I think this says it all.

Not much today, friends, but you’re free to play like kittens in the comments. Just to get you started…

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be Mitch Albom, to get up every morning, look in the mirror and say, “I am worth every penny.” Think he does that? Or does he, like so many other successful people, secretly believe he has pulled off an illusion worthy of Ricky Jay, and tremble inwardly at what will happen when the audience finds out? I dunno. All I know is, I have never been a sportswriter and everything I know about baseball could fit in a shoebox, and I could have written a better column about the Mitchell Report than this. In fact, if you’d given me the Mitchell Report as a challenge, and asked me to write something about it, something suitable for a daily newspaper, I would have turned in something very much like Albom’s column. Watch me as I reveal the mysteries of punditry:

First, state facts already in evidence:

… the report was not earth-shattering, only because we already have suspected much of what it contained. Sure, many more names were thrown on the bonfire, including All-Stars such as Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Miguel Tejada, and as you read this, analysts and fans are screaming over how to view their careers.

Then, ask a lot of rhetorical questions:

So now what? … And if they had nothing to hide, why didn’t any of them talk? …Or will the net result be, as many suspect, a big fat nothing?

Sign off with that time-tested waffler:

Where we go next is anyone’s guess.

Cash check.

Michael Rosenberg, the other Freep sports columnist, does a better job. Not hugely better, but better. Writing a first-day column about a big event expected to have wide repercussions someday, but not today, is always an exercise in thumb-twiddling. But some twiddle better than others. For instruction on how to do it well, I recommend Thomas Boswell and Harvey Araton.

For the scores of you keeping track at home, let me report the dog’s health has taken a dramatic turn for the better on his new food. Within 24 hours, his energy improved, his tucked-in skinny flanks began to fill out and he stopped looking like a sick dog, and more like a very healthy one. There was a trip to the groomer in there for a bath and haircut, which helped, but you can’t fake weight gain. He goes back next week for another blood test, and unless my eyes deceive me, the results will be good.

Something to think about for later this month. Last year we spent that down week between the holidays posting pictures submitted by you folks. Because we have so many regular commenters here, it’s nice to get a closer look at one another when there’s not much else going on. So send in some holiday pictures, and we’ll fill the waning days of the year sharing them here.

So have a great weekend. Mine will be exhausting. Hope yours isn’t.

Lawyers, Guns and Money takes note of former Mitten Stater Ted Nugent, as part of its Worst American Birthdays series.

Snerk: Rising to fame in the 1970s with a string of somewhat well-regarded, jizz-splattered albums, “The Nuge” has spent the last two decades descending the evolutionary tree with artistic and political statements that grate against the ears with equal degrees of intensity.

My sister shared a Christmas-shopping moment the other day: Standing in a crowded store in a crowded mall, trying to find a decent outfit for her teenage granddaughter. The girl and her brother generally get one nice outfit every year, the sorts of splurge-y name brands they wouldn’t normally get. Every kid needs to feel cool at least sometimes.

So she found something, then looked at the price tag: A pair of Baby Phat jeans, juniors size 5. Price: $80.

“Kimora Lee Simmons should be ashamed of herself!” she exploded. I heartily agree (although it has nothing to do with her jeans).

I had my own moment today, in Bath & Body Works. I was buying a few stocking stuffers for a Girl Scout Christmas project — personal-care products for the girls at a local children’s home. I figure one of the thousand petty humiliations of being poor and institutionalized at Christmas is having to settle for everyone’s hand-me-downs, so I was determined to buy something that didn’t say “dollar store.” I went into the ubiquitous mall soap store for some cute crap-in-a-bottle. Picked up a tiny tin of American Girl-branded lip balm. Four-fifty.

“Leslie Wexner should be ashamed of himself!” I said. It didn’t quite have the same ring to it. Not here, anyway — it would play in Columbus. But the day I spend nearly five bucks for two cents’ worth of flavored wax hasn’t yet arrived. I went next door to Rite Aid and loaded up with a bunch of perfectly acceptable stuff and spent around $30.

