Habits

Susan and I get the USA Today newspaper. It's not a great paper, and we almost did not renew this year, but then it occurred to me that without that paper I won't be able to keep up during the fantasy baseball season. That I cannot abide since I'm determined to win at least one of the two leagues I'll be in this year. I've had enough break-in period now. It's time to get serious.

But back the paper . . . I'm in the habit when I sit down to read it in the mornings of handling the "state-by-state" page this way. I read the entries for all the states I've lived in. (Can't devour the whole thing. Takes too long. Besides it's mostly "Like, who cares?") Anyway, this give me a bird's eye view every day of the run-of-the-mill going on in the country, just the everyday stuff, which, I would submit is not a very uplifting exercise usually. But today was kinda bland. 

• Alabama -- the state's at war with electronic bingo. They just shut a casino down and are suing three more. What the hell is wrong with electronic bingo? If you're going to have gambling casinos, doesn't make sense to me.
• Florida -- Dufuss Tea Party Governor Rick Scott has decided he's gonna take the federal Medicaid dollars under the Affordable Health Care Act despite his histrionic announcement some time ago that Florida was not going to. What kind of dummy is going to turn down 3 years of 100 percent funding of Medicaid from the fed? This move covers an additional 900,000 people in the state.
• Louisiana -- A judge has stopped the town of Homer from abolishing its police force. Apparently the meeting of mayor and board of selectmen that decided to do it took place in violation of an open-meetings law in the state. There's more to it than this, you can bet.
• Maine -- The governor signed a bill keeping data on the state's concealed weapons permit holders secret. It was a hurry-up measure to head off a request by a newspaper, which later withdrew the request.
• Mississippi -- The first lady is going to visit an elementary school in Clinton later in the month puffing nutritional improvements in school lunches.
• Missouri -- State lawmakers in Jefferson City endorsed bills honoring Stan Musial and Andy Gammon by naming the new Mississippi River bridge after the former and a stretch of I-70 after the latter. (Gammon died working on the bridge.)
• Oklahoma -- In one of the extremely rare instances of good sense, the state legislature passed a law making it illegal to text while driving.

Related articles

• Florida's Medicaid retreat a 'tipping point' in health battle, reformers say (guardian.co.uk)
• Widow of Man Killed While Working On Bridge Wants It Named After Him (fox2now.com)
• Missouri Rep. Proposes State Holiday For Musial (stlouis.cbslocal.com)