Mr. Dumb Bombs jinxed it! Wrote about schools reopening, then they closed again. Back to typing in jammies until the child-care reinforcements arrive.

How are you — or your roof — holding up? Have you had to climb up and shovel, like Mayor Verner?

TWN, the journal of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association and Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington, reports in its current issue that the number of print and broadcast journalists covering the Washington Legislature full time has dropped by about 70 percent.

This over a 15-year period when the state’s population has increased by 25 percent.

It’s another sign of the cost-cutting that’s going on throughout the news industry.

Who cares? Harvard’s Alex Jones apparently does.  He’s the director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, and he put it this way in the TWN account:  “When reporters leave the state Capitol, the mice play.”

The Spokesman-Review is lucky in this respect.  We’re represented by top-drawer reporters in both Olympia (Rich Roesler) and Boise (Betsy Russell).  You can follow their reporting in the pages of the paper and on their blogs, Eye on Olympia (spokesman.com/blogs/olympia) and Eye on Boise (spokesman.com/blogs/boise).

But what about this trend?  Do you share Alex Jones’ anxiety?

Apologies to Alice Cooper (and to those whose kids are still home):

School’s in for winter!  I’m gone till dinner!

What’s on your mind today?

I’m a little surprised that so many schools are closed today. As of yesterday, it looked like Spokane Public Schools was set to open. Then Sheriff Knezovich advised against it. Then the overnight snow. Given the problems laid out by Knezovich — high berms, poor access to buses — I don’t expect schools to open tomorrow either. It’s not like those berms will problems will disappear in a day.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: Knezovich is now leaving it up to individual districts.

More shoveling. Yay.

What’s on your mind today?

More snow. What a difference a year makes. Oh well, at the end of the day, it is what it is.

What’s up in your world?

Smart Bombs was feeling peevish today about the language. Are there any cliches — trendy or otherwise — that you would like to see banished?

Anyone heading downtown for the First Night celebration? We had planned to, but my son awoke with a fever. I’m going to miss it. Always fun. Pretty funny that the snowboarding exhibition was canceled because of too much snow.

What’s on your mind on this last day of 2008. I think on the Chinese calendar it’s the Year of Good Riddance.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich kept saying he would name someone to Obama’s senate seat, and I kept saying, “Who we be so stupid to take the job?”

Well, here he is.

Corridors of snow. That’s our neighborhood. The sidewalks are like World War I trenches. Remember that Tim Conway character who would shuffle around in slow motion. That’s us. Hope you’re staying safe and warm.

What’s on your mind today?

Well, I escaped the weather for a week, but not weather talk. Naturally, folks in Arizona were curious about all the snow, but it didn’t take long to get back to talking about their weather. Might rain. Could dip into the 30s overnight. Might not reach 60. Sorry about those clouds. Such drama.

What’s on your mind on this relatively balmy day?

Assuming you have pent-up thoughts as a result of Christmas intensity or cabin fever, here’s today’s loose thread.  Comment now and avoid the rush. 

This holiday season has been as unconventional as I can remember, only partly because of the weather.  Blog duty has experienced its share of the neglect for the last few days, but I sense we’re ramping back up.

Catching up on a significant issue, you probably read on Wednesday that the state of Washington plans to save money by closing the Pine Lodge Corrections Center for Women at Medical Lake.  Inmates will be transferred to a prison in southwest Washington. 

I’m guessing the impact will be felt primarily by two groups of people — the 140 workers who will either accept transfers to other jobs or be laid off, and the families and friends of the inmates who were accustomed to being able to visit the prisoners in Spokane County.

What are your thoughts about this move?  For that matter, what thoughts do you have for any aspect of the state’s nearly $6 billion (so far) revenue shortfall for the coming biennium?

Here’s a seasonal note, via e-mail, from Bill Slusher in Omak:

“When I was ten years old (the Pleistocene Era), a Presbyterian minister said in a sermon: “Lest ye be lost, ye must be bathed in the blood of the lamb!”

“I thought, that’s it. I’m outta here. This bunch is nuttier than a Georgia pecan patch. Thus ended my short religious life. I came to believe that we’re all agnostics whether we admit it or not, as none of us can prove or disprove any divinity. I grew to tell my children: “Respect they who love their god. Beware they who proclaim that you must love it too.”

“Nonetheless, I always cherished Christmas and the story of Jesus, though I was never able to invest my soul in it. I was blessed to have led a life in which Christmas remained a wonderfully special time for me and all our family.

“Christmas has been enormously changed by the passage of time since I was a kid, and not always for the better, whatever one’s religion or absence thereof. Now, somehow, just saying Merry Christmas can actually cause some folks to be ‘offended.’

“But you know what, I’m going to risk it.

“Merry Christmas to all they who serve America in harm’s way this holiday season, wherever they stand guard, however alone they feel, I wish them a safe holiday, and I thank them.

“Last, but hardly least, Merry Christmas to you all, and to all whom you hold dear, however you relate to whatever god, or none.

“May 2009 be the best year yet for us all!”

To those who celebrate the holiday, I hope your Christmas is shaping up as a merry one. Like a lot of other folks, we’ve had some glitches, mostly weather-related, at our house, but we’ve learned over the many years to be flexible.  Looks like my son-in-law, won’t arrive until Friday to join our daughter and their baby. We’ll just put the calendar on hold a couple of days and pick up with the celebration when he arrives. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? (To tell the truth, we’d been wishing we had a little more time for preparation.  Ask and you shall receive.)

That said, here’s your loose thread. Comment at your own convenience and on your own schedule.

Here’s an excerpt from city public information officer Marlene Feist’s latest release

“Please remind people of safety issues around plows. One driver encountered a child’s snow fort that had been built in the street yesterday. Several have had people running up to the plows, often in locations that are essentially blind spots for the driver, which can be very hazardous.”

You’d think common sense would apply, but sometimes common sense isn’t all that common.

Cindy asks who’s the little man behind the curtain.  C’est moi.  Gary is fiendishly enjoying an Arizona Christmas whilst I labor in the snow drifts. I’m still getting the knack of the new system here so bear with me (“me” being Doug Floyd if I still mess up the signature line).

Good idea to consider this the loose thread, too, given my technological ineptitude.

…or slide and spin at 5.  Whatever.  If you have thoughts and time to post them, just click on comments and post away.

Sarah Palin took some ribbing when a Canadian radio station pranked her into thinking she was on the phone with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Perhaps she’ll be able to sympathize with The New York Times published a letter in which Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe supposedly criticized Caroline Kennedy’s efforts to become New York’s junior senator. Yup, the letter was bogus.

Personally, I think Palin’s gullibility is more defensible than the NYT’s. Newspapers have processes for checking out the authenticity of letters. Palin was live on the phone and had to make real-time decisions about looking silly or being rude.

Either way, haven’t all of us been duped a few times? 

There seems to be no end to it, right?

A  weekend trip to the Seattle area was relatively uneventful. Except for a few scattered patches of compact snow, I-90 was clear and passable at near-normal speeds — both ways. Coming back Saturday, though, we knew a big storm was on the way so we made it a point to get a prompt start. It took us about five hours.  Sunday evening I ran into an acquaintance at the store who was just in from Seattle.  His drive took seven hours. What a difference a day makes.

Everybody talks about the weather…so you might as well post it here.  Other topics welcome, too, of course.