I shouldn’t even set foot in that store, anyway. It always smells like a chemistry set. Everything under The Limited’s umbrella made its rep selling goods of barely acceptable quality to the greatest number of people. I haven’t trusted the place since I tucked a Victoria’s Secret bra away for six months, and took it out again to find half the elastic had rotted.

Ah, well. We have greater things to discuss today than lip balm. The death of Ike Turner, say.

The way of all flesh, etc. I saw Ike and Tina once, at the Ohio State Fair. Mid-’70s, sometime in there. Tina and the Ikettes wore their trademark minidresses with fringe, and shook that shit into knots. A highly memorable performance. Ike did what Ike always did: He hung back and led the band. From what we know now, Tina already hated his guts by then and was plotting her escape. Their marriage seemed a tragic case of “A Star is Born,” if James Mason had bounced Judy Garland off the walls when he had a snoot full of coke. Rock ‘n’ roll historians are making the case that it’s unfair for the man who gave the world “Rocket 88” to be remembered solely as a wife-beater. Miles Davis was not very nice to his women, either, but it didn’t lead his obituaries. (Note: Davis was also lucky none of them became stars like Tina, or the story might be different.) Two things need to be said about Ike. One, that he was very lucky in the casting of the man who would play him in Tina’s version of her life story. Laurence Fishburne brought something extra to that role and made it memorable. And second, that he found Tina. There wouldn’t have been a Tina without Ike. So there’s that.

I once heard Tina interviewed on “60 Minutes,” and Ed Bradley asked if she’d had any plastic surgery done. She freely admitted to a breast lift and a nose job, the latter because Ike had connected with it so many times it needed the repair, and the former to “put them back where they belong.” Gotta chuckle.

Best line in “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”: “Get back in there and do it again, and this time put some stink on it.” They were recording “Nutbush City Limits.” I’d say she did so.

So, bloggage:

I read the New York Times Styles section these days for a look into a world I don’t and (I hope) never will occupy — one where, when a person is invited to dinner, they feel free to present the hostess with a long list of objectionable foods; where people fret over the carbon footprint of their holiday gifts; where there are no more entrees in restaurants, because 17 bites is 14 too many for boredom not to set in.

Today, another nose-against-the-glass moment: People who don’t know when to leave the dog at home.

It was a dark and stormy night — actually four stormy nights — when Jayme Otto, 31, and her husband, Ryan Otto, 33, drove 1,200 miles from their home in Boulder, Colo., to her parents’ house in Cleveland for Christmas.

“We traveled all this way to bring our yellow Labrador, Cody Bear, home to spend time with his grandparents,” Ms. Otto said, “grandparents” being dog-person-speak for her parents.

Besides wanting Cody Bear “to participate in his favorite yearly activity of unwrapping gifts and destroying all the boxes,” as Ms. Otto put it, they wanted the dog to meet her brother’s fiancée.

But on Christmas morning, a commotion ensued: the fiancée was allergic to dogs and broke out in hives.

“The dog was banished to the guest bedroom and we were unable to share our Christmas morning with Cody Bear,” Ms. Otto said bitterly. “The family blowup between my brother and I over the dog resulted in my mother not speaking to me for two months and my brother for four.” This Christmas will mark the first time that the Ottos will not be returning home.

I’m trying to think of the people I know who remained virginal until marriage. (think, think, think.) OK, I know a few. Now I’m trying to think of the people who did the opposite — who pretty much fell into bed on date one, and got married at some later date. (think, think, think.) I know a lot of those. Now I’m thinking of the states of all those marriages. (think, think, think.) And I see pretty much identical success/failure rates in both camps. Which is hardly a scientific poll, I realize, but seems to underline what every adult with a lick of common sense knows about marital sex — that it’s a very important part of the relationship, but only one part. So why does the Weekly Standard, which would never stand for facile analyses of Middle Eastern affairs (to take them at their word, anyway), run nonsense like this?

Instant sex and romantic love can’t coexist any more than hurricanes and forest fires. One drives out the other.

