Let’s all get a gun! It’s the self-defense craze that’s sweepin’ the nation. Click that link, and read about a unique family tragedy (aren’t they all? Unique?) out in the ‘burbs, in which a 74-year-old woman killed her 17-year-old grandson, and no one can exactly say why.

She was afraid of the kid, her lawyer said. The kid wasn’t threatening at all, his father said. He said “from Arizona,” I should add, because that’s why the boy was living with his grammy — to finish high school here, which he should have done this spring. His parents had already decamped for sunny Scottsdale, but the boy stayed behind.

Here’s what we learned today: She emptied the clip into him. He was said to have “approximately” eight entrance or exit wounds, two slugs in his body and the 911 operator heard three more shots after he called for help.

I’m interested in knowing a lot more about this case. But the main thing I already know is: Some people shouldn’t have guns. Probably most people shouldn’t have guns. And yet: Everybody and their damn brother has a gun.

Folks, I got a couple irons in the fire at the moment, and have little energy or inclination to blog. How about a picture? The other day I went out looking for Detroit blight, and found myself on the same street where I took the French journalists four years ago. They wanted to see the $1 houses, and they saw some. The street was bad then, and it’s worse now, well over half gone, with the few holdouts looking sad and increasingly tenuous. This one sort of broke my heart, because it’s so classic from the outside. Probably was someone’s dream house, not even that long ago. And now? Well.

It is looking like a beautiful week, however. Enjoy it.

First things first: None of the animals in the previous photo were for eating. (At least not yet.) I was, as always, most charmed by the baby goats, which were either pygmies or baby pygmies or maybe from some breed known only as Cute. They weren’t much larger than cocker spaniels, and came directly to the fence for scratching and nibbling. One grabbed the drawstring on my pants and backed away with it until he’d untied the knot. How did goats get so smart? They’re just another agricultural cash crop, and yet, I can’t think of a dumb one among those I’ve met along the way.

Certainly even a dumb goat is smarter than your average Florida congressman, it seems. I was arrested by this story in the NYT Sunday, which just about ruined a beautiful Sunday morning. It’s about a GOP plan to defund the American Community Survey, the data-gathering exercise that provides a wealth, literally, of facts about life in these United States. But because government is no longer of/by/for the people in some folks’ mind, but instead comprised of nosy parkers, this must be stopped:

“This is a program that intrudes on people’s lives, just like the Environmental Protection Agency or the bank regulators,” said Daniel Webster, a first-term Republican congressman from Florida who sponsored the relevant legislation.

…Each year the Census Bureau polls a representative, randomized sample of about three million American households about demographics, habits, languages spoken, occupation, housing and various other categories. The resulting numbers are released without identifying individuals, and offer current demographic portraits of even the country’s tiniest communities.

It is the largest (and only) data set of its kind and is used across the federal government in formulas that determine how much funding states and communities get for things like education and public health.

For example, a question on flush toilets — one that some politicians like to cite as being especially invasive — is used to help assess groundwater contamination for rural parts of the country that do not have modern waste disposal systems, according to the Census Bureau.

I’m just…astounded by the ignorance of that quote. “Just like the Environmental Protection Agency or bank regulators.” And not, say, the Transportation Safety Administration, or the FBI if your names is Hussein, or anything like that.

It gets worse. Actual, non-brain dead American companies and institutions are protesting this, saying they need the data to know where to open stores, to use just one example. Rep. Webster tells them they need liberty, not information. (Actual words, yes.)

Can anyone guess when Webster was elected to Congress? Anyone? Not you again, Brian. Let’s see if someone else knows.

That turned my eyeballs inside-out for a while, so I needed to read this thing in the Sun-Times to right myself. It’s a sharp, but not rant-y, piece about the Joe Ricketts/Obama attack thing from last week, written by a sportswriter. I’d like to lay aside the content for now and just examine why I liked it. I think it’s because Rick Telander actually takes a stand, with a minimum of caviling and equivocation and hand-wringing. This used to be commonplace, and like a lot of things, you don’t really notice it’s going away until one day you ask yourself why so many newspaper columns are on-the-one-hand-this, on-the-other-hand-that, who-is-correct-only-time-will-tell exercises in not offending anyone. This is like a fresh slap of Aqua Velva, it is:

Everybody named Ricketts has been scurrying for cover since the bombshell dropped, with the conservative Ricketts kids semi-distancing themselves from their father and his right-wing dirty dealings.

