The worst story ever.

Oh, how awful it is to read the interview with Peter Lanza, Adam’s father. Heaven help the parent of the oddball kid who runs this far off the rails:

All parenting involves choosing between the day (why have another argument at dinner?) and the years (the child must learn to eat vegetables). Nancy’s error seems to have been that she always focussed on the day, in a ceaseless quest to keep peace in the home she shared with the hypersensitive, controlling, increasingly hostile stranger who was her son. She thought that she could keep the years at bay by making each day as good as possible, but her willingness to indulge his isolation may well have exacerbated the problems it was intended to ameliorate.

And:

Peter has offered to meet with the victims’ families, and two have taken up his offer. “It’s gut-wrenching,” he said. “A victim’s family member told me that they forgave Adam after we spent three hours talking. I didn’t even know how to respond. A person that lost their son, their only son.” The only reason Peter was talking to anyone, including me, was to share information that might help the families or prevent another such event. “I need to get some good from this. And there’s no place else to find any good. If I could generate something to help them, it doesn’t replace, it doesn’t—” He struggled to find the words. “But I would trade places with them in a heartbeat if that could help.”

I wish we knew better how to deal with people like Adam Lanza. I wish we didn’t live in this fucked-up world where a woman living on a $325,000 annual alimony payment in one of the safest cities in the country still feels so endangered she has to fill her house with weaponry.

Yeah, you can tell it was a Monday. A beautiful Monday, though — it almost hit 50 degrees. Wendy and I went for a walk, splashing through the puddles. They won’t be puddles long, though, because we’re getting another warm day tomorrow and then, Tuesday night? Four more inches of snow!!!!!!

Let’s cut this short, then.

The woman at the center of an anti-Obamacare ad running here has been knocked around pretty bad; it turns out the facts in the Americans for Prosperity were, well, not factual. Now, it’s getting worse, as it’s turning out…well, let the newspaper tell it:

A Dexter cancer patient featured in a conservative group’s TV ad campaign denouncing her new health care coverage as “unaffordable” will save more than $1,000 this year under the plan, The Detroit News has learned.

Julie Boonstra, 49, starred last month in an emotional television ad sponsored by Americans for Prosperity that implied Democratic U.S. Rep. Gary Peters’ vote for the Affordable Care Act made her medication so “unaffordable” she could die. Peters of Bloomfield Township is running for an open U.S. Senate seat against Republican Terri Lynn Land.

Boonstra said Monday her new plan she dislikes is the Blue Cross Premier Gold health care plan, which caps patient responsibility for out-of-pocket costs at $5,100 a year, lower than the federal law’s maximum of $6,350 a year. It means the new plan will save her at least $1,200 compared with her former insurance plan she preferred that was ended under Obamacare’s coverage requirements.

Oh, well, whatever. The new AFP ads will feature actors, according to Stephen Colbert, and I think he’s actually correct.

Bad news for Rails to Trails. SCOTUS says when the railroad loses its easement, the property has to revert to the owners of the parcels they were carved from. Fuck yeah, freedom! Go ride your bike somewhere else, hippie.

If you can make any sense of this Stephen Breyer quote at all, do clue us all in, though:

“I certainly think bicycle paths are a good idea,” he said, but “for all I know, there is some right-of-way that goes through people’s houses, you know, and all of a sudden they are going to be living in their house, and suddenly a bicycle will run through it.”

The week is officially underway.

Posted at 12:30 am in Current events |
 

46 responses to “The worst story ever.”

  1. Deborah said on March 11, 2014 at 5:32 am

    Sherri, congrats on the 12 years.

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  2. David C. said on March 11, 2014 at 6:12 am

    And Justice Breyer is supposed to be on of the good ones? Jesus H. Christ what an asshole.

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  3. brian stouder said on March 11, 2014 at 7:03 am

    Sherri – what Deborah said, and – Huzzah!

