Writes Wes Baker:

Lew,

I watch no “news” except for a few clips here or there online – mostly international media – so I was unpleasantly surprised to read various ‘Federal’ agencies, including the post office, are shut today in ‘honor’ of one of America’s chief crime family’s patriarch’s burial.  (Don’t misunderstand, they could all shut tomorrow, and I would shut down as well, if only in celebration.  Hell, I’d take a whole week off…!)

Is it just me, or are we quickly approaching Iron Curtain or North Korean levels of national “grief”?  Or is it, as Clyde Wilson has eloquently put it over the years, our particularly idiosyncrasy:  the Yankee penchant to make societal drama personal?