Monday, October 31, 2016

Phantom Clowns and Political Cartoons: The Final Ones, Hopefully

Some political cartoons and memes are still being created. Hopefully, this mixing of creepy clowns and politics is over soon after Halloween and the Election.






















++++

Clown memes and aligned visual jokes have about run their course in 2016.

Jokers to the left and clowns to the right.

















Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Dreamworld Dead: 4






Four people have died after a raft flipped off a river rapids ride at Dreamworld theme park in Australia.
The Thunder River Rapids ride (built in 1986) suffered a "malfunction," which caused two people to be thrown from the six-person raft and two people to be trapped in its conveyor belt on Tuesday, October 25, 2016, at 2:17 pm, local time.
Two men and two women between the ages of 32 and 40 died on the family ride, which is open to children as young as two, on the Gold Coast in Queensland. 
Those killed include Canberra woman Kate Goodchild (née Dorsett), 32, her brother Luke Dorsett, partner Roozi Araghi and a 42-year-old woman. 



Witnesses said the accident was horrific and happened as the ride was coming to an end.
"My sister and niece were in the ride, they were so traumatised, there is a woman hanging by her foot, crushed from the ride," one witness told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Local media reports the victims were possibly from the same family and may have been visiting from Canberra. 


Other incidents have occurred at Dreamworld, including:

June 2009: Helicopter crashes into Dreamworld carpark, injuring the pilot and four Taiwanese passengers
2011: Two separate reports of Bengal tiger Kato biting handlers at the Tiger Island attraction - once in May and once in September
November 2013: More than 7000 people evacuated from Dreamworld in under an hour after a bushfire came close to the facility 
April 2016: A passenger on the Rocky Hollow Log Ride nearly drowned after being thrown from the attraction and suffering lacerations to his head

A recent new HBO tv series, based on an earlier Michael Crichton movie about a futuristic theme park, is Westworld. The series deals with "malfunctions" occurring within the previously smoothly running park.




Stock image of the ride:

Dreamworld is a theme park situated on the Gold Coast in Queensland. It is Australia's largest theme park with over 40 rides and attractions, including five roller coasters.

(An early logo for Dreamworld, never used.)

The original theme park was built from 1974-1976 with the employment of several designers who designed Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
The park is made up of several themed lands: Ocean Parade, DreamWorks Experience, Wiggles World, Gold Rush Country, Rocky Hollow, Tiger Island and the Dreamworld Corroboree. These lands have a collection of rides, animal exhibits, shows, food outlets and merchandise shops.
Dreamworld is noted for being the location of the Australian Big Brother house since the program began in Australia in 2001. 
On several occasions during the year, Dreamworld remains open after dark. This event, known as Screamworld, includes all of the thrill rides and a selection of children's rides.
===
Westworld is a 1973 science fiction Western thriller film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton about amusement park androids that malfunction and begin killing visitors. It stars Yul Brynner as an android in a futuristic Western-themed amusement park, and Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as guests of the park.

Westworld was the first theatrical feature directed by Michael Crichton. It was also the first feature film to use digital image processing, to pixellate photography to simulate an android point of view. The film was nominated for Hugo, Nebula and Saturn awards.

Westworld was followed by a sequel film, Futureworld (1976), and a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld (1980). A new television series from HBO, based on the original film, debuted on October 2, 2016. Source: Wikipedia.

Scottsdale, Arizona, WestWorld, Present

Neverland (credit: Johnny Walsh)


Disneyland, It's A Small World



Nada, Japan, Dreamland, 1961-2006












Monday, October 24, 2016

Palm Springs Bus Crash ~ 13/31/33

On October 23, 2016, a 1996 MCI bus, operated by USA Holiday, was returning to Los Angeles from the Red Earth Casino near Salton Sea, California, when it slammed into the rear of a tractor-trailer, near Palm Springs, killing 13 people and injuring 31 others.

As can be seen from photographs at the scene, this happened 2 miles from the exit to 29 Palms (2 + 29 = 31), at the junction of Rt. 62 (62 ÷ 2 = 31).

