Another beautiful day. I have to decide whether to drive all the way to Hopkins today, or just to Owings Mills and take the subway in. If I drive, I get to hear more of my Teaching Company course on Hospital Rounds... incidentally, I think that Hopkins was the first teaching hospital to initiate the daily "rounds" that revolutionized medicine.
Carroll County Times News, etc
Politics and Ethics
Some Mississippi candidate for office had conspired with 3 other guys to take pictures of his opponent's wife, who has been in a nursing home for 13 years with dementia, in order to show him as a mean guy for cheating on his poor wife. At least, that is what I am reading into the newspaper article.
What does it mean if a husband spends time with another woman while his disabled wife probably doesn't even know who he is because of Alzheimers Disease, or other type of dementia? Ethical question that many men will have to face, now that their spouses with mental illnesses are living longer and being kept alive through medication. Is it possible to continue to love a person, when that person is completely "out of it?"
Sunday Entertainment.. Car Jumping
Members of the Gamber Firefighting Community were treated last Sunday to the spectacle of a guy chasing his girl friend around their parking lot with a knife. He was mad because she had opened the car door and walked away from him. He managed to cut her hands up pretty badly before police arrived to calm him down, and chain him up.
Confession.... Before we were married, my late wife sometimes got mad at me while we were in the car, and when I stopped for a red light, she would open the door and walk away. This went on once in a while, until we moved away from our New Bedford hometown. She couldn't do it any more then because she was afraid she would get lost. So, instead, she just started to forgive me for whatever dumb thing I would do to irritate her, and we had a nice peaceful life for 43 years.
Also, soon after we were married, Elaine agreed to babysit her 4 year-old sister, Janine a few days a week, even though Janine hated me because I had married her sister and she no longer had her constant attention. One day, Elaine was ill and I had to fill in as Janine's babysitter. After wrestling her into our car and driving off, Janine opened the car door and ran away. (No seat belts or car seats in those days, my friend.) I spent the next hour chasing her through rush hour traffic until I was able to pin her with a "cross over toe hold" and get her back into the car with threats that I can't repeat here, and copious amounts of penny candy. Luckily, she calmed down a little and I was able to control her a little bit until Elaine took over, sick as she was. In years to come, Janine learned that I was a lovable little brother-in-law, and grudgingly accepted me.
El Presidente
I am a little upset about recent political cartoons that the Carroll County Times has been publishing bashing the President and his policies. I could understand cartoons about W, because, in my humble opinion, his actions were not geared to good outcomes for the middle and poor classes. But Obama.. here is a guy who is abused by every nutcase in the Nation for trying to bring health benefits to millions of Americans, some of whom would die if they did not have it, while trying mightily to end the two wars that W got us into. Did all those thousands of Americans have to die in Iraq and Afghanistan? Really? Blessed are the peacemakers... and President Obama is one of them, in my opinion.
Spoiled Eggs
A company that mislabeled old, tainted eggs in order to make a buck, has been fined $6.8 million. In China, the owners would have been shot. Unfortunately, here, they will be able to hire a slick lawyer, go out on appeal for a few years, get their fine reduced and go free. (I hope not.)
Good Pet News
A "Cutest Pet" photo contest is underway in Carroll County, sponsored by Bowman's Feed and Pet Company and Banfield Pet Hospital. Our cat, SuZee, would definitely win this contest if we entered her picture... she's so cute! However, winning would probably go to her head and there would be no living with her after that.
Down the Ocean, Hon
Well, this is the weekend that high school graduates and college students invade Ocean City. After trashing the beach and stabbing each other, they will return home to their normally drab existence. Poor babies.
The Advocate Newspaper
Every Tuesday, the Carroll County Times includes a copy of the Advocate. I believe this is an ancestor of a paper called the Democratic Advocate. Since there are only a few Democrats left in Carroll County, they dropped that part of the name. Besides, it never reports political news.
Astronomical Information
Jon Kelvey of the Advocate, wrote a very informative piece about a mysterious pole recently installed in back of Hoffman's famous Ice Cream store in Westminster. He writes that the ancients somehow figured out that a mirror on a post would produce a figure 8 pattern over time. That pattern is called the analemma. An analemma is a tracing of the course of the sun throughout a year's time. This pattern was known to Aristarchus in the 3rd century BCE and it was also discovered on one of the stones of Stonehenge. Gazing at the annalemma, Johannes Kepler figured out that planets move in elliptical orbits rather than perfect circles. So, have a nice cone of peanut butter ripple and contemplate the erected rod that mimicks those that helped scientists learn about the Universe.
Crossword Puzzle
I look forward to reading the Advocate every Tuesday, but, I would like it better if they didn't print the solution to their crossword puzzle right under that puzzle. Yes, I could put something over it so I wouldn't see the solution; however, when I turn to the page in question, my eyes automatically scan the bottom half of the page and even if I don't see all of the solution, a few of the words imprint themselves on my retina.. that spoils the whole thing for me.
Strawberries
Don't forget.. this weekend lots of Carroll Count churches are having strawberry festivals. Yummy!
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