If you haven’t officially started your fasting count down to Thanksgiving, you’ll never be able to consume all the food required to make Thanksgiving truly American. So drop that pastry tart and start starving.
Braces can make a difference
A judge recently ruled that the state had to provide braces for children in state custody if, in fact, a dentist determined they were needed. A small victory but one of great importance to children being raised by the state because their parents can’t quite find the time to do it.
A few years back, there was a young girl on my GAL caseload who had dental needs. She was one of those kids that just worm their way right into your heart. She was bright, pretty, charming and should have been having a wonderful childhood. But instead, she was
Hometown Alaska
For those of you interested, I’ll be a guest on KSKA public radio today from 2 to 3 on a show entitled, “Hometown Alaska”. It will be a call in show about Temporary Sal’s new book and book tour. Tune in at 91.1 FM.
From a concerned parent
This is what a friend recently wrote to me about taking his sons to play video games – names have been changed to protect the (not-so) innocent kids:
When the family got home from church, my son Barry reminded me that I had promised to take him to “Friendlly Fire” the video game parlor down the street. I agreed, and Larry, Barry and I walked down there. It was very clean and neat inside with a late teen running the counter. $5 for one hour was the minimum. I got Larry and Barry both an hour. The only thing appropriate
Drunk Drivers
With the headlines screaming at us here in Anchorage about the repeat drunk driving offender who killed a young man near Potter’s Marsh and almost killed his companion as well – potentially leaving two children orphans – the great hue and cry over drunk driving has resumed. How do we stop repeat offenders short of sentencing them to life after the first offense (effective but some civil libertarian will probably have problems with that concept) or chopping off their arms so they can’t actually steer a car or even open the door without help (also something I imagine a civil
Ouch, my brain
I turned on the TV instead of NPR the other morning for reasons I don’t remember. How painful. I will never watch early morning TV again. Take me back, NPR. I appreciate intelligent discussion and calm reasoning now more than ever! By the way, did you know there is actually a show in the morning called ShowBiz Today or something like that which announces things like an interview with Donald Trump with the breathlessness one would normally use only if one had snared the first ever in person interview with God? Take me back, NPR….
The view from my world
A friend recently e-mailed me to tell me that he believed in health care for everyone but didn’t want it run by the government because our government is so inefficient. This was my response:
Well, I guess my feeling is that the government must be doing something right because here we are, over 225 years later, and we are still a somewhat coherent whole with more services offered to us on a daily basis with some degree of efficiency by our government than most people will know from their government in a lifetime. Our water is clean, our waste is
What happens when your aunt catches you and you can’t escape her red, red lips
Didn’t you just hate it when your aunts did this to you on the holidays? Yep, Rhodes’ Auntie Mame is going to make his life fun and exciting always… and he’ll always know when she’s around by the marks on his cheek. All I can say is, “Be grateful, Rhodes. My aunts used to make my cheeks red by pinching them. A mouthful of lipstick is much less painful, even if you are a guy.”
When did we become so selfish?
One of the questions that must be asked as the health care debate rages on is just what type of society we are or want to be.
The reason humans first banded together those many millennia ago was because communal life provided better protection against the wildness and dangers it contained. But living together only worked if the rules of the society in which you lived made life better than facing the lions and tigers and bears that inhabited the primeval forests alone.
So humankind made rules for its societies. It created both spoken and unspoken codes of conduct that,
Allen and Smith
I think anytime multi millionaires are put in jail that they should be required to pay us for the privilege. Call me selfish, but I am hard pressed to understand why I’m paying for Bill Allen and Rick Smith to have someplace to live and eat for free for the next few years.