Brown, brown land

Standing firmly in the middle out here — hell, nearly straddling both the Mississippi River and liberal/conservative ideologies simultaneously. Doing the best we can in our rural Illinois setting to avoid Wal-Mart, Fox News, CNN, and abject boredom in the absolute bleakest time of the Midwest year.

If you're in a warmer climate, you certainly don't envy the snow and cold, but February, March, and often, April, are actually the worst of the weather here. The landscape presents itself in a narrow variety of brown or gray shades, the sun peeks out once every other week, and when it rains, the world smells like dogshit.

So we cocoon, try not to drink too much, avoid getting time-sucked by reality TV, and wait for Spring Training to break. There are a few advantages of an absence of cultural or climatological temptations, though: novels that stacked up last summer are allowed to dwindle, the rules are finally cracked on virgin board games, and there's usually something spectacular going in the kitchen.

But in addition to the home-grown entertainment, we do like to sample what's happening in the rest of the world. It's not all hugs, prayers, and handicrafts in the heartland.