As temperatures rise, Rush Limbaugh still is dead

The cause for celebration here in the south of Iowa today is that plus-one degree (F) reading on the thermometer at dawn. Highs in the 30s predicted by the weekend; hopefully this will have been the last cold snap of the winter.

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The system that brought extreme cold to Iowa also produced misery across a big swath of the South, most notably in Texas where millions were left without electrical power.

The fault there, beyond the unpredictability of long-range weather, seems to have been the isolated and unregulated Texas power grid, unprepared for cold and without the necessary links to the rest of the nation's interconnected grid to receive relief from it.

None of that's the fault, however, of millions of Texans suffering the consequences of their leaders' folly.

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And then some guy named Rush Limbaugh died. I'm at a loss here because I've never listened, only read about him. But my cousin Don Mason's analysis, posted to Facebook yesterday, is as good as anything I've seen:

"Every piece I've seen anywhere today about the death of Limbaugh describes him as a 'conservative talk radio host.' That's an inaccurate description that does a great disservice to all true conservatives. He was not in any real sense of the word a 'conservative.' He was, at best, an extreme reactionary bent on inflaming simmering biases and poisoning public discourse in ways that have lead directly to the dysfunctional society burdening us all today. Mislabeled by too many an 'entertainer,' he was given a platform from which he engaged in his daily hate-mongering, giving license to haters everywhere to feel validated."