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  4. Linda said on March 11, 2014 at 7:18 am

    Twelve years sobriety is an amazing thing. Congratulations, Sherri.

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  5. coozledad said on March 11, 2014 at 8:23 am

    I was surprised that the extent of Adam’s emotional disorders didn’t tip someone off that a prepper household wasn’t a good place for him. I wasn’t surprised that Adam was interested in Ron Paul. That’s a given, especially for the budding sociopath.

    The whole anti-government, pro-gun, alt-currency libertarian scam is a damn gold mine. You could tie your new currency to the frequency of school shootings in predominantly white districts and call it the Beastmark.

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  6. Julie Robinson said on March 11, 2014 at 8:34 am

    Congratulations, Sherri, and here’s to a lifetime of sobriety, one day at a time.

    All parents deal with what-if issues, but I can’t imagine the what-ifs Adam Lanza’s father has. I hope he is seeing a therapist.

    Did you know that these exist? http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rush-revere-and-the-first-patriots-rush-limbaugh/1118593871?ean=9781476755885. That’s right, Rush Limbaugh has inserted himself as a character in the American Revolution. It’s a series. Of children’s books. Aieeee!

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  7. beb said on March 11, 2014 at 8:39 am

    I’ve always been haunted by this question about the Menedez Brothers: Did their grandparents ever see it coming? Did they ever suspect that there was something fundamentally wrong about their grandsons, or that their grandsons would some day kill them?

    Rails to Trails always seemed like a nice idea but with practical problems. If the railroads don’t actually own the land the rack runs on, then who does? The public? Apparently not. And if the land is held privately and the owner previously forced to cede use of the land to the railroads then they certainly desire to get that land back once the railroad abandons it. And what good is a rails to trails unless someone comes along and mows down the weeds and scrub trees that will otherwise spring up? But Breyer’s comment about someone’s home might be build in the middle of one of these right-of-ways is just plain weird. When the trails were using the track no one could build a house on top of it. After the track was abandoned, yeah, someone might build a house on it but by that time I would imagine that the track has been abandoned for a long enough time that the weeds and trees would have taken over the track making it useless for a bike trail. Breyer is expressing a concern for a situation that is almost inconceivable.

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  8. LAMary said on March 11, 2014 at 9:35 am

    Breyer should have considered that having a bike trails running through your house isn’t half as bad as having a train running through your house.

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  9. Bob (not Greene) said on March 11, 2014 at 9:53 am

    Neil Steinberg had a good blog today, a follow up from his newspaper column yesterday on gun culture. http://www.everygoddamnday.com/2014/03/trying-to-soothe-your-fear-with-guns.html

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  10. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 11, 2014 at 9:53 am

    Pilot Joe, from what we’re seeing (slight turn, no debris field discovery to date, no ping activation), it sounds like sudden cabin decompression, like the Payne Stewart tragedy some fifteen years back — not a bomb. Your thoughts?

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  11. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 11, 2014 at 9:54 am

    Sherri, salute, and may today be a good day.

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  12. coozledad said on March 11, 2014 at 10:43 am

    Bob(not Greene): That Steinberg article is great. Gun fetishism is raw cowardice, a surrender to the inner cockroach.

    And a frightened sadass with guns is one of the few things the public has to legitimately fear. They must always be at the point of soiling themselves.

    I always wonder if they aren’t a harbinger of the end of the human species, if not simply organisms for some brain wasting amyloids.

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  13. coozledad said on March 11, 2014 at 10:43 am

    EDIT: host organisms

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  14. Joe K said on March 11, 2014 at 11:07 am

    Possible, just don’t know till they find something. I think if it was a bomb some one would claim it. I’m wondering if a engine exploded and tore off a wing witch would probably cause massive decompression.
    Time will tell I hope
    Pilot Joe

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  15. Basset said on March 11, 2014 at 11:26 am

    Or maybe something which started small and spun out of control really quickly… Like the DC10 crash in France some years ago, began with a cargo door not latching properly. When the plane got up to height the door blew out and severed some control cables, crash ensued shortly afterward.