It’s a standard cheap shot of lefties to say that right-wing social policy comes from its proponents not being able to get laid, but if only they didn’t make it so easy to say so.

Finally, the Christians said, “Merry Christmas” and the Jew replied, “Happy Hanukkah,” so of course a fistfight was the only reasonable response. Fortunately, a Muslim stepped in to break things up.

Well, it is the season of miracles.

It shouldn’t bother anyone when people put words in God’s mouth; as Anne Lamott quips, you know you’ve created God in your image when he hates all the same people you do. I’m not much of a God-botherer myself, but the recent events in Colorado make me…well, they make me wonder.

The woman who shot the killer in Colorado says God guided her hand and steadied her aim. “Shoot that guy,” God said, in effect. “That one, over there.”

We can find images of an angry, bloodthirsty God in culture for as long as we’ve known Him, but I was raised with the Christian version, and for the longest time believed that He loved me, no matter what I did. Lesson No. 2 was that he also loved my enemy, a harder concept to grasp. I suspect a lot of people stop there. Once, just to needle someone who was very, very pleased with the prison beating death of Jeffrey Dahmer, I mentioned that I’d heard the Wisconsin cannibal had recently become a Christian, and so he’d be up in Heaven by now, “and the two of you can get acquainted after you arrive.” He didn’t like to hear this, but isn’t this the point of Christianity? Of having a savior? That no one is so damaged that he can’t be redeemed, even in the final days of a cursed life? It’s supposed to keep us humble, to know that no matter how much we follow the rules and polish our own halos, God loves the more wretched sinner down the hall just as much, no more and no less.

Mental illness complicates things. Everything complicates things, really, but voices in your head — there’s a complication. As for Matthew Murray, the church murderer, it’s the same old sad story:

ARVADA — Matthew Murray was asked to leave Youth With A Mission five years ago, although the reasons are murky.

The group’s Colorado leader said Monday that unspecified health problems prevented Murray from advancing beyond a training program into field work overseas.

But Murray’s roommate from that time told CNN Monday night that Murray was booted for bizarre behavior. He also said that Murray told him he heard voices.

…Werner, who now lives in Balneario Camborius, Brazil, said he occupied a bunk near Murray’s and that Murray would roll around in bed and make noises.

He asked his roommate about it, Werner said.

“He would say, ‘Don’t worry, I’m just talking to the voices.’ He’d say, ‘Don’t worry, Richard. You’re a nice guy. The voices like you.'”

Werner told CNN he instantly suspected Murray when he heard the news of Sunday’s shootings.

“I turned to my wife and I said, ‘I know who did it. It’s Matthew.’ It was so obvious.”

Here’s another thing we have to consider: That God put Matthew Murray in the world, and then put voices in his head and made him crazy and homicidal. And then he put a gun in a security guard’s hand and said, “It’s time for Matthew to die. That’s your job.” It makes you see why people believe in the devil. It’s also why people say the lord works in mysterious ways.

Well, so does the mental health support system, or lack of same. Isn’t it interesting, how often you hear that quote? “As soon as I heard, I knew exactly who did it.” Or, “Police say the suspect had told numerous acquaintances of his plan, but few believed him.”

Stories like this frequently lead to a rethinking of policy at places where it can be easily rethought and quickly changed — school systems, for example. So let it be written, so let it be done: From this day forward, all threats or implied threats of violence will be met with zero tolerance, and law enforcement will be notified. Cue the stories about little boys who held their lunchtime chicken finger as though it were a pistol and yelled bang-bang across the cafeteria table, subsequently expelled and bound over for psychiatric testing. Cut to outraged pundits rolling their eyes, pounding desks and wondering, Where is sanity? Where is common sense? Do we want to turn all our little boys into pussies? Let them play their war games — it’s genetic!

And then another one comes to school or church or work with a gun.

