SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

ANOTHER GREAT MOMENT IN EDUCATION – FROM AP:  BOSTON -- While other Harvard University students were writing papers for their senior theses, Obasi Shaw was busy rapping his.  Shaw is the first student in Harvard's history to submit a rap album as a senior thesis in the English Department, the university said. The album, called "Liminal Minds," has earned the equivalent of an A-minus grade, good enough to guarantee that Shaw will graduate with honors next week.  They always said it was much harder to get into Harvard than to get out of Harvard.  Appears to be true.

MADDOW SURGES – FROM VARIETY:  For the first three nights of this week, Maddow’s 9 p.m. broadcast on MSNBC was the most-watched on cable-news in primetime – a position that had long been enjoyed by the 8 p.m. hour in the Fox News schedule, where O’Reilly had a roost for more than two decades,and where Tucker Carlson now holds court.  Maddow’s recent gains are part of a viewership surge at the NBCUniversal-owned network that comes as a chaotic White House has driven viewers to MSNBC in ways the executives really haven’t seen since the days of Keith Olbermann.  Last week, MSNBC’s primetime schedule was tops in the demographic most coveted by advertisers – people between 25 and 54 – for the first time since the week of December 29, 2008. MSNBC’s  “Maddow,” “The Last Word” and “11th Hour” are all leading in that viewership category for the month to date, according to data from Nielsen.  This is really not surprising.  A crisis, even a manufactured one, always results in audience shifts, but they may be temporary.  Don't be shocked, by the way,if a new, conservative network is born.  Fox is coming under the control of younger members of the Rupert Murdoch family, and they are liberal.

IRAN VOTES – FROM REUTERS:   ANKARA  - Iranians vote for president Friday in a contest likely to determine whether Tehran's re-engagement with the world stalls or quickens, although whatever the outcome no change is expected to its revolutionary system of conservative clerical rule.  Seeking a second term, pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, 68, remains the narrow favorite, but hardline rivals have hammered him over his failure to boost an economy weakened by decades of sanctions.  Many Iranians feel a 2015 agreement he championed with major powers to lift sanctions in return for curbing Iran's nuclear program has failed to produce the jobs, growth and foreign investment he said would follow.  The normally mild-mannered cleric is trying to hold on to office by firing up reformist voters who want less confrontation abroad and more social and economic freedom at home.  Sounds like a free election, but it isn't.  All candidates must receive permission from the government to run.  We'll follow the results, which will come in just as President Trump heads for the region.

May 18,  2017