Before I dive into the topic of my post, I must share my happiness with my lunch today.  In terms of culinary delights on a Saturday afternoon, it’s tough to beat a peanut butter and mustard sandwich (yes, you read that correctly) with a side of Ranch-flavored Wavy Lays washed down with a Diet Pepsi.  Doesn’t that just scream “fine dining”?

Second quick unrelated note — Catherine and I went to Centennial Park this afternoon to enjoy the Oberlin Steel Drum Band.  It was wonderful!  We danced and clapped and enjoyed the breeze that foretold of the coming thunderstorms.

OK, to my point …

I’m a little late with my thoughts on this one, but I must opine that all sides involved in the “honoring Justin Timberlake” debate are just plain silly.

First of all, I refuse to see any resolution proposed by Ophelia Ford as legitimate as she would not have a seat in the Senate chambers if she didn’t get dead people to pull the lever for her.  And, I have to believe that the General Assembly has more important issues to tackle than showering love on a boy band graduate who can’t kick his voice out of falsetto.  I’m frankly curious as to where exactly sexy had gone and how Mr. Timberlake was able to retrieve the sexiness for our enjoyment.  If he would address this query at the State Capitol, perhaps I could get behind the resolution.

On the other hand, you have some Republican legislators who are taking this silly thing way too seriously.  I am willing to wager that a preteen boy will never have this inner monologue:

“Wow.  The General Assembly has honored Justin Timberlake.  It really does pay to bring sexy back.  I am going to rip open some girls’ shirts at school tomorrow and have a friend videotape it.  Then, I’m going to have this same friend kick me in my crotch so that I can warble some trite lyrics with rhyming words like “girl” and “world” or “stay” and “way” at a painfully high register.  This will make the semi-unclothed girls swoon and scream.  I’m really glad that Senator Ford thought to honor Justin Timberlake.  It will make all of my questionable behavior OK.”   

I was clicking through radio stations this afternoon and came across a country station on which the DJs were discussing the accuracy of the BMI.  I discovered that Kenny Chesney only has two inches and ten pounds on me!  I knew he was small, but my goodness!  How is that possible?  You would think that those muscles he likes to put on display in his beach-themed videos would pack some pounds on him.

I wonder if I could take him in a brawl.  I can get pretty scrappy when needed, and I still remember some moves from the Tae Kwon Do classes I took during my collegiate years.  But, I have no beef with Kenny so why should I even ponder the question?  Just some random musings, I suppose.

This year, the city of Jamestown will be holding numerous celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of British settlement in America. Oh, wait. I forgot. The word “celebration” has been banned by the planning committee:

“You can’t celebrate an invasion,” Mary Wade, a member of Jamestown 2007 organizing committee, has stated. After all, Indian tribes “were pushed back off of their land, even killed. Whole tribes were annihilated. A lot of people carry that oral history with them, and that’s why they use the word ‘invasion,’ because it truly was an invasion, and I’m sure some of the Indian people will probably want to tell that as a part of the story of 400 years.”

So, instead of marking this great moment in history that would lead to the development of the world’s longest-lasting democracy with the pride and cheers it deserves, there needs to be a focus on how evil British folk were bent on genocide.

As a history teacher and a mother who plans to make civic education an important part of my home regardless of what goes on at school, I am beyond irritated at this politically correct, racked with guilt garbage. War, murder, slavery and other nasty things are an integral part of history. Every powerful nation throughout time has employed these tactics at some point. Is slavery right? Of course not! But that doesn’t mean we should rename every school that was built to honor the author of the Declaration of Independence. Should we celebrate that countless Native Americans were killed? No, the large-scale deaths by disease and violence are a sad part of our history. But, how many borders have changed and countries been formed by “invasions” such as Jamestown over the past 400 years. I don’t think the world map looks anything like the 1607 version. It sounds callous and I don’t mean it to be so, but I can’t think of a better way to phrase it — these things happen.

There are some historians who, understandably, aren’t thrilled with the revisionist approach to the events:

… since the advent of Jamestown provided what later became the United States with important introductions to Christian common law, a republican representative government, the first Protestant Christian worship service, and its first interracial marriage.

