuracy of about 6 feet.

The Wall Street Journal reports that these instruments were first designed more than a decade ago to hunt terrorists and spies overseas, but they are increasingly in use by local police departments that operate them to hunt all manner of criminals from kidnappers to everyday thieves.

The American Civil Liberties Union states that the following governmental agencies are known to use such cell site simulators: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Marshals Service, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. National Guard, U.S. Special Operations Command and  National Security Agency.

If you don’t think Big Brother is watching, think again.

The Three Stooges Should Have Their Own Cable Network

Why isn’t there a Three Stooges cable channel?

Is it because that Comedy III Productions, Inc. is the registered owner of all rights to the former comedy act and cost of licensing is too expensive?

The 190 two-reel episodes that the trio (actually it was six comics in total) created in twenty-five years at Columbia Pictures should be showing somewhere besides YouTube, Hulu or on DVD.

Hey, Curly. Wouldn’t you like your own cable channel of 24/7 All Stooges All The Time programming? “Why, Soitenly! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.” would be his response.

Jackie Robinson Was A Fighter To The Very End

By joining the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1947, Jackie Robinson brought down the color line by becoming the first African-American player in the 20th century to play professional baseball since Cap Anson set that barrier using ugly language back in the 1880’s.

Jackie Robinson not only changed baseball but he helped change the world. He once said “A life is only as important as the impact it has on other lives” and it is truly poetic as being his own personal mission statement.

When one thinks about baseball and the color line, Robinson’s name immediately comes up. One would need to do research to
discover the first black players to enter football (Charles Follis), basketball (Earl Lloyd) or hockey (Willie O’Ree).

I don’t recall if it was teammate Duke Snider or Carl Erskine but someone once claimed that Jackie was a better ballplayer when he was angry. He took out his anger by playing harder and using that aggression to beat his opponents on the playing field.

The problem I see and feel sorry for the most with Jackie is that he never seemed to stop being angry. He understood his role in Branch Rickey’s “great experiment” and carried his race on his back throughout not only his baseball career but throughout his entire life. Some say they think his internal anger helped to kill him at the early age of 53. He suffered from diabetes but I tend to believe that Robinson never learned to take the burden he carried for his people off his shoulders.

After retiring from baseball, Robinson served as vice president of personnel with the coffee company Chock Full O’ Nuts. He tried opening a bank for blacks. He tried selling life insurance to blacks as it was difficult to get coverage. He tried his hand at franchising a Sea Host restaurant which was similar to Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips. Nothing he did outside of baseball was ever able to make up for what he did in baseball and, as sportswriter Dick Young pointed out, that was the real tragedy of being Jackie Robinson. He couldn’t give up the fight because that’s all he ever knew how to do.

He stayed quite active in civil rights. He enjoyed politics. He led picket lines. He traveled to the deep South in support of Dr.
Martin Luther King during the turbulent 1960’s. If he had nothing left to fight for, he was lost.

Adjectives that describe Jackie Robinson include courageous, dedicated and trailblazer.

Other words could be stubborn, hot-tempered and narrow-minded.

Any way that you look at it, Jackie Robinson was an original.

James “Buster” Douglas Drops Mike Tyson

The year was 1990. Mike Tyson’s tenth title defense. 9th round in Tokyo. “I was in the zone, man, I was in that zone, THAT ZONE,” recalls Douglas, “It was just my time to shine.”

Tyson got nailed by a punch and fell down onto the canvas, groping for his mouthpiece, while the referee counted him out. Halfway around the world, Americans who stayed up during the wee small hours of the morning to watch this bout were stunned.

Tyson was knocked out. Odds against James “Buster” Douglas were 42-to-1.

Roger Maris: A Case For Cooperstown

While Roger Maris is not currently inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame, there is a free access glass-encased Roger Maris Museum taking up space in the West Acres Shopping Center in Fargo, North Dakota.

Sportsblogger Steve Buttry makes a compelling argument in favor of Maris for the Hall of Fame. He feels it is the subjectivity of sports writers keeping him out and objectively states that his brief 12-year injury-riddled career is not the only thing working against him.

If journalists were objective, Roger Maris would be in the Baseball Hall of Fame

Hall of Famer and all-time great Mickey Mantle said that Roger Maris was one of the best all around players he had ever seen.

Broadcaster Bob Costas thinks he should be in. “Stature grows with each passing year…career stats short but historical importance huge.”

