Only in America: Cousins Cheney and Obama

Photo: Seabrook Citgo and World's Smallest Commercial building

It turns out the Vice President Cheney and Mr. Obama are distant cousins. Amazing.

Only in America can something like this happen. Can you imagine Barack Obama saying to Dick Cheney: "Hey Cousin, what's up?" Or more likely: "Dick, can we dialogue?"

Actually, such diverse connections are a symbol of the future of this country. In a few years 25% of our residents will speak Spanish, not to mention all the other cultures and languages and family trees represented here. If we go back to Abraham, we are all cousins.

Meanwhile, the rest of us mere mortals are feeling like yo-yos, watching gas prices jump and fall as much as a dime in a day. Each day brings a big change one way or the other. Now they predict $100/barrel oil.

To keep from mortgaging the house to fill up the van, I discovered that cash gets 10 cents off at a Citgo station a couple blocks away (photo above--next to what I call the world's smallest, and oddest triangle shaped, commercial building).

That means I get to choose between my gas tank dollars funding Mr. Chavez in Venezuela (part owner of Citgo) versus filling up with gas at another place, part of which may be funneled back to Osama bin laden.

Ummmm. Have things changed much since the days when Oscar Wyatt's Coastal stations had Saddam's oil for sale? Too bad we can't buy more oil from Mexico, which would create more jobs there and not fuel "jihad."

The situation is about as odd as the pink building above.