Free Range Blogger

I see where Silver Springs, MD Child Protective Services has ruled that two parents who let their kids go to the park unescourted are responsible for child neglect.  I’m a little stunned but have a solution.  How about somebody standing up in Silver Springs city meetings and loudly asking who in the heck would even think of relocating a business to such a city that is now so dangerous you can’t let your kids walk to the park?  Then go to surrounding towns to spread the sad story about how downhill Silver Springs has gone that it has become so dangerous.  Write editorials in the Washington papers about the tragic state of affairs in Silver Springs.  Oh, you don’t have to be from Silver Springs to do this.  In fact it is best that you live somewhere else.  Let the SS chamber of commerce defend the town and CPS. You could cite the behavior of parents in Oklahoma to contrast.  In 1879, George Washington Miller, the cattleman whose life would later inspire the character, Gil Favor, the trail boss in the TV show Rawhide, sent his 11 yr. old son to tell the Ponca Indian tribe that the best land offered for their reservation was near the Arkansas/Salt Fork confluence—near where present day Ponca City lies.  Joe Miller rode for 3 days, 180 miles, camped under the stars, crossed numerous rivers to reach Miami, Oklahoma and meet with tribal leaders.  The leaders put Joe in the center of their council circle and grilled him.  Were there wild turkeys?  How many wild plums and other berries could he identify?  Do the rivers flood, and is there a place near the rivers with a high hill capable of permanent housing? Joe answered with such honesty and conviction that the tribal elders nodded in agreement. Joe?  He became an honorary chief of the tribe later in life.  Now here’s my question.  Could any 11 year old in Silver Springs do such a feat?  Can they even explain why their city’s spring is silver or where it was located?

In another news item out of London, there has evidently been a massive earthquake in the Middle East. 2 million people killed.  The United States has raced to provide assistance to replace hospitals and police as needed.  Canada has pledged to provide replacement grain for food.  Australia and New Zealand have promised to provide replacement livestock (Sheep and goats).  Finally the patriotic citizens of the United Kingdom have pledged to provide 2 million replacement Muslims.  

Pictures of Jihadi John have surfaced and it turns out he is a well-heeled Brit and wears a Pittsburgh Pirate ball cap.  Turns out the fellow American jihadi who convinced him to wear the Pirates hat was a Cubs fan who was miffed that the Pirates no longer take the cellar in the National League Central.  Hopefully the Pirates will pay a large ransom to get Jihadi John to take off the darned cap and thus will undermine their club.

Here in Oklahoma we have a Burying Beetle. It’s an endangered species.  Every time we build a highway in eastern Oklahoma we have to pay shake-down money to the Federal government for preservation of the beetles. (Are the beetles threatening suicide if we don't do more payola?) A lot of rednecks are saying, “If you are more concerned with a disappearing species of beetle than about Christians disappearing in the Middle East, you must be a liberal.”

            Everybody was scandalized when Biden supposedly got too intimate with the new Sec. of Defense’s wife.  I think he was just whispering, “Have you seen Barack’s new movie, 50 Shades of Government?” That’s why she had such a look of horror on her face.  Biden also missed Netanyahu’s speech.  He was in front of his computer all morning searching the Net and Yahoo.

            I am told that DEA has found a batch of pot crazed rabbits who evidently found somebody's stash.  This reminds me a true story by a Conoco colleague in Houston some years back.  The downtown of Houston has an overhead dispersal loop of freeways over the downtown.  A semi jack-knifed and crashed on that overpass, managed to straddle the guardrail and hang the trailer over the edge.  The back doors of the Budweiser semi trailer then sprang open dumping thousands of cases of beer onto Main Street below.  The foam was two feet deep but guys from the McDonalds nearby on Main raced to get cerveza at great personal peril.  This all happened as he was trying to drive home out of the downtown.