But the Rickettses don’t come one at a time; they march as a group, and they’re right of center by design. They bought the Cubs with the family trust, so, as the saying goes when the dowry gets passed along, Own it, kids!

Or it might just be that I’d just read Mitch Albom phoning in another Sunday op-ed piece, and this one stood out.

Finally, transgendered children? Really young ones? Worth a read.

How was your weekend? I got back to the gym and am paying for it now, but it’s a good pain. Beside the glorious weather, I was lucky to catch a glimpse of a couple of just-out-of-the-nest robins, still with their speckled breasts and what-the-hell expressions. Better grow some tailfeathers, kids — it’s a bird-eat-worm world out there.

A busy week awaits, but it appears summer is really here. Let’s hope it’s a great one.

Baby goats! And ducks and lambs and calves…

Joumana Kayrouz is the T.J. Eckleberg of Detroit. For a couple of years now, her face has dominated every third billboard across the metro area, advertising her services as a personal-injury lawyer. This seems to be what she looks like more or less au naturel:

She has an arresting appearance, with white-blonde hair, lashes and brows. This was her first billboard image:

Lately a new billboard is replacing it. Through the miracle of technology, she’s grown a giant pair of lips:

I crossed the street behind this bus yesterday, and up close, you can see how crappy the Photoshopping was; they didn’t even try to match her actual lips:

I hope she’s a better lawyer than her art director was a Photoshop artist.

And that is your Friday eye candy (if you like wax lips). But it starts us off on a thematic foot, as our first bit of bloggage today involves the subject of how women look. I realize calling Rush Limbaugh a vile sack of pus is like calling the ocean wet, but Laura Lippman posted this today, and it left me wondering, for the thousandth time, where the bottom of this man’s loathsomeness really is. By WashPost blogger Melinda Henneberger, she notes her (extremely mild) reaction to the Time magazine breastfeeding cover, and Limbaugh’s reaction to it. Ahem:

First, Limbaugh pronounced me “a classic inside-the-Beltway feminist, classic professional feminist. You know what that means.” I do?

“See, TIME Magazine blew it,’’ Limbaugh explained. “You know why it’s not working with the feminist women? Because the woman on the cover of TIME Magazine was too pretty. I call your attention once again to Undeniable Truth of Life Number 24. Dare I speak it again? Brian’s nodding his head yes. Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream. Here is Melinda Henneberger, who’s somewhat trying to be funny here, but in all comedy, there is a grain of truth, and she’s quite upset.

This is what Melinda Henneberger looks like. Just, y’know, for reference.

Finally, Donna Summer is dead, and I won’t apologize for enjoying her music. Disco had its day, it came and went, and sorry, but the Bee Gees were only the worst part of it. Summer wasn’t the best, but she was pretty good. I could never bring myself to hate disco. It was pop dance music, and a huge relief from the self-important blowhard rock’n’roll of the time. (All we are is dust in the wind, right?) And then punk came along and was a huge relief from disco. It all passes away, eventually. Right, D?

Have a great weekend, all.

As I may have mentioned about a million times before, I like to take a little midweek me-time at a bar near Kate’s Wednesday-night activity. I drop her off for three hours of musical instruction, and I go to the Park Bar for a wrap and two beers. I take my iPad. I read, I write (rarely), I people-watch.

This week was the first time I’d stopped by since Opening Day. Today’s was an afternoon game, but a few hardy souls were still pounding shots and being incredibly loud when I arrived at 6. One woman had tucked her shot glass into her cleavage and telling her friends that she was ABOUT TO BE FORTY-THREE, AND GODDAMNIT, I THINK I’M BETTER THAN EVER.

John Mellencamp interrupted on the sound system. They joined together like a pack of coyotes:

SO LET IT ROCK, LET IT ROLL, LET THE BIBLE BELT COME AND SAVE MY SOUL. HOLD ONTO SIXTEEN AS LONG AS YOU CAN. CHANGES COME AROUND REAL SOON MAKE US WOMEN AND MEN. Then she took out her shot and downed it.

It was sort of annoying, and then I reflected that the library doesn’t serve Stella Artois and I was the odd one out.

Hoosiers, is it true? Is it true Dick Lugar isn’t long for this world? He was always the Republican I never minded voting for, and not because he’s some flaming liberal. You couldn’t help but respect his intellect, which informed his positions, more than you can say for most politicians, especially more contemporary ones.

