Larry Roibal

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

The grocery store’s the super mart, uh huh
Gasoline prices break your heart, uh huh
And men still keep on marching off to war
200 points down on the floor
and
The beat goes on, the beat goes on
La de da de de, la de da de da

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

Yesterday Senator Clinton won a battle in Indiana but lost the war for the Democratic nomination to become President of the United States. It’s over.

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

Ted Key, creator of Hazel, Mr. Peabody and Sherman cartoon characters passed away at age 95. His cartoons ran in the Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s before I was born, but I spent hours of my youth watching Hazel in syndication and Mr. Peabody and Sherman on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

This weekend, long maligned New Jersey had its first inductees ceremony to the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Among the inductees were Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Yogi Berra, Buzz Aldrin, Clara Barton, Bill Bradley, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Malcolm Forbes, Robert Wood Johnson II, Vince Lombardi, Toni Morrison, Norman Schwarzkopf, Meryl Streep and Harriet Tubman….Not too shabby. Springsteen said “I always said that Sinatra owned New Jersey, but he’d rent me a little bit of down the Shore”

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

Sport has often been used as a metaphor to describe battlefields, strategy and competition. It was in this light that the Clinton campaign first started to draw the parallels between the horse, Eight Belles and Senator Clinton. Leading up to the race the campaign started to talk about the only woman in the race, an underdog, a tough filly that had the stamina to go the distance. The story line was almost too perfect to ignore. If Eight Belles had won, it would have been the campaign’s battle cry going into tomorrows contests. But Eight Belles didn’t read the script. While she did make a valiant effort, she finished second to Big Brown (the actual winner). Then things went from bad to worse, when seconds after the race Eight Belles collapsed with two broken ankles and had to be euthanized on the spot. While Hillary is not in any mortal danger from this weeks primaries, I think many on the Clinton team fear that the Kentucky Derby is a closer metaphor for this campaign than they would like to admit.

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

If you plan on traveling to China to watch an olympic event, be prepared to have your access to information censored. The Chinese government has the largest surveillance and censorship operation in the world, and have even been known to imprison bloggers.

They are placing internet filters in hotels that might even restrict this humble little blog for harmless content like this and this.

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

Last night my brother Dan asked me to a Yankee game. We had great field level seats, about half way down the first base line. Andy Pettitte was on the mound, but after taking the lead in the first inning, Jeter and the boys sleep walked the rest of the way to a 6 to 2 loss against the Detroit Tigers.

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

Is it just me, or are Jeremiah’s fifteen minutes starting to feel more like an eternity?

Is team Clinton helping to prolonging the story? Here’s an interesting tidbit from Daily News Columnist Errol Louis.

Detail 

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

I always loved Will Rogers response when asked “To what political party do you belong?”

He’d say, “I don’t belong to any ORGANIZED party….I’m a Democrat.”