Less Than 24 Hours For Some; Less Than A Week For Others

The dates have been so confused, extended, exempted, and expletived, I no longer know if the DrudgeReport headline is accurate, the one that says there are only 24 more hours to enroll in ObamaCare if one wants health insurance coverage by January 1, 2014. But be that as it may, there is probably some deadline. [This is so incredible, so funny. I can't make this stuff up. It turns out there "was" a deadline of December 23, 2013, but then the Obama administration had the IT folks change the software to extend the deadline to December 24, 2013. The change was made secretly with no one knowing. This is all quite incredible. I guess the administration only follows those laws, and the parts of those laws with which it agrees.]

A more "sure" deadline is the deadline for charity giving in 2013 if one uses charity for tax purposes (I don't). That date is December 31, 2013.

So, this is a reminder: regardless of taxes, it's always a good time to be charitable. High on my list is the Salvation Army which I talked about almost exactly one year ago. I wrote this then, and it still holds:

My granddaughters mean the world to me. I can't imagine them being in a place where they needed help from the Salvation Army. But if they needed such help, I can't think of a better organization to provide it.

Good luck to all. Have a great holiday, and hopefully you will have a great 2014.

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A Note To The Granddaughters

At one time I went through my "Sylvia Plath" phase, during the early days of my frenetic and eclectic reading program, a program that began in 2002 and continues to this day, albeit less frenetic but just as eclectic, I suppose.

My wife pointed out an article in the weekend edition of The Los Angeles Times. Apparently, the Sylvia Plath heirs or estate has published a small (64 pages) book of her pen-and-ink drawings. It looks like the book includes an introduction by her daughter Frieda Hughes and some poems by Ted Hughes.

Sylvia died, I think accidentally, on February 11, 1963.

[On a completely different note, the article appeared in the December 20, 2013, issue of The Los Angeles Times; it appeared first on-line December 12, 2013, at LATimes.com. I'm somewhat disappointed (?) that the Times recycles their work. It's possible that they have so much on-line, they pick the best for the print edition. I hope that's the reason.]