My sister is an elementary-school teacher. Recently, they had an active-shooter drill at her school. The kids were worried that it was real, not a drill, so she told them that if it was real, the principal had special code words to use to alert the staff to that. She also told the kids she has a baseball bat she calls “Duke” for anyone who attacks the school.
You may think Duke is no match for a school shooter. Don’t be so sure. During her years on earth, my sister, even without Duke, has mugged two muggers, and beat up a guy who tried to rob the ice cream store she used to work at as a teenager. She punched one mugger in the face, and pushed the other one down the stairs in a New York City subway station.
What’s at least as scary as my sister is that kids that young understand, and ask intelligent questions about school shootings. Even one school shooting was too many, but we’ve had so many that little kids are aware of them.
My local TV news told us about a new study that says any amount of exercise will “lower your risk of dying.” Sorry, nope. Exercise may increase your chance of living longer, but you will still die eventually, so your risk of dying remains the same: 100%.
I stayed a Boy Scout leader long after my son reached his 18th birthday. Consequently, I have more technical outdoor gear than a lot of people my age. This weekend, with temperatures under 20 degrees and more than 8 inches of snow on the ground, I got dressed to go shovel it. As I did so, I noticed that one set of my thermal base layer was made in Honduras. Don’t know why I never noticed it before, but when I did, I asked myself what people in Honduras know about the need to keep warm. I didn’t have an answer, so I selected a different thermal base layer.
New word department. If someone is acting so stupid that it’s really funny, they’re being imbisilly.
Here’s an example of why I say my wife, Saint Karen, must be a saint to put up with me. We both battling a nasty virus for two weeks after Christmas. It gives us stuffed noses, chest congestion, and a really awful, hacking cough. Immediately after I failed at an extended effort to cough up a lung or two, she started coughing. When she was finished, I looked at her, feigned annoyance and asked, “Why must you repeat everything I say?”
Our department of unnecessary detail hears from the NY Post which recently wrote a headline, “Columbia Professor Found Dead After Writing Suicide Notes.” Well, he could not have died first, could he?
