Since my friend Jeffery Simmons started the shameless campaigning for the category of Best of the Best local columnist in his Sunday column, I'll just point out he begrudgingly writes one column per month for the Opinions page and periodically does one in Sports when he feels like it. Meanwhile, I write two columns per week, if you count Business Pulse as an informative column, and I do. Now that my bit of crass self-promotion is over, I'll get into this week's column.