And while we’re on the subject of politics, here’s James Fallows on current events:

Mitt Romney informs us that the raid that took out Osama bin Laden one year ago was no big deal, because “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” …Jimmy Carter is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who spent ten years in the uniformed service of his country. As far as I can tell, this is ten years more than the cumulative service of all members of the Romney clan.

Why, yes. Yes, it is.

Finally, do I have to have an opinion about Barack Obama, boyfriend? Because I’d prefer not to.

The downslope of the week! How wonderful.

I don’t recognize the church of my youth. This version is the one that appears in movies where nuns and priests never smile, have filthy secrets and abuse children. Only this woman, a teacher in a Fort Wayne Catholic school who asked the wrong boss for a few days off, isn’t a child:

During the meeting, Kuzmich told Herx repeatedly she was a “grave, immoral sinner,” and that should news of the treatments get out there would be a scandal, according to court documents.

Emily Herx’ grave sin? Trying to conceive through in-vitro fertilization. She asked for time off to have the procedure done. For which, this representation of Christ on earth, Rev. John Kuzmich, told her she was a grave, immoral sinner.

I’m reaching the point where I not only will never rejoin the church, I can’t believe I ever even considered it. Dear Pope Benedict, please enjoy your smaller, purer church. I hope no more members disappoint you.

By the way, I predicted the inevitable Kevin Leininger column defending Kuzmich a few hours ago. I think it’ll be in Saturday’s paper. We’ll see.

It’s been a day for jaw-droppers. For the last few months, a coalition has been gathering signatures, trying to put repeal of the state’s emergency-manager law on the state ballot this fall. They gathered 100,000 more than what they needed, and presented them to the state board of canvassers, which yesterday deadlocked on accepting them, because — get this — the font on the petitions was the wrong size. It had to be 14 point, and there were even printers who testified it was 14 point, but the font was Calibri, which is thinner, and sometimes looks smaller. Too bad! A tied board means it doesn’t pass, and the room erupted — see this nice photo in the News.

Next stop: Court.

Finally, a nice Brian Dickerson column on the final-final denouement of the Case of Little Leo Ratte and the Overzealous Child Protective Services. It’s a good story, and I think we discussed it when it happened: Pop-culture-sheltered U of M professor takes his little boy to a Tigers game and buys him a bottle of lemonade, not knowing that Mike’s brand is the kind with alcohol in it. A security guard sees the boy sipping from it, alerts the fuzz, and the family is swept up in a Kafkaesque nightmare of foster homes, court orders and the like. The family is on the brink of pushing through a law to keep this from happening again. More power, etc.

Finally, another great Sweet Juniper on the fauxtopias of suburban Detroit. Highly recommended.

Happy weekend, all.

I’m beginning to think medical marijuana is a ship that’s leaving without me. I have absolutely no problem with people using it however they like as medicine, and I know there are many sick people with real illnesses who are legitimately helped by it. I also know that legalizing it for medical use is de facto legalizing it for recreational use, and why pretend otherwise. If the state’s voters approve of weed as a treatment for cancer and back pain and free-floating anxiety, then let’s stop fooling ourselves.

That won’t happen. Our attorney general is making this a jihad of sorts, and I could make a speech about this, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll direct you to a rather ingenious idea related to the issue — repurposing of an Upper Peninsula copper mine as an underground pot farm. Kind of a trippy idea, when you think about it — you could stage a killer Harold & Kumar movie down there.

It would help to be stoned to property grok this pearl-clutcher from the News today, about fear of crime in Birmingham, another wealthy suburb on the west side. Actual quote: “I don’t know what the world is coming to.” Everybody in my Facebook network is howling over it, and I can’t say I blame ’em.

In honor of J.C.’s enhancement of Deborah’s photo yesterday, let’s run this one again. The Enhance Supercut!

And because supercuts are funny, No Signal:

From Bill, the official obit for Jay Z.

And goodnight.

Driving to Lansing Friday morning, I found myself in an audio crisis. I can usually make NPR fill at least half the trip, but it’s pledge week. As a sustaining member, I opt out of the miseries of pledge week. Reached for my iPod, but ack! I’d left the earbuds at home, a hazard of dressing for work in the dark. Commercial radio it is, then. I stumbled across a wacky morning team, just as they announced they had a listener who believed she’d found the Word of the Day — some promotion, I expect. She was asked the word of the day, and answered “habitual.” Huzzah, she’s a winner, but wait, there’s one more hoop.

