Singer Sammy Hagar touched a chord with Americans 30 years ago when he sang, “I can’t drive 55!” It was one of the first counter-counter culture rock songs — an attack on something imposed in a misguided attempt to make the world better.

To me, the song always conjures memories of family vacations in the ‘70s, droning across a vast, empty Western wilderness with eyes fixed firmly on distant mountains that seemed days away.

So now it’s smartphone apps. Big Brother knows your score on Angry Birds. When you press “yes” to the question of whether an app can know your location, you’re really giving permission to the National Security Agency to follow you around like some dude in a fedora hiding around the next dark corner.

But not really, because there aren’t enough spy guys in the world to follow all the people who play Angry Birds, find directions on Google Maps or open a lot of other apps every day.

Politicians, often prone to rash decisions when experts tell them economic development is on the line, cannot be accused of hurrying when it comes to deciding whether to subsidize a large convention hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.

How long have they deliberated? On the day I first wrote a column about the idea, it would be safe to say (as it would be of any day) many babies were born. Last fall, many of these were freshmen at universities.

One online commenter to a recent report on public attacks against religion pointed to what he called “The fundamental and very real difference between poking fun (even to the point of ridicule) at someone because of their race and someone’s religious beliefs.”

He was implying that religion is merely a choice, or as others have put it, you can’t pick your skin color, but you can pick your church.

You also, presumably, could choose not to go to church, which many would consider more convenient when it comes to expressing opinions on current events.

Attached to another recent story about an increase in violence toward religious people worldwide was a comment that said the persecution is happening because religions have overreached “into political and public policies and (are)

Dennis Rodman has done more to draw attention to North Korea than anyone since, perhaps, the crew of the USS Pueblo. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of attention that could be compared to a clown conference outside a homeless shelter — a sideshow that is a useless and damaging distraction.

Entertainers and other attention-getters (I’m not quite sure how to categorize the former basketball player) can do a lot of good when they use their talents to raise money and awareness. However, Rodman’s latest trip to North Korea, including his fawning rendition of “Happy birthday” to Kim Jong-Un and his infamous bow, would be the equivalent of having the celebrities who sang “We are the world” in 1985 donate the proceeds to

If Barack Obama had a white grandbaby on his lap for a Christmas photo, would Fox commentators have made fun of it?

I honestly don’t know the answer to that question, nor do I want to spend much time pondering it, other than to note that today’s political climate seems to have embraced the worst angels of our nature, and that can’t be good for the country.

The latest case involves MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry who hosts a weekend show with a bunch of like-minded analysts. On a recent episode, she showed the Christmas photo Mitt Romney and his family sent during the recently ended holiday season. Mitt is pictured with a newly adopted grandbaby on his knee, who is black. Hijinks followed, mostly using the baby as a way to poke fun at the former Republican presidential nominee and his party.

Harris-Perry quickly apologized to her Twitter followers and “to all families built on loving transracial adoptions.”