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Friday, May 29, 2009

The worm has turned or: I want to go drinking with Kevin Lynn

I haven’t been writing at all this week because I’ve had other, more important things to do.

First of all, last night we attended Luzerne County Community College’s 41st Annual commencement ceremony as my daughter Ebon has finished her days there and escaped with an associates degree in something or other. I’m tired, but I think it was sports science, or sports management, or some such thing. Some variation thereof. All I know is, she’s chasing her dream of being around competitive athletics for the entirety of her life. And a goodly part of me is jealous.

I like to kid her about taking three years to earn a two-year degree, but I know she’s been spread thin while working a part-time job, managing a summer camp for kids, working at the YMCA, coaching the GAR girl’s volleyball team and going to class.

When she resigned as the volleyball coach at GAR, I thought she would devote more time to her studies. But, true to form, she ended up coaching softball at Crestwood while also playing softball for L.C.C.C. this past season.

And while it may seem that she’s tormented by divided loyalties, nothing could be further from the truth, because everything she’s immersed herself in has been about two things: sports and kids.

So, she’s got two more years of schooling to go, and then she’ll be a certified leader of what I like to call, the big chicks. The chicks that play fast pitch. The chicks that train and play as hard as the boys. The chicks that leave it all where it ought to be left…on the playing field.

Sure, I’m proud of her. But more than anything, I’m happy for her.


I actually enjoyed listening to WILK’s Steve Corbett on Wednesday night while he was trying and failing to suggest that with the City of Wilkes-Barre investigating whether or not all of it’s employees are meeting the residency requirements as stipulated by their contracts is some sort of budding controversy. It was akin to listening to a toddler explaining the meaning of life.

Yawn.

He actually referred to it as “…this other corruption in Wilkes-Barre city.”

Other? Other corruption? What the hell is that jerk going on about now?

Yeah, he got in his perfunctory, introductory shots at our mayor with the following: “…the worst mayor in the United States of America,” and, “Pound for pound, the worst mayor in America.”

Blah, blah (expletive) blah.

So incorrectly redundant, he is. Predictable, in fact. And there’s nothing worse than being predictable. Boring. Steve. Note the progression there: Predictable...boring...Steve.

Yeah, and that useless barf comes from the worst radio talk show host in the history of Northeastern Pennsylvania, if not the entirety of what used to be the United States of America. Consider the apoplectic, henpecked source.

This was what he had to say to the employees of Wilkes-Barre who may not be meeting the residency requirements as per their collective bargaining agreements:

1. “You should be fired, you know what the rules are.”

2. “You’re running a hustle, you’re violating the public trust.”

3. “The names should be released, as far as I’m concerned.”

4. “You wanna be a cop in Wilkes-Barre? Live in Wilkes-Barre! That’s what they do in Scranton.”

Ah, and there it is. Scranton, Steve’s newly adopted sh*thole. Scranton, the model of perfection which all other cities the world over can strive to duplicate. Scranton, that city where the streets are paved with gold and lined with silver, where the cinnamon-tinged sidewalks are edible and where the rain converts to golden coins right before hitting the lush streams of milk chocolate flowing through the award-winning parks.

There is not, nor ought there be, nothing so exulted on the surface of God’s great earth, as that prince of cities…Scranton.

What a (expletive) deliberately half-blind maroon!

Scranton, where growing, crushing outstanding debts are ignored, where staggering debt service payments increase every fiscal year, and where the uppity mayor of the financially-distressed (Act 47) city sidesteps every single public meeting without Steve ever once calling him out on it. Scranton, that near total sh*thole of a place on a direct and inescapable collision course with financial insolvency borne of profligate spending. That place.

What’s really burning his fat ass is the fact that the multitudinous amounts of scandals in this county have not made their way to Wilkes-Barre’s City Hall. That’s what’s really burning his fat ass. That’s why he always refers to the troubles at the county courthouse as the “scandals in Wilkes-Barre. Because he is a prevaricator. He misrepresents the facts as often as he can simply because he has a personal vendetta going for Mayor Tom Leighton. He is willing to besmirch all of our reputations because of his illogical personal dislike of one man. For whatever reason, he finds Mayor Tom Leighton to be irksome, so we all must feel his apoplectic wrath.

Point blank, is it not enough that the City of Wilkes-Barre initiated the ongoing investigation without any outside help? As in, outside help from the F.B.I.?

Amazingly, stupidly, before going on to his next topic, he said the following:

“Scranton is rife with political corruption,” and “Lackawanna County is ragged with political corruption.”

Huh? This guy is to keeping his focus what I am to embracing people who jumped my country’s border. What a hapless, flailing, mentally indigent fool. Scranton is rife with political corruption, so through tireless repetition, he’ll create the illusion that Wilkes-Barre is rife with political corruption. Yet another argument for legalized abortion. Another aging, fading hippie who cannot let go of the turbulent, debilitating 60s.

And if this don’t beat all, if this doesn’t take the proverbial cake, while talking to Linda Stets about her once short-lived appointment to the board of trustees at L.C.C.C, she said, “I’m not politically connected.”

What?!?

Did I miss something? Has Barack Oblahblah outlawed sanity and reason?

Her own hubby, a Luzerne County commissioner, recommended that she be appointed, and then he voted for her appointment.

What?!?

She’s not politically connected? If she’s not, then who the (expletive) is?

I swear, if mental acuity were a prerequisite for those appearing on talk radio, we’d all be listening to Radar Love 24/7. You people are scaring me.