“Can you use it in a sentence?”

“I find chocolate habitual.”

“Very good! You win!”

Fortunately, I’m no longer driving this route at a full gallop, or else the twitching in my hands would have sent me off the road.

A pretty good story in today’s Freep, which qualifies as a unique take on the old problem of school safety. It considers a truly horrifying aspect of Detroit school life — the walk to school. I was telling my students the other day to try to keep fresh eyes, especially around Detroit, because it’s easy to start taking blight for granted, after you’ve seen it for a while. The photo gallery is an eye-popper.

On a lighter note, this amusing New York magazine piece on the artisanal artisanal-ness of Brooklyn. I recall exchanging an email or two with Roy after I stumbled across a Kickstarter for some outfit there, raising money to make artisanal soft drinks. Roy lived there at the time, and to my what-the-what question, he replied, “Not my part of Brooklyn.” Good to know.

Finally, I suppose most of you know by now that Moe, our comment-community member of four years, known in her analog life as Regina Cullen of Seattle, Wash., died over the weekend. In what has become a grim tradition here, J.C. has taken all her comments and collected them on a single page, which you can find here. (Link on the sidebar under Getting There from Here, along with those of Ashley Morris and Whitebeard.) It starts with her first appearance, Leap Day 2008, which we long-timers remember as Tim Goeglein Day. It ends, 2,204 comments later, on March 26 of this year. She was active and engaged, never self-pitying, throughout what must have been a long and very painful illness. She was posting on her Facebook page March 31 — a funny video of British animal voiceovers. The day before that, an excoriation of Mitt Romney’s contributions to the National Organization for Marriage. I think that was probably a pretty good distillation of Moe as we knew her — engaged with the nitty-gritty, but still up for a laugh. Our community will be poorer for her loss.

An all-links Friday update? Sure, works for me. Opening Day was clear and sunny and beautiful, but damn cold. I was standing on a corner waiting for a light to change near Wayne State, and the wind gusted in my face, and what did I do? I moaned. It’s April. Time for crazy weather to stop this shit and start being spring. Those two weeks of summer were a cruel taunt. Easter Sunday will be rainy and barely 60. But it’s time to strip the cover off the boat and get this show on the road, eh?

Best Tumblr I’ve seen in a while: Texts from Hillary.

But still, my fave is Animals Talking in All Caps.

It’s a tough town: Second law-abiding Detroiter in a week shoots and kills an intruder. Any more of this, and the ghost of Charlton Heston will come to town.

Are any of you even at work today? Happy Passover, and a somber Good Friday. And who’ll be watching “The Ten Commandments?” I will.

Today, a question for the room: Have you ever eaten a spear of asparagus right out of the ground? Snapped it off and ate it as you wandered through the rows? You should try it sometime, if you ever get a chance; it’s like a whole different vegetable, as tender at the base as it is at the tip. No bitterness, no stringiness. I’m thinking these rabbits are onto something. Maybe we should all get on all fours and graze a bit.

No, I haven’t been smoking weed or anything. John and Sam, aka J.C. and Sam, have been in Lansing for the last few weeks, helping Sammy’s father start his journey down the ghost road. That journey having commenced over the weekend, I stopped by on my way out of town yesterday and beheld his legendary garden — he was a botanist — which will be on its own this season, although I’m sure the neighbors will enjoy the strawberries and raspberries and other perennials. We enjoyed the raw asparagus. Man, what a revelation.

And if you had spent most of the day in Excel training, that’s what you’d remember about the day, too.

Excel: I know it’s a titan of software. I know it makes data analysis possible in ways undreamed of by data nerds in times gone by, but when the most common thing you hear in several hours of training is, “Excel will trip you up,” maybe there’s a little feature-not-bug thing going on. I use Numbers, m’self. It does everything Excel does — except for something called “pivot tables,” and may I never learn what those are — and looks prettier.

And other than that, it was a lot of driving. But a beautiful day.

Bloggage?

Sure: Lots of women get abortions at 24 weeks, because they “had to have a career.” A dispatch from the right-wing propaganda war, “October Baby.”

It’s simply appalling how long it’s taken Detroit’s city council to come to terms with reality, but it finally did. I’ve started making screen captures of Charles Pugh’s glasses — he wears a different pair every day. I’m thinking it’s a metaphor.

And now I’m off to my warm, soft bed. Downside of the week, y’all.