Opinion

The interest on the national debt is about 2 percent or $340 billion, a mere drop in the bucket for our spendthrift Congress. The stock market goes up and down based on rumors about what the Fed is going to do about interest rates.

If the rationale is that keeping interest rates low will force conservative investors away from government bids and AAA-rated corporate bonds, I then do agree. The problem is we’ve been doing this for years, plus buying back our bonds with money we do not have, and it hasn’t changed anything.

Before daylight Monday morning, with the house cracking like my joints, the wind whirring around the corner and through the trees, I tugged snow pants over flannels, pulled on a ski mask, shrugged a heavy barn coat over my sweatshirt, wedged a pair of gardening gloves under my work gloves, yanked the garage door away from the floor to which it was frozen and headed blindly into cold that apparently was so brutal that no one should have had to face it.

Let me say the chillingly obvious: It was colder than, well, anything you want to interject.

Every January since 2009 The Sentinel-News has established a blueprint for the coming year to help focus on ideas, concepts and circumstances that deserve – or require – our attention.

On Christmas Eve we celebrate the gifts of our community, of the goodness, love and spirit that we spread among ourselves each holiday season.

There is much good among Shelby Countians throughout the year, to be sure, but so many step forward each Christmas season to do as much as is humanly possible for the most innocent and needy among us, to reach deep, to take the extra step, to endeavor to serve in the true essences of the both the secular and non-secular spirits of the day.

In our annual pause to celebrate love and giving, we believe it is important that everyone remember the story that changed mankind.

Luke 2

1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.

2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

3 All went to their own towns to be registered.

As the executive director of the Shelby County Public Library, I must clarify some of the statements made concerning the library in the What We Think editorial (“Foundation needs to tweak program,” Nov. 27).

The man was telling me about his recent afternoon of Christmas shopping. He bemoaned the parking lot at a mall, saying he had to drive around 20 minutes just to find a place and hike a long way in the frozen wind to get inside the mall. There he found the muddled masses, which brings this question: Is the very word “mall” an adaptation of “masses all?”

He was frustrated and indignant. “I hate dealing with all of that,” he said. Or perhaps words more colorful and to the point.

Dear Santa:
We have a special request we want to whisper in your ear this holiday, and this is a gift you really don’t have to deliver until next year.

Please, Dear Santa, send us some candidates for public office.

We were making a list and checking it twice, and, although we sometimes know who is naughty or nice, we didn’t find many new names of people who have filed to run for public office next year.

A few weeks ago we examined piece by piece the structure of taxing districts in Shelby County. We endeavored to explain to you how, why and when your tax dollars are being collected and being spent.

We looked at 16 taxing districts that draw dollars from residents of Shelby County. At least four of them – all fire districts – aren’t based in the county but remain subsidized by you.