Proceed with Caution

My younger sister is learning to drive after all these years.

I'm really proud of her because it's always been a challenge she was reluctant to take.

So she's taking lessons here in Manhattan. After two or three classes, they put her on the friggin' FDR Drive!!!! Then they drove through the South Bronx.

They say that fear can be a great motivator.

My younger sister on the FDR Drive is like teaching Janis Joplin to drive during a NASCAR event.

But hell, she's still alive and so everyone else.

Go Speed Racer!

May the Force be With You

Ben and I were talking about the problem the Catholic Church is having recruiting men to the priesthood.

He started to chuckle to himself and said "Maybe in the future they'll develop robot priests who can marry people."

Now that's something I'd like to stick around for.

Veteran's Day

the CBS five-month study found that vets were "more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets." Chillingly, though the Veterans Affairs Department estimates that "some 5,000 ex-servicemen and women will commit suicide this year,' that's a lowball estimate. Said Keteyian: "Our numbers are much higher than that, overall."

Update, 5:30pm: CBS has just released some of those numbers: "At least 120 Americans who served in the U.S. military killed themselves per week in 2005, CBS News learned in a five-month investigation into veteran suicides. That's 6,256 veteran suicides in one year, in 45 states."

- I'm not very good at statistics but do those numbers mean that more vets return home from war and commit suicide than have died in the war each year?

Good Night Sweetheart

The working mom gig is presently in overdrive. Sorry for being out of touch so long.

Tomorrow morning I leave for a business trip for three days.
I just kissed my son good night and told him I'd miss him.

How many moms and dads in the military have done that - will do that? Are having to do that more than once? What about the single parents who are saying goodbye to their kids and leaving them with whoever they can after signing up for the National Guard?

Do people give a fuck about this war and the toll it is taking on these children? Not to mention the children of Iraq?