    Loss of compression, maybe, but the Payne Stewart plane continued pretty much straight & level till it ran out of fuel… seems like the 777 would do the same, particularly since they were in cruise mode and pretty much guided by automation.

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  16. Basset said on March 11, 2014 at 12:01 pm

    Cooz, this constant demonizing of gun owners grows tiresome. There is indeed a significant population of obsessed nutcases who are probably making up for something, and I know several, but I don’t want to be lumped in with them just because some of you all can’t control your prejudices.
    Sure, I have guns, I handle them responsibly, and I don’t have a carry permit – they are tools, not extensions of my ego or anything else. I have a power saw and I have to be careful about cutting my fingers off, I have several firearms and I have to make sure I use them appropriately and safely.
    As I’ve said here before, my gun-owning friends are appalled that I’m a liberal – and my liberal friends are appalled that I own guns.

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  17. Deborah said on March 11, 2014 at 12:16 pm

    Basset, I think Coozledad was talking about fetishism, he even used that word. Because you own a gun or two doesn’t mean you have a fetish. I believe I remember Coozledad talking about having to shoot this or that animal, so he probably owns a gun himself. Of course he can certainly speak for himself.

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  18. alex said on March 11, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    Basset, I’m not appalled that you own guns. I also don’t read into Cooz’ remarks that he has anything against normal gun owners.

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  19. brian stouder said on March 11, 2014 at 12:31 pm

    Possibly the Justice has never really looked at an abandoned rail line. They tend to be graded, and have lots and lots of rocks and gravel (and probably more than a little creosote, etc, which one wouldn’t want to live upon, or garden in). They are ready-made trails; indeed, a city or county might pave them, and/or their parks department might mow the weeds…but re-purposing them as trails looks to me like a no-brainer of a good thing, including for any adjacent property owners.

    I’m with Joe on the plane mystery. Claiming credit, and/or sneering at civilization would seem to be a key part of terrorism. These big modern planes do an awful lot of communicating automatically, and the complete void this plane flew into is what puzzles me. (Pam’s black-humor joke is – all these folks are probably under the sea right now, working on getting rescued. Think – Lloyd Bridges – Airport ’77) (or whichever one that was)

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  20. Jeff Borden said on March 11, 2014 at 12:43 pm

    The firearms industry and its lobbying group, the NRA, must keep people in a constant state of fear and trepidation to sell more product. The percentage of American households with a gun has actually fallen considerably over the past decades. There is less interest in sports shooting and hunting. It’s gotten so bad that the even crazier gun rights group, Gun Owners of America, has been mulling some kind of a pitch to younger people that says, basically, “guns are cool.”

    So. . .you wind up with the truly noxious Wayne LaPierre at CPAC painting a picture of a dystopia rivaling anything in the pantheon of post-apocalyptic films and books, a terrifying environment where death and danger lurk behind every bush and only the gun-toting believer can be saved. As Nancy points out, look at the arsenal in the home of a well-educated woman living in a suburban idyll. She was ready for the zombies or the Black Panthers or the North Koreans or whatever thing it was that scared her to her marrow.

    Steinberg is correct that there is a near religious fanaticism to some of the gun movement. But I think we overlook just how far the gun and ammunition manufacturers will go to make sure potential customers are kept in a state of high anxiety solely so they can be sold even more guns and accessories.

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  21. Hattie said on March 11, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    I can recommend Blake Bailey’s The Splendid Things We Planned as a full length portrait of family pathology. I think it relates to the Lanza case.We tend to believe families are OK if they have enough money. But that is not always true.

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  22. Sherri said on March 11, 2014 at 12:50 pm

    I’m not appalled by your guns, basset. I’m appalled by the people running around carrying guns for which the only purpose is to shoot another human being. Nobody’s carrying a handgun into a coffee shop to shoot a deer. They are carrying it because they think they might have to shoot another human being.

