Hey beachcombers – Mike and I will be guest co-hosts over at Stop and Go Radio tonight. The show is a lot of fun and anything goes. Politics are kept to a minimum, if mentioned at all.

So grab your drink of choice and join us in about an hour – 10 p.m. eastern. You can even chat with fellow listeners in the SaGR chatroom (be patient it’s a java chat so it may seize control of your computer while it loads).

Talk to you soon. Cheers!

As a somewhat related follow up to yesterday’s entry regarding the apparent desensitization of the Savannah-Chatham Police Department, I learned of this site: Savannah-Crime Statistics. It’s a site hosted by Colton Smith, a fellow Savannahian, who took the initiative to make viewing the stats released by the department in a more manageable format. Thanks for the good work, Colton.

If you happened to catch America’s Debate Radio last Wednesday, you’ll recall that during our Allegedly News section gunfire rang out from somewhere here in Savannah. It unsettled me a bit because it sounded a little closer to home than the usual gunfire. Being a citizen of this second amendment loving town, I’ve grown rather accustomed to regular and frequent intervals of gunfire, but the fact that gunfire is hardly ever followed up by sirens unnerves and annoys me. Gunfire rarely triggers a police response in Savannah.

This was further evidenced to Mike and I yesterday. We took a stroll through Forsyth Park to escape the oppressive March heat that had built up in the house. Along the way, we crossed paths with some bike cops who were ogling a jogger in a tight white tank top. Shots rang out from the neighborhood to the east of the park and the cops didn’t even flinch. They never even peeled their eyes off of Hot Jogger. Mike and I stared at them in semi-disbelief. It was astounding how absolutely desensitized to gunfire these officers were. A few hundred feet down the path, there were more cops – also not reacting to the gunfire. Instead, they were busy busting some urban hippie. Boy, do I feel safe now that the kid with the stinky dreadlocks is longer allowed to roam the park!

Most of you who see me everyday know that I’ve kept my hair quite long for the last few years. For those of you who don’t, my hair hung down my back, all the way to my butt. I recently learned of the Beautiful Lengths program and after getting reassurances from Pantene that my hair would never be sold for profit, I made the choice to donate. Tonight, Mike chopped 13 inches of my hair off, which will be mailed in tomorrow. I’m still left with shoulder length hair, enough to put in a ponytail when needed. The hair will go to women battling cancer who have lost their own hair because of chemotherapy treatments. It’s a small gesture, but it does make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The masses are converging upon my pretty little city for the second largest, and first best, St. Patrick’s Day parade in the nation. Unfortunately, the weather is shifting and the gorgeous gulf stream is being overtaken by a cold front from the west. When this happens, downtown Savannah is subject to the utterly rotten smell of the paper mills located on the westside. The mills make it smell like a factory of rotten eggs has blown up. It is absolutely vile and makes your stomach turn.

It’s unfortunate that our county officials couldn’t sweet talk the mills into shutting down for the weekend so we can avoid embarrassing ourselves in front of nearly three-quarter million visitors, but money must be made! Tourism be damned. So to all of you visiting for the first time, please don’t let the smell deter you from visiting again. It isn’t always around, I swear. Come back in August when the gulf stream is at its strongest.