Am I feeling a bit cynical today? I am. I am Gregor Samsa: I have turned into a bug. The apples flung by this rotten world have embedded themselves in my exoskeleton, and are rotting there. More evidence:

Every well-informed person knows, or should know, about the toll boxing takes on the body. Images of Muhammed Ali, once one of the most graceful athletes on the world’s stage, reduced to a quaking, shuffling Parkinsonian, tend to sear themselves into the brain. Fewer know about what happens to old football players.

In my health-care news clipping, I ran across a story a few months ago, about a couple of former pro linemen now reduced, in their 50s and 60s, to sitting around in a fog, thanks to head injuries that were either ignored, misdiagnosed or improperly treated. Coaches hate head injuries, because a bruised brain doesn’t always have an outward manifestation. And so the player sitting out a concussion may look and feel just fine — may even be chomping at the bit to play. Coach figures, what’s the harm? Player may soon find out. Or find out in 20 more years.

Ashley Morris tips us off to another of these little tragedies, more high-profile than most: Earl Campbell. Remember him? Heisman trophy, 34-inch thighs (11 inches bigger than Posh Spice’s waistline, for those seeking a comparison), one of the greatest runners ever to play the game. Now 52, can’t get around without a walker, has to sleep in a recliner because of constant pain, and perhaps the cruelest blow of all: (He) has yet to see his son Tyler play a college football game at San Diego State because it’s too difficult for him to negotiate the stairs at stadiums.

Woe! Oh, woe! Let us all weep for the sake of this sad, sad world.

Someday I’m going to track a year’s worth of blog entries against the length of daylight and my menstrual cycle. I’ll bet there’s a correlation.

Which you shouldn’t draw conclusions from, incidentally. I’m just saying, we gals — we’re connected.

OK, let’s see if we can’t cheer up a bit as the day’s work commences. Let’s take a bloggage tour guaranteed to lift the spirits:

One of my favorite people in the world is of Armenian heritage. His father is a man of towering intellect and accomplishment. Other Armenians have made similar contributions to my new hometown of Detroit. Knowing all this, I’ve come to expect great things from people whose last names end in -ian.

And then there are the Kardashians. As they say in Armenia: One rotten pomegranate doesn’t spoil the whole barrel.

Taxi drivers have some cool stories to tell. This one might be the coolest ever.

And finally, a story to bring joy to every newspaperman’s black heart: Conrad Black, OFF TO JAIL, and even better, his wife, the hideous Barbara Amiel, may be next.

Readers, I’m skipping. Enjoy your day.

Sometimes people ask, “Is Grosse Pointe really as preppy as all that? Is it really the land of Muffy and Skip, madras and seersucker, headbands and understated jewelry?”

You bet your ass it is. Not so much in my neighborhood, alas, but we have that stuff — mostly in the dug-in WASP enclaves in the City and the Farms. And every so often you’ll stand in line at the store behind a reed-slim dowager, hair in the same velvet-headband pageboy she’s worn since she was 17, in the sort of clean, classic clothes you don’t see so often anymore. From behind, you might think she still is 17, and then she turns and displays a face that is not surgically altered or maintained, and shows every line all those hours in the sun earned her, but it all works, because she is an American thoroughbred, and she’s got great bone structure. She is G.P.O.G.

Also, Grosse Pointe has a Brooks Brothers. So do a lot of places, but it’s different here. It’s, like, the uniform. People who wear Brooks Brothers wear it all their lives, and if you doubt it, you should have seen the woman who waited on me there the other day — 60 if she was a day, in an argyle sweater more suitable for a teenager, but it looked just fine on her. That’s Brooks Brothers.

Jezebel is having a little fun with the current catalog, and to be sure, it’s pretty fun-worthy. Check out George H.W. Bush’s cousin’s pants, here:

I like the cut of his jib! When I saw this feature, I thought perhaps they’d dug up an old BB catalog, but no, that’s the current one. Funniest comment to the post: Who wants to bet that in 30 yrs this is going to be going around the e-mail circles much like that now-infamous 1977 JC Penney Catalog is doing now? There’s someone who doesn’t get it. In 30 years the Brooks Brothers catalog will look pretty much the same as it does today, and that’s why people shop there. Good clothes of good quality that are neither in nor out of style. You’ll never be the sharpest dresser in the room, but you’ll be suitable, the man, or woman, in the gray flannel suit.