The settlers of Jamestown were not horrible people who came to a new land to plunder and lynch, as is now being alleged. They were the beginning of a movement that would create the United States of America. That’s a wonderful thing!

Exhibits about the plight of Native Americans and African Americans be should included among the events of the Jamestown anniversary. We need to know all aspects of our history. But, let’s not fail to CELEBRATE the positive developments that were set in motion by Jamestown.

I’ve been poking around the ivory towers of the Internet, have dove searching into every self-important looking crevice, and have the scanned the planet around me for pseudo-intelligent life. I still cannot figure out where all the international law advocates have gone.

The Iranian capture of fifteen British sailors and marines has left the usually verbose critics of everything American silent. We now know that the holding of a few hundred terrorists at Guantanamo Bay is a greater violation of international law than the unprovoked capture and detention of one the world’s greatest democracies’ soldiers in at best, international waters.

Well, I guess it’s okay because Iraq is a mess, and if the Brits were smart, they wouldn’t be there anyway.

Of everyone, The New York Times has the most finely tuned sense of selective apathy. The day the story broke, the Times buried it halfway through the A section. Days later, as the Iranian government revs up the propaganda mills and has become exceedingly defiant and bellicose, the Times isn’t even running updates that take up a single column.

Much has been made about the fact that because of American involvement in Iraq, we are logistically unable to assist the British and confront Iran.  But we are no longer flying sorties over Iraq or employing cruise missiles against Baathist military installations. At present, two American carrier groups are positioned in the Persian Gulf. To confront Iran one need not invade it, and the resources needed to make good on a credible threat of force are at present sitting idle.

The problem with Iran generally is that her theocratic drive to destroy Western culture shows no signs of abatement. The popular conception of a pro-Western student movement has been overblown for some time. It makes me laugh.  I’ve never seen a nation where students supposedly do so much, from now allegedly being prepared to overthrow the Supreme Leader who controls Iran, all the way back to taking over the American embassy in 1979 (alas, the truth is that it was Iranian revolutionary soldiers, not students, holding our diplomats hostage). Fanciful dreams that there lies within Iran a bubbling cauldron of pro-Westernism that will moderate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s stated propensity to annihilate the West and kill the world’s Jews is not based upon fact, considering first that Ahmadinejad’s anti-semitism and his Islamist brand of dispensationalism were both well known at the time he was elected president by the Iranian people.

As is always the case, the question of Iran is one of net present value. Is it less risky and less costly, both monetarily and in lives, to confront the regime with real consequences now, or is it more astute to wait and see what happens later? A natural but misplaced hesitancy stemming from the fallout following the Iraq invasion clouds the equation. The threat from Iran is not yet imminent, but with Russian and Chinese assistance to the Islamic Republic, it soon will be. Time is not on our side. I hope that Tony Blair’s government and the Bush administration realize this before it is too late.

Something screwy is going on with our DirectTV. I just put Catherine down for her nap and turned on the TV to get my daily C-Span fix. The wires must be crossed somehow, because C-Span is instead broadcasting the SciFi Channel — a classic episode of “Tales from the Darkside”. When I turned to the real SciFi station, I found that the screen has gone dark.

I find it quite amusing and appropriate that Congress has been supplanted by science fiction. Perhaps the secret alien invasion by the likes of Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Dennis Kucinich (come on … he looks like would fit right in at a Star Trek convention) has finally moved to the next phase. We are now being fed their dramatized propaganda and soon the leader Zoltar will appear on the screen and let the earthlings know that socialized medicine, a 90% tax bracket for the wealthy and the melting of all weapons to make metal domiciles for the homeless are now the laws of the universe.

Say you are running for the top post in a local education union. Then consider that the school board asks you to share your vision with them, to demonstrate what the school system could be under your leadership.  What do you do?

If you’re running for presidency of the Metro Nashville Education Association, you blow them off, of course.

[School Board Chairman Marsha] Warden said she was hoping to allow teachers across the district the opportunity to hear from the candidates on television because the school board meetings are televised on Nashville’s public access channel.

