THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER

We go back on Roosevelt Time (my Corsicana grandfather’s term for Daylight Savings Time) on Sunday, an artifact of World War II that’s never been rescinded, proving that what the bureaucracy giveth it hardly ever taketh away.

And, lo and behold, DST might even be bad for your health, as it is statistically related to increased heart attacks, male suicides and traffic accidents. Not that the feds would care. (Health care reform, for instance, is for the bureaucracy and the lobbyists, not the patients). The spring forward doesn’t bother me. It’s the fall back that’s a killer.

Do us all a favor, Joey. Leave Jerusalem to the adults. Go back to the circus where you belong. Or we’ll find a terrorist group that wants to take over east D.C. that you can set up talks with, while admonishing the D.C. government not to allow any development there without consideration of the terrorists. Can’t American pols do anything but pander? You could be helping your running mate try to bring down our high unemployment. You have problems at home, you know?

Let’s see, I plan to make stuffed salmon tonight for me, Mrs. Charm and her mother, who is descending from Fort Worth this afternoon to stay with Mr. Boy for the weekend. This being Thursday, he gets his favorite macaroni and cheese. For grandma I still have to change the bedsheets and tidy up the guest room. Mrs. C. and I are off tomorrow afternoon to Comfort in the Hills.

I’ve done several Google searches but failed to find the origin of Comfort, Texas’ name. Onetime Angora (goat) Capital of The World? Check. Home of Jimmy Doolittle’s co-pilot in the 1942 Tokyo Raid? Check. Has obligatory Hollywood actor resident? Check. Founded in 1852 as a cooperative by German Freethinkers who opposed formal government and religion? Check, check, check. But only one snide remark that the name must have referred to fancy houses and whiskey. Well, maybe. It was a stage stop.

It looks like the weather will be nice. Highs in the 70s, lows in the 40s.

The key to solving these alleged runaway Toyotas with their supposedly stuck accelerator pedals, is to shift the transmission into neutral. Let the engine race, if it will, while the car slows down until you can pull over.

Instead, this latest fellow reportedly told the 911 dispatcher he was afraid to do that ’cause the car “might flip.” Huh? How could it? Nothing like a little (apparently) panic to ensure your fifteen minutes of fame. And keep the pols and GM happy.

Scott will like this one. PC rules the public school day in most ways, except here recently when a rainy morning canceled recess for Mr. B.’s class. Instead, they played games at their tables and one friend taught him and another kid how to play poker.

Texas Holdem, to be exact. He said the teacher thought it was amusing. The three boys used plastic cubes as chips, which they designated as dollars. Mr. B. lost most of his. Said he had only one good hand: an ace-high straight.

Reminds me of an old joke:

“‘Daddy, daddy, why can’t I play outside like other kids?’

‘Shut up and deal.’”

Photo by Snoopy-the-Goon’s son. Taken in the Angels (Malachim) Forest.

Haven’t a thing against Austinite actress Sandra Bullock’s winning an Oscar  for playing a rich, religious, patriotic Southern white lady who befriends and helps a poor, homeless black kid become an NFL lineman.

How much more worth seeing the movie would be, however, if her character was a rich, religious, patriotic Southern (yes!) black lady who befriended and helped a poor, homeless white kid become a point guard in the NBA. That one I’d go see. This other, not likely, thanks.

Delighted to see a new confirmation of the postulated dinosaur-killing effect of the meteor (or comet) that splashed into Chicxulub on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula millions of years ago. University of Texas geophysicists, who have helped map the ocean floors, did quite a bit of work on the remains of the crater—all hidden today by water and rock but still discernible with radar.

It’s a putdown of the InterTubes from 1995 and it’s from Newsweak. Who else?

Over Mt. Jelm and the Wyoming Infrared Observatory.