Or maybe the woman in the plaid shoes:

You know what I like about that outfit? The red tartan. Let those rappers and Hollywood types wear Burberry. The right sort of people favor the Stewart tartan.

And who says WASPs don’t have a sense of humor? If they made an “Animal House” reunion movie, Bluto would wear these pants:

He’s not sure which pattern he has an ancestral claim to, so he just wears them all. I say we call him Braveheart.

OK, then. How’s your week going? All I can think about these days is how much I have yet to do before the holiday, but not so much that I can’t enjoy its pleasures. The tree went up over the weekend, and lo, it is lovely. Where would you think a household in a state covered with piney forests and Christmas-tree farms would get their own? At a local lot, of course, but state of origin? Starts with an M?

“Where’s this tree from?” I asked as the guy wrote out a slip for our bushy Fraser fir.

“North Carolina,” he said.

“You’re kidding me.”

He wasn’t. He said the Frasers need a longer growing season to get nice and tall, and fewer deer gnawing on them to get nice and bushy. I guess Michigan deer are like Michigan squirrels — they’ll eat anything.

I feel like a fool, but thanks, Carolinas.

I suppose this is the answer to a lot of prayers: Armed good guy stops armed bad guy. It’s all a lot of people will need to settle the argument whether we should all be packin’ a piece as we go about our day. Few people ask the questions I ask, starting with the one raised by this startling passage: New Life Pastor Brady Boyd called Assam, who is normally his personal security guard… I was raised a Catholic. I don’t recall Father Gamba traveling with muscle. What a world.

Big day, too much to do. Make merry in the comments.

We start our video features today with one from the vaults. It takes a great deal of courage stupidity to put this video up today, and I do so with a long list of apologies up front: There are some bobbles in the playback that seem to be an importing/encoding problem, but that’s the least of it. The camera work is atrocious, the sound is bad, the music is laughable, and if I stabbed myself in the leg every time I see footage of someone’s back when I should be seeing their front, I’d have the limb amputated in six minutes. I’m sorry for all that. My only excuse is, I was just fooling around, and the resulting video was never meant to be seen by anyone but a few friends.

“What I Saw at the Execution” is a video notebook I shot when Ron French, my former Fort Wayne colleague now working for the Detroit News, suggested I come along to the lethal injection of Tim McVeigh in Terre Haute, Ind., in June 2001. I was credentialed, and I was there with an assignment from my own employer in Fort Wayne, but it was Ron’s idea; he was going, and he thought it would be fun to have someone he knew there, so what the hell, it was national news and it was happening in Indiana. I asked my editor and she said yes, with the usual instruction: Spend as little money as possible.

That was Ron’s mission, too. The Detroit connection to the Oklahoma City bombing was a bit distant, but solid: Terry Nichols had lived in the Thumb, had kin there, and McVeigh had spent time at his old Army buddy’s Michigan spread. So off we both went to Terre Haute. The federal penitentiary was in the middle of nowhere, with a vast field of many acres alongside. That’s where the media village was.

I spent my newspaper career in places where big national news rarely happens. I’ve never covered a national political convention. Never done a big natural disaster, or a huge celebrity show trial. But presidents travel and campaign, and occasionally even a backwater like northeast Indiana would be struck a glancing blow by the spotlight — August 19, 1988 comes to mind — and I thought I knew what a media clusterfuck looked like. I didn’t.

It’s sometimes hard to remember, today, what the first eight months and 10 days of 2001 were like, and when I look at this video, a little comes back. This execution, an event that only a tiny handful could witness, scripted down to its last nanosecond, required the attendance of all the national networks, broadcast and cable news, teams from most nearby cities, the national newspapers, the ones that aspired to be, and oddballs like me. There were something like 1,600 credential holders. The media village sprang up seemingly overnight, a Brigadoon of yuppie type As, with its own roads, power supply, restaurants, transportation and, of course, class system. Fox had a huge presence. CNN had a private bus running continually between the hotels and the prison. And the print media had Tent A. Or Tent B.