“In my mind this was a public service to our board, because whomever is elected, we’re going to have a working relationship with them,” Warden said. “I would like to hear their vision on collaboration around public education needs. Many of our teachers who may not ever have an opportunity to hear either one of these individuals speak; many of these teachers who are MNEA members would have an opportunity to have heard their comments on our community access channel.”

Two invitations were sent. Erick Huth, current vice president of the MNEA, refused to attend, originally citing he thought it would have been illegal to address the board, but then in an apparent state of confusion figuring out it was not illegal, then more perplexedly, proving delinquent on the matter entirely by not showing for the meeting.

Huth, who is currently MNEA vice president, declined to appear originally citing Warden’s invitation as a violation of state law.

“My initial thought on the subject was the board was attempting to get involved with something that really was not any of its affair,” Huth said. “I reviewed the bargaining act and I actually sought legal advice on the matter. I was assured since the board had provided the invitation to both of us, they did not violate the [law].”

Jane Walling, the other candidate for MNEA head, was present, but was not allowed to speak because Huth wasn’t there. By vote, the board allowed a confused and altogether ill informed candidate sink its only chance to hear and broadcast the ideas and goals of that candidate’s opposition. Perversely, the only winner was the no-show.

As any regular reader knows, and putting it mildly, I harbor significant doubts as to the usefulness of unions in our present-day economy. As working conditions and child exploitation are effectively regulated in excruciating detail by both the central government and the states, the raison d’etre for organized labor has long ago faded away. As the Detroit auto industry can attest, unbridled unionism coupled with poor innovation eventually results in the slow-cooked death of the proverbial golden goose. I am no fan of the MNEA - in fact, as with most educators’ unions, I find its very existence an impediment to good education. That aside, they are the legitimate bargaining arm of the school district’s teachers. For the welfare of the children whom the school system exists to serve, the board has a vested interest in hearing and knowing where the union leadership may be taking the system.

It is despicable that the board refused to hear anyone, despite a good faith effort to hear everyone.  Huth made a mockery of a more open election, and the school board by its inexplicable vote showed itself the organizational invertebrate we have come to expect. If there was a question who has the upper hand in running the school system, it has been answered.

or Montana? or New York City?

Yesterday, I was driving and listening to the Jim Rome show. I rarely listen to this program, but I guess I wasn’t in the mood for politics with Rush Limbaugh and Catherine had already shown some verbal displeasure to my singing along with Kelly Rowland and Nelly. “Even when I’m with my boo, all I think about is you.” Lyrical genius, whoever wrote that ditty.

Anyhoo, Rome’s guest was Mike Jarvis, former George Washington and St. Johns basketball coach and current analyst for some website. “Romie” expressed his concern for black coaches in college basketball, mentioning Tubby Smith, as well as the recently fired coaches from Arkansas and another school that has slipped my mind. Jarvis shared the sadness over Tubby, mentioning that it was remarkable for a black coach to have been hired at such a prominent basketball school … “especially in Kentucky”.

Here it is again — Southerners are racists. The more refined part of the country is shocked when there are actually black coaches below the Mason-Dixon line. How amazing!

I lived in Boston after graduate school, and I witnessed a very segregated city with more than its share of racists. I don’t remember seeing photographs of black and white children clasping hands and skipping down the sidewalk together during the forced school bussing in Beantown back in the 70s. The sentiment that caused bloodshed up North thirty years ago still exists today, unfortunately.

There is no region of the country that can lay a greater claim to housing bigots (why would you want to?). The South certainly has its share of racist morons. So does the Pacific Northwest and the Great Plains and New England.

Wait a second … what’s that whispering I hear from among the ski slopes and maple syrup taps? Oh, it’s you, Vermont. Don’t even try it. It’s easy to claim love and harmony among the races when no one in your state has a melanin content that would stand out in the snow.

Ronald Reagan was the president of my childhood (ages five to thirteen). I remember when he would preempt regular programming for a national speech. I knew that I was watching the most powerful man in the world … the leader of our country … and I was awed by the office. I viewed Reagan as a father (OK, grandfather) figure who was strong and keeping us safe. Do kids feel the same way watching President Bush today? Not so much, I imagine. Combine the lack of civics education with this incredibly disappointing administration, and I bet most kids don’t give a flip.

