1/20/12 ASKING FORGIVENESS

LAKE SMOKE BEYOND MADELINE ISLAND

DOWNY WOODPECKER FUELING UP

I'M NOT ON POINT, MY TOES ARE JUST COLD

Friday, 8:00 AM.  –4 degrees F. Wind WSW, calm.  The sky is lightly overcast with high, thin stratospheric clouds.  The barometer predicts clear skies.  The channel is completely frozen over between Bayfield and Madeline Island this morning, so there is no  lake smoke rising from it.  But the steam clouds rise into the sky to a great height beyond Madeline Island and out into the open lake.
        Our morning walk was a bit cold but otherwise pleasant.  The neighborhood dogs were out in force, their owners evidently tired of having them in the house for the duration of this cold snap.
         One of these mornings when the ice is thick enough to make it interesting, I will hitch a ride on the ferry to experience it breaking  ice.
        Commentary:  We have been watching Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich’s personal reputation travails with mixed emotions, but mostly with disgust.  Disgust with Gingrich for his philandering, and abandonment of not one but two former wives; disgust with his second wife (who has discovered that what goes around comes around) for being enticed into an interview with ABC to rehash old grievances two days before the South Carolina primary; and disgust with ABC for being a partisan party to the whole tawdry affair (the old pejorative "muck racking" seems most apt).

        Whether one believes Gingrich or not, he claims he has reformed, gotten religion and asked God for forgiveness.  It would be most appropriate if his second wife and ABC did the same.