Death near the holidays

The online news featured deaths this morning. Two police officers shot and killed by another officer. Elrod Hendricks, long-time Orioles bullpen coach, dead the day before his 65th birthday. Tony Dungy loses his son. The young Dungy was eighteen. All of life before him, all of it gone.

Death is brutal on the survivors, especially the unexpected deaths. To know (or have a strong inkling) that someone near is soon to die gives you a chance to prepare.

When that someone is gone in a flash, the shock of it deprives you of a chance to mourn.

And so, three days before Christmas, we shake our heads and wonder about the seeming randomness of it all. And we know that our turn will come in that same way. Here, then gone.

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Snow and insanity in Maryland

The white flakes came to Maryland yesterday, in that most dreaded of timeframes -- the afternoon. That's the time of day when school systems are supposed to have their school buses on the roads and parents everywhere are headed home from work.

If you looked at a traffic conditions map, all you saw were indications that the mobile insanity has begun for the winter. Yesterday was no exception. Problems abounded. Cars were piloted into each other in that dreadful crunch of fenders and broken headlights.

Why this happens each year (repeatedly) bears investigation. With a lack of meaningful mass transportation, we slip and slide and bounce off of things and into ditches. It's no wonder that we have high insurance rates.

The sheer volume of cars and SUVs, all trying to get somewhere, is astounding. If just half of these drivers admitted they were overmatched by conditions, progress could be made.

Our winter forecast is for either above-average or below-average snowfall. Either way, if the white death comes in the daytime, the roads will be paralyzed, save for those who drive up the shoulders to save some time. Those are the people who'll likely cause yet another accident.

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