As I’ve gotten a bit older and delved more deeply into my passion for the study of our country’s government, I have taken the time to read or watch many of Reagan’s speeches. I also have researched what others have said about the man, both glowing and critical. I have come away with a great respect for Reagan’s love for, and belief in, the United States of America. His communication skills remind us of an element that is sorely missing in today’s White House. I believe that Ronald Reagan, though he certainly had faults and made errors, was a great president.

I write all that to write this … there is not going to be another Ronald Reagan. In so many of the discussions surrounding the 2008 elections, conservatives say they are looking for the “next Ronald Reagan” and they lament that none of the current candidates fits the bill. It’s not going to happen. We cannot fit a different human being into the Reagan mold. Same thing with Clinton or Kennedy or Fillmore … whoever the president for whom you longing happens to be.

Bear Bryant is a name I had never heard until I moved to Tennessee. Now, of course, I realize that he is close to godly status in the state of Alabama. With all of the frustations over the head football coach in the state of rolling tides, I often hear fans say, “People need to realize that Bear Bryant has passed on and they need to stop looking for him to come back.” I am not at all equating a coach with the leader of the free world, but I do see some similarities in the way the men are revered. In both instances, I wonder if it keeps people from looking forward.

Most of our current Republican leaders are pathetic. I completely understand why so many voters want a candidate who embodies the principles and actions of the Gipper. However, I don’t see the point in struggling to determine who is going to be the next Ronald Reagan. I just want to know who is going to use his political ideology, policy positions and personality (and any other good “p” words that you want to throw in there) to be the next great president.

and some sweat when the heat is on. – The Power Station, 1985 (RIP — Robert Palmer)

OK, Al Gore, I give. I’m hot. I cannot say that I am one of the many among us who is trumpeting the summer-like temperatures that have fallen upon our fair city. Eighty-five degrees in March does not amuse me.

I think my lovely daughter shares my irritation with the heat. We spent our mornings at playgrounds the last couple of days, and both times her entire body appeared to be melting by the time of our departure. I guess supposedly “baby safe” sunblock in your eyes and a face slap/eye poke combo by one of your compatriots in the sandbox also would contribute to a grouchy demeanor.

My ideal temperature is the low-60s. It’s warm enough to sit outside, but cool enough that you still want a sweater or sweatshirt to keep you cozy.

I do love thunderstorms, so at least I can look forward to the booms and flashes that this weather usually brings!

The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group centered in Washington, has released a report estimating the benefits bestowed on taxpayers by income groupings

Overall, we find that America’s lowest-earning one-fifth of households received roughly $8.21 in government spending for each dollar of taxes paid in 2004. Households with middle-incomes received $1.30 per tax dollar, and America’s highest-earning households received $0.41. Government spending targeted at the lowest-earning 60 percent of U.S. households is larger than what they paid in federal, state and local taxes. In 2004, between $1.03 trillion and $1.53 trillion was redistributed downward from the two highest income quintiles to the three lowest income quintiles through government taxes and spending policy.

And somehow we are still told by the leftist rank and file that life just isn’t fair. They are of course right - it’s not fair, but not for the reasons liberals normally rankle over the concept. The abject transfer of 13 figures of wealth ought to alarm all of us, not only because of the magnitude, which is considerable, but also because of the obvious waste - thus far, disappointingly, no liberal politician has advocated we redeploy out of the War on Poverty. Imagine how many jobs would have been created over the last four decades if trillions had not been requisitioned by a spendthrift federal government. It boggles the mind. The Congress would have been wiser to buy tanker loads of scratch-off lottery tickets.

The Tax Foundation’s data analysis in this study makes it plain that the upper earners in our economy are overtaxed, a comfortable conclusion to arrive at unless, of course, you are a member of the Karl and Friedrich book of the month club. Quite frankly, I am embarrassed. Being what would be considered a middle-income earner, I want to find a way to kick back that extra 30 cents I’m apparently receiving in government benefits.

