Ball point pen on the morning newsprint Yokio Hatoyama becomes the presumptive prime minister of Japan after leading the opposition Democratic Party to a landslide victory over the Liberal Democratic Party. Hatoyama campaigned on a platform to end American-dominated globalization, to reorient Japan towards Asia and to reconsider American military presence in Japan....stay tuned. ...
Read MoreBall point pen on the morning newsprint Monday was Independence Day in the Ukraine, celebrating their declaration of independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union. But one year after the war in Georgia, Russia is now rattling is sabers towards Ukraine. Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov claims the Ukraine port city of Sevastopol belongs to Russia and President Dmitri Medvedev denounced Ukrain for anti-Russian policies last month... Stay tuned ...
Read MoreBall point pen on the morning newsprint Maybe it was the sailor in Ted that enabled him towards the end to take his bearing and change his course, learn to navigate a life filled with tragedy and become a better husband, father, uncle and senator. He was 77. Always in the news, it seems I've doodled the Kennedy's many times. ...
Read MoreBall point pen on the morning newsprint President Obama's budget director Peter Orszag was the bearer of bad news yesterday when he announced via his agency's website that the projected deficits are even higher than previously forecast. Citing the dire fiscal situation that they inherited, The ten year tab climbed by another two trillion dollars. I don't know about you, but these numbers seem abstract to me. A trillion dollars is a million million. If you laid one dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from earth to the moon and back again 200 times. One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun. It would take a military jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, 14 years before it reeled out one trillion dollar bills. The deficits are now projected to total 9.05 trillion dollars over the next ten years ...
Read MoreBall point pen on the morning newsprint A little over a year ago I blogged about Julia Child being an international spy. Alas, it had no impact on sales of her book. But Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Nora Ephron have managed, in spite of people trying to eat healthier, to put “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child, butter and all, on top of the New York Times Best-Sellers List 48 years after it was first published. Julia & Julia opened in theaters on August 7th. ...
Read MoreBall point pen on the morning newsprint Tom Ridge asserts in a new book, due out in September, that in his position as Secretary of Homeland Security, he felt pressure from John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld to raise the national security threat level one week prior to the '04 presidential election, even though no intelligence suggested a new attack and there was no support for that position within his department. Ridge suspected that some within the Bush administration were attempting to politicize the threat level, which he never did raise. He resigned weeks after the election. ...
Read MoreBall point pen on the morning newsprint The hard nose, shoe leather, Washington reporter turned right wing political pundit, Robert Novak, has passed away. Love him, or hate him, his reporting skills always made the Evans and Novak column a good read. I always liked the format of the CNN show Crossfire. He had strong beliefs and was willing to stand toe to toe with his opposition in a spirited debate, It stands in contrast to what's become of todays cable news channels where each channel has chosen sides and presents a monolithic point of view. He was 78. ...
Read MoreBall point pen on the morning newsprint Readers Digest was founded in 1922 and grew into the nations most popular general interest magazine, but Mary Berner, the CEO of the family orientated publishing company, has found a tough row to hoe. Advertising dollars are trending away from print as traditional media is loosing market share. Yesterday the publisher announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. For years, the highlight of going to the dentist or doctors office was picking up the Digest in the waiting room to see the C.F. Payne illustrations on the back covers. ...
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