Panic in the streets

Look. Up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a, uh, snowflake.

Yep. Adam has set the French Toast Alert at High as a winter storm heads toward New England with the potential to cover the ground. Jeez, you'd think it was winter in New England or something.

The panic level is exceptionally high as weather watchers, like political reporters, fight the last war. And that was last December, when a Friday storm caused massive gridlock.

Of course, last year city and state officials failed to take adequate notice in deploying sanders and plows.

So this year, schools were closed a day early in Boston (they've been closed all week thanks to a real storm in central Mass.) Tom Menino and Deval Patrick have urged all non-essential workers to stay at home -- something that likely won't make a difference since the City Council and Legislature weren't in session anyway.

I can certainly recall many worse storms -- a little number in February 1978 comes to mind.

Time will tell whether our forecasters are right or wrong. Same holds true for our elected officials.

But the high anxiety is no doubt a marvelous boost to sagging ratings at our local television stations. And a good excuse to start Christmas vacation a day early.

But I'm no fool. I did stop by the store tonight -- for a six-pack of Harpoon IPA. To heck with French toast.