Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling

Nice holiday weekend. Unfortunately, I did my celebrating Friday night, with the result that I wasn't terribly inclined to celebrate Saturday night, so I laid in bed and read while my town had fireworks going off all over the place. * * * * * * * Michigan has an insane law regarding fireworks. It Fireworks Safety Act prohibits local ordinances that restrict usage on the day before, of and after a national holiday. The result? People can shoot off fireworks at 3:00 AM. They amended the statute in 2013 to give local municipalities the authority to ban fireworks after 1:00 AM, so that's good, but a state-wide fireworks law simply makes no sense. Michigan's communities are among the most diverse in the nation: densely-populated areas in the Detroit area to rural areas of the Upper Peninsula where you can drive for a hundred miles and not see any signs of human life. The proper fireworks law is obvious: No fireworks law, period. Let the local communities enact whatever works best for them. If they ban it, let them ban it. If they want to permit fireworks but with a permit fee, let them do that, too. The state and federal governments' obsession with the "one size fits all" approach is just one of many signs that our political discourse is terribly, terribly upside down and needs to be completely overhauled. * * * * * * * But here's one good thing from Michigan: "On June 23, an intact Roman Catholic rosary was dug from an excavation site at Colonial Michilimackinac, an 18th-century fort and fur trading village that's been reconstructed . . . The rosary – rare for being found intact – is approximately 250 years old, estimated Lynn Evans, curator of archaeology for Mackinac State Historic Parks." Link. * * * * * * * My oldest son is gainfully employed. I reaped the benefits of his employment on Father's Day. He got me the Bug-A-Salt Original Salt Gun

. You put salt into the ammo chamber and shoot flies with it. It works really well, though the price is a bit, ahem, salty.