CARTOONS
Yesterday’s links somehow led to the wrong cartoons. Doh! The ones I liked were:
- a Mike Luckovich drawing of Lincoln sitting, as he does, at the Lincoln Memorial, but with his two thumbs up (Obama has just secured the nomination) . . .
- a Tom Toles drawing of the White House beneath the phrase, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” and above the phrase, “Ratified November 4, 2008” . . .
- a double-pane Jack Ohman drawing of a black woman gazing out a bus window in the pane labeled “1955,” and a black man in just the same pose gazing out the window of the Presidential Limo in the pane labeled “2008.”
NEW YORK TO DC: TAKE THE BUS!
The Delta Shuttle is rolling out wifi this Spring for an extra $9.95 a flight. Add $339 for the flight itself, $35 for the cab to get to the flight (LaGuardia) and $20 for the cab when you land at National – all in, $405, give or take; $810 round trip. (Unless you want a wider seat – Delta adds a First Class section December 1 that adds another $170 or so each way: $1,150.) Door-to-door travel time each way – when traffic to and from the airport, weather, air traffic control, and so forth, are all cooperating: around two and a half hours.
The Acela offers no wifi and takes four hours, door-to-door, but you don’t have to take your shoes off to go through security and the round-trip cost, with cabs to and from the station (you could take the subway) is a more modest $450 or so. You can even plug in your laptop.
The slower train adds half an hour, so all in you’re at maybe four and a half hours – and there’s no electrical outlet at your seat – but round-trip is about $215(because I know you’ll take the subway).
But . . . ta-da! . . . these express buses between Washington (Dupont Circle) and New York (Herald Square) have free wireless for the approximately five-hour door-to-door journey, at less than $60 round-trip. Some of the buses allow riders to vote on which movie to watch, and to offer free water, and I’ve heard some of the buses even have AC power at the seats – none of this is stated on the web site, so it may depend on which bus you happen to catch.
Bring a very good book in case the wireless is on the fritz. Or just bring this:
MICHAEL LEWIS EXPLAINS IT ALL
This is the piece everyone is reading to see the sweep of what went wrong in our financial markets. You may enjoy (?) reading it, too.
Have a great weekend.
