Eric Berlin

This is priceless:

A councillor is threatening to block Big-Brother-style CCTV cameras from spying on his house – by letting his trees grow.

Coun Albert Richardson claims the surveillance cameras near his home on Ribbleton Avenue can monitor visitors to his house and are invading neighbours’ privacy.

Coun Richardson backed the cameras when they were set up almost 18 months ago – but is now fuming as one has been erected close to his front door.

He said: “I didn’t expect one to go up where it has gone up. There are people watching me coming and going outside my house.

“I am not too pleased about it at all so I’m letting my trees grow.”

But in April 2007 when the new cameras were announced, Coun Richardson told The Evening Post: “I live right in the middle of St Matthew’s ward so I welcome this.

“It is sad to say it because no-one likes being spied on by these cameras, but when I think of the vulnerable people who live in St Matthew’s ward, I do think this is needed.”

Spying on other people 24/7 = GOOD. Spying on me = BAD. I wonder if he still supports the cameras in general, as long none of them are aimed at him. I’ll bet you the answer is yes.

(Thanks to Nobody’s Business.)

When people leave a comment here for the first time, I have to approve it, and from then on they can comment to their heart’s content. Yesterday somebody named Mary (I think) left a comment, and I just now accidentally declared it to be spam and deleted it. Sorry about that, Mary.

I’ve decided to go ahead and do something I’ve been thinking about for far too long: I’ve started a new blog focusing on Fragile X Syndrome. I’ve wanted to write more about Alex here, but I’ve also been uncomfortable doing that. I want to write about the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, but I also need to respect my children. Everything on the Internet is permanent, or may as well be, and I don’t remember my kids asking to have the gory details of their lives exposed here. The new blog will be anonymous — which I know is not a perfect solution, but it’s better than nothing.

I certainly don’t mind all you folks wandering over to the new blog… but, um, I can’t post the link here, because then it wouldn’t be anonymous, would it? It’s a bit of a quandry.

I’m going to give it a few weeks, to make sure that I’m actually going to keep this new blog moving along. Then I’ll allow readers here to e-mail me, and those who want the location of the new blog will get it. I suppose in the meantime you can try to find it yourself. Good luck with that — as far as I can see, Google hasn’t picked it up yet.

Between this new project and Winston Breen’s puzzle blog, starting up again in September, I’m not going to have a lot of time for this site. Sorry about that.

Last week’s Doonesbury:

Pretty amusing, the idea that a company would make fun of its target audience for not eating enough food.

Oh, wait.

Whew. Here’s one reason to maybe live a considerate life… or at least prepare your own obituary before you go.