Category: News

They should have had a Lifehammer in Logan, Utah

Perhaps you’ve heard the news story out of Utah about the car with a dad and three kids that flipped into an icy river. Eight men in passing cars leapt into the river to rescue them, including one man who shot out a window with his handgun and another who had a knife to cut them from the seatbelts. It sounds like they’re all going to make it, but it’s a scary scenario right out of my nightmares.

Living in Massachusetts, I can’t count on passersby having a handy handgun or knife to help us in a similar situation, which is why I purchased two Lifehammers, one for my car and one for Melanie’s. They are designed for the single purpose of getting you out of your car in an emergency. One end has a pointed steel hammer that punches readily through tempered auto glass while the other has a razor in a safety position for cutting through seat belts.

They sit right in the little map pocket by the driver’s door for at-hand access. I keep in mind that it’s not just for an accident that I may get into or Melanie, God forbid, but if like in the story above, we encounter others in similar need.

(Note: Although that’s an Amazon affiliate link, I don’t have any interest in Lifehammer other than wanting people to be safe when driving with their kids or to be able to help others at need.)

 

Rudy Favard is a Hero

Now, this is the type of story you want to see more of. A football player at Malden Catholic High School here in the Boston area has become a hero to a family of a boy with cerebral palsy by the simple act of carrying the boy to his room each night.

Rudy Favard was a stranger to the Parker family when he was recruited by the school nurse to go four nights a week to their home. Rick Parker, the dad, used to carry his son every night up 14 steep stairs to the boy’s bedroom, but after a cardiac-related illness, he was no longer able. Rudy, and his two backups from the school, started helping out and Rudy has now become almost like one of the family. Click through to the story to watch the video clip and see how much love there is between the big strong son of Haitain immigrants, the captain of the football team, and the small, withered boy who waits on the mercy of those he depends on.

Rudy is just the type of role-model athlete we hope for when our kids look up to sports players. The reporter asks how many teens would do the same, and I’m happy to say I know of several of my nephews who would do the same. That reflects well on both the boys and their parents.

Good for Rudy and the Parkers. God bless them.

 

Don’t mess with October 31

The Legions of Sleepy Hollow.jpg

There’s a Boston-area parent who is frustrated by Halloween being on a fixed date and suggests that Halloween always move every year so that it always falls on Saturday. He enumerates a list of ways that Halloween on other days of the weeks inconveniences him and his family: rushing home from work to trick-or-treat, sugar rushes and early wakeups for school, homework neglect, and so on.

As someone whose birthday falls on Halloween, I say, “Feh!” to that idea. Maybe the problem isn’t the day of the week; maybe it the distortion of holidays by a commercialized and secularized culture. First, let’s be clear. The name itself tells you what day Halloween falls on: “Hallows e’en” or “the evening before the Feast of All Hallows.” Halloween is connected All Saints Day, just like Christmas Eve is connected to Christmas and New Year’s Eve is connected to New Year’s Day. What’s next? Moving New Year’s Eve to a Saturday night so all the party hounds can start boozing at 9 am? Should we move St. Patrick’s Day to a fixed Saturday for the same reason? Having Christmas move about is inconvenient too. Maybe it should always be on a Sunday so we don’t have to feel guilty about trooping out to Mass only once that week, plus we can shop all day on Saturday. You see what I’m getting at.

Halloween is October 31 for a reason. You don’t start messing with that for no good reason. And he doesn’t offer any good reasons.

Photo by ecstaticist – http://flic.kr/p/3KFmwv

What can Brown do for Yemeni terrorists?

By now you’ve heard about today’s excitement surrounding suspicious packages containing explosives found on UPS flights originating in Yemen. Reports say they were addressed to Jewish organizations in the Chicago area. Now, I’m glad no one was hurt and terrorism itself isn’t funny, but it struck me as odd that al Quaeda just decided to overnight their terrorism to their erstwhile victims.

I can just picture the Yemeni bombers finishing their bombs, but confronted with the fact that they were set to explode tomorrow.How would they get them to their targets in the US before they exploded?

Terrorist 1: “Well, we could buy plane tickets and fly them there.”
Terrorist 2: “Idiot! We’d never make it past security.”
T1: “Then I’ll put it in my shoe.”
T2: “Stupid dog! We tried that. Remember the Shoe Bomber?”
T3: “Brothers! Look at this book I just got from Amazon Prime. I ordered it yesterday and now it’s here just one day later.”

“UPS: When it absolutely, positively has to blow up overnight.”

(I know, it was Fedex’s slogan, but the terrorists decided to see what Brown could do for them and picked UPS instead. I won’t let them ruin my joke.)