Here I am again, same as last year, trudging through the snow in below-freezing weather at the North Pole just to get an interview with one of its citizens.

Do you know I had to buy an extra warm coat, heavy gloves and a stupid-looking hat for this once-a-year journey? Maybe the newspaper should reimburse me for all that. It couldn’t hurt to ask.

As my toes are becoming frostbitten because I didn’t think to buy heavy boots, I’m wondering who I could interview. Santa gives me permission every year but I never know who I’ll be talking to when I get there.

They’re just part of the latest rage: Taylor Swift and One Direction. Both phenomena have been on television recently in concert-like venues, entertaining screaming crowds of fans.

But I kept noticing on both occasions that no matter who was performing, the situation was the same. Screams and smiles might have peppered the crowd, and a few hardy souls even sang along, but invariably there were hundreds, if not thousands, of cameras held aloft. It would have been impossible for the cameramen to catch shots without smart phones front and center.

At some point during the next year, Gov. Nathan Deal might have to come up with the correct answer to a most difficult question: Is spending tax money on a new stadium for Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank so important that it justifies throwing away the job of governor?

Blank thinks it would be a great idea for the state to spend $300 million from a hotel-motel tax to help pay for a billion-dollar stadium that would replace the Georgia Dome.

The folks at the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (WCCA) are willing to go along with this proposal.

United States Sen. Saxby Chambliss is hearing thunder from the right – and plenty of it – as he prepares for a possible run for reelection in 2014.

It’s been widely rumored that Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican, has been considering a challenge to Chambliss in the GOP primary. That rumor picked up more strength when Price recently tried – and failed – to win a leadership position in the U.S. House’s Republican caucus.