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Saturday was hot and sunny. Sunday was also sunny and even hotter until mid-afternoon when a storm front moved through. It had been in the upper eighties, but around three o'clock clouds began to gather and the temperature moderated a little as the clouds blocked the sun. I went out for a short run -- just a couple miles -- before the storm hit. Poor Tiger (the feline member of our family) -- he is terrified of thunder and he runs about the house trying to find a good place to hide, usually under a bed. Nancy and I had spent much of the afternoon painting. We have very high ceilings over the stairway to the second floor and I had to use an extension ladder to reach areas over the landing... After the rain began I made a fresh pot of coffee and we sat on the front porch, drinking our coffee and watching the rain pour down. I had thought that it would be a quick storm, a burst of rain and wind and then it would pass, but obviously I had not been watching the weather forecast, because the rain stayed with us. This was another empty nest weekend. Jennifer was at her Senior Prom Friday night and Sean was called in to work. Saturday night Sean was working and Jennifer was sleeping. Sunday night they were both working until almost eleven. (You may be wondering if it is legal for a fifteen year old to work until one a.m. on weekends and to eleven on a school night... I'm tempted to say that this is Rhode Island, where almost anything goes, but actually I think it is a violation... however, I don't think he is mistreated and it's probably better for him to get a taste of the real world than to sit around the house playing computer games.) I had planned on taking a vacation day today to do yard work (putting landscaping timbers around my vegetable garden, transplanting some veggies and flowers, etc.) but when I woke up to find it was a rainy day, having no desire to attempt to use my electric drill and my circular saw in the rain, I decided to go in to work. I hope to be able to work in the yard tomorrow... I have seen varying forecasts -- one says it will rain on and off all of today and tomorrow -- another one says tomorrow will be cool and cloudy with no rain -- and yet another claims it will be cool and cloudy with just a chance of a light shower. Well, I guess one of them might be right. According to the Providence newspaper this morning, Friday's bomb scare at our high school was because a bomb threat had been written on the wall in a bathroom at the school... no bomb or any parts of a bomb was found... Authorities supposedly are investigating some "high school age suspects" but all of the kids I've talked with named a specific kid that they claim was suspended last year for something to do with a bomb threat. Jennifer was quite annoyed at the lack of media coverage ("We're not important enough here.") but I pointed out to her that this is part of living in a rural area. We have two local newspapers -- one is weekly and the other publishes twice a week -- and the nearest television stations are in Providence. The Providence Journal's Saturday edition is pretty much news-free (essentially just one news section, the rest is sports, movies, squishy touchy-feely features, little hard news) and does not come in regional editions the way it does Monday thru Friday. Thus, she had to wait until Sunday morning to see any news coverage. Binghamton, NY, where she grew up and where we lived until we moved to Rhode Island four and a half years ago, may not have been a major city, but there were four local television stations (CBS, NBC, PBS, ABC) and an evacuation of Binghamton High School due to a bomb threat would have brought out the remote broadcast vans. I remember when I was in high school... one year there was a series of bomb threats phoned in to the school... The first time it happened, the fire alarms sounded and the school was evacuated for an hour while the fire dept and the police looked through the building. The second time it happened we were also evacuatated but only for fifteen or twenty minutes. There were two or three more threats but the only way we knew about it was if we happened to notice firemen in the hallways during classes. Of course that was a few years ago... Last week a college age couple were found murdered on a golf course in Providence. Sunday's Providence Journal had a picture on the front page of the five thugs arrested for this murder. The young couple had been clubbing and were standing and talking near were their car was parked when these creep kidnapped them and drove them to the golf course where they shot and killed them after robbing them of $18. There is now discussion about whether they should be charged with murder under Rhode Island law (which does not, unfortunately, have a death penalty) or under federal carjacking laws (which do carry the death penalty). There's no question in my mind about this: the permanent elimination of vicious scum like this why the death penalty is needed. There is no such thing as a true life sentence; eventually they would be set free to prey again. Besides which, why should this degenerate filth be allowed to live? I know, I know, all human life is precious and wonderful and who are we to decide who should live or die, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da... I say all five of them richly deserve to be executed. They are more dangerous than rabid dogs. Okay, okay, I won't go off into a rant... except, you know, these scum used a gun... hmmm, I am sure that they would not possess an illegal firearm... oh, right, I forgot, guns are only evil things when owned by law-abiding citizens... I'll start paying respectful attention to the gun control babbling of Rosie O'Donnell the day she shows up in Rhode Island to press for the death penalty for these five killers... Interesting, isn't it, how she is determined to deny you and me the right to own guns and yet she has no problem that her own bodyguards are armed. It's okay for the elite to be protected but wrong for the rest of us. What a hypocritical bitch... You're right, I am ranting... I guess I should not comment on local or national news... or politics... I tend to object to political labels... one word cannot describe someone's entire philosophy and postition on various political and social issues... I am strongly in favor of equal rights... I support the guarantee of rights for same gendered couples... it is as unfair to treat 401k plans, etc. differently for gay couples as it was when Social Security treated men and women differently... I'm old enough to remember the days of the Segregated South... and some of the reasoning that today's bigots use in an attempt to justify discrimination against gays reminds me very much of the attempts at justifying racial discrimination... Does that make me a Liberal? I hope not. (Certainly please never call me a Democrat... I will always associate the Democratic Party with Southern Segregation and big city corruption... oh, yeah, Bill Clinton and Al Gore have fixed all of that)... I support fiscal responsibility in government (at all levels) and think that those who propose various grandiose spending schemes should remember that government budgets don't come from some magic fountain of gold but from money taken away from ordinary people (also known as "taxpayers"), money confiscated under force of law... too many politicians (Republicans and Democrats alike) can't seem to remember that... I oppose censorship... I support all parts of the Bill of Rights... yes, even the one about the right to keep and bear arms... Okay, I'll be quiet for a while... |
