We’re all busy. We’re busy taking care of business and taking care of ourselves, just like our parents taught us. What we’re not doing, however, is taking care of each other.

Consider the people in Sandy Run, S.C. and 72-year-old Mary Sue Merchant, the late 72-year-old Mary Sue Merchant. According to the Associated Press, Mrs. Merchant died of natural causes in a tightly locked house on 25 acres in the small community with only a dog for company.

The dog, no doubt, was company enough. Dogs are far more loving and caring than people, but now her small town is reflecting on why no one noticed her death for 18 months. The power company shut off her power and the county foreclosed and sold her property for back taxes even as her body lay inside, decomposing, and the lonely dog died of thirst in the same room.

“We didn’t know this lady existed,“ Sheriff Thomas Summers told the AP.
“We’ve lost the community,“ said the Rev. Neil Flowers, who plans to talk about Mrs. Merchant—a little too late—on Sunday at Beulah United Methodist Church, a few miles from where Mrs. Merchant died. “We do our own thing. We lead busy lives. We go and go and go ... and stay within our comfort zone.“
That’s the truth. Our lives are busy enough. We’re not even chasing the almighty dollar anymore, we’re chasing any dollar we can find just to pay the rising cost of gas and meat and clothing and everything else while our salaries are cut, slashed, furloughed or laid off. Still, to be so busy that we allow someone to die alone and have the county sell the property without checking on the rotting body, is beyond tragic.

Her husband, David Merchant, died in October 1985 at age 53, according to the AP. Afterward, Mrs. Merchant lost touch with her own older sister and a sister-in-law who tried to call—once—and found the phone disconnected and assumed Merchant had gotten a cell phone.

“It’s a sad tragedy this lady had absolutely nobody who cared enough to check on her— very sad,“ the sheriff said.
It wasn’t that they didn’t care. It was that they didn’t think about her because they were too busy. What, a good friend of mine would ask, is the difference?

The sheriff’s deputies check on about 200 senior citizens monthly in this county of less than 15,000, the sheriff said, “but we have to know they’re there.“
No one knew she was there. Mrs. Merchant didn’t attend church. Her only prescribed medicine was for glaucoma, so she wasn’t on any medical checklist. She had no family. She didn’t know her neighbors and they didn’t know her.

Mrs. Merchant had a post office box, so no mail piled up for neighbors or a carrier to notice. Her electricity was cut off in February 2008 after three months of unpaid bills.

When Mrs. Merchant didn’t pay her $234 property tax bill in January 2008, the county mailed delinquency notices to her post office box, which came back as undeliverable. The property, worth about $160,000 according to county records, was sold Dec. 1, 2008, for $20,000, said county administrator Lee Prickett.

No one from the county walked the property before selling it because that would be trespassing. Authorities say someone noticed that Merchant’s car never moved and finally asked deputies to check.

An autopsy Friday determined she died of natural causes, though specifics are unknown due to the condition of the remains. How long the mixed-breed dog lived without its owner is unknown; there was plenty of dog food in the house, but no water.

Let’s think about it. Imagine lying with no human contact for months and going unnoticed for more than a year. Think of a little dog simply sitting beside your dead body until it wastes to death.

Now think of friends and family you haven’t contacted in years. Think if you suddenly discovered your best college buddy had been dead for two years, or your aunt or you brother.

Now do something. Call each other. Talk to each other. Walk your dog and talk to the neighbors. Say hi. Offer a little help. Get to know one another. The harder the economy gets and the harder we work to help ourselves, the more we may wind up needing each other.

It won’t be easy. It will require change.

I’ll start today.

To prove his point, President O’s folks escorted GM chairman Rick Wagoner out of the building and indicated they will have a greater hands-on role in the changes, both personnel and product. And that’s good. After all, who knows more about making the kinds of cars that people want and ensuring the quality they will buy than Congress and the White House staff?

Obviously the car companies don’t know doodily. Left to their own devices, American makers gave We, the People the SUV, which We, the People didn’t need, but obviously wanted as We, the People bought big boat loads of them until We, the People started getting slammed with $4 gas gallons.

