Burnt macaroni and cheese on Monday caused quite a stir in the Iowa Capitol.

(Around here, we know it as the New Capitol to distinguish it from our Old Capitol, though why we do this, no one remembers; for one thing, the Old Capitol is here and graceful, and the New Capitol is about as ugly as architecture can get, befitting its denizens. And the New Capitol is situated at the edge of Iowa’s Nebraska, or Nebraska’s Iowa, depending on your perspective.)

Actually, according to the AP (which does not stand for Accelerated Prephood, though it could), the burnt mac & cheese caused more than quite a stir, which is what you do when you want the cheese to be spread (unsuccessfully) throughout the mac. The burnt mac & cheese caused the evacuation of everyone in the New Capitol.

Well, perhaps not everyone. There were probably a couple of old-timers who were not afraid of mac & cheese, burnt or not. I applaud them, even though I avoid mac & cheese at all costs. Mac & cheese or the grizzly bear? I’ll take the grizzly bear.

Better than taking Carly Fiorina, not that that was a choice.

Fiorina is the latest entrant in the Republicans’ I’m running for president (or, more correctly, the GOP nomination for president) but not officially. She apparently is the latest GOP “It Girl.”

Well, sure. Why not. 

Just because her only foray into politics was an unsuccessful run for a California Senate seat doesn’t disqualify her from running for president. Of course, by that so-called logic, Bruce Braley also had an unsuccessful run for a Senate seat, so obviously, he should run for president.

Probably the most memorable thing about her campaign came in the GOP primary with her “Demon Sheep” video, in which her people tried to paint her opponent as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It became a YouTube hit, if you call mocking you being a hit. And it had all the special effects of a 1952 D-grade sci-fi flick. Not that I was around to see 1952 D-grade sci-fi flicks. But you get the idea.

But, you say, Fiorina was a successful CEO of a big corporation. Well, yes and no. She was much ballyhooed when she took the reins of Hewlett-Packard but later was sacked (or was forced to resign, with a $20 million buyout) when, according to various reports, she orchestrated the takeover of Compaq (didn’t work out so well) and sent thousands of jobs overseas. “Right Shoring,” she called it. She also let go 30,000 HP employees.

Before that, according to Arno Penzias, a 1977 Nobel Prize winner (Big Bang) at Bell Labs, Fiorina gutted the pure research at Bell Labs as the head of Lucent, ATT’s division that took over the labs.So, Fiorina for president? Sure, why not. She’s the latest “It Girl.” Of course, in the game of tag, “It” is not necessarily so good.

Demon sheep? I’ll take the burnt mac & cheese, please.