Fridays Odds and Ends

One couple in Fort Worth, Texas are missing the home that belonged to the husband's grandmother. It was demolished by the city when a demolition crew went to the wrong address. The house next to it was the one that was supposed to be razed after being condemned. The owners were not there at the time, but a neighbor tried to intervene and get the demolition crew on the right track, but those attempts failed. According to an editorial in the Dallas Morning News, the owner is not in the kind of snit many of us would be. He is requesting that the city pay him the fair market value for the house that was demolished, and could the city please remove the concrete slab. "It's not much good anymore."

Not the actual slab, but imagine driving up to your house and seeing this.

 In an interesting take on the whole debate about Snowden and whether he is a traitor or a hero, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said that one good thing to come from the mess is that now a public debate about NASA's domestic snooping is now unavoidable.

I agree that the discussion needs to happen. Ever since 9/11 the average citizen has been negatively impacted by anti-terrorism efforts in too many ways. More thought has to be put into how we protect against terrorism without infringing on the rights and privacy of American citizens, lest we live under the control of Big Brother as fictionalized in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
 

The original cover of the 1949 British Edition

In a real feel good story, I read about a boy of four who is raising money to replace the neighborhood park that was destroyed in the plant explosion in West, Texas. Apparently, this was the park that the boy liked to play in near his grandparents' home and he lost it, along with the home and his father who was a volunteer firefighter. The boy, Parker, is following in his father's legacy of raising money for charitable works, and he held a hot dog sale on a recent Saturday to start raising money to rebuild the park. His grandparents, while still grieving the loss of their son and Parker's father, joined in the effort, along with other residents who added a bake sale and a silent auction to the event. According to the grandmother, the amount of money raised was not enough to even get started on rebuilding the park, but she thought it was important to work with Parker and let him make this effort.

Kudos to Parker and to his grandparents.

Now for some fun from the funny papers. This one is from One Big Happy. Rose, Ruthie's grandmother, is sitting at a desk with a laptop open, her husband, Nick, stands behind her, looking over her shoulder.

Rose says, "Wasn't that cat video adorable."

Nick says, "Below it is the comment 'ROFL'"

Rose translates, "Rolling on the floor laughing."

To which Nick says, "Oh, I thought it meant 'Reaching out to fellow losers.'"

And from Pickles: Earl is sitting on the edge of the bed and Opal asks, "Why are you just sitting there staring into space, Earl?"

"I'm having one of those mornings where I can't decide whether to comb my hair or put on my socks."

"What, you can't do both?"

In the last panel, Opal has walked out and Earl calls after her. "Hey, we're not all overachievers like you you know."

The dog that is on the bed next to Earl adds an "Amen."

Did anything in the news recently strike you as particularly interesting or absurd? What is your favorite comic strip?

Monday Morning Musings

So, Governor Good-Hair as we sometimes refer to our esteemed Texas governor, has done it again. Rick Perry recently vetoed two bipartisan ethics bills and rescinded state funding for the prosecutors unit that is investigating his cancer research fund. 

In an article in The Dallas Morning News written by Christy Hoppe and Robert T Garrett of the Austin Bureau, Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice was quoted as saying, "Perry's office is an ethical black hole. Ethics reform goes in. Nothing comes out."

That is one black hole that needs to be closed up.
 

Perry also vetoed a bill that dealt with equal pay for women, saying that women have enough recourse in the Federal government for equal pay issues.

Umm, right. Like that is really working.

I think Perry's hair interfered with his brain when he vetored those bills, as well as one that dealt with truancy. A bill to put the responsibility on school districts to find ways to improve attendance among truant students before pursuing criminal charges was passed by the House, but Perry shot it down. Under the current program school districts can refer a student to court after three unexcused absences, and Texas is one of only two states in the country that prosecute truancy cases in adult court.

Really? What about family court? As any teacher and he or she can tell you that the number one problem with truancy starts on the home front. 

On the topic of NSA secret-leaker Edward Snowden, Dallas Morning News columnist, Jacquielynn Floyd, says that we do need to be concerned about what Snowden is possibly doing in China and how that affects our national security. However, she also says we need a serious discussion about "...balancing personal privacy and national security. And in that discussion we should all get to participate."

All in favor, raise your hands.

Yesterday I received one of those messages that authors just love to stumble across in their e-mail inbox. A reader contacted me to say how much she loved Boxes For Beds, my new historical mystery. In fact, she said she readthe book twice, and at first I thought she was the same person who had said that in a recent review on Amazon, but turns out she is not. To get that kind of affirmation for my work is such a thrill, but it is also very humbling because I know there are few books that I like well enough to read more than once. I am always so eager to get on to the next fictional adventure, I don't often go back to previous ones. I imagine that most readers are like that, too, so it means a lot to know that at least two people have liked the story well enough to give it a second read.

That's it for me for today. Leave a comment if you are so inclined and let me know what you are musing about on this Monday.