They gave us small cars, too—the Chevy Cobalt, the Dodge Caliber, the Pontiac G4—but We, the People preferred Toyotas, Hondas and Subarus.

So, with government as a future controlling shareholder, the question is what kind of car will elected officials provide for us to buy?

It must be fuel efficient.

It must be easily recycled and, best of all, use recycled material so that it’s original carbon footprint is small.

It must have parts that are easily interchanged because we need to make sure that everyone can afford it.

It cannot be too large or too comfortable, lest it promote unnecessary driving and unnecessary use of fossil fuel.

It must be reliable enough to convince people to buy it, but not too reliable or people won’t take public transportation.

It must be small enough to fit into parking spaces.

It must have styling that is not so appealing that it instigates class wars or jealousy.

So what kind of car would Congress design?

It would design the Trabant 1.1. Made in East Germany for 40 years, at the end of its life it featured a 1.1-liter engine, body work made out of recycled plastics, paper, other materials and resins, easy-to-repair mechanicals and proletarian styling.

Go ahead and take a look at the future of American motors.

Hmmm, that bankruptcy option looks better all of the time.

Like the fact that there is no longer a war against terrorism, according to the Washington Post. It is now officially being referred to by the Obama administration as a contingency operation.

Now, I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it’s one thing to risk your life in your country’s “global war on terror,“ but something else entirely different to get killed as part of your country’s “overseas contingency operation.“ The change probably won’t help military recruiters meet quotas.

Some things make you say what?

Like the Australians proving that Blue Oyster Cult was correct and trying to correct their mistake by hunting down and killing toads.

Remember BOC’s “Godzilla,“ with the refrain “history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man?“ Well, Godzilla’s baby brother, the cane toad, is proving the sheer idiocy of introducing alien species to solve a native problem.

According to the Associated Press, the poisonous cane toad has plagued the great Down Under for decades, breeding rapidly, eating voraciously and bestowing death upon most animals that dare consume it. So officials are holding a celebration of death, supporting mass killing of the creatures and using their reptilian corpses as fertilizer.

The toads were imported from South America to Queensland in 1935 to control beetles on sugarcane plantations. Unfortunately, the toads can’t jump high enough to eat the beetles, which live on top of cane stalks. The toads could, however, eat damn near everything else and are poisonous to anything that tries to eat them.

To encourage the speciecide, organizers are offering prizes and awards that range from cane toad trophies made of actual stuffed cane toads to a gift certificate for a local resort. Organizers received advice on creating toad “detention camps” and “detention techniques” to ensure safety and to keep the toads “alive and unharmed for interrogation.“
Live toads brought to the collection points will be examined to ensure they’re not harmless frogs. Then they will be killed, either by freezing or by being placed in plastic bags filled with carbon dioxide.
Some things make you say “oh, wahhhh.“

According to the AP, China, today, criticized a newly released U.S. report on its growing military power, saying the report could damage military relations.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang lashed out at the report as interference in China’s affairs—exactly how it interferes is not made clear—and said his country had formally complained to the United States.

“It is a gross distortion of facts and interference into China’s internal affairs. China resolutely opposes it and has made solemn representation to the U.S. side,“ he said at a regularly scheduled press conference.

The problem? A U.S. Defense Department report released in Washington, D.C. said that Beijing’s rapidly growing military strength is shifting the military balance in the region and could be used to force its claim in disputed territories. Notice the Chinese didn’t say the report was false.
Qin said at a regularly scheduled press conference that China has pursued peaceful development and that its military policy is defensive in nature. Sure it is. It’s just funny how weapons systems and armed forces are capable of functioning in both offensive and defensive situations, isn’t it?

Some things make you grab your head, cover your ears and squint closed your eyes and shout “T.M.I.“

A Saginaw, Mich., man caught by police in the act of mating with a car wash vacuum, has been sentenced to 90 days in the Saginaw County Jail.

Kind of makes you anxious to see what happens tomorrow, doesn’t it?

The AP says hundreds of thousands of fearful Ukrainians refused vaccines for diphtheria, mumps, polio, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, whooping cough and other diseases this year. Authorities even canceled a U.N.-backed measles and rubella vaccination campaign funded by Ted Turner.