Even with lithium-ion batteries and cellular modems, most people needed a better place to work on-site than their cars. So the Bureau of Prisons set up Tent A, with electricity, lighting, phone lines, tables, bottled water, snacks, assistants, security and other amenities. It was white, like the tents where wedding receptions are held, with walls and isinglass curtains you could roll right down, in case there’s a change in the weather. A space in Tent A cost $1,200.

Tent B was army-green, had no walls, no tables and no electricity. But it was free. Ron consulted with his editors and decided Tent B would do, as long as he could get a table. He rented one with two chairs for less than $10. It was waiting for us when we arrived, a raw wooden-topped table with a sign on it reading DETROIT NEWS. It was the only table; we were the only people in Tent B. We laughed about this until we peed our pants, then went over to Tent A, where each table had a clean white cover, and a flower arrangement. I got but one fleeting shot before a security guard kicked us out.

Anyway, the weekend went on. More people arrived hourly. The news from the prison consisted of occasional briefings saying, “Mr. McVeigh is resting comfortably. That is all.” It was generally agreed that the big news would be the huge demonstrations that would occur. So we went looking for the throngs. An anti-death penalty demonstration had about 40 marchers and giant puppets, which meant they were outnumbered by journalists approximately three-to-one. The pro-death penalty folks were even fewer, and more than once I witnessed reporters standing politely in lines, waiting to interview the talkative ones. Basically, if you showed up with a sign and could give a decent quote or two, you could get on TV. Ron went off to do some interviews and I rambled through town, navigating by the satellite antennas raised on the dozens of trucks on the street — if you saw two or more in one place, there you would find “news.” (Sort of like the traffic jams at Yellowstone, which is how you find animal photo ops.) It’s how I found the Catholic church glimpsed briefly in the video.

On Sunday, a meeting was called in a hotel parking lot to decide who was going to get the scarce witness seats in the death chamber. The Bureau of Prisons had already divvied it up into categories — Terre Haute media, Oklahoma City media, wire service, broadcast, etc., with all the remaining newspaper people competing for two seats, which were up to us to assign. We met to discuss how we might do this, and the first suggestion was the most obvious and fair — throw business cards into a hat and choose two. Most people nodded and said, yeah, that was probably the way to go. And then it started: Wahllll, an Alabama drawl rose over the other voices. We might want to think about this a little.

It was Rick Bragg, a New York Times bigfoot, who wasn’t about to give up without a fight. He gave a little speech about how much respect he had for all of us, y’all wouldn’t be here if your editors didn’t think you could handle it. But. Being the pool reporter for the whole print-media section of the village would be a big job. One would have to have superior observational skills. One would have to be able to see the ah-rony. Needless to say, Bragg, with his Pulitzer Prize and best-seller, was up to the task. I’m standing behind him thinking, hey, I know ah-rony when I see it too, Mr. Pulitzer-pants. Then I said so, in somewhat more polite language.

Fortunately, a lot of people were thinking the same thing. Special irony-detection skills were deemed unnecessary. As it turned out, the lucky business cards belonged to a guy from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and (I think) USA Today.

So anyway, Tim got his hot shot. His final statement was the text of “Invictus.” The hearse carried him away. And Brigadoon started to disassemble itself. I filed my story, set out for home and stopped for pancakes in Anderson. While I mainlined coffee, I reflected on how much money had been spent (but not by me! Or Ron!) covering this event, which could have been capably handled by a trio of old wire-service hands and one photographer. And, in a few more months, we’d learn another lesson about terrorism, and McVeigh would be all but forgotten.

Well, that’s all you need to know. Enjoy, or don’t:

One last note: Anything new I post won’t have the 21st Century Nance open; it’s too long for web video, and is, ultimately, an inside joke that should stay inside. But it was already on the completed project, and so it goes.

