Southern Exposure

My daughter Victoria loomed large this week.this week.

Now Vicky is a first class historian and supplements her income by acting as the occasional 'victim' in various and sundry horror films. She was in the town of Belmont in North Carolina, and had been asked to give a lecture on some aspects of North Carolina history to the local Rotary Club. This was odd, and I could only surmise that there was some member of the Rotary Club that had caught her fancy. This proved to be the case -- "Oh, Mum, he's gorgeous!" -- and I was gratified to know that my mother's instincts in this type of situation still rang true.

Vicky's lecture topic had been well chosen: 'North Carolina Regiments in the Civil War: A Synonym for Bravery'. When all the graduates of American high schools had figured out the meaning of 'synonym', they surged to the lecture hall, and the event was a huge success. All this was good to know, but what was really interesting was what occurred when Vicky made her way back to her hotel, the Hampton Inn.

There she ran into a host of police, including a fully-kitted out SWAT team. Apparently a man had barricaded himself in his room, threatening to shoot anyone who tried to remove him. The SWAT team were negotiating, and were fully aware that the man might be heavily armed, given the U.S. Supreme Court's inability to discern the ablative absolute used in the Second Amendment to the American Constitution. They had reached a point in the negotiation where the man was making demands.

He wanted a pizza, which was at least a somewhat reasonable request, and encouraged the negotiator that a solution might be found. This approach, however, was blown out of the water when they received his second request -- that Paris Hilton be brought to him so that they could be married. This immediately indicated that the man was mentally unbalanced on a number of levels, not the least of which was his choice of bride. The negotiator threw up his hands, out came the pepper spray, and shortly after that the man, one Fredrick Denny, 61, was apprehended and sent off to jail and a much needed mental evaluation.

I thought Vicky's account of what happened was a bit cruel to Paris Hilton, who to my knowledge has never threatened to shoot anybody, but then young women in this regard resemble Arabs; they profess solidarity, then invade Kuwait.

Have a nice week.