First Lady Michelle Obama’s Second Inaugural Gown: Deserving Enough For The Smithsonian?

Even though it is somewhat a break in the tradition of the 200-year or so history of the US Presidency, but does First Lady Michelle Obama’s second inaugural gown deserve to be exhibited in the Smithsonian? 

Traditionally, the second inaugural gowns of every reelected US Presidents hence are usually destined to be exhibited in their respective presidential libraries, but as of late, US First Lady Michelle Obama’s second inaugural gown got the green light to be exhibited in the Smithsonian. Does her gown deserving enough to be exhibited there? 

According to the current Smithsonian curator Lisa Kathleen Grady, it is traditionally only the first inaugural gowns of the White House’s First Ladies that gets the green light to be exhibited in the Smithsonian despite their POTUS husbands being reelected for a second term and thus a second US Presidential Inauguration Ceremony come January after the US Presidential Elections scheduled in November. Notable US First Ladies’ first inaugural gowns exhibited in the Smithsonian that are very popular to visitors belong to the then First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and the then First Lady Nancy Reagan – but will current US First Lady Michelle Obama’s second inaugural gown outshine them all? 

The red chiffon gown designed by Jason Wu could be timelessly stylish or not may be a debate best left to posterity, but I think the main reason why the top brass at the Smithsonian decided to exhibit the US First Lady Michelle Obama’s second inaugural gown might be due to her popularity. Or it might be due to the dearth of exhibits concerning influential African-Americans in the Smithsonian other than musicians and/or political activists. 

Margaret Thatcher’s “Hair Secrets” Revealed At Last?

Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Cold war era hair secrets was just recently bared back in January 3, 2014 – is it a historically significant fact or a mere footnote? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Back in January 3, 2014 the UK’s National Archives – not the UK’s Official Secrets Act that we have all hoped for – finally revealed the late former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Cold war era hair secrets, as in 1980s era hairdo secrets. Given the 1,000-year history of the UK’s National Archives are the facts surrounding Thatcher’s “Cold War Era Hairdo Secrets” historically significant for posterity or a mere footnote to be poked fun at for late night talk show hosts around the world? 

For those who were old enough to remember the 1980s, it seems that the late former US President Ronald Reagan and the late former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher despite their close friendship that seems to be the bastion that protects the Capitalist West from the then – according to then US President Ronald Reagan – the “Evil Soviet Empire” were both seem to be in competition to be which global superpower has the best hairdo. And this “hair competition” seem to echo until this day where the hairdo of porn star Peter North seem to mimic that of the late former US President Ronald Reagan – even rumor has it that the famed male porn star Peter North was even an alleged bastard child of the late former US President Ronald Reagan. Does this explain about the then “Pornography Commission” set up by then US President Ronald Reagan with the then US Attorney General Edwin Meese III? 

Anyway, according to the UK’s National Archives, the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had her hair done as often as 118 times a year!!! Does the “Iron Lady” need all that glamouring-up to protect the Capitalist West from the then “Evil Soviet Empire”?

Remembering Nelson Mandela

Since his passing back in Thursday, December 6, 2013 aged 95 – will the world ever see another one like him?

By: Ringo Bones 

For those who were in high school at the time when every civilized nation in the world are condemning the injustice of South Africa’s institutionalized racial segregation known as Apartheid, it seems like we all felt the pain first hand of the oppressed black South Africans. And the whole world had been rooting for Nelson Mandela who was back then serving a jail term in the notorious Robben Island prison. Sentenced to prison back in 1964 when the then white ruled South African government banned the ANC political party advocating for an end to Apartheid, the country became a virtual pariah state by incarcerating Mandela, not to mention a prison labor regime that involves breaking limestone in a sunlit glared quarry that damaged his eyes because the prison authorities didn’t allowed him to wear sunglasses. Other anti-Apartheid campaigners suffered terribly and some even died in prison like Steve Biko. Despite a series of economic and political sanctions by the international community as an anti-Apartheid campaign gesture, it seems that back in the 1980s, Apartheid would still be a part of South Africa until the 21^st Century. 

After 27 years in prison Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison in 1990 and to prove that he was the better man, Mandela chose to reconcile with his captors to avoid plunging South Africa into a bloody civil war. Fortunately, his bold move for reconciliation led to a peaceful transition of political power and Mandela eventually shared a Nobel Peace Prize with his counterpart, the then President of South Africa, F.W. De Klerk. Mandela was then elected as South Africa’s first black president in 1994 in the country’s first ever free elections where candidates of non white ethnicity were both allowed to run and vote. 

Nelson Mandela stepped down as he promised after serving a 5-year presidential term, unlike other notorious dictators elsewhere in the continent. Mandela continues as a guiding force and an inspiration not just for South Africans but also for everyone in the world fed up with injustice and oppression. He retired from the public eye back in 2004 but managed to appear during the 2010 World Cup due to insistent public demand and he even managed to meet visiting boxing icon Muhammad Ali. Though South Africans are still mired in economic equality, the dark days of Apartheid seems now a distant memory in the consciousness of most South Africans. During the announcement of Nelson Mandela’s passing, a biographical movie of his life titled Mandela Long Walk to Freedom that starred Idris Elba debut in London and instead of cancelling the screening, moviegoers decided instead to observe a moment of silence after the screening of the film. 

Did Israel’s Mossad Assassinated US President John F. Kennedy?

If Oliver Stone’s cinematic opus JFK failed to fully convince everyone on the conspiracy of the “military-industrial-complex and the US government personnel tasked to protect the then US President Kennedy, did the Israeli Mossad the obvious overlooked suspect of JFK’s assassination 50 years ago? 

