I was standing in the kitchen this morning coaxing Jack to talk like a pirate.

Jack, say “Arrrr, Matey.” He says “Arrr, Matey.”

Jack, say “Arrrrgggh!” He says, “Arrrrgggghh!”

Jack, say “More, please.” He says, “Mmmm, please.”

He had been eating some peanut butter toast and wanted some more. “Mmmm, please.” This has been going on for some time, and I think is a remnant of the days when he probably couldn’t pronounce his “R’s”. He can now, though, he just chooses not to. “Mmmm.”

I finally gave up and told him to walk the plank. Char came in and he said, “Arrrr, Mom. Walk the plank.”

I was cracking up. Mmmm, please.

The New York Times recently reported that the teen pregnancy rate “has fallen steadily for a decade with little fanfare, to below any level previously reported in the United States.” The percentage of students in ninth through 12th grades who report ever having sexual intercourse has steadily decreased since 1991, according to the Centers for Disease Control. More than half of male high-school students say they are virgins, a substantial increase from 39 percent in 1990.

Read the complete article.

Here’s another related item:

Virgins and Virtuecrats

The surprising drop in teen pregnancy may mean Dan Quayle was right all along

When conservatives in the past decade have declared that the key to reducing teen pregnancy is teens having less sex, they were mocked by liberals. That’s just old-fogey moralizing, many said. We should accept the ever-rising sexuality activity among teens as inevitable.

This week, the old fogies seem to have pulled out a win. New studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control show that the percentage of American high-school students who have had sexual intercourse declined steadily during the 1990s, and in 2001 fell to the lowest level since 1990. Today, it can be said that the typical American 12th-grade high-school boy or girl has not yet had intercourse. Meanwhile, teen pregnancy is at “the lowest rate ever recorded” in the United States, according to a government study.

Read the complete article.

This is probably the saddest story I’ve seen in some time. Almost unbelievable, but true. I wish there was something I could do for this Angel…

By David J. Cieslak, The Arizona Republic

January 27, 2004

A 3-year-old girl ate crackers and huddled with her mother’s body for five days before rescue workers found her inside a car that ran off the highway in a remote area near Globe, authorities said.

Angel Emery was airlifted to Maricopa Medical Center, where she was being treated late Monday for dehydration and severe frostbite on her feet.

Her mother, Patricia Marie Emery-Wade, 44, died in the wreck, which apparently occurred Wednesday afternoon on U.S. 60 between Globe and Show Low, authorities said. The family’s dog, a pug, also died in the crash.

Wade’s car hit a tree about 40 feet off the highway and 20 feet down an embankment, making it nearly impossible to see from the roadway.

Family members became concerned Wednesday night when the two did not arrive at Wade’s brother’s house in Show Low after leaving their west Phoenix home.

An Arizona Department of Public Safety officer discovered the car and found Angel and her mother after a passer-by saw the vehicle Monday morning, Sgt. Frank Valenzuela said.

“The fact that (Angel) was found alive is just remarkable,” Valenzuela said. “The only thing she could share with us is that she had been eating crackers and that’s how she was able to survive these long days out in the elements.”

Temperatures in the area dropped into the 20s last week.

Angel had been strapped into a child seat in the back of the car but somehow got out and crawled into the front seat, where she ate the crackers and curled up with her mother. Investigators suspect Angel may have gotten out of the car, which was on its side, and wandered at some point.”

You can go to USA Today to read the complete story.

True, I had been telling Charie for some time that I thought we were having twins, but when the Ultrasound tech actually said, “I have something to show you…”, a slight breeze would have tossed me.

It was quite the scene, really. Char was a minute or two behind me going into the room, so when the tech pointed out “Baby A and Baby B”, her first reaction was to ask if I had put her up to telling us it was twins. I hadn’t.

Since then, I’ve learned some interesting things about multiple births. Turns out that twins run on the woman’s side of the family and, though I’ve been blamed for this turn of events, I actually had very little to do with it. Well, I had about half to do with the kids, but very little to do with the fact that we’re having more than one.

With the increasing use of fertility drugs, women waiting until older ages to have children, multiple births are becoming more common.

This seems like a story that should have gotten wider coverage than it did, but I’ve neither seen nor heard it anywhere else. Here’s a news brief from the January 12, 2004 Newsweek:

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami said last week that U.S. aid to earthquake victims in Bam would not alter relations between the two coutries, which broke off ties a quarter century ago, and President George W. Bush said moves to help Iran do not indicate a thaw. But in the wake of the Dec. 26 disaster that killed at least 30,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless, some Iranians who lost loved ones are engaging in more reconciliatory dialogue.

They’re angry at their government’s inefficiency in coordinating help – and appreciative of foreign relief. “We’ve said ‘Death to America’ for 25 years, and now they’re helping us when we need them,” says Javad Alavi, hospitalized in Tehran. He lost 25 family members, but an American rescue team found his nephew. “They came here with their [search] dogs, which [the Iranian government] says is a dirty animal. But write that I love Americans and I love their dogs.”

Reported by Maziar Bahari