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  23. nancy said on March 11, 2014 at 1:02 pm

    The thing about the rails-to-trails case I find depressing is how difficult it is to get people to agree to even a modest use of public space for the public good. This is a big country with a lot of wide-open spaces, and there’s always been a tension between private property and public works, which is why we have eminent domain laws, etc. But propose anything like a recreation trail that will wind through areas with private property, and I guarantee you some old geezer will put his foot down and keep it there, because he doesn’t want to see damn hippies on bikes riding on *his* riverbank.

    I find it ironic that younger people are embracing many of the things their parents rejected that pertain to this — dense housing, walkable cities, public transportation. But it’s nice to get out in the country, too. I wish it were easier, in these cases.

    ** I will stipulate that not all users of public trails are responsible, and it doesn’t take too many beer cans thrown onto your property to sour a person on the very idea. I only wish we could see eye-to-eye on more of these issues, and not make everything a libertarian death match.

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  24. Deborah said on March 11, 2014 at 1:07 pm

    Here in Santa Fe there’s a near dead mall not far from us. It is a ghost town except for the gun shop that’s always teeming with people. We’ve gone in there a few times to buy pepper spray. Little Bird had a stalker following her around for awhile a few months back, since she walks everywhere she felt vulnerable. She lost the first canister so had to go back and get another and I broke down and bought one too. The guy working behind the counter said that he hoped we’d never have to use it. Me too, that is certainly my hope as well. I can’t imagine carrying around a gun, I figure if I did have to spray someone, they’d probably wrestle it away and use it on me. Then why do I have it? Good question.

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  25. MarkH said on March 11, 2014 at 1:11 pm

    The fact that there is ZERO trace of the Malaysia airliner at this stage of the search is most troubling. There would have to be SOME debris floating in the South China Sea somehere if the cause was a catastrophic explosion. Rapid decompression with the aircraft still intact and flyable is also an unlikely cause as flight crews have a separate oxygen system with special masks that can be quickly applied in an emergency(Pilot Joe, correct me if I’m wrong here). Some news stories have acknowledged that both civilian and military radar have their limits, specifically in this case over that area of the water. So, whether the plane was turning around cannot be confirmed. But what of the transponder? Why was it off? And, most importantly, satellite would have revealed the infared trail of an explosion at altitude. So far these records have shown nothing. All that seems left now is to keep the search for the black box ping going.

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  26. Scout said on March 11, 2014 at 1:14 pm

    EXACTLY, Sherri. I cannot wrap my head around someone thinking it is appropriate to wear a holstered gun while grocery shopping, or having coffee at Starbucks, or eating lunch. I don’t know wtf they’re so afraid of, but I can tell you that I am totally afraid of them. The whole gun culture of late seems unnecessary and over the top, and more and more it seems gun people are going way out of their way to portray themselves as oppressed victims. I think that unless you are in the military or law enforcement, guns are a recreational hobby, to be kept under lock and key until you are using them to hunt or target shoot, not some perfectly acceptable accessory that shows off your blatant disregard for life. Not picking on you, basset, please do not take my comments personally.

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  27. rfs said on March 11, 2014 at 1:24 pm

    Here is what they think on MetaFilter about the Breyer quote :

    Pretty sure that Breyer quote is from a Mississippi John Hurt song.

    For all I know baby, there is some right of way that goes through people’s house
    For all I know honey, there is some right of way that goes through people’s house, hoo
    For all I know baby, there is some right of way that goes through people’s house

    Gonna ride that train, ride it down the rail.
    I go down the path, all the way to the trail.
    I get on my bike, past their houses I do roam.
    Gonna ride my bicycle, run it all of a sudden through their home.

    …might’ve Fred McDowell.
    posted by Smedleyman at 7:16 PM on March 10 [2 favorites +] [!]

