NOBELity

There is a song from Easter Parade, sung by Judy Garland, that goes something like this: "Oh, how I wish again that I was in Michigan - down on the farm." Last weekend, to escape the Beltway roast, POTUS ventured out to Michigan to be among those farmers who put him over the top. During the "rally" the throng began to chant - no, not "Four more years" - they were calling "NOBEL" as if to bestow a Peace Prize on his crown prematurely.
(He aint no Jimmy Carter - that I can tell you!) Of course, Alfred Nobel's original claim to fame was as the inventor of dynamite.
tjs

The Summit

POTUS is scheduled to meet with Kim Jung in the next weeks and there will be many serious issues on the agenda - none more than choosing the site.
Kim has never flown out of his country. And though he has Intercontinental Ballistics missiles at his beck and call, his aging Soviet airplanes cannot fly more than a few thousand miles without refueling. Don't expect him to fly commercial and to borrow a plane would be undignified. He might be able to reach Singapore but the dark horse suggestion is Mongolia!! Mongolians think of themselves as the "Switzerland of Asia". POTUS is yet to be heard from. Stay tuned.
tjs

Did You Know?

Today, April 18th, celebrates several historical occasions:
-On the eighteenth of April in seventy-five, hardly a man (or woman) is now alive - penned Longfellow of Paul Revere's ride.
-The great San Francisco earthquake occurred on this date in 1906 - our terminal manager in Philadelphia was an infant then and said he was carried out in his mother's arms. The city burned for three days.
-Today is Superman's 80th birthday. He may have trouble finding a telephone booth today wherein to change.
-The IRS gave until today to file but Trump still asked for a six month extension.
tjs

Endangered Species

The Zoological Society of London has put out a list of reptiles in trouble for extinction - rated as follows:
1 - Madagascar big-headed turtle.
2 - Central American river turtle.
3 - Madagascar blind snake.
4 - Chinese alligator.
5 - Chinese crocodile lizard.
But the one raising eyebrows is number 30 the Australian green haired turtle going back 40 million years. It is considered weird as it can breathe thru its genitals and stay under water for three days extracting oxygen from water. WOW!
Methinks such a clever reptile should move up the extinction ladder. NYTimes made it page A6 below the fold.
tjs

Special Highway

Dateline Moscow - It's known as the "Special Highway" - a wide, flat road, with a lane down the middle, that links the Kremlin with President Putin's residence in the pine woods, 14 miles outside of Moscow. It is used mostly by Russia's wealthy and privileged to bypass traffic. They are in luxury cars with special license plates. This is the kind of perk that our EPA administrator would salivate for. No need to work the siren or blinkers.
tjs

Philadelphia Voices

A composer who writes symphonies about cities around the world and brings some of their most characteristics sounds into the concert hall. His Detroit piece featured the sound of a Henry Ford engine. For Philadelphia he collected a library of 8000 sounds that were submitted which featured the sizzling sound of a cheese steak on the grill at Pat's King of Steaks. They cost $11. cash only. He is taking his composition to New York so that when they ask that age old question "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer is you have to pass thru Pat's King of Steaks - with the Cheese Whiz - with or without onions.
tjs

Okie, but not Okay!

The former attorney general of Oklahoma had a reputation for suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the department he now oversees. It is akin to the fox watching the hen house. In his short tenure to date he is dismantling much of Obama's regulatory actions. But his other activities have brought him under scrutiny as follows:
-Obtaining cheap housing from the wife of a lobbyist in the D.C. area.
-Demanding to fly first class as a security matter.
-Obtaining a sound proof chamber for telephone privacy.
-Requesting a bullet proof SUV for protection.
-Requiring a twenty person security detail.
-And turning on sirens and blinkers when running late for a dinner meeting.
Even his boss never did THAT when driving to 21 Club for those $26. hamburgers. Oklahoma was never like this!
tjs