I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

The New Yorker ~ Perry Barlow

According to Dan Woog's 06880.com blog, that's about all things Westport, CT, the song I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus had its origins as this 1939 New Yorker cover by Westport artist Perry Barlow.

Years later in 1952, Sax Fifth Avenue used Barlow's illustration for its Christmas card and commissioned the song by Jimmy Boyd which went to #1 on the Billboard charts.

Home for the holidays

When Organizing for Action (Obama's renamed 2012 campaign PAC) puts this kind of propaganda on TV, you know the Affordable Care Act is failing in far more ways than just its unworkable web site or myriad delayed mandates. All the polls say young adults aren't buying it, literally.



POTUS and FLOTUS ran this same play in the Oval Office Wednesday with a photo-opp group of "moms" before packing for the First Family's first-class, 17-day Hawaiian vacation.

The unsaid message here is . . . Sign up to subsidize your parents' health insurance or else we'll fine you.

The administration's tin ear is also evident on Twitter.

Remember Hope and Change? Neither does the American public.

According to Gallup:

"72 percent of Americans say 'big government' is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. The prior high for big government was 65% in 1999 and 2000.

"Gallup has documented a steady increase in concern about big government since 2009, rising from 55% in March 2009, to 64% in 2011 and 72 percent today. This suggests that government policies specific to the period, such as the Affordable Care Act - perhaps coupled with recent revelations of government spying - may be factors."

O'Toole Epitaph

While I no longer romanticize the consequences of addiction, when I read something like this I admire the self deprecation and humor.

From an interview with actor Peter O'Toole, who died Saturday, on TCM Word of Mouth, December 2008:

"Many years ago I sent an old, beloved jacket to a cleaner, the Sycamore Cleaners. It was a leather jacket covered in Guinness and blood and marmalade, one of those jobs . . . and it came back with a little note pinned to it, and on the note it said, 'It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.' So that will do for me. That can go on my tombstone."

See Ya!

Robinson Cano & Curtis Granderson ~ Getty Images

Win some, lose some.

Free agents Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson have moved on to the Mariners and Mets. In turn, the Yankees picked up Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran, and resigned Hiroki Kuroda.

Burned by the 10-year, $275 million contract with Alex Rodriguez, Yankees management's best offer to Cano was a 7-year, $175 million deal. Cano's agent, Jay Z, wanted more and got him a 10-year deal worth $240 million.

The key fact to contemplate: Cano is 31 and there are no 41 year olds playing second base. 

Zoned Out

We've ridden Metro North commuter trains most of our lives, in and out of Fairfield and Westchester Counties and Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. Except for the occasional weather delay or cancellation, we've always gotten to our destination. Last Sunday's derailment of the 5:04 AM southbound Hudson Line train from Poughkeepsie was tragic and a reminder that accidents do happen, on land, air and sea.

The engineer's lawyer says he "zoned out" as the train entered a sharp turn at 82 miles per hour at the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx, and failed to slow the train to the usual 30 miles per hour speed. A train union representative told a CNN reporter the engineer "was nodding off and caught himself too late."  This so-called "twilight" state suggests the engineer's hands were probably still on the controls, hence the "dead man" technologies in place to stop a train when an engineer becomes incapacitated didn't activate.

State and local politicians are falling over themselves pointing fingers, appointing task forces and ordering investigations. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (that runs Metro North) and the National Transportation Safety Board are making their cases for already partially implemented investments in Positive Train Control (PTC) technology, which combines GPS, wireless radio and computers to monitor trains and stop them from colliding or derailing. Why hasn't PTC already been implemented? Cost. It's estimated it will cost $900 million, and that's on top of rising pension and health benefits which are already up 49 percent since 2009.

At some point the investigations and litigation will conclude, engineer fatigue and singular human error will likely be blamed, a career will be ended, and fines and court settlements will be paid. Then expensive new technology and regulations will be implemented, with the higher costs passed on to commuters through higher fares.

Such is progress.