Here is a New Year’s resolution that will set your heart a thumpin’. As soon as you read it you will enter it in BIG LETTERS, underlined and circled, in your new diary.

Here it is: CLEAN OUT ATTIC !

Now let us return to reality. And the reality is “We ain’t gonna do it.” Which is a pity. Because if you sold off all the junk in your attic you could probably use the money to buy a lot of new stuff. Which would replace old stuff you now use. Which you could lug up to the attic.

In case you did not know it, your government shares your laziness. Or slothfulness. Or whatever it is that will keep you from cleaning out the attic this year. In fact, we could probably adopt a national slogan, in Latin: Cleanupus Atticus – Yawn !

What I am exploring here is America’s attic. Our beloved government owns 900,000 buildings. Most halfwits could tell us our government does not need so many buildings.

An Obama (cue the drumroll) Presidential Commission reckons government could sell off 60,000 of them and never miss them. Yawn. Every president seems to hear the nagging. “When are you going to do something about all this stuff we own and never use?”