*Leapin’ lizards, folks, Annie’s gone. I’m sorry to report that Little Orphan Annie won’t live to see 100. The folks at Tribune Media Services say the last column of the iconic comic strip has been sent to the handful of newspapers that still run it. The column made its debut on Aug. 5, 1924. Annie and her dog Sandy have enjoyed a lot of unlikely adventures since then. The spunky little girl—the inspiration for a radio show, several movies and a Broadway musical—never got any older. She never got any pupils in her eyes, either.
*Sean Hannity knows one when he sees one. Re: my column a few weeks ago, Is Barack Obama a Socialist?, one popular media conservative says he has no doubts. In his best-selling book, Conservative Victory—Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda, Sean Hannity titled one chapter “Obama the Socialist.” In it he says our president “meets the dictionary definition” of being one. I still disagree, Sean.
*Guess who got the most money from Goldman? I’m not talking about bailouts to banking buddies, but instead, political contributions by those “Wall Street fat cats” our politicians love to bash. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Goldman Sachs wrote a lot of checks to the contenders. Here’s who got what: No. 1, Barack Obama—$996,595; No. 2, Hillary Clinton—$411,150; No. 3, Mitt Romney—$234,275; No. 4, John McCain—$230,095. Looks like Wall Street can spot a winner when it sees one.
*Would you like gold with that? Did you see that large, full-color photo of a gold-dispensing vending machine last week? It ran in several newspapers, including The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. The machine is located—you won’t be surprised to learn—in the lobby of the Emirate Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi. Maybe there’s a trend here. Last year Harrods’s, the luxury department store in London, began selling gold coins and bars to its affluent customers who wanted them. How soon before we see gold being offered for sale at Wal-Mart?
—Chip Wood