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  28. Charlotte said on March 11, 2014 at 1:49 pm

    The Rails to Trails thing is disturbing on a local level since we have Huey Lewis and James Cox Kennedy taking a public access case to the MT Supreme Court (all waterways are public here, up to the high water mark. They’re challenging this). Bad precedent for us.

    I’m with everyone else who sees the difference between the sort of gun fetishists that Cooz pokes at, and regular old gun owners like Bassett (and me). Except that I don’t really use mine — they were my late brother’s. A couple of old shotguns in the front closet. I don’t think I even have any shells around. I did sell his rifles, and that handgun that I hated, but I got sentimental about the little pump actin 20 gauge my dad gave him for his 12th birthday. And I occasionally think about taking up bird hunting.

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  29. Peter said on March 11, 2014 at 1:50 pm

    I apologize for my ignorance and laziness, but the railroads didn’t own the land their tracks were on? Huh? Didn’t they all get laws passed giving them the land to build their rails on? I mean, didn’t A. Lincoln himself get a sweet deal done for the Illinois Central? I’m lost.

    Julie, I clicked on that link. I can only say thank God Propsero isn’t around to see that. It would have killed him.

    Sherri, congrats on 12 years!

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  30. Basset said on March 11, 2014 at 2:19 pm

    I was referring to the article Cooz linked to, have heard that attitude way too often. Thanks for the comments though, last few weeks I have thought nobody was listening.

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  31. brian stouder said on March 11, 2014 at 2:21 pm

    Here is the end of that article that Nancy linked. I think the nameless reporter executed the perfect editorial (non)comment:

    Justice Stephen Breyer, who has had three bicycling accidents since 1993 — the last of which in April resulted in a shoulder replacement — envisioned a future in which landowners could be besieged by bikers.

    “I certainly think bicycle paths are a good idea,” he said, but “for all I know, there is some right-of-way that goes through people’s houses, you know, and all of a sudden they are going to be living in their house, and suddenly a bicycle will run through it.”

    I mean – doesn’t it make you laugh out loud?! The Justice has knocked his shoulder all to hell, and clearly has jarred his brain, too, eh?

    BTW – I think A.Lincoln’s big accomplishment for the Illinois Central was to keep all the various counties away from being able to assess taxes upon the railroad.

    Later, the RR wouldn’t pay AL’s fee. AL then sued them and won his case – whereupon the IC put him on paid retainer(!)

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  32. Basset said on March 11, 2014 at 2:25 pm

    And on another topic…

    ” But propose anything like a recreation trail that will wind through areas with private property, and I guarantee you some old geezer will put his foot down and keep it there, because he doesn’t want to see damn hippies on bikes riding on *his* riverbank.”

    That would be me. The city is just finishing a greenway through our neighborhood, we didn’t get any say in it and it’s thirty yards from my back porch. We’ve been promised some screening shrubs but so far have gotten only three in my neighbor’s yard , two of em already dead.

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  33. MichaelG said on March 11, 2014 at 2:42 pm

    Good on you, Sherri. I’m very pleased for you.

    Thanks for the concern, Deborah. I had surgery on Friday. I had a large mass on my right thigh and that was removed along with a good part of my quadriceps. I’m home now and am feeling pretty good. No pain but I have a couple of large drain lines that are a pain in the ass. I’m not sure when they will come out. I am up and about.

    I’ve worked for the State of California in a job that afforded me a lot of latitude and independence. It also paid me a living wage. I had already planned to retire as of March 31, and then this other stuff came up. I went in to the office last Wednesday and finished up, putting myself down for sick leave for the balance of the month. So now I’m retired.

