The stories in the Dallas Morning News this morning are a potpurri of good or bad, depending on each person's interpretation. Here a few gems I gleaned from this morning's edition.
Urban Meyer, a year after leaving coaching for health reasons, is the new head coach at Ohio State.  He joins the likes of Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Nick Saban at Alabama as one of the highest paid coaches in America.   Isn't it amazing what money can do for a "health" condition?  
You  may remember Meyer turned programs around at Bowling Green and Utah before going to Florida, where he won two national championships. However, he abruptly left the team in 2008 after discovering a supposedly congenital heart condition.  He did come back to coach the 2009 'Gaters before retiring, stating he wanted to spend more time with his family.
In case you are wondering just how much to spend on Christmas this year, according to a recent Gallup poll, each person needs to spend $775 this holiday season for retailers to have a "good Christmas."  Or to put it another way, that's how much each of us needs to pony up to keep the nation's retail industry afloat.
Those who took advantage of "Black Friday" got a good start, spending, according to the National Retailers' Association,  an average of $398. 62 on holiday purchases.  That's a record-setting  $52.4 billlion at the outset.
More significantly, it means these folks are more than halfway round the track toward their $775.  I, on the other hand, haven't even left the gate yet. I'm afraid someone is going to have to step up and overspend for me to meet my obligation to the retailers.
In other news, American Airlines declared bankruptcy this morning.  Holly flies American a lot.  Wonder if her frequent flyer miles will still be good. With more than 25,000 American Airlines employee in the DFW area, this will have a huge impact on north Texas, since American is headquarted in Ft. Worth.  
The new CEO, Tom Horton,  announced that flights will continue as usual for the time being.  There will, however, be layoffs as the company struggles to re-organize.
More bad news for Herman Cain.  A woman came forward in Atlanta, Georgia, claiming she had engaged in a 13-year affair with the Presidential hopeful. He, of course denies it, stating that all those calls from his private cell to hers were because he was "trying to help her with money problems." R-i-g-h--t!!
 
And this devastating news from D.C.  Thanks to failure of the "Super 12, Medicare is once more in the crosshairs.  Unless Congress acts before Jan. 1,  doctors face a 27 percent cut in their fees for treating Medicare patients.
If this goes forward, those of us on Medicare are going to be in big time trouble.  Many doctors already will not accept Medicare patients because of previous reimbursement cuts.
Finally, on the national scene, the 12-year experiment of the Euro in Europe may be on its last gasp.  The European Union envisioned a common currency for the continent much like we have in the United States.
What the Union failed to take into account is that these are individual nations with different governments, different internal problems, and different budgets.  When the dollar inflates or deflates, everyone in the United States is affected.
Now, the nations in Europe are discovering that their ties to the Euro put them in jeopardy when a  country gets into financial difficulty.  The Union now wants control over the various nations' budgets!  Like that's going to happen in my lifetime or yours!!
There's more bad news, but that's about all I can stand for now. 
Get out there and shop, shop, shop!  I definitely need help on my share!