# 297, November 18, 2003
COLUMBUS: After flying on three trips in three weeks, it feels good to be settled on the ground. I’ve got to compliment the pilots. Three different airlines, several flights with every one of them on time, and me and my bags always arrived on the same plane. A couple of times a good tail wind even got us in early.
Here in Ohio, nothing matters this week but Football. School funding? It’ll wait. Workmen’s Compensation? Wrap a band-aid around it for a few days. Slot machines at race tracks? Hold on to your quarters till Saturday night.
No, this is “Beat Michigan Week”. The Ohio State Buckeyes are preparing to take on the Wolverines at Ann Arbor. Of course, down in Baton Rouge everyone’s pulling for the LSU Tigers. I figure in Los Angeles, folks must be plum nutty over the USC Trojans. They all appear to be playing toward the same goal: to take on Oklahoma for the championship.
The way those Sooner are rolling over everyone, if Ohio State, USC and LSU all win, don’t be surprised if they decide to draw straws. Short straw has to play Oklahoma. Why, they may all vote to let TCU take ’em on.
Last week I spent considerable time in Houston during layovers, at the George H. W. Bush International Airport. Wandering around between flights I ran across a life size bronze statue of our former President. The sculptor had caught him in the wind, leaning into it. I could tell is was a strong wind because he’s holding his suit coat over his shoulder and it’s blowing straight out behind him. Since he had his coat off, it had to be a hot wind, so I’m guessing he was in west Texas in mid-summer. If not west Texas, probably in Washington facing Congress.
Mrs. Bush was nowhere to be seen. Guess the wind blew her away.
There’s been a lot of wind in the news lately. Trees blown over, electric poles snapped, major damage across the country. In Washington, the Senate talked straight through two days and nights with the same effect on the country. It was a Republican filibuster, trying to get their conservative judges approved by the Democrats.
After that failed to sway even one Democrat, they passed an Energy bill. Near as I can figure, it won’t get us many more oil wells, but the ones we do get will cost us more. Our best bet for a guaranteed supply of energy is to surround the Capitol with windmills, and convince Congress to keep on talking.
I ain’t saying there’s any connection to this wind, but Rush is back. Even the Democrats missed him.
Historic quotes from Will Rogers:
“(The Senate) filibustered all last night. We pay for wisdom and we get wind.” DT #574, May 29, 1928
“As I am writing this, (the Senate is) having what is called a filibuster. The name is just as silly as the thing itself. It means that a man can get up and talk for 15 or 20 hours at a time, then be relieved by another, just to keep some bill from coming to a vote, no matter about the merit of this particular bill, whether it’s good or bad.
There is no other body of lawmakers in the world that has a thing like it. Why, if a distinguished foreigner was to be taken around to see our institutions and was taken into the Senate and not told what institution it was, and heard a man ramble on, talking that had been going for 10 to 12 hours, he would probably say, “You have lovely quarters here for your insane, but have you no warden to look after their health, to see that they don’t talk themselves to death?”
To imagine how bad this thing is, did you ever attend a dinner and hear a Senator speak for 50 minutes or an hour? If you have, you remember what that did to you! Well, just imagine the same thing only 12 times worse.” WA #12, March 4, 1923