Shoveling the Stuff

• So, like everybody else, I'm dealing with 5" of global warming all day. The whole time, all the voices in my head were askin' the same question- and now I'm asking you- "Is there anything, anything, that government does.. any "service" that government provides, that can't be provided more effectively, more efficiently, more economically by the private sector?" Is there? Please tell me.
• Finally, the end of the Christmas season is rapidly approaching. I've been waiting for this since it all began- way back around Memorial Day. Maybe I'm just getting old and way too cynical, or maybe working in the retail arena for the last 30 years has jaded me but the season just doesn't feel like it used to.
  
• One of my biggest complaints about the season has been the fact that the soundtrack hasn't changed in 50 years or so. Honestly, the music starts at midnight on Thanksgiving and runs on a continuous loop till New Years. How much Bing, Elvis, and McCartney should someone be expected to endure? Perhaps if Muzak had more some of this it would be slightly more bearable:
  

• I came to the realization, this week, that eventually it will be time to put down this little corner of cyberspace like you would an old, feeble nag. Yes, there are some that will say that time has passed and this is all just kicking said dead horse. However, when that day comes, it will be due in no small part to the fact that I will have accepted that I can't measure up to the work being done at The Radical Middle.
  Of a better observer and scribe in this city I'm not aware.