The bus driver was among those killed and the truck driver was injured.

"The speed of the bus was so significant that when it hit the back of the big rig... the trailer itself entered about 15 feet into the bus," California Highway Patrol division Chief Jim Abele said.

Teodulo Elias Vides, 59, of Los Angeles, was driving the 1996 MCI motor coach. Vides was also the owner of the company, Alhambra-based USA Holiday, that operated the bus, according to the Los Angeles Times. He had previously been sued at least twice for negligence, including over a crash that left three people dead, the newspaper reported.

In addition to Vides, the victims of Sunday's crash were identified as:
Isabel Jimenez Hernandez, 66, of Los Angeles
Rosa Ruiz, 53, of Los Angeles
Gustavo Green, 62, Los Angeles
Zoila Aguilera, 72, of Los Angeles
Milagros Gonzales, 72, of Los Angeles
Concepcion Corvera, 57, of Palmdale
Aracely Tije, 63, of Los Angeles
Dora Galvez de Rodriguez, 69, of Los Angeles
Elvia Sanchez, 52, of Los Angeles
Ana Gomes de Magallon, 71, of Los Angeles
Yolanda Mendoza, 69, of Los Angeles
Tony Mai, 50, of Los Angeles

The total number of people on the bus, including the driver, thus was 44.

The crash occurred at approximately 5:15 a.m. on the westbound side of Interstate 10, west of Indian Avenue. The report of the accident came in at 5:17 a.m. local time, officials said. The cause was not immediately known.









Twilight Language reader Tom Mellett shares the following:

In the first photo with the mountains in the background, it is an eerie reminder of the Trinidad CO crash last June 27.
What first struck me was the number combo: 13 killed, 31 injured, because they match exactly the initial reports from the Charles Whitman UT-Tower rampage in Austin in 1966. (Now stands at 14-33.)
See, NY Daily News story of Aug. 2, 1966:
AUSTIN, Tex., Aug. 1 - A kill-crazy ex-marine slaughtered his wife and mother today, then hauled an arsenal of guns to a perch high on the University of Texas tower and launched an orgy of sniping in which 13 died and 31 were wounded.
The tour bus rear-ended a big rig trailer that had slowed down to 5 mph. All the deaths and injuries were on the bus, mainly at the front. It was a tour bus returning to LA from a casino outing. It happened on IH 10. Something about unlucky 13 and 10 are numbers with gambling significance. Time of crash was 5:15 AM. (Said to be reported at 5:17.)
The bus was returning from the Red Earth Casino near the Salton Sea ~ 50 miles SSE from the accident site.
Coordinates of accident site: 33.905343, -116.558680
Red Earth Casino: 33.352368, -116.019579
(Note that both latitudes fall within the 33 degree band.)
The Salton Sea is like America's Dead Sea and is also where the San Andreas fault line ends on the Eastern shore. A month ago, there were many small earthquakes 2-4 magnitude in the Salton Sea, just 15 mile East of the casino which sits near the Western shore. Right across from the casino is Bombay Beach on the Eastern shore which was the epicenter of many of these little rumbling quakes.
See the entire SA fault on the map here, from SF to Salton Sea, where the Southern tip is just 3 miles NNW from Bombay Beach.
Southern tip of SA Fault: 33.399966, -115.776669






Saturday, October 22, 2016

Phantom Clowns and Bigfoot

What's the connection between "Phantom Clowns" and "Bigfoot"? The visual comics and cartoonists have not been afraid to venture into this realm, long before the current flap.

McDonald Corp., 2006.








Daniel Charles Piraro, 2010





Kerry Callen, 2014.




Chris Holm, 2016.





The origins of the overlap...


Louisiana, Missouri, 1972 (Momo)


Brookline, Massachusetts, and the elsewhere, 1981 (Phantom Clowns)



Greenville, SC, 2016 (Phantom Clowns)













Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Political Creepy Clowns Cartoons Connections Continue

The linkages between political cartoons of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the Phantom Clowns/Stalking Clowns/Creepy Clowns epidemic of 2016 continues.