Ted Turner likes to spend some of his money helping folks out. He’s big into funding a few United Nations efforts at improving health, probably as a way to make up for inventing the Cable News Network. Exactly how he became part of the sterilization scandal, or why it only involves men, no one seems to know.

It could be that constant political turmoil and a devastating financial crisis—one of the worst in Europe—has also fueled mistrust of Ukraine’s crumbling health care system, and authorities in general.

It could be that Ukraine’s educated population is subject to rumors and perceptions, partly because its free press doesn’t adhere to such silly constraints as objectivity and facts. Imagine Fox News and MSNBC without the need to appear balanced.

No information was available on Ted Turner’s Web site that would explain why Turner is so interested in the reproductive capacity of people with whom he apparently has so little in common. Back in the Ukraine, health experts who are likely on Ted Turner’s payroll, rounded up the usual scapegoats, blaming the scare on government mismanagement and irresponsible media coverage.

Dr. Fedir Lapiy, an expert in infectious diseases based in Kiev, said prosecutors appeared to have used the case to promote themselves and discredit political opponents.

Prosecutors briefly detained the country’s chief public health official after a teen boy’s death and claimed that the vaccine, which was certified by the World Health Organization, was imported into the country without proper authorization.

“It looked more like a PR campaign than a thorough probe,“ Lapiy said.

The move, according to health officials, “struck the fear of God,“ not to mention Ted Turner, into a lot of young people and parents. The Ukrainian Health Ministry and World Health Organization, rumored to be part of Time-Warner, concluded that the boy died of septic shock from a bacterial infection unrelated to the vaccine. Naturally, no one but Jane Fonda believes them.

Some print and online organizations reported that the Indian-made measles and rubella vaccine offered would sterilize men as part of a plot by Ted Turner, whose Washington-based United Nations Foundation charity paid for the vaccines.

It’s not the first time Westerners have been accused of messing with Third World nether regions. In 2003, religious freaks in northern Nigeria led a boycott of polio vaccinations claiming the shots were a Western plot to make Muslims infertile or infect them with HIV. Even now, authorities in Indonesia are discussing a plan to end childhood immunizations against a number of diseases out of fears that foreign drug companies are using the country as a testing ground.

The whole thing sounds silly, but you never know. If Ted Turner is capable of adding computerized color to hundreds of black-and-white films, why, he’s capable of almost anything.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Health Ministry says it will work to promote the need for immunizations among the population, and look for ways to launch a new measles and rubella vaccination campaign.

My guess is they’ll play it safe and mount a new media campaign through Comcast.

Try that in China.

According to the Associated Press, authorities in China’s southwestern Sichuan province have made a “coordinated effort” to silence dissent by arresting activists and detaining others. In Chongqing, two workers’ advocates were detained Feb. 15 for organizing a sit-in outside a closed silk factory. Family members say they have not been able to visit either man.

In Chengdu, four men are still detained without charges for publicizing two recent protests. In one case, a homeowner resisting eviction and demolition of his house injured six policemen with kerosene and firecrackers on Feb. 20. In the second case, about 20 people chained themselves together outside the Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court on Feb. 23 to protest unfair rulings issued over the years.

The Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has dispatched a team to criticize local government and municipal party committee handling of the incidents. (No such arm of the U.S. government is known to exist, yet.)

The crackdown on protests comes because Chinese worry dissent will grow as slumping global demand idles tens of millions of rural migrants who power China’s factories, according to the AP. We have the same issue here, but we’re more concerned with Congress passing a tax on everyone it hates.

To stifle dissent, the Chinese charged the protestors with the heinous crime of “assembling a crowd to disrupt social order.“

Imagine that. Take, for example, our local protestor deluxe, David Swanson, who spearheaded the protest against ex-President George Bush at Monticello. Heck, take the hundreds of protestors and those who disrupted the ex-president’s speech for example. In America, it’s cool to scream, yell and shout curses at your leaders. Personally, I ain’t got no heartburn with that. It’s irritating, sure, but hey, it’s the way we roll.

Had that occurred in China, however, Mr. Swanson and the Monticello Screamers would still be in prison.

That makes me feel good. Not that they would still be in prison, but the fact that they’re not. Yes, we may have permanently lost our status as the world’s economic powerhouse.

