Rick Horowitz

Isn't That Minneapolis Down There?

            SOMEWHERE OVER PENNSYLVANIA -- “I just don’t buy it.”

            The beverage cart is rolling up the aisle -- coffee, tea and disbelief. The flight attendants on this evening’s flight are talking about what everybody’s been talking about: the suddenly famous (and suddenly former) Northwest Airlines pilots who made the big boo-boo.

            Missing your runway by 100-plus miles will get you talked about, no question about it. Flying on past the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport when Minneapolis-St. Paul is, technically speaking, your “destination” is definitely a conversation starter.

            Some of the conversation -- no surprise here -- is a bit waggish, like the longtime friend and lifelong Washingtonian who was impressed most of all by reports that the wayward craft had so completely missed its mark that it actually flew out of Minnesota airspace and into Wisconsin.

            It was the first evidence he’d ever come across, he said, that Minnesota and Wisconsin were, in fact, separate places.

            Ba-da-boom.

            Meanwhile, back at 30,000 feet...

Obama to Seniors: Here's Some Money. Now Go Away.

             Gordon Goldenage was gallivanting in the garden when Myron the Mailman showed up with the money.

            “Hey, Gordo!” cried Myron, who’d known him forever. “I’ve got some  government checks here for you and the little lady.” (That would be Gladys.)

            “Can’t be,” said Gordon. “We already got our refund.”

            “I’m just telling you what I’m telling you,” Myron replied. “There’s an eagle on the envelope and a check inside -- trust me.”

Olympia Snowe (or "The Importance of Being Pivotal")

            Once upon a time, I had a teacher. A law professor, to be precise about it. (And he’d want me to be precise about it -- he was a law professor.) He was an excellent professor, even though -- or should that be because? -- he was known to wander away from the syllabus from time to time to indulge in the entertaining-if-only-mildly-pertinent anecdote.

            This particular morning, he was telling us about his dealings with the stock market. They were minor, almost minuscule, dealings, he admitted. Still, there was something to be said for being involved. There was, for instance, his one share of AT&T.

That Nobel Prize: Just What He's Always...Wanted

             Dear Uncle Thorbjorn,

            I hardly know what to say!

            When the UPS truck pulled up at the South Portico the other day and they said there was a package for me, I knew it had to be something special. And then when they said the package came all the way from Norway, I was sure it would be something special.

            But when they started to pull it out of the truck and I saw what it was, I couldn’t believe my eyes! What an incredible surprise!

Rangel: What's a Little Oversight Between Friends?

             “...if you’ll all take your seats, I’ve got a statement here from Chairman Rangel. First I want to -- “

                “Can’t hear you!”

            “Closer to the mike, will ya?”

            “Sorry. What I said was -- is this better?”

            “Perfect.”

            “Fine. I’ve got a statement from Chairman Rangel here regarding the recent allegations. Now, the chairman wants to make clear that he genuinely regrets any confusion his actions may have created -- or his failure to act -- may have created in the mind of the public, or with his colleagues here in the House. As all of you know, he’s been a member of this body for nearly four decades, and he has the deepest respect for the institution and its rules. When he -- “

            “What about the money?”

The Rio Games -- And Those GOP Games

         MILWAUKEE -- I’m fine with Rio.

            Really. A great city, by all accounts, in a rising star of a country that deserves to be better known and better loved. And that’s even before you factor in some of the world’s greatest music, and the beaches, and Carnaval, and --

            So absolutely -- give the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio de Janeiro. To Brazil. To a part of the planet that’s never hosted the Olympics. I’m fine with it, even if it means that our neighbor just down the road, Chicago, takes a gold-medal hit to the ego.

            I’m happy for Rio. But it never would have occurred to me to gloat over Chicago’s loss. As a fellow American, I mean.

            Being a gracious competitor is one thing. Being a Republican apparatchik is something else again.

Ensign Shows There's No Blushing in Politics

           The word for it is “inspiring.”

            It’s so heartwarming to see a public servant willing to go the extra mile, willing to take on the sort of mission that would cause a lesser person to hesitate.

            So raise a toast to John Ensign, United States senator from Nevada and upholder of rules.