A Spit of Tea

Stephen was, to put it mildly, surprised that now that the 2012 election is all over, done, history, the pundits are, believe it or not, already talking about who is going to run for president in 2016.

Stephen's comment was something like, "Ptuuuuiiii," but with hot tea hitting his desk as the liquid rushed out of his mouth. 2016??? Who is running in 2016???? I offer Stephen my sympathy. People want to go back to the normal humdrum of life for at least a little while. Enough already with election forecasts.

So, on a more festive note, Happy Diwali! Here's a brief article about Diwali over at national Geographic Kids.

In what could be considered controversial material, Stephen had a clip of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Sesame Street. She and one of the girl characters were talking about careers. The girl wanted to be a princess. Justice Sotomayor, tried to point her away from being a princess which is more of a "pretend" career and into something that requires education and training and skills. Eventually, the little girl decides that the life of a Supreme Court Justice is the career path for her.

Thankfully, Stephen has done his research. In the entire history of the Supreme Court, only four women have made it onto the bench. (You'd think they could afford comfortable chairs, but no, it's a bench, at least that's what I keep hearing about judges.) The four women who have been or currently are on SCOTUS are Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Stephen's guest last night, and yes it was a repeat episode, so it wasn't actually last night, was Newt. Oops, my bad. His guest was Newt Gingrich, former presidential contender. So Stephen and Newt have that in common. His latest book, Victory at Yorktown, is about a guy named George Washington, who therefore has something in common with Stephen and Newt, except that this guy actually was successful in his bid to become president.

In keeping on the theme of elections, Stephen asked for Newt's analysis of the election that just happened, the one where Barack Obama won re-election and Mitt Romney was defeated. Newt replied, "We were wrong."

Note: If  "Spit of Tea" is not to your liking, you can view "Spot of Tea" over here.