We may soon trade our belief in rugged individualism for social equality.

We may forever end up driving Smart Cars and mopeds instead of Cadillacs and Harleys, taking the bus instead of the Hummer, living in 1,000-square-foot, city-center condos rather than 3,000-square-foot McMansions on the edge of town and never see our standard living rise above that of England or Belgium or Finland again. That’s life. But as long as we don’t throw away our desire for free assembly, speech, religion and press, it will still be “Advantage America.“

Let us pray.

Hell, they even did it before bailouts.

According to J.D. Power and Associates, that organization that surveys just about everybody about just about everything, Buick—that’s right, the nameplate owned by General Motors—is the top-rated, most dependable brand in the world. Why, it even dethroned Lexus, the Toyota-owned luxury brand that has owned the top slot since it first made it on the survey.

Better yet, Mercury, the Ford-owned brand, placed third.

J.D. Power’s study measures problems experienced by the original owners of vehicles after three years. The intended result is a study that focuses on actual glitches with a vehicle. Suzuki owners reported the most problems among the 37 brands assessed by J.D. Power with a first-place tie between Buick and Jaguar—yes, Jaguar—for the fewest.

Lexus came in second by the tie for first, followed by Toyota, Mercury, Infinity and Acura.

The study surveyed original owners of 2006 model-year vehicles in October 2008 because owners’ opinion of a car after three years can be a major influence on their opinion to buy that brand again, officials said.

Hmmm, imagine that. The company which crawled to Congress for cash, the company whose executives were raked over hot coals and prodded with proverbial red-hot pokers for being so far behind Honda and Toyota that only a governmental commission could help them understand the marketplace, is tops in quality.

The Buick LaCrosse was J.D. Power’s top midsize car, while Ford Motor Co.‘s Lincoln brand took two awards. Chrysler LLC, which took no segment awards last year, won top honors for its Dodge Caravan in the van segment.

Lexus took four top awards for various makes and models.

Hmm, imagine that. The companies whose bosses was criticized for flying a corporate jet to Congress by top-ranking Congressional officials take taxpayer-paid military transport, came in first across the world.

The industry average was 170 problems per 100 vehicles, or somewhat less than two problems per vehicle. Last year, the industry average was 206 problems per 100 vehicles. The most frequently reported complaint was wind noise, followed by brake noise, peeling paint, brake vibrations and problems with a lights. The problems have been fairly consistent from year to year.
Jaguar’s jump to the top from its No. 10 spot in 2008 was notable for a study that is fairly consistent from year to year. Officials said the brand, which Indian car giant Tata Motors Ltd. bought from Ford in 2007, has made significant improvements across many areas.

Apparently the Japanese brands, while still leading the world, aren’t that far in front. Maybe they need a little Congressional direction, too.

Proving their tight-fisted grasp on reality, the French are fighting the econopocalypse by giving up and staying home in protest. Angry that their president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is not doing more to fight the economic crisis, French workers have decided to strike.

So, as the economies of the world stall and dive, the French workers banded together to disrupt rail traffic and airline flights within the country while schools, mail, hospitals and pubic transportation were slowed as teachers, postal employees, medical workers and bus drivers refused to go to work.

“The strike won’t accomplish much, but is useful nonetheless. It’s necessary to express yourself, in any case,“ Beatrice Lobrot, a spokesman for a cosmetics company, told the Associated Press.

Yeah, and a day off of work ain’t so bad either. That depends, of course, on whether they get paid for striking. Otherwise, a day off without pay, in America, anyway, is called a furlough. Hey, I’d stay home, too, if I didn’t need the money.

“This march is legitimate and useful for the country. Perhaps as a result of this march, the authorities will finally move to respond to the preoccupations of the French,“ former Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal said on RTL radio Thursday morning.
On the other hand, the strikes do seem to have an impact. According to the AP, a strike in late-January put between 1 million and 2.5 million people into French streets. Weeks later, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced measures to help people affected by the financial crisis, including special bonuses for the needy.

