Yet another - old - rant.

As usual, I spend a lot of time with tongue-in-cheek in this one, and I suspect people who know me will get a laugh or two, but it concerns a serious subject, and it takes a very sobering turn at the end. Frankly, I seriously suggest that loving Mom's, especially those with little children, allow trusted friends or loved ones to read it first and suggest whether or not they should read it.



It was actually a very pleasant experience, and one which I will own up to having, even though it took place within several hundred yards of D.C.

It was Monday of the week just passed, and I was sitting in comfort outside the Cozi Deli in Arlington, enjoying marvelous weather, a Bombay salad, and a bottle of S. Pellegrino. Nearby, a Blondie lurked inside a wrapper, waiting its turn to delight. At the next table, a lovely young Asian woman sat worrying over her phone for a time. Then, in what seemed to be frustrated but not unexpected resignation, she rose and walked away with a purpose that suggested a polite but certain homicide was in store for someone, somewhere.

She was soon replaced by an Arlington police officer, who in turn was joined minutes later by a fellow constable. As they both enjoyed a leisurely lunch, they were approached by several folks who asked directions or had similar requests for information. I observed their demeanor as they dealt with the public, for I had already determined that these fellows might be a source of information necessary for some impromptu research I wished to carry out. They were friendly, professional, and unassuming. And so, encouraged by this display, and after waiting for what I regarded as a respectful amount of time before putting them through the momentary suspicion of being interrupted by some nerd reading Thomas Paine, I asked if they would excuse a question or two.

They agreed, so I asked if they had spent any time on motor patrol, and the one officer indicated that he had done so, and that his colleague was currently serving in that capacity. My belief that they could provide the input I needed being confirmed, I asked them to give me their estimation of how many automobile accidents out of every ten on the interstates and other major highways were the result of one car striking another from behind – the proverbial “rear-ender”. As I suspected, they gave me one of what I figured were the two most likely figures - specifically, six. I thought seven possible, but unlikely.

I then asked how many out of those six were caused by the car in the rear speeding up. The first officer said “On purpose?” to which I replied “No, just any case at all." They both agreed that such an occurrence was so rare as to say “Never”. So then, I reasoned out loud, discounting for the moment all the usual issues such as following too closely, talking on the phone – which they both were careful to say was a serious issue on the highways – and other distractions, the majority of accidents on the road were ultimately the result of cars slowing down, most occurrences of which are sudden and, because they are the result of incompetence, entirely unnecessary. I wasn’t trying to excuse following too closely or any other bad driving habit; I just had a different point to make. So far, these two amiable officers were with me in my conclusions.

So then I asked how many of the remaining four occurrences were the result of lane-changes. Leaving room for other factors, they said “Most of them.”

With this, your correspondent was batting a thousand. These officers had confirmed what I was already convinced of, although it’s hardly profound: almost every accident on the highways, the Interstates in particular, are the result of people slowing down and/or changing lanes. In short, changes in velocity – which I trust you realize consists of both speed and direction – are the worst maneuvers to engage in behind the wheel while traveling at high speed.

So, why all this bother? Well, it happened one day while I was rolling down I-64 headed for who-knows-where. I was north of Newport News, westbound in the right lane, when I approached a State Police car that had pulled another driver over, evidently in the process of enhancing the Commonwealth’s revenue stream by means of ticketing someone who probably had done nothing wrong, just something illegal.

A brief aside here, folks: traffic tickets are not intended to change anyone’s driving habits. They are a form of taxation, one that operates on the simple reality that punishment kept below a certain tolerance level will result in no behavioral modification, such modification being undesirable because it will result in a lowering of the revenue generated by repetition of the offending behavior. And spare me any retorts involving driver-improvement courses; if you even thought of that, it indicates a naiveté that would render any explanation pointless.

Back to my experience; as I neared the scene, the officer noticed that I was just moving along as if he wasn’t there, which to outward observation is exactly what I should have been doing, my intent being to pass him safely while doing nothing to interrupt the flow of traffic. In an act that bled righteous indignation, he stopped suddenly while walking back to his vehicle, fixed me with stare that I can only suppose was intended to have some meaning to me, and shot out his right arm with a surprising degree of passion for a Virginia State Trooper, plainly indicating that I should have changed lanes. I remember thinking to myself “Why would I do something so stupid and pointless?”

Why, indeed?

As it turns out, the General Assembly had it in mind to address a very real problem that occurs with frightening regularity, and it was this that occasioned the Trooper’s antics. Every year, there are police officers maimed or killed by vegetables disguised as human beings who manage to slip past the rigid safeguards of the motor vehicle department and get their seed-pods wrapped around a driver’s license. These plant-lifes then get command of what is essentially a non-nuclear missile and proceed to aim it in slip-shod fashion down the roads with the rest of us at metal-tearing speeds. A common affliction among these various cabbages and zucchinis is a tendency not unlike that displayed by a moth when confronted with a bug-zapper: when they see a vehicle with bright flashing lights, they actually steer for it. Folks, I promise you I’m not making this up. There have been many officers killed or seriously wounded by morons who are incapable of understanding the basic law of physics which tells us that two forms of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and the General Assembly, laudably, wants the carnage to stop.
Their answer?

Require the general public to engage in the two activities that cause almost every accident on the highway…


A few days after my encounter with Trooper Indignant, I’m back on the Interstate, going who-knows-where. Imagine my surprise when I see a sign on the side of the road that says “State Law – You must slow down or change lanes when approaching a stationary emergency vehicle”. Or something close to that.
Son of a gun; no wonder that Trooper was waving at me like I was a schoolboy who was about to walk into the wrong bathroom! He thought I was doing something wrong!
I wasn’t, of course, but I was breaking the law, a law of which I had been unaware, or so I would have been told if he caught up with me at the 7-11.

