There seems to be an overwhelming need and accommodation at Lakeside for live entertainment -- a Mexican Hat Dance of endless gringo entertainment possibilities.

The human species has a brain so complicated that it doesn’t have just one IQ measure, but several, which sounds more logical; and has a little something nice for everybody, even those whose waist size and standard IQ are the same.

For me, the big news last year was former U.S. president Jimmy Carter reaching the age of 100. He was a man who couldn’t stop being magnificent.

Recently, several formerly colonized nations have renewed calls for reparations from their colonizers, who plundered resources and thrived on the backs of enslaved and indigenous peoples. It’s a parasitic history that stretches back to “Hey, stop acting superior and get out of our cave.”

Have you ever noticed that nobody writes books or makes movies about good people doing good things? Saints. Humanitarians. Pacifists. And so on. Do you remember ever reading, “The Quintessential Mother Teresa – Uncensored”?

Every year around this time I start to feel really bad and I’m never sure why.