By: Ringo Bones 

It seems like the complicity of the state of Israel in the “conspiracy” behind the assassination of then US President John F. Kennedy back in November 22, 1963 seems largely overlooked by mainstream tenured historians and “big-wig” conspiracy buffs. After all, the then fledgling state of Israel did have some very legitimate reasons to “take out” President Kennedy during his visit to Dallas, Texas back in that fateful day of November 22, 1963 – where everyone old enough to remember who are still alive to this very day will never forget where they are and what they are doing at the time when they heard the news that JFK was assassinated. 

It now barely registers on the consciousness radar of self-styled JFK assassination conspiracy buffs that back in 1961 when President Kennedy was freshly voted and inaugurated into the US Presidency. Kennedy vetoed a bill that would allow supporters of state of Israel in the Capitol Hill – i.e. pro AIPAC Republicans – to start their own clandestine nuclear weapons program. President Kennedy signed it into law that forbade the federal government to send nuclear weapons starting material that would allow the state of Israel to start their own clandestine nuclear weapons program – as in manufacture in secret either weapons-grade uranium-235 or plutonium-239 that would never be found out by the IAEA. Even though it wasn’t until 1968 that an international nuclear weapons non proliferation treaty – i.e. Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty or NPT – as far back as 1961, the United States government was already spearheading an internationally binding agreement that would prevent the spread of nuclear weapons – especially to less-than-democratic states. 

Was Lee Harvey Oswald merely a patsy as a still unnamed and unseen by the now iconic Abraham Zapruder footage – the Mossad operative hiding in the now infamous “grassy knoll” that took the fatal shot that took out President Kennedy on that fateful morning of November 22, 1963? Or was the “Mossad operative” on that Grassy Knoll wearing a Ghillie Suit? Well, the Model 1891 Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5mm X 52mm rifle that Oswald used in shooting President Kennedy was later found out by the warren Commission during the course of the investigation that it was not sighted properly and had to be readjusted before firearms tests could be conducted. And the “weapons system” used by Lee Harvey Oswald is not much of a rifle and not much of a cartridge by top-tier professional assassin standards as Oswald was doubtlessly shooting old European made military ammunition.  Or did the Mossad operative who did shoot President Kennedy used a sniper weapons system that fires the 6.5mm X 52mm round but with a way better lower receiver than your stock Mannlicher-Carcano rifle? 

But, as everyone closely following the facts behind the assassination of JFK, Oswald only had a 50-yard shot. A competent shooter – even a licensed civilian gun owner who hunts and shoots recreationally on weekends – with a well-maintained Colt M-1911A semi automatic pistol could easily have hit JFK in the head from Lee Harvey Oswald’s vantage-point in the window of that now notorious Texas Book Depository Building. Though a few years ago I have managed to hit a half-silhouetted target from 50-yards away from an elevated position using a well-maintained 1950s era Smith & Wesson revolver, does this mean that Lee Harvey Oswald had more than luck on his side to have successfully shot President John F. Kennedy back then? 

According to Oliver Stone in his cinematic opus JFK – President John F. Kennedy was allegedly done to death by the military-industrial-complex while aided and abetted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Secret Service and the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency. Why the Catholic Church was left out by “prosecutor Stone” given that back then President Kennedy was frequently engaged in extra-marital trysts – I don’t know. Possibly it was an honest oversight and after all, we were, as a society, very “Politically Incorrect” during the early 1960s. Yet, a lot more “well-informed speculation” has been surmised about the JFK Assassination since Steve Weston “self-published” his book titled Woodrow Wilson and the Death of John Kennedy through Barnes & Noble and Borders back in 1998.  

But what about the “conspiracy” behind assassination attempt of President Ronald Reagan back in 1981 – was John Hinckley, Jr. just a patsy of the Military-Industrial-Complex? The fact is President John F. Kennedy was a proverbial godsend to the US Military Industrial Complex because during the Kennedy Administration, 31 Lafayette Class ballistic missile submarines were authorized and / or built plus Kennedy’s promise of sending a man to the Moon before the 1960s decade is out benefitted major American defense companies during the Apollo program. By contrast, during the first four years of the Reagan Administration, only 3 new ballistic missile submarines were authorized. Might we believe that the “military-industrial-complex” was behind John Hinckley, Jr.?     

US Government Shutdown Threat By The US Republican Party – Again?

The general public might now neither be surprised nor threatened of a US government shutdown by the GOP majority House of the Representatives, but should everyone care this time?

By: Ringo Bones 

US Republican Party senators ted Cruz and Marco Rubio had since vowed to shut Obamacare down since its ratification in 2010 – and this time they may do it – by fair means or fowl. It may be a mere government budget battle over President Obama’s flagship healthcare program more popularly known as Obamacare that the 20 most hard-core conservative of the US Republican Party will do a repeat of the 1996 US government shutdown unless Obamacare is repealed. With all the drama surrounding the government deadlock over federal spending at Capitol Hill, should we be concerned this time around? 

The last time essential government services were shut down by a legislative deadlock at Capitol Hill back in 1996, any American citizen wanting a passport would have to wait until the government offices opens again. National parks, museums and even the US Postal Service will be closed and the last time it happened, it cost the US government a little over 1 billion dollars to make things running again. But is holding the American people hostage by the US Republican party just to advance their own political ends truly justifies the means? 

Worse still, there’s a looming crisis this coming October where the US government could default on its international credit obligations if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. Federal budget deadlock or not, sometimes I wonder if this US Republican Party “political maneuvering” would alienate their constituents away from them come election time – which is not that far away. Is this just a mere pathological dislike of President Obama by the US Republican Party? Maybe, but does the continued federal budget deadlock spell political suicide for the GOP?