BURKARD'S BLOG

22 APR 03: WAR AND A LITTLE PEACE

Today is Day 34 of the War! With!! IRAQ!!! The TV station where I work still is using "War" graphics and language.
Our bosses may be the only journalists left on Earth who believe the Iraqi Information Minister's version.

My TV station also has a "station identification" message at the top of the hour that says, "Bless Our Troops." I see this
and wonder - WHO should bless our troops? Any "Being" in particular?

Yesterday afternoon the showers passed, making it a nice day to drive around Columbus. For starters, I made my first visit
to the religious college in town - "Beacon College and Graduate School." Excuse me for asking a silly question, but
shouldn't that make it Beacon University?

Then it was a short "hop" to Target for half-price Easter chocolate. This year, M&M's had something I'd never noticed
before - "speckled egg" chocolate candies. Now THAT'S a creative way to re-label the defects at the factory....

It's not far from Target to Lake Oliver, where I jogged on that part of the Riverwalk for the first time in three months.
But this course is SO unfair. If it's going to be downhill heading south, there has to be a downhill version going back north.

As I headed north on the Riverwalk, I came upon a woman walking her large black dog - well really, letting the dog roam
freely all over the place. It's a good thing I was tired and mostly walking at that point. Asphalt stains are really hard to get
off T-shirts.

The dog decided to probe around me, so I stopped my walking to avoid anything confrontational. "He won't hurt," the
woman assured me - only hours before the 11:00 p.m. news reported on a dog attacking a seven-year-old in Russell County.

The dog was running around on its own, even though the woman held a leash in her hand. "No leash?" I asked. "It has a
leash," she replied. "Yes, but it's not ON a leash," I noted - trying to jokingly smile as best I could as I said that, but
wondering if this woman uses this same sort of logic when it comes to paying her bills.

A sign at the Riverwalk entrance clearly says: "LEASHES REQUIRED IN PUBLIC PARKS." Well, the woman with her
big black dog HAD one - only she didn't use it. It's a bit like what some college students do with their brains....