Mrs. Edna Blascowicz of Dubuque, Iowa...

...the residents of Greenwood, Indiana thank you for your generous contribution.

I mean, they're probably sorry that you came up a couple pennies short at the Safeway today and had to put the box of tea bags back, but those pennies went to a good cause.

When last we had left this story, the good citizens of Greenwood were bemoaning the lack of guardrails around some of the retention ponds that dot the greenswards of this sleepy patch of suburbia.

Well, at least some of them were. Others thought that one inattentive or possibly inebriated driver per annum into the drink was a small price to pay for an uncluttered view of herons and duckies doing the nature thing on these man-made water hazards. (And if the driver that went into the drink had already been into the drink, then so much the better, actually.)

But the recently-bereaved aren't known for their sober and dispassionate calculations or their appreciation of bucolic vistas; if your loved one falls into the Grand Canyon, you want that hazard filled in and damn the cost, so let's put those guardrails up, Mr. Mayor!

When Greenwood city officials pointed out that putting guardrails around just the most obviously dangerous roadside ponds could cost upwards of a million dollars that the city just didn't have, they huffed at the idea of a price tag being attached to human lives:

"I don't know how many lives it takes before money doesn't become an issue," said [bereaved stepfather] Mears.

Except, of course, that a price tag is always attached to human lives and guardrails aren't crapped out by benevolent guardrail-crapping unicorns but bought and paid for by taxpayers, and the taxpayers of Greenwood just didn't feel like coughing up the dough.

Enter Mrs. Edna Blascowicz of Dubuque. And Mr. Frank Johnston of Walla Walla. And Ms. Stefani Lee of Poughkeepsie. And you. The city fathers of Greenwood have shaken each and every one of you down for a contribution to their guardrail fund.

Greenwood applied for a federal grant in May, through the Highway Safety Improvement Program, after several deadly accidents in retention ponds.

They were just approved for the money and hope to start constructing guard rails next year.

So, thanks to whatever part of Article I of the U.S. Constitution says that Congress may tax the citizens of the several States directly and then hand the loot over to the municipal government of Greenwood, Indiana, Darwin has been thwarted yet again and the people that wanted a good view of the ducks are going to be out of luck and the world will get just that much Nerf-ier.

Here we all are, sitting around the cannibal pot.
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