    I have been lucky enough to have an excellent if not fabulous health plan. It’s Kaiser and it will continue through my retirement. The cost is $150 per month for me and my Ex. During the last few weeks I have had an MRI, two CT scans, a biopsy, a chest X-Ray, have attended a two hour chemo class and been to innumerable consultations with radioactive people, chemo people, surgeons and others. Not to mention an extended surgery and a three day hospital stay. My total out of pocket cost has been four or five $15 co-pays. That’s right. $60 or $75 bucks. And, oh yeah. Another $20 or so for drugs. I sit here in awe at my good fortune. Maybe Mary has some idea of the market cost for all this but it has to be a bundle.

    The people and facilities at Kaiser are the best. Everyone is pleasant, friendly and very professional. I have been blown away by the competence of virtually every person I have encountered and their good humor and patience. Everything has been explained as it went along, even their “I don’t knows”. They really try hard. When was the last time you had an actual doctor call on your cell and tell you that after several of them had talked they were changing their approach and that I should be at such and such a place that afternoon for another consultation?

    I am humbled and grateful for this health plan and for the fact that I don’t have to worry how or where I will get care or how I will be able to pay for it. That in itself goes a long way to a cure. Sorry for the long post, but this is where I am today.

    When I checked in for surgery on Friday AM, the lady asked me for a $15 dollar co-pay. I told her that as I had been told not to bring any valuables, I didn’t have my wallet or any money. She told me they would catch me later. So I owe Kaiser $15.

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  34. Judybusy said on March 11, 2014 at 3:06 pm

    Sherri, great job on the 15 years–I’m sure it will continue forever.

    MichaelG, thanks for the update. I am so glad you have great coverage, and don’t have to make choices based on whether you can afford the treatment. Please do share how things are going!

    A friend of mine is going through breast cancer treatment, also through Kaiser. She shared a sorta funny anecdote on FB today: while checking in for a dermatology appt., the receptionist told her she’s overdue for a mammogram. My funny friend, with great elan, shared “I politely inform her that I already have breast cancer (the turban wasn’t a dead giveaway?), so my doctors probably already know everything they need to know about my boobs . Thanks anyway for your concern!” This woman is also pregnant, due in July, and is showing a brave face. She’s a childhood friend of my partner’s, who will be going out for two weeks to San Jose at the end of April to reconnect and help care for the toddler.

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  35. Dexter said on March 11, 2014 at 3:20 pm

    Sherri, way to go. It’s just one day at a time, of course, easy peasy! Right. So it’s nice to know I have a couple people here at nn dot com , brother and sister in sobriety, as it may be. I knew a guy named barefoot bob from Idaho; he actually came to my home once, he was a genius, about eight years ago he took a solo voyage on a Catamaran across the Atlantic…long story. He was a student of AA, long-time sober, and he passed away a few years ago, but his website is still around, lots of great stuff still there, and you can ignore the sort-of “over patriotic” crap. He was a dandy, had friends all over the country…his last act was to build a Wells Fargo Model A Ford up from scratch and drive it from Washington state to Florida. http://www.barefootsworld.net/‎

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  36. Deborah said on March 11, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    Michael G, thanks for the update. It sounds like you have a pretty good attitude, that’s great. And congrats about being retired, I hope you like retirement, I love it!

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  37. mark said on March 11, 2014 at 6:04 pm

    Good news, Michael G.

    Congratulations Sherri. A pickle never gets to go back to being a cucumber. Many more years to you..

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  38. Sherri said on March 11, 2014 at 7:24 pm

    Thanks for all the good wishes, everyone. I almost didn’t say anything about it, but now I’m glad I did. It means a lot.

    MichaelG, glad to hear you’re doing okay after surgery.

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  39. LAMary said on March 11, 2014 at 7:50 pm

    Congratulations, Sherri. I know it’s a tough thing to do. I stopped drinking 28 years ago. My father, grandfather, uncle and one brother were alcoholics. It killed three of them. I knew I could very easily be going the same direction. I was some some medication for something and wasn’t allowed alcohol, and I decided to just stop forever, and I’m glad I did.

