Late each December, or in the early days of a New Year, your mind drifts off into what if and could be land. You wonder what life might be like if you made some changes -saved more money - then invested regularly. Lost some weight, got that physical. Made those improvements. Planned and took that dream vacation. Goals. Resolutions. Plans. You get pleasantly confined to your personal world or the world of you and your family. That’s the great thing about WHAT IF and COULD BE LAND; for a few weeks or months, until reality butts in, there’s nothing in the way of those goals and dreams and resolutions. It’s a good time to re-anchor yourself and accentuate the positives about this life. I sometimes think at this time of the year that I’m strictly in Tourist Class when I make that trip into What If and Could Be Land because my job is too observe what else is going on in the world, and I quickly make an emergency landing in Crazyville, where some interesting things are happening. And it always seems there’s a WalMart involved. In this case, several of them in the Louisville area. That’s where Tracy Browning liked to shop. If that’s the right word. What she liked to do was use her government issued Food Stamp debit card like it was issued by American Express, convincing store clerks to let her buy other things besides food - like iPads - and when the clerks didn’t comply, police say she’d try to persuade them by grabbing them around the neck and slamming them to the floor. Ms. Browning is now jailed and has been banned from Kentucky WalMarts.

In Rocklin, two teens who apparently wanted to surf the net and do whatever young girls do on the web these days, had a small complication. The parents of the girl who would be hosting the web gathering, shut down internet access at 10 PM. Solution? Buy Mom and Dad a fast food milk shake, lace the beverages with ground-up prescription strength sleeping pills. Mom and Dad conked out and felt so bad the next morning they went to the cops and had themselves drug tested. Leave it to the Bee to consult the touchy-feely experts, who reacted by noting that teens really do need to express themselves, while cautioning that those 15-year-old brains aren’t always fully developed. Nor apparently is a 64-year-old’s if the brain in question belongs to Al Gore. The man who claims to have invented the Internet, the network that started all that trouble in Rocklin. Al’s been a partner in something called Current TV, a cable channel with very low ratings. Al, super patriot that he is, sold the channel to Al Jezeera, the voice of the Arab world. The English language version of what some call Al Queda’s CNN could be beamed into 40 million American homes. Gore by the way, walks away with 100 million dollars. Since Current TV is about as exciting as watching camel races in the desert, will anyone tell the difference? And in case you think there's any sanity in Washington consider this:

The Fiscal Cliff legislation contains money to benefit Nascar and Hollywood's Movie Studios. The bill in the senate to help the victims of Super Storm Sandy in New York and New Jersey contains millions for Amtrak and Alaska's fishing industry. Yeah, enjoy that time in the land of what if or could be because it's a very bumpy ride back to reality.