And it’s getting really bad of late. So bad, in fact, that WILK’s Kevin Lynn has been upgraded to my elongated list of people I could have a beer with. It’s gotten that completely bad. That proverbial worm from proverbs past has definitely turned on me.

Kevin, do you feel like meeting me at Grottos where we can slam back a few dozen or so and giggle ourselves silly at silly Steve’s expense? C’mon, man.

I’m buying.

Our republican county controller nominee, Walter Griffith, has himself a new Web address. Not a new campaign Web site, mind you. Just a new address.

Walter Griffith.com

Now you know.

With all of the political scandals now stretching from one end of this county to the other, my mind keeps drifting back to one thing. My thoroughly denuded but ever-expansive mind (figure that one out) keeps reexamining the same thing, and that same old question remains unanswered.

Let’s do it.

When then county controller Maryanne Petrilla won her election battle and ascended to the chairmanship of the county commissioners, why the hell did Governor Ed Rendell choose not to appoint her replacement over a two-year span? Why did he choose to leave that spot unfilled for so long, unfilled to this very day? Why is it that the county still has no appointed controller, only an acting controller who is basically doing just that--acting? Why no financial oversight?

With so many high-ranking county employees now disgraced, resigned, arrested and, or preparing for a lengthy prison stay, is it just an amazing coincidence that Luzerne County should go through this scandalous upheaval of a period without anyone in that most crucial of positions?


I really hate to carp like one of those effeminate-sounding democrats, but what did Ed Rendell know, and when did he know it?

What’s up with that?

Here’s one I penned.

What do our local school board members and prostitutes have in common?

If you want in, you ask them the very same question: How much?

Here’s one Gort and I collaborated on quite by accident:

What do former figure skater Tanya Harding and a current member of the Wilkes-Barre Area school board have in common?

They both convinced someone to take a lead pipe to a competitor’s knee.

Whoa! Can’t take much more, right? Me neither.

Here’s another:

How did Barack and Michele Obahblah first meet?

They were both dating the same Marxist rabble-rouser at the same time while in college.

Okay, lame. I know. But probably entirely true.

Try this one:

How many county commissioners does it take to bring transparency to our local government?

None of them.

Get it?

How do you spell “bald-faced liar?”

V-A-T (Value…added…tax.)

95%, my ass!

I tell ya, I get no respect.

Hey, I went to a Scranton city council meeting the other night, and a hockey game broke out.

Yeah, a Scranton council meeting. That’s where the borderline functional and arguably intelligent repeatedly chastise the unruly recipients of a minimally-invasive education.

But it’s still better than Wilkes-Barre, right Steve?

Keep telling yourself that, pal. Keep on repeating that same tired drivel. And when your uppity mayor finally gravitates up that political ladder that so tantalizes him and leaves you people up Scranton way holding the bag filled with hundreds of millions in outstanding debts, I’ll be calling you on your big radio talk show and your blood pressure will be a rising proportionately. I’m gonna use you like your off-the-tracks, drug-addled generation once used plastic (expletive) dolls, pal.

Yep, apparently Scranton is the financial model that Barack Obahblah copied. Act 47 got you down? Distressed city status bugging you? Are you mired in debt with practically nowhere to turn?

Well, then, spend your way out of it. Just keep spending money you do not have and convince yourself that you can indeed spend your way out of your fast-rising debts. Yeah, man. That ought to work. We’ll spend money we don’t have and call it progress. That is, until the entire financial house of cards finally implodes upon itself.

Good luck with that, Steve. Enjoy.

Yet another recipient of a minimally-invasive education.

Sez me,

Mark (expletive) Cour.

Buh-bye



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Mr. Cour,
Not too long ago on Mr. Yonki's site someone commented about a blog post Nancy Kman wrote titled the sound of silence. The commenter stated that after he/she read that they applied it to WILK and stopped listening to WILK. Kman's post was a reference to facebook, ipods, blackberrys and other electronic devices.

I did the same thing after reading Yonki's blog and stopped listening to all of WILK. What a great new way to go through life. No more listening to boring, professional crybabys on the radio. That is what they truly are. They are not simply part of the problem, in a large way they are the problem. They offer no real insight, no solutions and no entertainment.

So to paraphrase Steve, crybaby, Corbett I turned down WILK and I could not be happier.

Kayak Dude said...

Mr. Cour:

While you are out drinking with Kevin, ask him where the long-awaited story about the RiverFront might be? I offered him help, but he never responded. Guess I wasn't qualified to add anything to a story about and/or related to the Susquehanna.

Anonymous said...

I heard Mrs. Urban on the radio and was thinking the same thing. At first she didn't want to admit who she was if you notice. It took Steve to say "It's no secret your husband is Steve Urban, is he not?"

She sounded like an absolute fool. I particularly enjoyed the "who was allowed in executive session?" exchange. Corbett could have asked some tough questions and gotten some of my respect, but he abdicated that responsibility.

The Urban's have got to go, and after listening to her one should need no more proof. What a ditz. She thinks because she was just boffing the CC at the time she was appointed (they weren't married yet) that there was "no connection". OK, whatever. That's how out of touch that pair is.

Steve's best attribute has been his willingness to speak up against the power structure down there, and we've needed that. Problem is that it became clear pretty quickly that everything Steve does is for Steve's own enrichment. If you can no longer help him politically, he'll stab you in the back as quick as look at you.

Once some more folks who have the guts to stand up to the bosses are assuredly elected in November, it's time for the traveling Urban sideshow to hit the dusty trail.