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My credit card philosophy has always been simple: Put everything I can on one credit card that earns frequent flier miles on one airline, in my case, American.

Don’t worry: This is NOT an ad for American Airlines. Its seats are built for kids or vertically challenged adults.  The American crews I’ve met tend to be pretty surly, none of the easy good cheer of, say, Southwest. And after losing my bags on one thunderstorm-interrupted flight, I always stuff everything into a carry-on, which, of course, saves me from one item on the airlines’ growing list of hidden fees.

But hey, I gotta have a fix. American flies a lot of places. And I’ve always got miles toward a leg to somewhere, California or Hawaii, Florida or France, that keeps me hooked to the system.  Who wants to lose miles?

Still, even I’ve got my pride, American.  So I’ve pay you $5 on board for some stupid stale snack pack. So I’ve flown six hours with my knees jammed against the reclining seat in front of me, my feet turning numb. So I’ve been stopped cold for sneaking from boarding group 4 to group 3 in a desperate attempt to assure my carry-on can be jammed into the overstuffed bins overhead.

Enough. Now I’m supposed to pay $8 for a god-gersnuffled blanket? Oh, really.  Give me a blankety-blank break.  This is more obscene than the ads Southwest uses to make fun of its competitors’ nickel-and-diming. Turns out, it’s also true.  As of May 1, USA Today reports, American Airlines will charge $8 for a blanket on flights over two hours.  Shorter flights? Deal with it. Just freeze.

Remember when air travel was fun? Oh, I’m sorry. You’re not that old.

Anyway.  This time I’m tearing up my credit card, moving to Continental or Capital One or Southwest. Changing airlines for good … at least after I use those miles I’ve accrued for a visit to Calfornia this summer.

American, you damn well better have a seat for me.  I’ll carry extra cash to stay warm.

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With another storm set to dump up to 16 inches more on the nation’s capital Tuesday and Wednesday, the federal government will be closed for a second straight day tomorrow.

Has anyone noticed?

Less than a month after the Congress scuttled health care — after a full year of debate — does anybody care?

There actually could be some environmental benefits.  Less hot air from the halls of Congress may allow all that fresh snow to linger awhile and reduce global warming a bit to boot.  That, of course, could be more progress on energy policy than our elected officials have made in years.

I hope they did remember to turn off the lights before they left.

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From somewhere beneath a snow mound north of D.C., a friend in Montgomery County, Md., writes:

We got 30″ of snow!  It’s crazy here!  The universe is telling us: SLOW DOWN.  You are not in control!

Read the daily headlines and you know she’s right. This is the time of year when the dour drumbeat of negative news meets the dreariness of  too little sun and too little sensory stimulation.  It’s the time when I miss the fragrance of lilacs, the taste of a ripe peach, the smell of fresh cut grass, the look (at my age, that’s it) of the opposite sex wearing something stylish and maybe a tad revealing.

I miss, too, the sound of something other than the cold wind that’s now whistling through my sixth-story office window. I miss the  sense of life renewed, of rebirth, of the hope and promise that is always Spring.

On this eighth day of February, I can’t much hope for the crocuses to break through the frozen ground anytime soon.  But my friend Heather’s note leaves me with a little hope.  Let the heaven’s dump,  late at night, when Kathy and I are both safe at home. Let it snow so hard that we can’t open the door, that we have no choice but to build a fire and read a book, or, better yet, go back to bed, pull up the covers and sleep for, say, two months.

Now that would truly be grand.

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I’m starting to like this post-State-of-the-Union president.

A week does not a first term make, but at least Barack Obama is out talking to the people again and chiding the weenies in his party, too. He wants to get things done, and he’s right.

Today, The New York Times reports, he told Democratic senators gathered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., “If anyone is searching for a lesson from Massachusetts, I promise you, the answer is not to do nothing.”

And he said more: “We’ve got to finish the job on health care. We’ve got to finish the job on financial regulatory reform. We’ve got to finish the job, even though it’s hard.”

Last week, he mixed it up with Republicans, standing his ground in fielding their complaints. And in between he’s traveled around the country, telling New Hampshire voters yesterday, “Because there’s no magic wand that will make economic problems that were years in the making disappear overnight, it’s easy for politicians to exploit the anger and anguish folks are feeling right now.”

About 1,600 people showed up at the Nashua Town Hall meeting and, The Boston Globe reports, it had the feel of a campaign rally.  In addition to a few sharp-edged words about Republican obstructionism, the president again called for Congress to get over the goal line on health care reform.

I know, words are cheap.  But I’ve long felt the president needed to use them to energize the public before Congress did much of anything.  Instead he forgot his hope-and-change cry and got swallowed up by Washington.

Now he seems to have escaped. He’s whipping up the public, trying to win them as an ally against both houses in Congress. He’s also putting his own pressure on both parties.

So, whether we’re facing six more weeks of winter or not, Obama appears to have climbed out of his gopher hole.  Let’s  hope he never crawls back in.

From where I sit, two truths are self-evident:

1. Democrats will lose seats in both Senate and House come November whatever they do. The public is PO’d big-time, and the party in power always takes a hit.

2. Democrats might just flat-out lose both houses of Congress if they do nothing but sit on their hands and cower.  It would be as stupid as it is counter-productive to their agenda.

A new Public Policy Polling survey supports my gut instinct on this. It suggests that Democrats  “will fare about the same whether health care passes or not.”  In fact, though the difference is not statistically significant, the poll shows Democrats will do a bit worse if they do nothing because some in their own party will turn away.

And well they should.  In my view, the “Know Nothing” and “No, Nothing” Republicans would only make things worse. Far worse.  But the American public actually sends people to Washington to do something other than give speeches and get schmoozed by lobbyists.

Let’s hope the president gets that mesage across to his party before it’s too late.

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Ever wonder why newspapers are shedding readers almost as fast as advertisers?

One reason, I suspect, is that they’re losing touch with what information people who read them need.  Today’s New York Times provides a textbook example. On the front page, the paper has a chilling and fascinating account of Toyota’s slow reaction to mounting evidence that problems with its cars’ gas pedals could prove deadly.

The story starts with the fiery death of four people and then jumps to Page 11, where it has a nifty timeline of crashes and subsequent Toyota warnings, a bar chart showing declines in the company’s U.S. sales, pictures and the rest of a substantial, 2,000-word article.

Just one small thing is missing.  The Times never says what models and years are being recalled.

Come on.  As the owner of two Toyotas, that is absolutely the first piece of information I wanted to know, even if it was published a week or two ago. If you’re going to scare me as a wake-up call, try informing me, too!

Just for the record, Toyota announced today that it will begin fixing the accelerator pedals of 2.3 million U.S.-sold vehicles from these models and years.

• Certain 2009-2010 RAV4
• Certain 2009-2010 Corolla
• 2009-2010 Matrix
• 2005-2010 Avalon
• Certain 2007-2010 Camry
• Certain 2010 Highlander
• 2007-2010 Tundra
• 2008-2010 Sequoia

Dear editor, I should not have had to look that up online. I buy two papers to learn such things.