There's a reason we made you the shortest

If it's solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short you're looking for, then you'd be hard-pressed to find a better month than February. In the last week alone of this year's installment, we learned that:

• The people in charge at Walter Reed Army Medical Center did little or nothing to improve deplorable conditions for wounded Afghanistan and Iraq veterans even though the officials had received complaints for years.
• Except for "the one bombing a day that discourages everybody," the Iraq war is going swimmingly, according to first lady Laura Bush. Whether the 179 other daily attacks are as disheartening remains unclear.
• Because former Vice President Al Gore has a big house, we must ignore what he says about global warming. Especially if it won an Oscar from liberal Hollywood.
  
• Because former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had ancestors who practiced polygamy, we must fill precious news hole with tales of people who never ran for president and who died before Romney was even born.
  
• Alabama legislators had to hold a special session, at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars, to promote the state for industrial development thanks to our antiquated state constitution's requirement of an amendment to do anything more complex than putting on a T-shirt.
  
• The troubled Alabama two-year college system will need its third chancellor in eight months after Samford University's former longtime president, Thomas Corts, stepped down suddenly from the interim post Wednesday.

Good riddance to February, and may the rest of March be better than its first terrible day.