When almost thirty years ago she decided she’d had enough of driving cars, people would gaze at her and say things like My grandmother had that problem. Now

If teenagers are any guide, Americans’ love affair with the automobile may no longer be something car makers can bank on.

The percentage of teens with a driver’s license has tumbled in the last few decades and more young people are delaying purchasing their first car—if buying one at all…

UD, as veteran readers know, thinks it likely she’s a happier, calmer person not only because she stopped driving, but because she stopped driving in the DC area’s notoriously bad conditions.

LOL.

Joe’s brother Nathan owned various Ocean City properties and concessions as far back at 1912, and the one you see in the picture – now a Dumser’s ice cream parlor – has remained in the Rapoport family all this time. The city has been trying to evict them, claiming it’s been owned by OC all this time.

The state’s highest court on Friday denied a petition by the Town of Ocean City to hear an appeal in the battle over ownership of a Boardwalk property, essentially bringing closure to the longstanding case.

The state’s Court of Appeals on Friday denied a petition for writ of certiorari filed in February by the town against Nathans Associates, the heir and owners of the century-old-plus building the east side of the Boardwalk at South Division Street, which, for decades, has been home to the iconic Dumser’s Dairyland. The petition asked the Court of Appeals to hear the case after the lower Court of Special Appeals ruled twice against the town.

… ladies’ version.

Oh, those girls!

… Just another football game.

The fanatics refusing to vaccinate their children suffer a setback from a judge.

“A fireman need not obtain the informed consent of the owner before extinguishing a house fire,” [Lawrence] Knipel wrote in his ruling. “Vaccination is known to extinguish the fire of contagion.”

Featured takoyaki. Karyna, my companion, spends every summer in Japan, and was thrilled. La Kid joined us, at the end of her workday.

… the sharia way.

Mr UD and Emilia, on the deck, early spring.

… and everyone sort of maneuvers a life around being corrupt… So that if you, say, get arrested for corruption, and even if you go to jail for a year or eight for corruption, okay. Occupational hazard, and maybe you’ve even anticipated and mentally adjusted to the possibility. You have a terrific attorney; you’ve acquainted yourself with the nicest lockups in your country, etc. You’re a man, after all, and men man up and face the music if they have to. UD has always, along these lines, been very fond of Enron’s Andrew Fastow, who, you know, did his time, and came out sardonic and stoical about it. He gives amusing lectures to business ethics classes.

But every now and then you encounter a figure of pathos, like Alan Garcia.Clearly not willing to play the game.

… Alan Dershowitz’s work is never done. Having finished advising for the defense team of a notorious alleged clit-slasher, he now moves on to his own defense in a defamation/sex trafficking case.

A song about cathedrals and Paris.

You know her voice from We’ll Meet Again at the end of Strangelove.

And listen: The life-force in that powerful voice ain’t chopped liver — she’s still alive, at 102.

… for today’s trip to the Enchanted Forest (see post below this one for details), but it was certainly a hoot sober. The feeble faded fragments of Mother Goose and Grimm tales UD remembers from her trips to the EF 58 years ago remain fully un-intact, their aura of the random malsain surreal even more powerful than before. It was all there – the chipping paint, the dusty magic potions, the sordid three-bear beds. Criminal neglect and magical mystery mingled to create a sense of desperate shabby enduring escapism… and ain’t dat life? Ain’t it da truth?

…our parents often took us to nearby Enchanted Forest, basically a bunch of cheap, chipped structures placed in a small suburban wood, representing fairy tales (here’s a vintage picture of the Hansel and Gretel house). UD doesn’t remember much of her madly happy childhood, but, for all its kitsch, Enchanted Forest made a big impression on her. She vaguely recalls having been thrillingly frightened by some of the darker-themed sculptures…

Anyway, UD and her sister are going there today – she will of course blog the experience.

Go ahead and signal your attitude toward your subject with a wittle bitty simile at the end of your opening paragraph:

“One thing that’s always been true in New York,” says Dan Doctoroff, “is that if you build it, they will come.” He is referring to Hudson Yards, the $25bn, 28-acre, mega-project that he had a critical hand in originating while he was deputy mayor of the city under Michael Bloomberg in the early 2000s. He can now look down on his co-creation every day from his new office in one of the development’s towers and see hundreds of people climbing up and down Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel sculpture, like tiny maggots crawling all over a rotting doner kebab.

LOL.