Sarkozy told ministers at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that he “understood the worries of the French,“ but said he had no plans for additional measures.
Budget Minister Eric Woerth said the measures already announced would increase social expenditures in 2009 by about $13 billion.
That sounds like a lot, but it’s a not much compared to the billions and billions we’ve given the companies run by needy and poor executives making six-figure salaries that have run the damn things into the ground.

Hey, do you suppose the French may be on to something, here?

Seems the polling people were signed up by Healthways and America’s Health Insurance Plans to survey We, The People and find out what makes Us happy and where We happy People are.

Utah, it turns out. And Hawaii and Wyoming. Heck, we’re pretty damn happy here in Jeffersonville, but not in Kentucky, Mississippi or West Virginia, which finished last in the race to smile.

According to the Associated Press, the poll rated such variables as mental, physical and economic health. The highest happy-high was found out West, young man, with the lowest scores here in the South. Done by congressional district, the greatest happiness was found in rich, wealthy districts.

Now, there’s a surprise. But wait, there’s more! The most unhappiness was found in impoverished districts!

News Flash! Wealthier people tend to answer more positively about their life, their happiness and their accomplishments.

Gosh, who’da thunk?

“It’s not just about physical health,“ Eric Nielsen, a spokesman for Gallup, told the AP, “it’s about their ability to contribute at work and be more productive, and it’s about feeling engaged in a community and wanting to improve that community.“
The massive survey involved more than 350,000 interviews. Examples of the questions include:

Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday? (Yes, but they were sardonic smiles and sarcastic laughs.)

Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your job or the work you do? (Satisfied. This job is fun!)

Did you eat healthy all day yesterday? (I ate yesterday. That’s healthier than 75 percent of mankind.)

Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live? (Yes, but then, I pack heat.)
The survey took about 15 minutes with 42 questions and happiness scores of up to 100. Happy-Happy Utah scored 69.2 points while bummed-out West Virginia copped 61.2 points.

Officials said geographic divides could be overstated and even the states with the highest scores had significant work to do to improve certain aspects of their residents’ health and happiness. It is, after all, the states’ responsibility to make us happy.

Researchers hope the findings will help employers better understand what they can do to create more productive workers, like stop laying them off and eliminating jobs or sending the jobs to other countries. Seems people with jobs scored higher on all the questions.

Eventually, the data could even be used to compare health and happiness by ZIP code. No doubt that will come in handy for the life insurance industry when determining premiums, as the survey is going to be generated for 25 years. So how did We, The People, of the Fifth Congressional District score? Happy and satisfied, for the most part.

We scored 83 out of 100 for satisfaction with access to community services and amenities, including health care, and the ability to pay for them.

Our 78 emotional health score says we’re feeling satisfied and happy with the way we are treated and our everyday experiences in the community. We’re at 74 of 100 for physical health, 64 for general well-being and almost 63 for healthy behavior.

On the other end of our scores came happiness and satisfaction with our jobs at just over 50. We bottomed out at 37 of 100 for life satisfaction now and our belief that we’ll be satisfied five years from now.

Hey, we may be happy and satisfied, but we’re not stupid.

The continuing contracting economy will collapse the existing United States from 50 states to six and do in two years what four years of battle couldn’t: Destroy the Union.

That’s what Rooskie researcher Igor Panarin believes. The commie—make that former commie— is a dean at the Rooskie Foreign Ministry’s school for future diplomats and a regular on Rooskie state-guided TV channels. According to the Associated Press, he’s a former spokesman for the Rooskie Federal Space Agency and reportedly an ex-KGB analyst.

“There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010,“ Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy—a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.
Pounding his shoe on the podium and chanting “we will bury you,“ Panarin—wait, wrong commie.

Standing behind the podium, Panarin predicted President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order. Panarin didn’t give many specifics on what underlies his analysis. He did note that he had been predicting the demise of the U.S. for more than a decade now and that it just took AIG a few years to catch up.

What helped Panarin predict the American Econogeddeon was our “social and cultural phenomena.“ He noted America’s “great psychological stress” as shown by school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men. It’s a well-known fact, apparently in Russia anyway, that social stress leads to shooting children, going to jail and engaging in alternative lifestyles, all obvious signs of the apocalypse.

Dude, I couldn’t make this up and the AP didn’t.

He also cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington’s bail-out of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed.

OK, there he may have a point.

