State of the Union

I skipped Obama's State of the Union address last night, and went to bed early instead. These speeches become such a stock annual event, I can pretty much guess in advance what's going to happen, from the sergeant at arms announcing the entrance of various congressional and judicial dignitaries, to the bromide proposals which sound like they're promising everything but will end up delivering nothing, to the obligatory Ordinary Americans who have been selected on some tearjerker basis ("little Timmy on his crutches") to sit in the audience and be introduced during the speech for their nationwide 15 seconds of fame.

I was further ahead getting another hour's sleep last night. Whatever nonsense breaks forth in high places, it will go down either with or without my obeisance paid in the form of soberly virtuous attention to the ringing annual declamations of SOTU. If that be civic blasphemy, so be it.