Where there’s smoke there's Congress.

 

Today's Tids Issue 5,251 

Where there's smoke there's congress:

 

 

It feels like summer’s end,  

With fall just around the bend, 

With vivid hues of orange, red 

That says a lot about the dead. 

 

Paying off student loans is just an awful idea. How will we ever create responsible among our citizenry when commitments don’t matter anymore.  

 

It’s another primary Tuesday. One of the big one will be in NY’s Hudson Rover Valley where Dem Pat Ryan meets Repub Marc Molinaro to fill the seat of Dem Antonio Delagado who moved over to LT Gov. The national political implication is that it could reflect on the mood of the country going into the big congressional showdown in November. It’s close. 

 

For all of those people accepting bail outs on things like college loans, Today is “National Sponge Cake Day”. 

 

Whenever an excellent political candidate rises to the top, the reaction is not a national sigh of gratitude but a relentless attack to accentuate flaws and destroy something that could have been good.  

 

The Question: 

When did Smoky the Bear first become the symbol of the National Forest Service?  

 

The Headlines: 

--Nasdaq Rebounds After Bad Day; Dow Comes Off Early Dive; AMC And BBBY Continue Along In Collapse Mode; Hard To Decipher China Economy That Seems To Be Deteriorating. 

--Former Twitter Security Chief Files Whistle Blower Complaints. Peter Zatco Tells SEC Of Deception In Handling Fake Accounts And FTC Settlement Deceptions.  

--US Embassy In Ukraine Urges Americans To Flee Immediately. 

--Two Men In Mich Gov Kidnapping Convicted. 

 

The big local “Secret Garden Tour” has been called off due the drought. I’ve sen an awful lot of great looking flowers all over town so you might think the owners of these gardens would be a step ahead of the moisture game. I guess my standards are lower. 

 

The Markets won’t know whether they are up or down this week until Friday. Yes, it is one of those. 

 

I see where Apple bought Rumba, the robot vacuum system, which I might add works very well. I guess that Apple doesn’t want Amazon to be alone in collecting personal data as they can with Alexa. Beware. Yor vacuum cleaner is watching you now. Be careful about what you throw on the floor. 

 

One of the more annoying little things about getting older is losing doctors and dentists that you really like.  

 

Today is also “National Ride the Wind Day”. Let yourself go. You can't imagine what you will find. 

 

Last night while channel shopping I came across the movie Frozen. It was a good couple of hours. It was refreshing not to be mired in the monotony and drear of everyday TV. It was about true love. What could be wrong with that. 

 

While walking the beach this morning and came across an orderly pile of strewn steamer and red lobster shells, I smiled, because somebody last night was enjoying a feast. Unless it was a group of polite seagulls. It looked like a piece of art.  

 

Merriam Webster: “Brainwashing is a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas.” I think there is a lot of that going on these days, and too many people are developing their new beliefs because of the repletion. 

 

The Answer: 

Forest fires has been a menace here for centuries. In 1950 a New Mexico Forest Tower Ranger saw smoke In the Capitan Mountains which quickly became a raging, windswept fire. Firefighters from several sates arrived, and several were severely threatened by fast closing deadly situations. As the crew battled to contain the blaze, they received a report of a lone bear cub seen wandering near the fire line. While firefighters managed to survive an entrapment, nearby, the little cub had not fared as well. He took refuge in a tree that became completely charred, escaping with his life but also badly burned paws and hind legs. The crew removed the cub from the tree. News about the little bear spread swiftly throughout New Mexico. Soon, the United Press and Associated Press broadcast his story nationwide, and many people wrote and called, asking about the cub’s recovery. The state game warden wrote to the chief of the Forest Service, offering to present the cub to the agency as long as the cub would be dedicated to a conservation and wildfire prevention publicity program. The cub was soon on his way to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., becoming the living symbol of Smokey Bear. A successful pop tune gave him I his most popular name Smokey the Bear, but today his real name is still Smoky Bear. He was well cared for, given more honey than the average bear could eat. He died in the Zoo in 1976. 

 

Thanks, for bearing with me today. I’ll be early tomorrow!