Editorials a minute

Lessons we’ve learned in December

AS THE year winds down, and many of us use the year-end holidays to look back on the last 12 months, and maybe learn a lesson or two from mistakes, guesses and choices of the year, let us take comfort in the fact that we’re human. Just human. And can learn a thing or two as we step into the next calendar year. File this editorial under Lessons Learned:

They don’t know: Last week, the weather forecasters said most of Arkansas had a 50 percent chance of a white Christmas. We told the kids. We took out the tire chains. It was going to be a mess, and maybe a little fun. But you can look outside to see how accurate a 10-day forecast can be. That far out, they really don’t know.

What goes down, can go up: Custom Growth Partners, a research firm that tracks retail sales, thought this Christmas season would see a 4.3 percent increase in sales from a year ago. The firm said that back in October. It has recently revised its numbers. It expects a 6.1 percent increase instead. Which would make this year’s Christmas shopping season the best since 2005. It’s called the economic cycle. And it works no matter what president, or which party, is in power.

Your vote counts: The race for the 94th legislative district in Newport News, Va., this month ended in a tie. And we don’t mean some constable-ish 4-4 tie or school board-ish 101-101 tie. The official total was 11,608 to 11,608. Bring this one up next time somebody tells you that their vote doesn’t really matter.

They don’t know, part II: Somehow, some way, the rumor got started— and was kept alive by TV reporters and social media—that a rat gnawed its way into infamy the other day after shutting down Atlanta’s airport. But officials with Hartsfield-Jackson International say that simply isn’t true. And they don’t know what caused the blackout that stranded thousands. So could it have been a squirrel? We’ll post that on Facebook soonest to see how fast it makes it to NBC.

Call it the Arkansas diet: Newsweek published a study the other day showing more benefits from eating kale, spinach, salad, etc. etc. Something about improving memory and fighting off the aging process. We were halfway into a good yawn when we noticed that the study noted the positive benefits of not just those boring leafy greens, but real greens, too. Such as collards. Collards! Now this is a diet most of us would like to try. Another bowl of greens please, and pass the hot sauce.

Something bigger than football? Even with the Steelers-Patriots megagame last Sunday—which brought with it the biggest audience of the season so far—the NFL’s ratings have declined overall this year. The average TV viewing of NFL games is down 9 percent since last season. Hmmm. We have our suspicions why. Could it be that NFL players have a First Amendment right to kneel during the national anthem, and that Americans have a perfectly reasonable right to turn off the games when they do so? Somebody should remind those professional athletes of a little fable by Aesop about the golden goose.

They don’t know, part III: According to astrologers, or at least some of them, this previous Thursday was supposed to be the worst day of the year to . . . well, we’re not sure what or why. Apparently the sun passed “in front of the constellation Capricorn” just after Saturn did the same. And it was the first time one of them lined up with the other this particular way since 1664. And, according to one star-watcher in London, it was a terrible day to start anything. So we went out and tilled up the garden before the hard frosts get here, just to say we got an early start on the tomatoes. We’ll let you know in July whether the astrologers were right, or if we learned another lesson.