Decennial Birthday watch: The Cessna 172 (the most popular general-aviation aircraft ever, with more than twice the production copies of the No. 2 Beechcraft Bonanza) and the Interstate Highway System (one of the top engineering marvels of the world, surpassing even the pyramids and the Great Wall of China) are celebrating their 50th birthdays. George Bush is 60, as is the bikini of eye-candy fame, immortalized — such as that may be — by Brian Hyland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.”

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Finally, the logic of two news stories on the latest in anthropology. . .

Story One — “Discovery of Ancient Artifacts Rekindles Debate on ‘Hobbits.’”: “Scientists said yesterday that stone artifacts found with remains of ancient, tiny ‘Hobbit’-like people on a remote Indonesian island are similar to much older island artifacts, offering new support for the theory that the fossils represent a unique species of archaic human.”

Story Two – “Human Ancestors May Have Interbred with Chimpanzees”: “When the ancestors of human beings and the ancestors of chimpanzees parted ways 6.3 million years ago, it was probably a very long goodbye. Some of their descendants may even have gone back for a final tryst. That is the conclusion a group of scientists has reached, using a comparison of the genes of humans and their closest animal relatives to sketch a picture of human origins far more detailed than what fossil bones have revealed.”

The logical conclusion: J.R.R. Tolkien knew it, had it right, all along. Hobbits really and truly existed — the love children of chimp and man. Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam — even Hobbiton — were .