The woman in the photo is Melanie Jones, the mother of Rhys Jones, the 11 year old little boy who was shot in the back on the neck in Liverpool, England a couple of weeks ago.  She's kissing his coffin as it's loaded into the hearse, ready to be taken to the cemetery where it will be buried.  She won't get to kiss it again, so it's a goodbye kiss for her. That woman must either have some incredible emotional fortitude or be on some good 'azepams' (diazepam, lora...

Britney Spears has shaved her head, and in public to boot. I'm not talking 'pixie' haircut short, I'm talking all off, smooth to the touch BALD: She's been on a slippery slope since.....well, even before her marriage to that sleaze-ball dirtbag Kevin Federline.  It's hard to pinpoint the actual thing that made her lose her mind (there's so much to choose from; the constant paparrazi presence, the divorce, 2 babies under the age of 2, the allegations of poor parenting, the...

On Monday, a boy named Ben Ownby went missing about 60 miles from here.  He got off the school bus and was last seen running towards his home. He never made it there.  A white pickup truck was seen in the area, and police stated that they wanted to find that pickup and it's owner.  People were out searching for Ben, but the searches were in vain. We all thought Ben was dead and would never be seen again. This evening, Ben Ownby was found alive and well.  Police ...

James Brown, the flamboyant 'Godfather Of Soul' passed away in an Atlanta hospital early this morning.  He was 73. He was admitted with pneumonia late last night, but as yet the exact cause of his death has not been determined.  I suspect that the coroner's ruling will be that it WAS the pneumonia that killed him; it's a major cause of death for elderly (yes, he WAS considered elderly).  Once pneumonia has set in they tend to go downhill pretty quickly, and I'm guessing that wa...

I have the sometimes dubious pleasure of living on a military installation that's often a stopping point for wounded personnel coming back from Iraq.  I saw one of those personnel at the BX this afternoon.  It wasn't the donated plaid lounge pants, a 'Go Army' T shirt and a zipper-front hoodie that made him stand out as a returning warrior, it was the obvious burns to his chin, mouth and lower half of his face - and the hospital tags on his arms. He was standing by the entrance ...

I was talking to my mum in the UK earlier this afternoon.  She told me some things that literally boggled my mind and left me gobsmacked (that's 'speechless' for those not familiar with Brit-speak). For instance, she said that you'd be hard pressed to find a Christmas card that had a religious scene on the front of it. No Nativity scenes, no three wise men, no shepherds watching their flocks, no angels.  Nothing that mentions the reason for the season. When the Round Table (...

When I lived in South Dakota we had a fair amount of politicians come to the base to do a 'grab and grin' session and make a speech or two.  The annual Air Show also drew a fair number of dignitaries and VIP's. Because I was the French-English translator with the base translator bank, I had occasion to go to one such Air Show (with a Hungarian politician.  We didn't have a Hungarian translator and his second language was French, so I got called to trail around with him for the day a...

Link One of St Clair County's newly appointed Circuit Court Judges was busted for DUI on Sunday afternoon....and sitting beside him in the passenger seat with an open can of beer in his lap was none other than the County Chief Justice! Patrick Young and Jan V Fiss were coming back from a St Louis Ram's ball game when they got into an accident with another vehicle.  When the police got there, they found Harris to have 'a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath' and to be ...

As I outlined in my last article, the St Louis area where I live saw the worst ice storm in 25 years last Thursday.  Hundreds of thousands of people lost power to their homes and businesses. Today, a WEEK after the storm, 4000 people STILL have no power.  In addition, 6000 people lost power last night. I think it is OUTRAGEOUS that some people don't have power yet.  This past summer (late July) a series of thunderstorms came through the area and some Ameren customers lost po...

Last Thursday night the St Louis area had the worst ice storm in 25 years.  Overnight Thursday hundreds of thousands of people's power supply was interrupted....and today, 5 days after the storm, 240,000 people in the St Louis greater metropolitan area alone are STILL without power.  The local news has been reporting deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning.  One person had a gasoline powered generator in their home and was overcome by the carbon monoxide fumes - a...

My local paper has been running a series of articles on DCFS and how it's failing to protect children in the area.  I've been reading with horror about children who were left with abusive parents and who were subsequently either killed or damaged for life by these monsters posing as parents - but what horrified me even more was the fact that NONE of the DCFS workers who fell down on the job were fired.  NONE.  The worst that happened to one of them was a 9 day suspension - and tha...