The most recent installment in the mindless gender income gap series has hit our local paper of record. As regular as an untreated herpes outbreak, we sit by the bra fueled campfire, listening intently to the anecdotes that prove what the victim industry has quite aptly established as accepted knowledge - gender equality is a myth, and that the struggles of the working woman in 2007 rival something akin to the hostile work environment that Joan of Arc faced at the stake.

As previously noted, The Tennessean, which the Moore household now only receives online, has written quite the smattering on this well established factoid. According to the story, March is the month of the woman, something which I admittedly did not know, and which now causes me great concern that we only have ten more months to appoint to deserving historical causes.

Though Dan Rather taught me the importance of checking one’s sources, I learned somewhere back in my elementary school days that there are five primary basic principles of journalism - who, what, when, where and why - and occasionally, I suppose, a sixth, how. The most interesting is always the why.

Which is where The Tennessean journalist fails miserably. We are told about the plight of a woman at a copy shop earning minimum wage, but important details are withheld. We are told of the usual statistics comparing men’s earnings an women’s earnings. And we are provided a list of highly placed women in 2007 (somehow Condoleeza Rice didn’t make the cut).  Most importantly, we are never told that women with the same continuous amount of work experience actually earn the same amount as their male counterparts.

For instance, engineers - men and women with the same amount of experience since earning their bachelors degree earn the same amount of income. Additionally, the story never mentions a recent Government Accounting Office report that puts the anecdotes through the statistical regression mill - women tend to work more part time schedules than men do, are more likely to stay away from work for family reasons for extended periods of time, or simply do not have the same tenure as their male counterparts. All of these factors certainly support a justifiable difference in pay.

Interestingly, the GAO also notes in its assessment that men with children earn 2% more than childless males, while women with children earn less than their female counterparts. I note this statistic because it actually explains in a neat nutshell the entire fallacy behind the gender income gap. In Western society, women are the primary caregivers, which certainly takes away from the ability to work the same number of hours as the average man. Doubly, if the woman is the primary caregiver, the man must make up the difference, explaining the wage gap between child-full and child-less males. We have known for some time that having children motivates men to earn more income, and this is true for a variety of reasons, from the positive primal instinct of fatherhood to the realities of extra expenses in the home that children bring with them.

And finally, employers cannot pay men and women differently and get away with it. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has extensive investigative powers. Add to that the similar actionable provisions available for relief in most states, such as the Tennessee Human Rights Act, and the array of weaponry available to the professionally jilted woman is, in a word, formidable. In today’s litigious environment, companies cannot afford to pay women less than men.

Plus, there’s something else. If women truly earned 80% of what men do for the same work, experience, continuity of employment and performance, I would be prepared to expand my law firm and hire only women, offering equal services to clients at 20% less than other firms, which ought to result in a windfall of billable hours as far as the eye can see. And ethically, I could prove my prices were better and advertise it, because I hire only women - and look here, here’s the census data that proves it!

Of course that’s silly (so silly it was hard for me to write it), as is the continued perpetuation of the gender income gap. Quite frankly, the story in The Tennessean today does a disservice to the truth. They would have been better served slapping in another Belks ad.

I will admit that I don’t understand the whole “love him or hate him” attitude towards Peyton Manning. I just don’t see how a mild-mannered dude who loves football can cause such anger. But, then again, I didn’t even know who he was until he got drafted by the Colts (I had never heard of Steve Spurrier until he came to the Redskins … shows how much I followed college football) He seems like a decent, straight-laced guy to me … someone whose poster my kid could hang on the wall with pride.

I became a Peyton fan after last night’s Saturday Night Live — even found myself crushing on him just a little bit. I think he is great in his many commercials, and he outdid himself with live comedy. From the United Way spot (it’s a must-see) to the locker room dance to the bizarre musings over a cup of coffee, the whole show was hilarious. It’s the first time I’ve made it to the end of a SNL episode in quite some time. That young man has a future in acting once his “shatter every record” and “prove he’s the best quarterback ever” career comes to an end.

