There are 521 posts filed in Follow-Up (this is page 38 of 53).
Remember those passport renewals we ordered for the kids? They arrived Monday, just 17 days after we applied for them (and only 12 business days at that). That’s with no rush put on them or anything.
For all the bluster about the government being horribly inefficient, I’m quite pleased with the turnaround.
Remember my previous posts about the value of editors? Tuesday I found another doozie where a quick proofreading would’ve saved some embarrassment.
This one was on a city-owned sign in downtown St. Charles, IL next to a public parking lot. It tells the story of the Arcada Theater, a local music venue that dates back to the 1920s. I’d been intrigued by the venue so I eagerly read the sign while I waited for my friend to arrive. Just when I start getting drawn into its narrative, I read this:
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Raleigh Police are making progress with the speeding motorcycles. Last night officers cited two motorcyclists for careless and reckless driving. The officers caught them as they were lining up, apparently to race each other. Six other motorcyclists fled the scene.
Police have learned that motorcyclists come here from all over specifically to race. The word on the street is that they meet at a gathering place and then go to the racing area (which is, unfortunately, my neighborhood apparently). Printed fliers are apparently used to organize these events. If officers find evidence that motorcyclists have been deliberately racing each other they can not only arrest the perpetrators but they can also seize the motorcycles involved.
I know many officers are motorcyclists themselves and I understand the appeal. I just don’t want anyone racing at 120 MPH down a street near my neighborhood.
There was one more thing I wanted to say about yesterday’s Amber Alert. The police were looking for a missing girl. The media responded in force with photographs and news trucks, keeping the story front-and-center all day long. The media’s wide exposure was needed for the girl to be found, yet police blocked the media from the street in front of her home. The road was open to through traffic but not to reporters. Any reporter who dared venture closer was gruffly told to stay in the “staging area.”
Why? Why treat the media so poorly when went above and beyond to help locate the girl? It was the top story all day yesterday, for goodness sake. I don’t know whether the coverage made the difference (and I’m inclined in this case to say no as I had a strong hunch she was with her boyfriend the whole time), but is this the proper way to treat your partners in a missing-child search?
I’m a staunch supporter of Raleigh Police but at best this looks ungrateful and at worst a breach of First Amendment law. Time for the officers to get some PR training.
Seems I’m not the only one who has grown tired of John Edwards’s publicity-hound ways. Carter Wrenn of Talking About Politics quotes Will Patton, who nails it.
… but then old Will Patton raised an even tougher question, saying, If I was prosecuting this case I’d only ask John Edwards one question: If you wanted was to keep your affair a secret from your wife why on earth did you run for President?
Richard thought that over and said: He might not testify.
Mr. Patton snorted, You couldn’t keep that fellow off the witness stand with a shotgun.
Sad but true.
Got a call tonight from my fellow coach of Travis’s T-ball team, which just wrapped up its season. He told me that his daughter was out riding her bike on Sunday and got hit by a car, sending her into the windshield! If it weren’t for the helmet she had been wearing she would’ve died instantly, he said. Instead, she suffered no brain damage but has a seriously broken leg that will take a long time to heal.
I was shaken when I heard that, as I’d just seen them the day before. She and my daughter, Hallie, had become fast friends during the games and practices. As a parent you try to protect your kids from harm but sometimes the unexpected happens.
I don’t know any more details about the accident but I am reminded of my recent post about many drivers just not respecting cyclists. This is one collision that could have had far more tragic consequences.
Please be careful out there. And hug your loved ones every day.
I’ve been watching the raw video of Carr’s interview and my bullshit detectors have flat out exploded. Watch about 8:38 into the interview when he discusses his current job as a “Business Development Specialist” at Allstate Insurance and spends the next few seconds mumbling phrases about policies. Carr tap-danced around that question like Miss Teen South Carolina Caitlin Upton did. Nowhere on his LinkedIn profile (which is mostly fiction, granted) does he mention working for Allstate. Nor do any Google searches turn up any hits linking him with Allstate.
The guy isn’t simply a liar, he’s a pathological liar. It makes me feel sorry for him.
Remember back in February of last year when I said the FBI was full of BS for blaming Dr. Bruce Ivins for the anthrax attacks? Well, it turns out I was right. Another bombshell hit yesterday when it was revealed that the weaponized nature of the anthrax made it all but impossible that Dr. Ivins produced it.
Why is it that the FBI too often is the gang that can’t shoot straight? They spend $100 million on an investigation and, once they hound one scientist to his death (after first forever tarnishing the reputation of another, wrongly-accused scientist), blame it on him knowing full well they were slandering an innocent man.
Man, I miss the days in this country when heads would roll when someone royally screwed something up. There should be more than one FBI executive seeking new employment right about now based on what they did with the anthrax case.
Or, as I said in my earlier post, perhaps the FBI really doesn’t want to find the perpetrators.
My exasperation with speeding motorcycles near my home caught the attention of N&O reporter Chelsea Kellner, who wrote a story on the problem and quoted me.
And just in case you thought these morons would stop once word got out, you’d be wrong. They were speeding again as early as Sunday afternoon, the day of the article. Seems the motorcyclists don’t read the paper.
They were also going at it again this evening, so I called the po-po. It’s quiet for now, but I don’t expect it to last. I will continue to call 911 for the next several weeks if that’s what it takes to reign in these reckless idiots.
A neighbor on the Historic Oakwood email list said this today about Mordecai Historic Park:
One of the problems attached to matter relating to the Mordecai Plantation House and grounds has been that buildings not associated with the Mordecais are in the Park. And the Park is not under the management of historical preservationists or historians, but of the Parks and Recreation Department. That Department is actually a fine administrator of Parks, but strictly speaking, the Mordecai House should not be part of a Park, but an independent House Museum, managed by historians and preservationists.
Well, let’s take a look at that for a moment. The city of Raleigh bought the Mordecai property in 1969 to preserve it. In 1972, the predecessor of Capital Area Preservation, Moore Square Historical Society, was formed to manage the park, with the city paying them $150,000 yearly to do so. It was in the 1970s (during CAP’s management) that many of these buildings unrelated to the Mordecais were placed on the property. The good news is that the buildings were saved from destruction, but the bad news is … well, they were plopped down next to the Mordecai House. I’m not sure what the city had to say about that decision at the time – I’m still researching it – but I certainly hope the decision wasn’t made simply for the convenience of CAP.
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