Last week a report from NASA about sun spots set off some controversy between global warmers and NASA scientists. Solar Minimums, (reduced sunspots) tend to cool off the earth while the opposite heats it up. “Minimums” were noted in the 1700’s and caused much havoc and crop failures not to mention the late frosts and snowfalls on up into the growing season in New England. Of course it caused similar problems world-wide before everything got back to normal. Some observers think this latest episode of Solar Minimum will last about 30 years.

Severity and length of these Minimums vary but the same NASA guys say we had a little go around with this type of solar activity in the 1970s and you may or may not remember we had about a decade of cold winters. Deep snows and lower temps were the order of the times. These same experts think we will notice this one starting up in 2020. One of the NASA experts thinks this will give us 30 year respite from global warming. More time to prepare and to cope with climate change. But warmers are mad at NASA. They think this is it and denounced the guys who are thinking it will cool down. Well. We’ll see.

Something like global warming hit the White House East Room last week when CNN’s Jim Acosta was unable to shut up when he was quizzing President Trump. Jim didn’t want to surrender his microphone or shut up. One thing Acosta and Trump both disagreed on was this: Both thought they were in charge of the news conference. Acosta then got into a struggle with a young intern who tried to take his microphone. It got ugly and Trump jerked Acosta’s White House credentials. Acosta’s trip to court got those back in a hurry but it will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

When I saw this taking place it reminded me of Harry Truman, his daughter Margaret and a music reporter for the Washington Times. Margaret fancied herself as a singer and performed often in music halls back in the 1950s. Critics hinted that Margaret’s career had taken off mostly because her daddy was the President. This greatly irritated the short fused President but it wasn’t until the reporter sounded off in his newspaper article that “Margaret was not a good singer” that things went to pot. Harry put on his coat, grabbed his walking cane and was leaving the White House. When asked where and what he was doing by his body-guards he replied that he was going to town and he was going to whip that reporter’s rear end — or something like that.

The secret service guards were alarmed and tried to subdue the President. But Harry was having nothing else but to go down and give that guy a licking he wouldn’t soon forget. “But Mr. President, you can’t do that. You’re the president.” “No one makes fun of my daughter like that and gets by with it,” Harry replied. Reports were that there was an actual struggle before the President gave in. Made for good news copy. A lot of people were made unhappy by Harry. They didn’t like him and often wrote that he wasn’t fit to be president. But he was. And he persisted. But the reporter never got whipped. After all, Harry Truman was the president.

Meanwhile back to present day, our Mr. Trump is going to see the California fires. That will be interesting since he has accused Californians as being the cause of their own fires. Bad forest management, he says. Not well received. Hope he doesn’t decide to whip up on anyone out there or vice-versa. Have a good week and enjoy your holidays and Happy Thanksgiving to all. Don’t forget to go to church Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

waynebullard@sbcglobal.net