Winter and virtue

Cleaning up after a winter storm almost always makes me feel somewhat virtuous.  The uncovering of the driveway from a blanket of white is a positive statement that winter can knock us down, but we'll get up and keep going.  Unfortunately, snow showers overnight put a patina of snow back on the asphalt, and the temperature tonight will be 7 below, so it's not going anywhere soon.   The Divine Mrs. M and I went to a reading of Dicken's  A Christmas Carol on Sunday and it seemed oddly relevant to the situation today.  The diatribes Scrooge hurls at the underclass of mid 18th century England sound very close to what you hear on Fox News regarding the layabouts collecting extended unemployment.  You can almost hear them saying "Are there no workhouses, are there no prisons?" when those without work wonder what will happen to them when their benefits run out.  This stigmatization of the unemployed gives comfort to the latter day Scrooges who see the social safety net as a drag on profits.  One can only hope Boehner and some of his henchmen see a few ghosts on Christmas Eve.