As should be obvious from my remarks here and there, my video-camera problem has been solved. My dear friend J.C. Burns sent me his Canon GL1 on extended loan-with-option-to-buy, and my new Flip, aka “the second unit,” can go places the Canon can’t. So I’m hoping to have some video up here within a few weeks, as soon as I can suss out the complexities of getting everyone talking to everyone else, as well as the new version of iMovie, which is a pain in the ass.

However, it appears the real genius piece of gear in all of this is my new Gorillapod, which I strongly recommend to anyone who likes to fool around with cameras. Yesterday I used a long drive to Northville (a distant suburb that was, frankly, not worth the tire rubber) to do some video note-taking for an upcoming feature, working title “Let’s Go Drivin’ in the D with Nance.” I splayed the Gorillapod on the dashboard, affixed the Flip, and prepared for the usual freeway mayhem. The disappointment was that motorists were unusually well-behaved; I was only passed on the right at 85 mph by one or two cell-phone yakkers. But the G’pod was a revelation. It shifted not a millimeter, stayed steady on corners and exit ramps, and together with the Flip took up no more space than a dash-mounted GPS system, which is what it looked like.

Trust me: It’s the best $20 you’ll spend for good pictures. There’s even a Flickr group dedicated to its wonders.

After the Virginia Tech shooting, in which a few bold conservatives took a new step down the yea-guns road by blaming the victims for their own death (because they failed to “rush the guy” while he was reloading), I could hardly wait to see what would be said in the bullshitosphere after the next mass shooting — the brush had been cleared, after all. It didn’t take long: now Instapundit, who declares himself a libertarian, is suggesting that properties that declare themselves gun-free should be held personally liable for violence that occurs there: Perhaps we need legislation. If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.

Roy Edroso points out what you might suspect: That the rootin’, tootin’ western state of Nebraska has no effective restraints on long-barreled firearms, although it does restrict carrying concealed weapons. You need a permit to purchase a handgun, but not to own one. The “gun-free zone” that the right-wingers are all up in arms about is likely the legal opt-out that private-property owners employ these days. When I was in Minnesota a few years back, you saw signs everywhere declaring this or that building gun-free. It wasn’t enforced with metal detectors or anything; I suspect it was a liability dodge, or maybe a corporate bumper sticker, or something. So the mall in Omaha had these signs, and now a leading libertarian is suggesting some legislation to, what? Outlaw gun-free zones? Allow victims to sue?

I have a libertarian proposition for you: Let some savvy, pistol-packin’ real-estate developer open the OK Corral Mall down the street from this one. Go ahead and scratch up some tenants, and proudly display a sign: Everyone’s packin’ a peacemaker. Enter at your own risk. Let’s let the market sort it out!

Just speaking for myself, having a heavily armed populace just next door in Detroit makes me feel extra-safe there.

It occurs to me from my recent linkage there, some might think Roy’s is the only blog I read. If only. But I am trying to cut down, at least on the political stuff. Roy’s niche is arts, culture and calling out wingnuts. Works for me. But if you’re wondering, I also read TBogg; Lawyers, Guns and Money and a few others. Lately I’ve been reading more non-politics sites, like Bossy and, of course, the Fug Girls, even though they were way too tough on Beyoncé this week, if you ask me. That green dress does make her look a little like one of the guppies in my fish tank, but a very sexy one.

I’m adding a new tag here: Metro mayhem, for stories like this. Why do men beat their wives? (Answer, at least in this case: Because he was drunk.) Bonus: Two 911 recordings that demonstrate just how horrible 911 operators are around here.

OK, paying work awaits. Have a great day.

Hank alerts us to what he calls Oklahoma’s “de facto state Christmas carol,” a jingle for a local jewelry store that’s been running every holiday season for 51 years. I warn you, click at your own risk. Those susceptible to jingle-sickness — the tendency for these things to burn themselves on your personal hard drive, shoving aside such minor data bits as the names of your children — are urged not to go there. But hey! It’s catchy!

