Cartoons by Michael Ramirez at ibdeditorials.com

And the Winner is . . .

Fwtacoma was 6 for 6. Perfect.

If fwtacoma tells me the answers were given without any research, and sends me his or her email I will gladly send the prize.

The highest ranked fast food restaurants, in the correct order.

1. In-N-Out Burger, Irvine, Calif., 60%
2. Chick-fil-A, Atlanta, 55%
3. Panera Bread, St. Louis, 54%
4. Chipotle, Denver, 52%
5. Pei Wei, Scottsdale, Ariz., 51%
6. Qdoba, Wheat Ridge, Colo., 49%

Why am I suspicious?

Kimbell Acquires Earliest Michelangelo.

The Torment St Anthony

Michelangelo

Another reason to love Fort Worth? I think so. The Kimbell Art Museum is as good as they get, and considering the size of our city, you just can't ask for much more.

Here's a summary of the story pulled from the Fort Worth Business Press. Link following.

Long held in private hands, apart from isolated showings during the 19th and 20th centuries, The Torment of St. Anthony has been hailed, by turns, as both a prototypical Michelangelo and as a work of questionable pedigree. The consensus today holds with Michelangelo.

A 2008 Sotheby’s auction in London offered the painting in a preliminary range of $200,000-$300,000. Once the acceptance of authenticity had spread, a bidding frenzy surged to approximately $2 million, paid by a New York-based dealer named Adam Williams. Williams cinched the authenticity further with a regimen of X-ray examinations, which revealed alterations that can only belong to a primary-source work-in-progress.

The painting will settle into a permanent home at Fort Worth’s Kimbell following a showing during the summer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=10198
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Which Fast Food Restaurant Has Highest Customer Satisfaction Ranking?

The following is 6 of the top ten regional fast food restaurants with the highest rankings in customer satisfaction. (The other four of the ten are not commonly known franchises.)

I have placed the names in alphabetical order. Can you number them 1 - 6 according to the customer satisfaction ranking?

Chick-fil-A, Atlanta

Chipotle, Denver

In-N-Out Burger, Irvine, Calif.

Panera Bread, St. Louis

Pei Wei, Scottsdale, Ariz.

Qdoba, Wheat Ridge, Colo.

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Comments?

I'll send the winner a $10 gift certificate to Starbucks if said winner promises not to cheat by doing a web search .

A Sunday Reflection . . .

Saint Jude / Patron of Lost Causes

I have become a committed TV watcher. By that I mean for the first time since childhood I am planning life around what is on the television that night. I'm too old to be embarrassed by it, but at the same time, I am not proud of it either.

It is to be expected I suppose. For the last thirty years or so, if I haven't been working, I have been at a little league game, or performance, or recital of some kind or other, or hitting ground balls in the front yard; all things I enjoyed, by the way (okay, and the occasional night out with the boys). But now with only one son living at home, and he on his own, my wife and I have evenings free and have begun to waste said evenings watching regular prime-time television.

I have never been so normal. I like it. I think.

American Idol. . . 24 . . . Boston Legal. . . Life. . . Office. . . I'm hooked. They, or it, has got me. How do I loose myself from this enjoyable grip?

"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."*

I admit, in the hierarchy of evils, excessive television watching is at the low end of bad, nevertheless, goodness is a habit achieved at the expense of the other law working in me. There is some self-denial in any good act, some thing to which I must say "no" as I am saying "yes" to the Good. Some remote to put down and some book to pick up.

At least it seems to me. I say this knowing that two opposing but commonly accepted views are always pulling at me, that the real evil is in believing in the existence of the Good (Nietzsche), or that Faith is perfection of the world and not the redemption of the world (nearly every religious broadcast). I'll oppose those notions, remote in hand or not, because I believe the Great Philosopher who said that virtue is the habit of doing good. There is just no explaining that away.

Which is why I like Boston Legal, it neither denies depravity or promotes the angelic.

That's Tuesday and Wednesday night, 8 - 11pm. In case you were wondering.

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* Saint Paul's epistle to the Romans