I’ve had a headache since Monday. And, this wasn’t your standard, annoying pain in the skull. This was an “electric shocks, fireballs blazing from behind the eyes, drumsticks beating on the back of my head, I think I fed Catherine but I’m not sure because I’m seeing two of her so I don’t know if the peanut butter sandwich got in the right mouth, call Nathan at his office while sobbing and heaving and beg him to come home and care for our toddler, sensitive to light and sound” migraine.

I usually take the opportunity that comes with Catherine’s afternoon nap to clean the house and post to our blog. As my piles of laundry and lack of activity on the blog indicate, this past week I have been using Catherine’s nap time to lie in bed with a cold washcloth on my forehead and occasionally wonder if taking an electric drill to the left side of my head would be worth it to relieve some of the pain.

Today is the first day of spring that I am actually feeling somewhat human and healthy again. Catherine is napping after a fun morning trip to the playground, I have a load of whites spinning in the washing machine and a healthy dinner is cranking along in the crock pot. It’s good to be back.

As I have been Internet incommunicado for over two weeks, which I believe since the founding of this blog is a personal worst (or best, depending on one’s perspective, I suppose), I figure the best way to get back into the mode of writing regularly is to do a complete information dump, to include both the inane and the reality relevant, from illness to convalescence. Here goes.

Two weeks of some sort flu/pneumonia hybrid worthy of a Clive Barker novel makes one painfully aware of how little original programming exists in the full assortment of DirecTV’s vast array of digital programming. Hundreds of channels are at one’s disposal, and you can watch the same documentary on History Channel, History International and Discovery Times multiple times in a twelve hour period. Fortunately, you can always find an LA car chase on Fox News and a story about a missing kitten, both of which will easily put you to sleep.

For those who have ever taken the time to click on the “about us” link in the center bar, you know that I went to law school at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. GMUSL is best described as a less heavyweight version of the University of Chicago - both focus on law and economics and both are relatively conservative in their faculty makeup and student body. I recently received a reminder in the mail, confirming why I’m glad I went there - the latest round of fundraising letters arrived by way of a Ronald Reagan stamp. Nice.

The Bush administration needs to take a Zig Ziglar seminar on how to sell itself. And that is what politics, marketing and life really is, right - selling oneself. The US Attorney fiasco makes me sick only because it was completely unnecessary. Nothing was done wrong - these are all political positions. You really don’t even need a reason to fire a US Attorney. No investigations are warranted, and no law, rule or creed has been violated. Demanding answers, the Democrats are showing their collective disdain for responsible government and preference for grandstanding, and the administration is showing its inability to administer even the simplest task. No one, especially the American people, can call themselves winners right now.

John Edwards called a press conference to tell us he is still running for president, despite his wife’s worsening health. Of course I wish Ms. Edwards the best, but does calling a press conference for this purpose sound ludicrously pretentious and utterly distasteful to anyone else but me?

Finally, Vanderbilt is in the Sweet 16. I take sadistic pleasure in noting that the best bracket in ESPN’s contest right now is 100% correct - well, almost - save the guy’s decision to have Washington State beat Vanderbilt in the second round on their way to the title game in Atlanta. With a healthy dose of double overtime, take that!

Catherine and I left for Savannah, GA on Friday morning and we will be visiting this fine coastal city until Wednesday.  Catherine is getting some quality time with her paternal grandparents and I’m enjoying the opportunity to let others play with her and look after her. 

So, for those who have noticed my absence, now you know that travelling and visiting are the reasons for my lack of posts.  I will try to write some entries of substance over the next couple of days.  A few quick thoughts of complete fluff for now …

1. Nicely done, Terps.  Way to blow my bracket.  I had you, the alma mater of which I am so proud, heading to the championship game.  Instead, you lose in the second round to a team from Butler.  I guess I’ll have to keep peace in the home and root for Vandy now!

2. I posted earlier this week about having a Tennessee blogger bracket challenge.  It didn’t happen.  The lack of interest could be attributed to several causes.  Perhaps no one reads my blog.  Or, there could be even less interest in college basketball than I thought in this area.  Lastly, there are likely better and more exciting bracket opportunities out there.  Oh, well.  For those who are in a pool in some capacity, I hope that VCU, Winthrop and UNLV have worked well for you.