A little background:

Oklahoma is pro-capitalism; some people will buy TV time to sing your jingle:

OK, no more links. The virus has been passed. Soon, crowds will mill around the evacuating helicopters, shouting, “I’m not infected! I’m not infected!” as the rest of us scream and scream “at Oklahoma’s oldest jeweler! Since eighteen-ninety-two!” over the sound of the spinning rotors.

Actually, when you think about it, there’s something about a certain four-syllable state name that lends itself to music, isn’t there? Every night my honey lamb and I sit alone and talk, and watch a hawk making lazy circles in the skyyyyyy…

Since we seem to be off on a YouTube foot this morning, you can waste all kinds of time following the links from this Metafilter post, which managed to dig up a video of Ella no-I’m-not-kidding Fitzgerald singing “Sunshine of Your Love.”

As for me, I’m watching the sun rise on a severe-clear day (Midwest weather-nerd translation: Clear winter skies, abundant winter sunshine, cold as hell) that promises to turn overcast and snowy sometime in the next 24 hours. Fine with me. Bring on the precipitation, bring on the set-dressing for the holidays. Alan is out evacuating the dog; he (the dog) is on a new food regimen, and I’m making sure he has every opportunity to get his innards adjusted to the change before he settles back into his usual daytime routine of sleeping it away. The depredations of age are starting to settle in — the new food is a response to recent weight loss, which the vet says is caused by diminished kidney function.

“And what’s causing that?” I asked.

“Being 16 years old,” he replied.

Oh, well. None of us live forever, and ever since he entered the double digits, I guess I’ve been waiting for the inevitable. The good news: “He’s still got a lot of fight left in him,” the vet says. I’ll say. The little bastard still has a few Easter baskets and trick-or-treat bags to plunder. If the $20-a-case canned stuff allows him to do so, all the better.

Brian passes along a story I’d meant to bring to your attention earlier in the week, and then forgot about (probably because I was reading In Style): Everything a Parent Needs to Know About Theme-Park Rides to Make Them Want to Lock Their Children in the Basement Forever, via the WashPost. Bottom line: Many are not safe and everything you suspected about sleazebag carnies is probably true. And then, buried in the middle, is this gem:

Although the (Consumer Product Safety Commission) regulates children’s toys, strollers, bicycles and car seats, it has no jurisdiction over rides at fixed amusement parks, such as those run by Walt Disney Co., Six Flags, Universal and Anheuser-Busch Entertainment that host an estimated 300 million people on 1.84 billion rides annually.

Theme parks won their exemption in 1981, after a CPSC probe of ride accidents at Marriott theme parks alleged a coverup of safety hazards. Marriott, represented by Kenneth W. Starr, then a young Washington lawyer, and the industry fought back in the courts and on the Hill, where its top lobbyist complained about the “economic hardship” created by CPSC policing. More safety measures lessening risks would “make the ride worthless,” lobbyist John Graff told Congress at the time. “The activities of the commission must be limited.”

We must spare economic hardship to Disney at all costs. What’s a few immature human feet when such great American companies would be inconvenienced:

At Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, 13-year-old Kaitlyn Lasitter’s feet were severed while she was riding the Tower of Power, a stomach-flipping thriller that draws riders up and pauses briefly before plunging at more than 50 mph. A cable snapped and wound around Kaitlyn’s legs like a bullwhip. Surgeons reattached her right foot, but her left was too damaged to save.

OK, that’s unfair. The story is more about rides that should have seat belts but don’t, the ones you see at the church fundraiser on the corner. And also, the lack of consistent inspection of rides, which typically travel the country, in and out of jurisdictions, many of which lack the manpower to even make a passing safety check. Since it’s no longer theme-park season, at least at this latitude, you can probably read this story without getting nauseous. I can’t guarantee anything about next year, though.

OK, that’s it for me. Have a great day.

Amy Welborn found the Bratz Advent calendar last week, and I thought nothing could top it. I was wrong. Warning: Boobs. (But very perky ones!) Via one of Roy’s commenters.