Notes from the new American Kingdom...

. NEXUS, the U.S. pre-travel, line-jumping clearance program, proposes not to process citizens who use marijuana. Medical pot is legal in 33 states, recreational in 11 states. One presidential candidate proposes national legalization, similar to Canada.

. Forty percent of Americans are overweight, one in 10 is morbidly obese. Today, Dunkin' Donuts debuts breakfast bacon strips, eight in a pack, 12 grams of fat, 9 grams of sugar.

.  "Potato pay" is featured in a new commercial for packaged French fries. If your child eats a piece of brocolli, you "potato pay" them with a crusty sliver of the tastier vegetable.

Desus & Mero, awestruck at Dame Judi Dench's furry kittycat turn in the disastrous Cats: "Did she miss a car payment?"

Christie Blatchford

Blatch mourns Obie's passing in one her sweetest columns...

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-i-have-had-dogs-my-whole-life-but-obie-blatchford-was-my-one

Blatch and I were pals when the Sun was a party school, crossing paths in hallways or at social events. I knew she was an exceptional newshound with a keen eye for bullshit, underdogs and social injustice, and one of the Sun's prime claims to legitimacy.

She swore like a trooper and seldom let any fool crack her sometimes facts-first veneer. It cloaked a complicated softie.

I'm struck by how many pieces I read this morning remark on her empathy. Caring--like newspapers themselves--seems  oddly dated, increasingly rare and dammit, old-fashioned.  

Sad.

 Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the while I am being carried across the sky by beautiful clouds....
  --Ojibway proverb

Here, fishy

An ice fisherman notes that the photo below didn't include the old joke that appeared on Page Six...

"You're always supposed to take a bag of peas with you, dunf.  Cut your hole, then line up all the peas in a circle around it. When a fish comes out to take a pea, you grab him."

That's what's happening in all those ice shacks.