Without his mighty 1961 season, he likely wouldn’t even be considered a candidate. Johnny Vander Meer tossed back-to-back no-hitters and Jim Bunning threw a perfect game yet neither of them are Hall of Famers.

Voting rule #6 specifically prohibits automatic elections due to broken records: “No automatic elections based on performances such as a batting average of .400 or more for one (1) year, pitching a perfect game or similar outstanding achievement shall be permitted.”

Yet Maris is a two-time MVP and a four-time all-star whose trade to the Yankees helped them make it to the World Series five years in a row. He also won two pennants and a championship with the St. Louis Cardinals as well.

Buttry points out that Rajah broke Babe Ruth’s single season home run record against all odds when even fans, teammates and sportswriters were rooting against him, making his consideration that much more meaningful.

It’s his belief that writers are still biased against him.

Family Feud Is A Racist Game Show

One fan of the popular game show complains: “I’ve never seen a black family versus a black family, a white family versus a white family, or any other races. It’s always black versus white. Do they do that on purpose?”

Yes, it is done purposely and, according to one anonymous contributor who actually worked on the set, it’s all due in part to the show’s demographics:

“Actually I worked very briefly with the show. You have to remember the main viewers of the show are not white. Its 70% black as its viewer base. Also, and more importantly, they do not select out of the entire U.S. as the entire U.S. does not attempt to go on the show. They select from families that apply and its quite a bit over 50% black people who apply to go on it. Hope this clears things up. By the way, they have had white on white many times. Also several asian families.”

Another unnamed viewer takes note of the program’s location: “The show is filmed in Atlanta, Georgia where the population is roughly 54% African-American, 42% White, and 4% Asian.”

Family Feud’s successful television formula is racism sells.

Jack Ruby Said LBJ Had It In For JFK

Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, killed Lee Harvey Oswald, who the Warren Commission concluded was the lone gunman in the slaying of John F. Kennedy.

In a videotaped statement, Ruby said, “When I mentioned about Adlai Stevenson, if he was Vice President there would never have been an assassination of our beloved President Kennedy.” Asked if he would explain it again Ruby continued “Well the answer is the man in office now.” – that man was Lyndon B. Johnson.

Later, in a hand-written note, Ruby wrote, “Isn’t it strange that Oswald, who hasn’t worked a lick most of his life, should be fortunate enough to get a job at the Book Building two weeks before the President himself didn’t know as to when he was to visit Dallas, now where would a jerk like Oswald get the information that the President was coming to Dallas?”

He continued on, “Only one person could have had that information, and that man was Johnson who knew weeks in advance as to what was going to happen, because he is the one who was going to arrange the trip for the President, this had been planned long before the President himself knew about, so you can figure that one out.”

He wrote further, “The only one who gained by the shooting of the President was Johnson, and he was in a car in the rear and safe when the shooting took place. What would the Russians, Castro or anyone else have to gain by eliminating the President? If Johnson was so heartbroken over Kennedy, why didn’t he do something for Robert Kennedy? All he did was snub him.”

Jacqueline Kennedy was aware of Johnson’s hatred for her husband and his brother, often referring to the pair as members of the Irish mafia.

Does Johnny Damon belong in Baseball’s Hall of Fame?

One fan says, “Hall of Very Good.”

Another fan states, “No. If he did, they would have to start calling the Hall of Fame the Hall of Players who are Above Average.”

Johnny Damon’s best supporter for a Cooperstown plaque is Johnny Damon himself.

He told Tyler Kepner of The New York Times, “I think even if you look at my numbers now, how high I am on the runs list, how high I am on the doubles list, and you also have to take into account the ballparks that I’ve played in. I’ve played in some pretty tough ones for left-handers. If I played in Yankee Stadium my whole career, my 230 home runs turn into 300, easy.”

Most ballplayers don’t push for their own selection towards such enshrinement.

Baseball fan Tony Cunningham comments on Hardball Times that “Damon was very good, but not quite a Hall of Fame player even if he got to 3000 hits.”

Damon ended his playing career with 2,769 career hits.

Bill Petti of Sports Blog Nation agrees, “End of the day, I think Damon was a very, very good player, but not necessarily Hall of Fame worthy.”

Petti does add, “However, his unique blend of statistics combined with playing for two championship teams in major markets and being one of the most recognizable personalities in baseball will certainly endear him to a number of voters when the time comes.”