Good Morning Kossacks and Welcome to Morning Open Thread
We're here every morning between 6:30 and 7:00. Feel free to volunteer to take a day - permanent or just once in awhile. With the autopublish feature you can set it and forget it. Quite often the diarist de jour shows up much later, that's the beauty of Open Thread...it carries on without you! Just let us know in the comments.
On October 1st, on the front page of The Florida Times Union, I spotted what may be the most frightening and horrifying thing I've seen in a long time -- Jacksonville to host GOP debate.
You can read the whole nasty, gag-worthy story here, that is if you are brave enough. Seems the newly named head of the Republican Party in Florida, Lenny Curry, lives right here in my town. I'm trying my best to reign in my joy while typing this; I'm sure it shows.
More scary stuff below...
Aaahhh, October - a month devoted to horrors and frights. What's not to love?
On the top ten list of scary things you'll almost always find the clown.
One of the more recognizable is Pennywise, the clown from Stephen King's novel and the subsequent movie, "It".
Sadly, there have been real life occurrences that contribute to the bad rep for clowns. John Wayne Gacy who entertained at children's parties as "Pogo The Clown" also tortured, raped and murdered 33 young men between 1972 and 1978 and buried most of them in the crawlspace beneath his house. He was convicted and executed by lethal injection in 1994.
In Palm Beach, Florida in 1990: Clown Shoots Woman At Door - Attacker Leaves Bouquet, Balloons.
Let's not forget the old Clown Statue Urban Legand. You remember, it's the one where the babysitter is asked to stay in one particular room to watch television once she has the children in bed. She gets freaked out by the clown statue in the corner. Finally she calls the children's father about using a different room and is told to grab the kids and go to the neighbor's house while he calls the police and heads home. Once the babysitter and children are at the neighbor's home, the father arrives to tell the babysitter that he doesn't own a clown statue and in recent weeks the children had been complaining of a clown watching them in their bedrooms at night.
No doubt, clowns are creepy. Who can ever forget this clip from Poltergeist:
Hope you all have a shivery good day and no clowning around, you hear?