I Like Ike 

"Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security . . . you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are Texas millionaires. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

          Dwight D. Eisenhower, during his campaign for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 1952.

         Reading this passage in Michael Korda's biography "IKE: An American Hero," provided a marvelous reminder that the GOPs division between moderates and a hardline right, is nothing new. The hardline wing of the GOP, headed then by Sen. Robert A. Taft of Ohio, not only wanted to undo Social Security and other programs of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, just as the GOP today wants to undo President Obama's Affordable Care Act, they also opposed the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the billions spent in the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe from the ashes of World War II.

Crimea: Thought for the day

Putin:
 Rhymes with Stalin
'Nuf said

Quote for today

I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision.

           Carl Sandburg

Quote for today

A comforting bit of wisdom from Elbert Hubbard, the American writer and philosopher who was born on this date in 1856:

“A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to

 forget is the true token of greatness."

      (Hubbard and his wife were among the passengers who perished May 7, 1915 when the Germans sank the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland.) 

Of golf balls and half dollars

Listening this morning to National Weather Service reports of the "derecho" storms headed for the place in Maryland where I live, the voice called out the probable size of the hail stones that would accompany the storm. These ranged from "golf ball" to "half dollar" to "one inch in diameter" to "the size of a quarter." -- all in the space of about 15 minutes.

So who's out there measuring this stuff? One imagines some pathetic, rain-soaked observer standing in the midst of it all like those characters on the weather channel, calling in to Sam the NWS announcer: "Sam. They're coming down the size of golf balls -- no wait a minute, more like half dollars." Followed minutes later by "Sam, cancel golf balls and half-dollars, now they're one inch in diameter. No, hold it, more like the size of a quarter."

How exact is this science? Is the observer actually measuring this stuff or just guessing? What's the difference between the size of a golf ball and the size of a half-dollar. As a matter of fact, who has seen a half-dollar lately? I haven't seen one in years. But, come to think of it, does the half-dollar hailstone come flat like a coin rather than round like a golf ball. Flat hail. That would be a news story.

I sympathize with the observer. Back in my day as a young newspaperman, we would assign sizes to hail stones. If people were seeing hail stones the size of baseballs or softballs we might send out a photographer. Anything smaller would probably melt before a photographer or reporter could get to the scene. There were no photo phones or other of the marvelous technologies that exist today. It was very long ago, back when half-dollar coins were still in wide circulation.

Not getting it

Here's the latest sign of old age setting in: The latest New Yorker arrived in the mail Monday.  I didn't "get" two of the cartoons in the magazine

That's not funny

Happy Ending

Bob Timberg, an old colleague, inquires how the Amtrak experience ended yesterday.

Answer: Quite nicely, thank you. New locomotive attached in Philadelphia, after which Train # 86 hurtled to New York at breakneck speed, arriving only 90 minutes late. Time enough to get to Keen's where Bruce Michel, my friend since childhood, bought me lunch. 

Cheers, all.

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