Fwd: DECEMBER 27, 2013

      Christmas is past.  We now look forward to the New Year, but not with unrelieved joy. The Post Office has announced an increase in the price of a first-class stamp.  Just temporary, they say.  Oh, sure.

      It's just a three cent increase, but that rings a peculiar bell if you're as old as I am.  I started mailing childish scrawls when the total price of the stamp was three cents--really, it was.  Now it will be forty-nine cents--an increase of, I don't know what, but certainly more than a thousand percent in way less than a hundred years.  Well, maybe not way less, but less.

     The new year will also, as even numbered years do, see off-year elections.  The presidency's not at stake but all the House seats and a third of the Senate's are.  It will be a chance to see how the radical Republicans--the ones who really want to change and shrink the fedreal government--do.

     My guess is, badly—but, hey, they've got almost a year in which to prove me wrong. Let's listen up.