I'll be undergoing surgery tomorrow for a torn quadriceps, so am posting a shortened version today. For now: why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....  ...

                I MUST CONFESS THAT when I read of Sarah Palin's appearance at the Alfalfa Club ....                                   made me think this guy was going to be s...

                      stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....     ART NOTES - to mark the 2009 Win...

        ... as we celebrate the special day that is January 20th: well, there is one discordant note. With our new president's promise to his daughters to obtain a puppy (and still unfulfilled), the voice of Keith Affleck Olbermann was heard to say: What consideration was given t...

              GLAD THAT'S SETTLED! - apparently over the years, Clint Eastwood has often been asked if he is the son of Stan Laurel ...                             .... so he decided to set the r...

          One of the easiest predictions to make in 2009 is that President Obama - and the Democratic majorities in Congress - will never be able to do anything right. The Villagers will never give them a pass the way that they did for the GOP and one is tempted to ask, "Hav...

Fifty years after they met, the Chad Mitchell Trio re-worked the lyrics to their 1960's hit "The John Birch Society" into .. ... The George Bush Society (fair-use extract below) earlier this year. And at this link you can hear them sing it. We're meeting at the White House At 8 o'clock tonight You j...

                Talk about living on borrowed time, Rod Blagojevic style ........ in 1979, Hua Guofeng - who succeeded Mao Zedong as Communist Party chairman - visited the Shah of Iran in Teheran. Hua Guofeng didn't last long in his job (being forced out a yea...

                    LEAVING his UNDISCLOSED LOCATION is Willie the Cat now that the election is over. Being the White House kitty for this Administration is .... well, "hard work".                    ...

With all of the talk of Lincoln's "Team of Rivals" and conflicts with the finances of former president Clinton .... some of the new cabinet members pose other problems ..... BROTHER-SISTER? - former senator (and incoming HHS Secretary) Tom Daschle and talk show host Sally Jesse Raphael.    ...