SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

GREAT MOMENTS IN LEARNING – From London's Telegraph:  "One of the world's best universities is planning to hire a professor - of Lego.  The lucky candidate will be the head of their own research department at prestigious University of Cambridge.  Officials say the role is expected to be created within the Faculty of Education after the university received £4 million of donations from the Lego Foundation.  Cambridge's general board has recommended for the Lego professorship 'of play in education, development and learning' to start in October 2015.  The professor will be director of the Research Centre on Play in Education, Development and Learning."  A professor of play.  I love it.  We should have more professors of play here, and maybe professors of nursery rhymes as well.  It will keep the professors from doing more damage than they're currently doing.

HILLARY, THE POLITICAL "TITANIC" – From London's Daily Mail:  "As Hillary Clinton gears up to reboot her historic but underwhelming presidential campaign with a dramatic New York City speech on Saturday, poll numbers show she might need more than a Big Apple skyline to motivate voters next year in key swing states.  Polling data collected this month by Vox Populi Polling in the six battleground states most likely to determine the 2016 presidential election show that Clinton trails a generic Republican candidate by 1 percentage point overall.  The 46–47 showing for the former secretary of state is a departure from nearly every poll since March that asked voters to choose between Clinton and a specific GOP candidate. Only Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, has posted a winning margin against Clinton, and that was a month ago in a Fox News poll."  Hillary will now make her mother the centerpiece of her "reason for being in the race."  And if that doesn't work, maybe she'll try a cousin.

KERRY WALKING – From ABC:  "Secretary of State John Kerry emerged from the Massachusetts General Hospital today walking on crutches, remarking that it was great to finally get outdoors in the summertime.  He’d been there for over a week recovering from surgery to set a femur that he broke in a cycling accident outside Geneva on May 31.  He thanked his medical workers in Switzerland and in Boston for their efforts and even thanked his fellow foreign ministers for their well wishes. 'I’ll tell you ... when you’re feeling a little down, that’s nice,' Kerry said."  Yeah, when I'm down I yearn for a greeting from the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.  Kerry has odd tastes, don't you think?

June 12, 2015