3.Camp David Accords, Part II? — Leonardo DiCaprio has been asked by Shimon Peres to assist in promoting peace in the Middle East.  Oh, this troubled and trembling part of the globe shall finally be set free from the bondage of religious warfare and ethnic distrust!  Who knew that the young man who got his big break playing a lovable yet jaded teenager in the last seasons of Growing Pains would eventually come to shape global diplomacy?  Mr. DiCaprio — you are applauding Al Gore for his contributions to a better tomorrow??  Flip that, sir … flip that.    

What an absolutely wonderful day!  Non-stop basketball for my viewing enjoyment.  This really is one of the best days of the year.  I fail to understand how people can find college football more exciting than the magic of college hoops!

Today started well, with Maryland pulling out a first-round victory over Davidson.  I’ll be rooting for Vandy later today to keep our home happy!

GO TERPS!  FEAR THE TURTLE!

Makes me sick: 

Four-year-old Summer Lytle apparently drowned in a bathtub Saturday night, where her spiteful stepmother left her sitting alone in urine-stained clothing while she went into the kitchen to cook the girl’s father an anniversary dinner, court documents said.

According to the documents, the child also had injuries from beatings with belts and spoons and had human bite marks on her body, and her death ended a pattern of abuse that included a dog’s shock collar and burns to her face, the court documents said.

I don’t understand these sick and twisted people.  I can’t even begin to imagine the horrific life experienced by this little girl.  How could anyone look at a defenseless child and then do such evil things to her? 

I know that we’re supposed to be against vigilante justice and we need to let our court system work … yada, yada, yada.  However, I would be thrilled if these “parents” were shot dead in the street out of retribution.  Oh, better yet, lock them in a room with a couple of large men who are armed with electric drills, some type of caustic liquid and a cheese grater.  And, I don’t want to hear any of the “if we did that we would be no better than them” garbage because these two pieces of scum aren’t helpless preschoolers.

“I get a little annoyed by people who give me a hard time just because I’m a mom and I like to party and I’m seventeen.” — Guest named Marisa on Dr. Keith

I’m with you, Marisa.  Why should anyone have a problem with the fact that you get drunk every weekend and brag about your naked and public exploits on your MySpace page?  You are providing a wonderful foundation for your infant daughter! 

This “Mother of the Year” candidate believes that she deserves one week a night to party because of all the stress in her life.  She lovingly says that she spends a lot of time with “that child” and needs a break to do vodka shots with her friends. 

I follow the same philosophy, with Tuesdays being my night off (five more hours … I can’t wait!).  I leave Nathan at home with “the child” and meet up with some other moms.  Last week I did the longest keg stand … 17 seconds!  It was awesome!  I’m not sure what the plans are for tonight.  With the weather being so warm, we’re thinking about getting completely blitzed out of our minds and then streaking across Centennial Park.  Or, maybe we’ll keep it low-key in someone’s basement with a game of quarters and a funnel.  Either way, I’ve changed enough diapers this week to earn it! 

Quick Note — I do not spend my days watching talk shows or “stories” (as Nathan calls soap operas).  I think the last time I watched a soap was General Hospital in 1993.  However, Drs. Keith and Phil do provide good entertainment while eating my lunch of a Lean Pocket and a banana (because I’m sure you were curious about my midday dietary habits) or as background noise while scrubbing the kitchen floor.  It’s a glamorous life, people.    

I love Roger Abramson’s perspective and the sarcastic wit with which (those three words look weird next to each other) he shares his views.  He is currently guest blogging at Bob Krumm’s site, and has a great post on Rob Huddleston’s decisive action that is certain to push Fred Thompson into the presidential race.

I’ll admit it: I was skeptical as to whether Fred Thompson would run for president. But now I’m convinced. I’ll bet he is too. After all, none other than Rob Huddleston has told him to. I mean, that’s like getting a mandate from God.

Here it is: “I freely admit it - I have sent a message through backchannels to my former boss (Thompson) encouraging his entry into this race.”

Wow. That’s our Rob, a real “kingmaker.” Since I am not the “insider” Rob is, I am left only to imagine the conversation that took place:

Check out the imaginary conversation here.  It’s great stuff!