Known as the “Slow Down Move Over” law, Section 46.2 – 921.1 of the Code of Virginia requires motorists who are approaching parked emergency vehicles with flashing lights to change lanes or slow down.
At least that’s what we are told it says.

In another garden-variety example of incompetence by government – you know, the same people who issue driver’s licenses to broccoli – the law’s language is confusing and open to opposing conclusions. In other words, a lawyer’s dream.
We start with the statute’s summary:

§ 46.2-921.1. Drivers to yield right-of-way or reduce speed when approaching stationary emergency vehicles on highways; penalties.

Seems plain, doesn’t it? “You see blinking lights, move over or slow down”.
Okay, I got that.

Meaningful day . . .

Itching to go back outside, as this just may turn out to be the most exquisite day of weather I’ll ever see, but I need to pause just a moment to add my thoughts on the day.
I have no pictures of the past, literally.  None.  So there’s nothing to post in that medium, but I do recall the loss of the one this day is about.

And Happy Thanksgiving . .

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen
- by O. Henry


There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we
Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat
saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old
pump looks than it used to. Bless the day. President Roosevelt gives
it to us. We hear some talk of the Puritans, but don't just remember
who they were. Bet we can lick 'em, anyhow, if they try to land
again. Plymouth Rocks? Well, that sounds more familiar. Lots of us
have had to come down to hens since the Turkey Trust got its work
in. But somebody in Washington is leaking out advance information
to 'em about these Thanksgiving proclamations.

I didn't sign up for this . .

My buddy and I stood waiting at the bottom of the stoop.  Sooner or later, we knew the door would open and it would be showtime.

When it did, I was hit for a moment; the visage of the woman standing behind the protection of her screen door wasn’t entirely unlike the one Owen was trying to get Larry to throw from the train.  But, it was time to be a man, so I launched in . . .
The reason we were there was our possession of credible evidence that her son had stolen my baseball glove.  Gilbert was there to back me up; although once I got going it wasn’t necessary for him to say anything.  I presented my case, and waited for the lady to react the way my Mom would have had it been some other kid standing at our door.  What I got next remains one of most unexpected and disturbing encounters I’ve ever had.  To my shock and complete bewilderment, she expressed absolutely no interest in determining the truth of my claim, but instead justified her son’s actions had he actually done the deed, saying there was nothing wrong with it because . . .

. . . someone had stolen his baseball glove.

Medical care - this guy's thoughts . . .

(This is a response to a debate held earlier today . . .)

Now then, as promised, some suggestions regarding health care and the issue of force.

Having established that force is always wrong, and cannot be part of a moral solution, we conclude that any moral solution must be based on voluntary relationships.
Before any solution can be formulated, the problem must be defined.  What are the problems with health care in the U.S.?  I suggest the following, with the request for any I have missed to be pointed out.

1.  It is too often prohibitively expensive.

2.  It is too often ineffective or deadly.

3.  It is too often haphazardly accessible.

My at-the-moment wish . . .

Sitting in the Great Room of Big Meadows Lodge, looking northwest over the valley that nestles the town of Stanley.  The sun will be insistent that I pay attention, but in time he will retire behind the escarpment rising from the valley floor 10 miles from my bare feet. 
I've given up reading; my love, my soul's bond with this place, can't be displaced by human authors.  I cannot be here, or even dwell on it at length from my room, without my heart overflowing with longing to stay here forever.  I have wonderful memories, some that have taken on a bitter-sweetness because I know that nothing will ever allow me to recreate any of those times.  At other times when I dream of this place, I wish that I could know all the things that have passed by as I have lived my days away from here.
I want to be a man with limitless means, one that can organize the most magical of Christmastimes for family and friends here.  My favorite musicians, my children, their children, and their children's children, those that I love, the one that I love, joining in the singing of carols as the children run about, all turning at once as they hear the cry "It's snowing!"
But now, I give old Sol a wry smile as I acknowledge his defeat without malice, and in the valley, lights begin to take over the old boy's task as dusk grows to darkness.
I stay for a long while.  I allow the overwhelming emotions to have their way as they flow like the eddies in a brook - contentment and regret, happiness and longing, anger at the injustice of growing old and satisfaction knowing I have eternal life, frustration at never really having been able to express the love that I wish people could accept without it seeming odd and gratitude that there have been just a few who have.
I long for the weather to do for me what it did my last time here - sweep in with fog and rainy clouds that obscure my vision of the magnificent vista as the sky grows dark, casting a seasonal cool on my room, then chasing it all away with a freshening wind during the night watch, so that I awake to a dawn view of the valley and a chill morning full of emotions made of spiced cider and maple sugar candy and the smell of the fire in the Great Room.  To again climb the stairs to the deck and encounter the sound of heart-filling music unspoiled by a human voice, a gift from the early morning keepers of this place, and the absence of another soul for these precious ten minutes . . .

Law abiding types have nothing to worry about?

The issue in the cartoon is gun control, so what's that about? If, for now, we leave aside the extrapolations that folks make, especially conservatives and libertarians, gun control refers to government action that is intended to reduce the possibility of the loss of innocent life as the result of the discharge of a firearm and to enhance the ability of law enforcement to determine the identity of an attacker who uses a gun in an assault. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, if government doesn't do this, it is failing to carry out its only legitimate purpose, which is to protect people's property rights.
No person with sufficient intelligence to hold an opinion worth consideration would suggest that government should have no involvement in the manufacture, distribution, and possession of weaponry. This is true at all levels – national, state, and local.