
Columnist.
The Hunger Games. The film did about $155 million in its opening weekend. I had never heard of it, or the trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins of which the first formed the basis of this film. It is not a particular surprise that something this big is going on completely out of my ken. The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices planned her entire evening last night around the season opener of "Mad Men" on the AMC network. I have yet to watch a single frame of this award-winning series' first four seasons.
Gasoline prices have climbed above $4 per gallon for regular at too many places across the nation. We know this because President Barack Obama has embarked on a four-day blitz to demonstrate his concern for high gasoline prices. According to the U.S Energy Information Administration the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the country is $3.87 which is up about 30 cents from a year ago. The highest prices are on the West Coast at $4.23. The lowest, next door in the Rocky Mountain region at $3.62.
Mitt Romney won Illinois. Romney is now the nominee. Period. The exit polls showed Romney with a double digit lead in the early evening, and the CNN crew had to be careful not to proclaim him the victor prior to the polls closing at 8 PM Eastern. CNN waited until about 8:30 to call the race, but it was never in doubt.
This column may well generate about 40,000 "Unsubscribes" this morning, but there you are. In the early 1960s a man named Nico Jacobellis was arrested after the showing of a French movie in his theater by the name of "The Lovers" on the grounds that the film was obscene. This case would doubtless be relegated to punishing second year law school students were it not for the fact that (a) the case went to the U.S Supreme Court and (b) in a concurring opinion Justice Potter Stewart penned one of the most memorable phrases in Court history.