US Petroleum Demand Highest For February Since 2008 -- API -- March 23, 2017

The article over at API has a gazillion data points in it and it's a bit confusing, mixing apples (petroleum deliveries) and oranges (gasoline deliveries) but it's a nice snapshot in time.

But think about this: petroleum demand in February was the highest for any February since 2008. If I recall correctly, President Bush II was still president in February, 2008. That means petroleum demand was lower for every February in President Obama's two-term tenure. I don't know if that means anything but it's an interesting data point. I guess.

Some other data points from the article:

• US crude oil production broke the 9-million-bopd threshold for the first time since March 2016
• February gasoline deliveries are still down year-over-year but were up month-over-month
• total motor gasoline deliveries decreased almost 4%  from February to average 8.9 million bopd -- but that was still the second highest February demand in 9 years

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Cleaning Out My In Box

Hitch 22

A Memoir

Christopher Hitchens

c. 2010

DDS: 920.073 HIT

In the prologue Christopher Hitchens mentions that he was writing this book in 2008, knowing that he was soon to die.


In the very first chapter, Hitchens quotes Graham Greene: The Power and the Glory --

There is always a moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in ...

I vividly remember the day in my childhood when the door opened and I saw my future. I was in my eighth grade of school. I was a voracious reader at time. I had just told my dad that I wanted to be an archaeologist "when I grew up." It was his response to that comment that was "the door" that opened to my future.

Speaking of Graham Green,e I have read the 3-volume biography of Graham Greene and but have only read one or two of his books. I read him after reading Joseph Conrad early in 2004 or thereabouts.

Hitchens' memoir has eighteen chapters, or essays. Having read only a couple of them, this is a book that should be read over a period of time, reading only one essay at a time, and perhaps over a day or two. He packs a lot into on essay.

One "anecdote" in the book and then I will move on. The author was born in 1949; his dad was in the British Navy. At the age of three he was on Malta before his dad was re-assigned to Rosyth, Scotland. Of Malta, Hitchens writes:

A jewel set in the sea between Sicily and Libya, Malta has been for centuries a place of the two-edged sword between the Christian and Muslim worlds. Its population is so overwhelmingly Roman Catholic that there are, within the walled city, a great plethora of ornate churches, the cathedral being decorated by the murals of Caravaggio himself, that seductive votary of the higher wickedness.

The island withstood one of the longest Turkish sieges in the history of "Christendom." But the Maltese tongue is a dialect version of the Arabic spoken in the Maghreb and is the only Semitic language to be written in Latin script.

If you happen to attend a Maltese Catholic church during Mass, you will see the priest raising the Communion Host and calling "Allah," because this after all is the local word for "god."

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The 100 Most Influential Women Of All Time:

A Ranking, Past and Present

Deborah G. Felder 

c. 1996

DDS: 920 FEL

Obviously this book needs to be updated, but I was curious who made the list and who didn't, back in 1996. The names on the list that most surprised me:

#100: Lucille Ball, that she made the list at all
#98: Edith Head, the fact that I even knew who she was
#96: Kathryn Hepburn, for being so far down the list

Names on the list that made me smile:

#50: Coco Chanel, I've seen "her Mediterranean home"

Of interest:

#1: Eleanor Roosevelt
#10: The Virgin Mary

#75: Hillary Rodham Clinton; if only she had campaigned in Wisconsin; visited Michigan one more time; and the Russians had not interfered, everything would have been so different.

With rare exception: no singers, no actresses.

So, who is Deborah G. Felder that she has the "street cred" to write such a book? She had been the editor for eight years, Scholastic, Inc., before becoming a full-time, free-lance writer. It appears her target audience is teenagers. She and her husband divide their time between Middletown, CT, and Cape Cod, MA.

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Idle Ramblings 

Originally Posted March 6, 2017

I don't think I could be in a better mood.

I just spent the afternoon with Sophia, our almost-3-year-old granddaughter who is so much fun. I pick her up every day from Tutor Time and spend two to three hours with her before I take her home to her parents. We have so much fun together. If one gets into her "world," she is the easiest to take care of.

We both enjoyed a most beautiful sunset and the pink clouds, though she said the clouds were orange. I think they were pink.

And now, she is back home and I'm enjoying Mojo.com's look at the top ten Coen Brother movies.

If you are unfamiliar with the Coen Brothers, and if you watch the video, be forewarned: lots of "personal" violence.

Coen Brothers Movies, Mojo.com   I agree completely with Mojo's rankings. I've seen most of the movies (more than once). The one exception: Ladykillers. I've never seen it and never will; everyone agrees it was awful. I think The Big Lebowski comes closest to my "vision" of the Trump White House. Fargo was #2 on their list (I would have put The Big Lebowski as #2) and No Country For Old Men as #1. Agree completely with that. Although I can watch The Big Lebowski over and over; not so with No Country For Old Men. Way too violent. But it did win four Oscars.