Going for the bronze

Greetings from steamy Richmond, Virginia, where the high temperature today will reach 101 degrees. No escape from the heat and humidity throughout the Southeast, so it would seem.

On my trip here I took special note of what seemed to be a higher than usual percentage of folks who had submitted themselves to artificial tanning. How do I know this? They're a different shade of "tan" than the farmer's tan adorning my forearms and neck these days (from golf, not farming), a little more orange. Why do people, and not just women, do this to themselves? I suppose my own level of vanity is manageable enough that this would nevr occur to me.

Speaking to tanning, let me now turn squarely to someone who was humorously referred to as "the world's saddest tangerine," House Speaker John Boehner. This man apparently circled August 2 as the target date for his moment in the sun, so to speak, and, instead, we have been subjected to the worst display of political brinksmanship that I can recall in my lifetime. Politics and governing are two different things, of course, but both spaces are occupied by most of the same people. The flaws in the process are not solely Boehner's fault, but he appears to be a big part of the problem.

And for those who don't think they need to care, I heard yesterday that a couple of financial analysts say that if the U.S. government defaults on its loans, there will be worldwide financial chaos not seen since the Great Depression. And even if this gets resolved at the last minute, it could downgrade the US' debt rating, which alone could cause the stock market to fall by as much as 35 percent.

Don't know about you, but my 401k doesn't need another hit.

Enough gloom and doom.

In a classic case of my own inability to plan and anticipate, i flew out of and will fly back into the Cincinnati airport on this trip (ironically, this facility is in Kentucky). And will drive right back up the same road tomorrow with my son to take in a game between my fast-fading Cincinnnati Reds and the defending World Series champ San Francisco Giants (who are no long a team I hate, now that Barry Bonds has faded out of the picture). At least the road construction between Lexington and Cincinnati is largely completed.

Hope your weekend is as good as the one I'm planning.









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