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  40. Dave said on March 11, 2014 at 7:59 pm

    I think that most, if not all, of the railroads in Indiana were built with a clause that if the right-of-way ceased being used for railroad use, the land reverted to the landowner. That is the main reason that the Cardinal Greenway, between somewhere north of Muncie and Richmond, does not extend all the way to Marion, as originally planned. The farmers fought it and won.

    I know of right-of-ways that have houses and/or other buildings on them but Breyer must have hit his head on something to make such a statement.

    Don’t know about the Huey Lewis case but Carole King’s autobiography has a story in it how she fought a public access road across her property in Idaho that folks had used for a long time and she won. I would have to reread that part of the book to help recall the details.

    MichaelG, hope retirement goes well and your excellent health care has the most positive results, congratulations to Sherri’s continued sobriety.

    I keep hoping someone from Prospero’s family comes around some day and tells us the rest of the story.

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  41. Deborah said on March 11, 2014 at 8:19 pm

    Where our land is in Abiquiu, the arroyos (dry creek beds that run very rarely, once a year if that) are public land. Our property straddles a few of them. People ride their horses through them, which is fine with us but we totally draw the line when it comes to ATVs which are illegal. Some of our neighbors are opposed to outsiders riding their horses through them, they don’t mind locals but not people who bring their horses in from miles away in trailers. Again, we don’t mind the horses at all, it’s just the noisy, obnoxious all terrain vehicles that bug the daylights out of us. So wrong.

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  42. MM said on March 11, 2014 at 8:29 pm

    I can’t find it at the moment, but I remember reading that the Koch Brothers had funded an educational retreat for judges on land use law and afterwards the judges were much more likely to rule in favor of the property owner and against an entity trying to take property for the public good.

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  43. Jolene said on March 11, 2014 at 8:55 pm

    Chiming in late here. Congratulations from me too, Sherri. It’s very hard to make and sustain a big change of that sort, so kudos for finding the strength to do it.

    Good to hear of your progress, MichaelG. In my recent contacts with the healthcare system, I had the same experience of wonderfully knowledgable and extremely kind people of all descriptions–doctors, nurses, and various technicians–and it really helped. Plus, there are all the people who invented the amazing machines used for diagnosis and treatment. I felt very, very lucky. Am glad you are having a similar experience.

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  44. alex said on March 11, 2014 at 10:26 pm

    Congrats, Sherri. I know how much better I feel when I abstain from alcohol, and still have much difficulty not having more than a few after I’ve had a few, and hating how I feel in the day or two following. It kicks my ass worse than ever. Just today was reflecting on some less than pleasant encounters over the years when inebriated and wondering why people seemed to be reacting to me with hostility when all I was feeling was warm and friendly.

    Still not ready to call it 100 percent quits on the booze. I’ve finally managed to do that with cigarettes. It’s slow going. Still can’t imagine giving up alcohol entirely.

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  45. Jill said on March 11, 2014 at 10:43 pm

    Sherri, congratulations! That’s quite an accomplishment.

    And glad you’re doing so well, Michael. I hope it continues that way.

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  46. brian stouder said on March 11, 2014 at 11:45 pm

    when it comes to alcohol, I’ve always had a glass jaw; the stuff makes me sicker than hell. I think in my whole life, I’ve been impaired/drunk maybe 6 or 8 times.

    Once you have a taste for soda pop, beer and all the rest just don’t even sound good….or at least that’s my theory. This is why one of my chief “crazy old man” theories is that if I get my kids hooked on soda pop, then all that other stuff that people will offer them at parties might induce them to think (if not say) what I always thought, back in the day – “BLECCH!!”

    Tomorrow, we get a new refrigerator (tax refund time); which means this evening was clean-clean-clean night. And of course, there’s a pesky snow storm on the way…beware the ides of March, eh?

    Nancy promised us “scantily” blogged week this week, and after yesterday’s discussion about beauty, I’m ready for this place to go all scantily (it would take our minds off of the gathering storm, and put a fire in the fireplace, eh?)

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