I don’t know if you’ve seen the stories coming out this week, but apparently quite a few schools have banned tag, touch football and (I shit you not) other unsupervised chase games from their grounds. The reason, apparantly, is that parents might sue if their kid is hurt.  Now I have no idea what’s happened in the courts where we’ve gone from, “yeah, you smashed his car when drunk, you owe him punitive damages” to “yeah, your kid fell during recess, the school owes him damages”, but I do know it’s completely ridiculous.

My hunch, though, is that lawyers are only the excuse for what might be called the Nancification of America.  For most of human history, cats were getting married at 12, having kids at 12.  Now they can’t play tag in 5th grade because whiny parents are overprotective to the extreme.  I know this hasn’t been going on forever.  I’m only 22.  I remember back in the day.  We didn’t know what a “playdate” was.  If I wanted to hang out with a friend, I walked to his house.  If we wanted something to do, we’d get the guys together for a game of tackle football at the Maple St. park or go climb in the Bear Cave up Highland Park.  What’s going on today?

I should preemptively say that I’m going to be shocked on Halloween when I hear that kids don’t go trick-or-treating anymore because it’s too dangerous.

So there’s an election coming up.  The last two elections, I’ve voted a ticket that included Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians…everyone.  I always voted for the best man for the job, whether or not he or she had a chance to win.  This year, I think I’m voting a straight Democratic ticket.  What’s going on with the Republican party?  They don’t support the things that would make me vote for them - small government, individual rights, subsidiarity, humble foreign policy, global leadership, competitive markets - and are, essentially, corrupt as balls.  The K Street lobbyists have the Republicans in their pocket.  Even worse, Bush was a pretty disappointing president to begin with, and unlike a fine wine, he doesn’t get better with age.  The incompetence and nepotism is astounding.  I hope I never have to vote a straight ticket again, but that’s what times have come to.

Two trips coming up: DC on Nov. 13 and 14 for a Matlab conference (which I’m psyched for mostly because I got a good rate at the Madison, which is quite a swanky hotel) and then Eugene from Dec. 24 to Jan. 1.  This 9 to 5, 5 days a week is killing me, for real.

SO A FEW NIGHTS AGO we had the first nice, crisp fall evening. I am a big fan of nice, crisp fall evenings. You know the type: a bit chilly, though not quite jacket weather, with the sun going down around dinner time.

(Side note: when I was a kid, we would never say dinner unless we were going to gather around the fancy table with five dishes and visiting company. Your everyday meal was supper. This bit of New Englandism has, I believe, been exorcised from my vocabulary. It can’t be totally gone, since my boss saw an article about a Lobsterman from Maine and forwarded it over to me without thinking twice. Vaahginia? It’s toooo fah. Yah cahn’t get theyah from heyah. Aaand theyah’s no lobstaaah.)

In any case, the thought came as to which month is the most distinctive. October is solid, right? Football is coming into full swing, the weather is good, there are fresh apples and newly chromatic trees. December - you’ve got Christmas, snow, more…football. May is prime wiffleball season, and, all of a sudden, the average girl looks about two points better (hey, don’t kill the messenger). Worst months? March has this on lock, doesn’t it? You’re getting sick of winter, there aren’t many sports to think of, and you’re a good two months away from good weather. What do you think?

I’m not sure why I read the New York Times, but I do. The reporting is generally good, but their idea of “average Americans” is so incredibly out of touch with reality that it boggles the mind. My all-time favorite was their article about unbelievably expensive Quinceanara parties (meaning $25k+, with white stallions and tuxedos and ish) were “becoming commonplace.” A handful of vain Manhattan lawyers does not a trend make.

Anyway, a close runner-up was in today’s paper. There was an article about how to rent out your house and this one lawyer in Richie McRichville was cited in a caption as renting out his house “in order to defray his heating expenses.” Probably a small cottage then? No. His house rents for $8950 per month! Seeing as 8950 times 4 (assuming he’s only in Florida four months a year) is almost 40000 buck, or enough to heat a small village, I’m not sure defraying heating costs is his only motive to rent.

Last up, you may have seen that we had a bit of flooding in Richmond this weekend. This is the South, so the only neighborhoods that often flood are the ones with lots of black people, which isn’t exactly the storm drainage priority down at City Hall. Whew. I should be safe then. Lemme just check the census real quick…

1.1 miles around my house (in yellow); dark green are blocks that are at least 95.2% black.