From baby blue to grouchy green.

Today's Tids Issue 4,116
For staying under control:

I may begin today with a lilting poem, An ode to happy families, comfortable at home. A tribute to those who work for all, where sacrifice is their call. Or people doing what they oughtta, while others add basically naughtta. But, as the news comes in, much to my chagrin, I’ll transform from a kindly lamb, to the raging inner Hulk I am.

On Sundays I often read the paper while the great classical masses or oratorios like Hayden’s “Creation” or Bach’s “Saint Mathews Passion” playing in the background, stir my emotions. Most of the time I follow that soothing drama with piano or violin concertos, which seem to keep the spirt of magnificence going. I always sit in the silence following wondering what was going on in the minds of those composers when I feel the music they wrote.

Warmth is relative.

No question, Labron James can do anything he wants in a game especially at crunch time when it counts. But, there are a lot of players I just enjoy watching more.

The worst Pun of the year on a big Pun site: “They tore strips off my dog before kicking him off the logging ship. He was disembarked.” I have a whole list of really bad puns, but I can’t get beyond that one. I expect a punitive reaction from my readers.

There are only 240 more shopping days left til Christmas. See if you can find me a new Book of Puns. I think I am running out.

The Question:

What is the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence? Bonus: What was the first city to reach a population of 1,000,000? Extra Bonus: The Eisenhower Interstate highway system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. Why?

The Headlines:

--Markets Expected To open Higher; Mnuchin Optomist8ic About Improved Trade; Merkel Says Europe Will Push Back If Hit With Tariffs.

--T-Mobile To Buy Sprint For $26 Billion.

--Economists Worried That Tariffs Are Neutralizing Tax Gains.

--Pompeo In Middle East Seeking Unity Against Iran.

--Huawei Developing OS Alternate To Android.

--Refugee Caravan Going Through Asylum Process.

--Vulgar Comedienne At White House Corresponds Dinner Sucks Joviality Out Of The Room; White House Correspondents Distance Themselves From Angry Jokester.

--Avengers Stets World First Weekend Box-office Record With $630,000,000.

Just think, if you spend just two minutes a day putting eye drops in your eyes, that add up to about 12 hours a year. If I take a ten-minute power nap each day, that’s about 60 hours of my year. It’s a wonder we have any time at  all to do all of the things that are important.

Last Friday, somebody asked me who I thought would be the best Democrat candidate for President in 2020. I thought and I thought and I just couldn’t put my finger on any person calling themselves a Democrat who I could see in the oval office. Nobody viable popped into my mind other than the most prominent best-known names who are East and West Coast progressives, like Bernie, Elizabeth “Ole’ One thirty-second” Warren and NY’s Kirsten Gillibrand. Jennifer Lawrence? Then I was reminded of Joe “National Plagiarist Laureate” Biden, who everybody seems to like.  And, of course, a popular Cory Booker. Two others I don’t know much about are Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown. Unfortunately, the way things are going in the big western state, California, Senator Harris might be living in a Foreign country by 2020. Sherrod is another progressive, he with a good base from Ohio, and surprisingly has worked with DT on Nafta. The primary in 2020 year will surely be March Madness, and it’s possible that old party rocks like Biden will just say enough, I’m outta here. The real contest before the candidate could be the wrestling match between coastal elitist neo-socialist liberals and blue collar working class families that define democrats of yore.  

Somehow when listening to magnificent music, the aches and pains in my aging joints seem to disappear.

High school grammar books are parse for the course.

Some mornings I read some of the newspaper on line and some of it from the printed paper. When reading the printed paper, I often find myself glancing up to the top for the time. Is this old dog being taught new tricks?

Have you ever noticed how people can convince themselves of false narratives in order to prop up a decision to give up something they have enjoyed for years, mainly because it became difficult to adjust to change?

Celebrities who complain about leaked sex tapes probably shouldn’t make them in the first place. How hard is that to understand.

In reality, I play the Masses on Sunday morning as an alternative to getting dressed and dragging myself to church.

One of the factors not often considered about the arguments by gun haters, is that the possibility of a removal of the Second amendment might only be the first of many constitutional assaults. There are seem in out vast political community who seem to look at banana republics as models of good government. In addition to furiously advocating dismissal of the second amendment, they cry for impeachment mainly because they don’t like a person. Stability in office is what has made the “People’s” US unique in the world.

I remember violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg commenting while playing the Brahms’s violin Concerto – “I feel I like I’m listening to the voice of God?”

The Boston Celtics- Philadelphia Sixer’s NBA Playoff series should be one of the best of the year. The Sixers are in a can-do-no-wrong stretch of winning, and the Celtics are finding their play-off legs after a tough battle against Milwaukee.

If I’m ever given tickets to a Michelle Wolf comedy show, remind me to give them back.

On the night when Mike Pompei had just been approved for the very important post of Secretary of State, CBS News led its White House segment with negative stories about other cabinet positions or nominees.

I’ll give you a sure thing prediction: If the Dems take Congress, they can expect no help at all form Republicans and lots of vetos from the President.

The Answer:

Damascus Syria was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome was founded in 753 BC.  Bonus: Rome hit One Million People around133BC! Extra Bonus: The one mile straight stretch of Interstate highway for every five miles was required as a safeguard for use as aircraft landing strips in times of war or other emergencies.

Here we all are in another week,

Hope each of you will reach your peak.

And accomplish all that you may seek,

With nary a day that turns out bleak.