Monday Musing

There are many clowns in the world. Unfortunately, most do not make us laugh. We could use a good one right now. I hope this does the trick:

Some people refer to Putin as a genius. I don’t see it. He may be intelligent in a devious way, but I believe that’s as far as it goes. He has made himself a pariah to all the world except China, and he’s managed to get a lot of his citizens killed — and to what end — annexing territory he doesn’t need? I never believed Hitler was a genius, either, charismatic in his evil way, but nothing more. Geniuses are creators: Einstein, Cole Porter, Dostoevsky, etc., not destroyers.

Interesting facts from an article at newsmax.com: Smirnoff vodka is made in the USA, and Stolichnaya in Latvia. Discarding them doesn’t hurt Putin.

Headline from foxnews.com: “MOLOTOV ON THE MENU: Ukrainian brewery switches from beer to bombs to fight Russian invasion.”

Kudos to Shell for pulling out of its deal with Russia, and to Green Day for cancelling its Moscow concert.

RIP singer Joni James, 91. Born Giavanna Carmello Babbo in Chicago, she was working as a dancer by age twelve and did some modeling before turning to singing. Her version of Why Don’t You Believe Me? spent three weeks at #1 in December 1952, starting a run of eight Top 20 singles into 1953. Her signature song was used in Porky’s (1981). Dubbed “the Queen of Hearts,” her second-biggest hit, How Important Can It Be?, backed by the Ray Charles Singers, hit #2. It was used in L.A. Confidential (1997). She made multiple appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, and also graced other popular prime time variety shows and American Bandstand, and performed at Academy Awards in 1960. Well done, madam. Here she is performing the Hank Williams’ classic, You’re Cheatin’ Heart, which hit #2 for her in 1959.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXhXUAN3nHI

Nice oddity from pro golf: Sepp Straka is the first Austrian to win a PGA tour event. He earned a cool $1.44 million. Curious, I googled to find out how many golf courses are in his country — 160. I’d expected it to be about ten.

No luck selling stuff curbside on this glorious last day of February.

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