So, who's next?

This would be amusing on some other levels, but the report that New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 86, plans to continue working despite being diagnosed with stomach lymphoma -- well, I am not really surprised. What I would like to know is ... WHY? What we need in the Senate, according to somebody, is an 86-year-old sick man who will be on pills, treatments and fairly extensive care, all the while apparently still trying to do the work of Congress. Whatever that was, Evan Bayh wondered. Frank, just retire, OK? The interesting part is that all the softballs that were thrown at the docs surrounding this announcement bordered on ... yeah, they were laughable. AP reported: "Independent doctors agree that Lautenberg's type of lymphoma is usually treatable." This blob of hysteria really tripped my trigger: "I wouldn't be too surprised to soon hear how he's once again outpacing younger aides as they walk through U.S. Capitol building," said state Assembly Speake...

If you're old enough to remember Crosley Field or have an Uncle Riley who does, some of these names will make you smile. The rest: W.G.A.F. That's not the objective. Google "slow, dull baseball players" and come up with your own list. The point is: How champions are made, one Aaron Miles at a time. The 1950s were the years when "big," "red" and "machine" were usually associated with Soviets, tanks and old communists waving to the crowd while standing atop Lenin's tomb. Cincy baseball was a second-division team, seldom in the hunt. Hunt for Red October was a movie. By 1960, the whole thing bottomed out. So begins the story. On Dec. 15, 1960 (or so legend has it) the most unpopular three-way trade in history occurred. The Redlegs sent the awesome shortstop Roy McMillan to the Milwaukee Braves for pitchers Juan Pizarro, a lefty, and Joey Jay, a righthander who was the first Little Leaguer ever in the big leagues. So we had that going for...

This out of Indianapolis AP RV Industry representatives and lawmakers are urging the U.S. to send thousands of trailers left over from Hurricane Katrina to Haiti even though some could be contaminated with formaldehyde. OK, as far as it goes, that's a nice gesture. Dying of some chemical seems the lesser of many evils for Haitians, who never would have had it so good as to get a real live RV made in Elkhart, Indiana. What's amusing is that this ain't about having a place to live. It's about the RV industry worrying that a government notion that auctioning off the 100,000 trailers would further depress their industry. This stuff was junk in the first place and now the industry is worried it will be put on the regular market. Haitians are pissed off because they say it's an example of the U.S. dumping inferior goods on them. As if a pile of rubble is superior housing. I worry that we won't have enough trailers left over when the next hurricane hits. Is anybody eve...

In or out of context, this couch, on a sidewalk in Philadelphia, just seems ... so ... um ... Philly. I love it.

It's always nice to know that somebody is trying to help us turn macro-government into something we can really call "useful" in our daily lives. The AP is noted for this when it tries to explain just exactly "what is" a zillion or a billion or a trillion. It usually comes in the number of football fields that it would cover. Not that you can envision ... say, 100 football fields all in a group. The latest is exactly "what is" 1.9 trillion dollars. AP uses these comparisons, as if miles and dollars somehow connect to the rampant insecurity that guides the average journalist these days. * A 1.9 trillion-mile trip is about the same as 8 million trips to the moon. Since you and I have often been to the moon, consider making 8 million of them and you come up with ... * 1.9 trillion feet would take you to the top of 29,000-foot Mount Everest 65 million times, or to the bottom of the 36,000-foot Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the Pacific, about 53 mill...

I click on the Yahoo main page on Sunday evenings just to see if I've missed the latest rocket attack on Kabul or any of a dozen other news events. Mixed in there this weekend were: Stories on the Haitian earthquake crisis; The president's battle with Congress over .... fill in the blank .......; What celebs are doing this weekend ... .... and the obligatory list of "ten things" about ... yep, you guesster Chester ... relationships. I have no idea why all lists have to contain "ten" of anything but we are stuck on saying we need at least a few more than a bunch or it's not a list. This latest list is directed at she-mates, who are desperately trying to NOT lure men into their lives because of reasons that just escape me totally ... like, um ... you know. Some of this crap is amusing and all of it is actually pretty sensible. Here's the link: xox Good luck, girls.

Art Clokey, the creator of the greenish clay figure Gumby, has died at age 88. I don't have much discernible memory of Gumby and his claymation pal Pokey, but I do remember the early days of the art form on television. Clokey and his wife Ruth were innovators, according to the obituary. Life stretches across a framework of time and space, depth, dimension, sound, all part of our imagination. Pleasures of childhood, lost to time. Recaptured only by news of the death of one of the people who gave us reason to grow up. Art Clokey is just a guy you never heard of. Cartoon characters, hand puppets and Howdy Doody on a series of strings ... all seemed so exciting to us in 1954. Now it all seems so silly. I think that if I had to choose a time to be a child, I'd pick 1954 over 2010. Ain't but one Gumby.