i remember playing raquetball with my best friend in something like 1978 and stopping off at her dad's office when we were done. we were about 13 at the time, and her dad (a college professor) let us play on the department's remote terminal which was operated by punch cards. as i recall, we made the punch cards spell out bad words. then, in the early 80's, my FORTRAN programming class required at least one of our programs to be done on punch cards rather than CRT terminals. those were definitely NOT the good old days.

The Halloween right after my son got his braces off (after my hemorrhaging money to the orthodontist for three years), he bought some hillbilly teeth and wore them. Took awhile for that to be funny.

They were at Bonnaroo in 2007 and are on the lineup again for 2008. Excellent stuff. I'm glad to see them getting some lovin' and attention.

drink when we're thirsty? next thing they're gonna say the sky is blue.

maybe his first task on Day 1 should be taking a good long read at donotreply.com, especially the part that says, "When you give any private information to anyone, remember, they are idiots."

He's like the British, snooty-pants version of Yogi Berra.

Way back in like 2004 I wrote about the possibly of the dollar in free-fall for the paper I was working for. I also wrote about this new concept of a "housing bubble" that the party poopers were talking about. Who knew they'd both happen at the same time? Is it time to stuff the old life savings under the mattress and retire to the rocking chair on the front porch with a shotgun across my lap? Sometimes I wonder ...

@Johnny Coelacanth: (slaps forehead) But of course! You're right! That makes it all perfectly OK! All that stuff I said before - never mind!

my ex-husband's grandmother experienced all the indignities of Alzheimer's disease, compounded by the belief that she could go to one of the hospitals and bring home one of the "crack babies" (this was in the 90s). They bought her one of those realistic baby dolls, and it provided her a lot of comfort at the end of her life. Evidently it satisfied her need to hold and care for a "baby." after she died, my daughter ended up with the doll, and it was so realistic looking, i made her keep it hidden when she wasn't actively playing with it. i'd see it and for a split second think i'd had a new baby and forgotten about it. we called the doll "freaky baby." yeah, they're creepy, but there are some unusual situations when they can be therapeutic.

if this cop has kids, then i feel sorry for them. look, the great majority of skateboarders are reasonable kids. you ask them to leave, they leave. they're used to it. that cop was way out of line and should receive some punishment and be required to apologize. especially for wrestling what looks like about a 120 lb. kid to the ground.

i also agree with the comment about the "trickle down" effect from a government intent on whittling away at our rights while saying that torture is OK. crap like this is bound to happen, and it's a damn shame.

what's so wrong with trying your best to learn the stuff and then let the chips fall where they may?

publiceggo has it right, in my opinion. i'm an editor at a weekly small-town newspaper, and if the same thing happened to me, sure, i'd be upset. but if, say, i chose to write about it in my regular column, it would have smug overtones of "don't those people know who i AM?"

it seems that if another woman in the same demographic, but with, say, a much lower income or a different skin color, would have been detained under the same conditions (and i'm pretty sure they would have), then this woman should not expect preferential treatment.

i wouldn't blame her for not going back there, but if she got the same treatment as anyone else would, then it's really just a case of a little rough justice.