Hug your kids...again

Don't know how far-reaching the news was, but if you heard about the suburban-Philly high school where a student committed suicide with an AK-47 today, it was our little high school, where my younger daughter is a freshman (and, had she been a little more efficient in post-first-period organization, would have been out in the hall, right in the middle of the action).

She was not in physical danger, but like us is still very shaken. Hug your kids, pets, significant others, whoever tonight. Talk to them. Listen to them. And hope and pray that those who are troubled, with themselves or others, seek another solution than at the end of a gun, particularly one that has no business being privately-owned.

A Hard Place To Play

This nugget gleaned (been doing a lot of gleaning recently, since it doesn't require the cognitive or time commitment of original prose) from today's sports pages:

The Colorado Rapids will open Major League Soccer's newest stadium April 7 when they host D.C. United at Dick's Sporting Goods Park to open the league's 12th season.

Now, given the trend to nickname sports stadiums by using the word "The" followed by a shortening of the stadium's actual name - e.g. Veterans Stadium known as "The Vet," Lincoln Financial Field as "The Linc", the former Bank One Ballpark as "The Bob," we can only wait in breathless anticipation for the first sportscaster to say "Well, Bob, the Rapids went down at The Dick tonight..."

Do you suppose someone, ANYONE, gave this any forethought?

Law of the Prairie

Gleaned from my ISP's home page. When is someone going to hunt down that damned Midwest and bring it to justice?

30-Minute Fatwa

The Rachael Rayization of America Must Stop.

I mean, the giggling, jiggling FoodSkank is EVERYWHERE. Now, I can't even go into my local Acme (if you want to sound truly Philadelphian, you say that you're going to "The Ack-A-Me") without a big Nabisco display of Rachael and her perky, vapid mug on all my favorite snack crackers. Yet another reason why I should shop more often at Whole Foods.

The Inquirer's Karen Heller, a great columnist, offers up this snark on Rachael and similar Food Network pseudo-celebrities.

We need someone, anyone, to offer up a fatwa on Rachael. I implore our Muslim brethren: Don't worry about the Pope in Turkey. Worry about Rachael on my Triscuits.