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I am re-reading one of John Sandford’s excellent police procedurals centered around Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport. Lucas may be my favorite character in popular fiction and the books are great because, over and above the mysteries, he is surrounded by an entertaining group of realistic characters.

The interplay between Sandford’s people, and his good eye and wry wit when describing people and situations is reason enough to dive into this great series. By all means, start with Rules of Prey. It is the first of what is now a 26-book series and you want to follow along as Lucas and those close to him change and grow, and…

The one I am re-reading is Night Prey and, while I know who the killer is, I don’t remember exactly how they put the case together and catch him. (Give me a break. I read it more than twenty years ago for the first time.) I am just in the mood to be entertained and this is doing the trick.

Here is an excerpt to show you how well Sandford plies his trade:

“You cleared the domestic on Dupont,” Lucas asked. [He is talking to Det. Sloan]
“Yeah, with the hammer and chisel.”
“Hurts to think about it.” Lucas grinned.

“Got it right between the eyes,” Sloan said, impressed. He’d never had a hammer-and-chisel job before, and novelty wasn’t that common in murder. Most of it was a half-drunk guy scratching his ass and saying, Jesus, she got me really pissed, you know? Sloan went on. “She waited until he was asleep, and whack. Actually, whack, whack, whack. The chisel went all the way through to the mattress. She pulled it out, put it in the dishwasher, turned the dishwasher on, and called 911. Makes me think twice about going to sleep at night. You catch your old lady staring at you…”

“Any defense? Long-term abuse?”

“Not so far. So far, she says it was hot inside, and she got tired of him laying there snoring and farting. You know Donovan up in the prosecutor’s office?”
“Yeah.”
“Says he of taken a plea to second if it’s been only one whack,” Sloan said. “With whack-whack-whack, he’s gotta go for first degree.”

Lake Superior, in the United States, is considered the largest fresh-water lake in the world, when considering total surface area (31,700 square miles) . It is not only the largest lake in North America, but its water volume exceeds the total of all the other Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan & Erie) combined.

The name Lake Superior was Anglicized by the British from the French designation “le lac superieur” meaning “the highest lake.” French explorers gave it that appellation since it extended geographically North of the others.

 
The true name of this massive glacial inland sea is, in Ojibwa Gichigami, or to the Anishaabe, Gichiami, depending on which group of the Ojibwa/Algonquin people you consult. I first heard this as a wee lad when my mother would read to me of a hero who live with his grandmother, Nokomis.

Illustration by Felix Octavius Carr “F. O. C.” Darley (June 23, 1822 – March 27, 1888)

From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha

By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing in the sunshine.

We are individuals, each our own person in various ways. We perceive pain differently. What may be agony to one person is, for another, a tolerable discomfort to be conquered.

While I do some cycling for exercise, I look at what the riders on each year’s version of the Tour de France endure (2,000+ miles over 23 days; sprints at 50-60 MPH mixed with endless rides up the mountains of the Alps and the Pyrenees) and I simply don’t see how they do it.

We have different tolerances for alcohol, noise, crowds, disorder. This is all part of what makes us a species with remarkably varied levels of tolerance.

Today, when checking the news wires, I was struck by another area in which we seemingly have vast differences in taste and tolerance – the level at which we judge someone to be a stark-raving lunatic.

Here is another example of how misunderstood or, more likely, misconstrued the details get in the debate over health care reform. In a post dated Wednesday, August 19, 2009 on a blog called StandByLiberty.com, BLW wrote:

What is one thing sure to come from the government option, how about government employees, unionized government employees to be more exact. To give you some idea of what I’m talking about, the British National Health Administration is the worlds third largest employer, behind only the Communist Chinese Army and the Indian National Rail Road. We are just a hair bigger than Britain don’t you think? So how many new government employees do you think we will have? This is simply a way to feed the democratic/liberal cause with union members and the dues they pay. They will be depending on the government for their jobs. Bigger government just for you, don’t worry they can just raise taxes to pay for them. But don’t fret, the new government employees won’t have to endure the same health care as you as they will not be included in the new government option.

So, what’s wrong with that? Practically everything.

The British National Health Administration owns almost all of the hospitals, clinics, medical offices and diagnostic facilities. There are a very, very few private medical practices and facilities that cater to an extremely wealthy clientele that can pay totally out-of-pocket for what is typically called “Concierge” medical care.

What that means is that the entire British health care industry operates like the VA does. veterans go to a government-owned, VA operated facility and receive treatment from physicians who are either in the military, on payroll to the VA, or hired under a specific contract to work within a VA facility.

Anybody who thinks this is being proposed in the profferred legislation, or is even in the current discussion either doesn’t (or can’t) read, or is purposely distorting the facts.

Take out the administrators, doctors, nurses, nurses aides, lab technicians, radiology techs, cashiers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, supply personnel, janitors, maintenance staff and parking lot attendants and I bet the employee count in the British system would be quite small.

This is NUTS!!

damonj