“I was there recently and things are far from good,“ he said. “What’s happened is the collapse of the American dream.“

Hmm, he must have visited Detroit.
Asked for comment on how the Foreign Ministry views Panarin’s theories, a spokesman said all questions had to be submitted in writing and no answers were likely before Wednesday.

Mr. Gorbachev, tell Mr. Putin to give Panarin back his pills.

Read the original article here.

What you may, or may not know, is that Myrtle Beach was the home to a couple of motorcycle rallies every May that pretty much taxed the town’s resources and patience. First came the Carolina Harley-Davidson Dealers Association bike week with lots of parades and rallies and very loud motorcycles and such. Then came some less organized rallies with similar events. There also came drinking, fighting, noise and some violence and lots of motorcycle trailers parked on city streets taking up spaces.

Well, the good citizens were in an uproar and the city’s parents (fathers and mothers on the council, don’t you know) did something about it. They officially backed off the rallies and then passed a variety of ordinances aimed at things bikers hold near and dear.

They outlawed loud mufflers, “straight pipes,“ and revving engines and excessive noise. They passed a helmet law, although South Carolina has no statewide helmet requirement. They banned more than two motorcycles in a public parking space although at least four will fit. They made parties responsible for permitted or unpermitted special events that require an extraordinary public response to be held financially responsible for the cost of that response. In short, if you have a party and hell breaks loose, you pay for the services of the town’s own Hellboys to quell the demons.

They also banned parking or storage of trailers and oversize vehicles on the street and required the vehicles to be parked in approved parking or storage lots.

Well, the Harley folks got the idea and moved their rally to New Bern, NC. I don’t know what’s up with the other rallies, but no doubt they will move, too. As bikers are wont to do, some showed up to protest the ordinances and, of course, were immediately ticketed.

Then I read in my old newspaper, The Fayetteville Observer in NC, about the move to New Bern. In it, John Rhodes, the mayor of Myrtle said “please know that Myrtle Beach is not anti-biker or anti-motorcycle. We are ending the motorcycle-related rallies because they grew too big and lasted too long. The huge rallies even kept visitors away from Myrtle Beach, and that’s not good.“

I disagree with one part. I think the ordinances prove the city is anti-motorcyclist and, especially anti-biker. The ordinances were designed to discourage riders from riding in. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong that. If you don’t want motorcyclists in town, pass laws to keep them out. If you don’t like people driving big Road Maggots—huge recreation vehicles—pass anti-RV parking laws.

I just didn’t like the idea that the mayor was saying the city wasn’t against bikers when the evidence proved otherwise. So, I e-mailed him, courtesy of the city’s manager, being as the mayor’s e-mail wasn’t on the city’s Web site.

“Please tell Mr. Rhodes ... that it is perfectly fine to admit that the city doesn’t want motorcyclists within its limits. Tell him it’s proper and right to stand up and say “we do not want you or your kind or the trouble that follows you.“ As an avid, everyday motorcyclist who commutes, travels, works and recreates on his motorcycle and has been a part of different cultures within motorcycling, I will respect him for his honesty.“

I think I also told him to tell the mayor that saying one thing when your actions speak another is disrespecting himself and me. Oh, I also said that I have limited resources and will be sure not to spend them in Myrtle Beach where my ilk aren’t wanted. The last thing I need is ride into The Beach and have the local officers follow me around, listening to my exhaust and waiting for me to forget a turn signal so they can write me for reckless driving or tow me for parking three-to-a-space.

I don’t need the pressure, dude.

Naturally, I fully expected to be blown off as a crank. Within a few minutes, however, there was an incoming in my Outlook. The manager, Mr. Leath, wrote back. Hmm, seems I’m not the only one with odd hours.

Mr. Leath promised to forward the e-mail, said the mayor stood by his comments about not being anti-biker and wished me to have a good time riding. He was polite. He responded quickly. He made me feel like my voice, as far away as it was, counted. It was almost enough to make me change my mind about visiting just so I could ride down there and say thanks and invite him out to Hardees for a chocolate malt.

I stopped short of that, however. I invited him to Charlottesville, instead. If I get a ticket here, it’s because of what I did, not what I drive.