First Supreme Court nominee Sonia Maria Sotomayor fractures an ankle. According to press reports at the time, she did it all on her own. Now it has come to light that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has a fractured elbow that will require surgery later this week.
And just as it had in the case of Sotomayor, the press quickly offered a cover story wherein Hillary did it all on her own.
I put it to you, America; is president Barack Obama a woman beater? Have we elected ourselves an Abuser-in-Chief?
You can call all of this a coincidence. You can question my questionable sanity for even daring to go there. But if you look really, really, really close at the recently published pictures of our newest diva, Michelle Obama, it’s patently obvious that she has a black eye.
Maybe not.
Scranton’s Kurt Shotko is suing the City of Wilkes-Barre again???
What’s up? Did his unemployment run out? Or was he denied welfare benefits? What, the demonstration industry just isn’t what it used to be? The economy has bankrupted even the “drum circles” bunch?
Seems to me as if the Scranton cops have been shooting the wrong residents. Kurt may not be running around naked with a knife, but he is certainly a “302“ case.
Yawn.
Ghost law enforcement?
Say it ain’t so, kiddies. Say it ain’t so.
I-Team Investigation: Sheriff's Work Schedule Questioned
WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY- Where's the Luzerne County Sheriff's Chief Deputy been? Three independent sources claim Charles Guarnieri hasn't been in the office for four weeks. Reached by phone on Monday, Sheriff Michael Savokinas said Guarnieri was, in fact, on vacation for two-and-a-half to three weeks. "It was time that was coming to him," Savokinas said.
Payroll records dated April 15th through June 9th obtained by WBRE Eyewitness News reflect Guarnieri never clocked any vacation time while he was supposedly away from the office, as the I-TEAM was told by Sheriff Savokinas. Luzerne County Commissioners Maryanne Petrilla (D) and Stephen Urban (R) said there's no reason the payroll records would not properly reflect time taken off by any employee. Commissioner Urban called it "fraud."
Complete story at Pahomepage.com.
I’ve been employed since I was 14-years-old, full-time since I was 16. And never once did the payroll department at any of the companies I have worked for goof my paycheck, let alone, goof it so completely. Never.
So, I’m left to assume one of two things with this story. Either something coming from the sheriff’s department smells funny, or the county payroll people need to pay a lot more attention to detail.
And, since I have personally compiled payrolls more times than I care to remember during my management days, since compiling a payroll amounts to little more than entering the data you received from management, from time cards or whatever the opted-for procedure, I’m thinking we’ve got yet another certifiable scandal on our hands.
So what else is new?
The latest from Governor Ed Rendell is his proposed “temporary” wage tax increase from 3.07% to 3.57%.
This is exactly why governors and state legislators need to be spendthrifts to some degree and maintain rainy day funds. We all know that with a cyclical economy comes periods of economic prosperity as well as financially hurtful downturns. In other words, they need not spend every penny that hit’s the coffers, the pennies that haven’t arrived yet, as well as the pennies that are yet to be minted. They need to work to prevent themselves from ever being put in such dire straights.
With that said, when a tax-and-tax-and-spend-and-spend politician comes bearing a “temporary” tax increase, you have to admire the unmitigated gall of the thing. He's got nuts of stone. Er, marble. I dunno.
Anyway, I would like to award Governor Ed Rendell the first ever Cirumlocution for Dummies’ “Dummy of the Week” award.
And if you honestly believe that proposed temporary tax increase to be of a temporary nature, consider yourself a co-recipient of this award.
Congrats to all! You have my deepest possible sympathies.
As the legions of people who are hopelessly addicted to their various and sundry texting devices are so frequently known to type…WTF?
Well, finally…finally, the new River Common at Wilkes-Barre will be unveiled to the residents of the Wyoming Valley today at 4 o‘clock.
Kayak Dude and I will be launching the U.S.S. Dude from the new boat launch just across the way at Nesbitt Park right around 3:30 PM. Yeah, we’ll be bobbing around out their just off shore while all of the politicos gather on the shoreline at Millennium Circle.
This is a big day for Wilkes-Barre, the Wyoming Valley, and I suspect, an even bigger day for downtown Wilkes-Barre. Over the past five years, hundreds of millions have been invested in the downtown, with most having been invested in new buildings, new amenities, the creation of parking, as well as infrastructure improvements.
And while we’ve been impatiently watching all of the construction and whatnot, while we’ve all noticed the serious up tick in activity and foot traffic down there, the politicos, the engineers and the urban planners kept pointing to this project as the one that would tie all of the improvements together and spur even more development in the downtown, as well as along the river’s edge.
While excited for our brightening prospects as a city, while I prepare once more to get on out there in the middle of the river, I am beyond thankful that some of us managed to deep six Congressman Paul Kanjorski’s proposed inflatable dam folly. What we need is a cleaner free-flowing river, not a dammed cesspool ringed by the orange staining that accompanies acid mine drainage.
But rather than continue to bash the congressman on this pivotal day for Wilkes-Barre, I encourage him to do what he said he would do during the inflatable dam brouhaha, I encourage him, I implore him to secure the federal funding necessary to eliminate the sewage outflow pollution from flowing into the river during prolonged periods of precipitation. With oodles and oodles and oodles of stimulus funding going to seemingly every group and every project the country over, now is the time. Now is the time to start the river’s big comeback.
A river flowing through a downtown setting is an amenity that should be enjoyed by all. But a clean, free-flowing river flowing through a downtown setting is an amenity that could be cherished by all.
Uncle Paul, clean our river.
As far as the paddling thing goes on Saturday, making his river paddling premiere will be 3-½-year-old Jeremy Cour, my grandson. Thanks to the generosity of Kayak Dude, my grandsons Gage, Zach and now Jeremy have all been treated to a day on the river, as was my nephew Mason in 2007. And so far, we’re three-for-three because all three of the rodents that have dared to go want to go again. As a matter of fact, Zach had a fit yesterday when he learned his brother Jeremy was going this year and not himself.
All of which suggests that we either need a bigger boat (virtually impossible), or another boat with which to flank the Iowa Class U.S.S. Dude.
Anyway, I hope to see some of you out there.
From the e-mail inbox:
Mark,
A simple question for your green friend. Which is more environmentally sound? To maintain a structure in good working order by the judicious use of pesticides, or have it decay, be torn down and buried in a land fill, and then replaced by a new structure made from virgin wood. The ignorance in this country can be astounding.
Mark
Your instincts are dead-on.
Very, very recently, it was decided that I would engage in a bit of termite troubleshooting at a home near Hazleton. This home could not be dealt with chemically, because it has a well directly under it, plus you cannot gain access to almost all of the understructure. As a result, it has a very recently installed monitoring/baiting system installed along it’s exterior perimeter.
The home was originally a cabin, and it had many additions tacked onto it over the years. It has no basement, only an inaccessible foot-deep void under the home, except for one of the add-ons, which has a crawl space about two and a half feet high directly underneath.
This room had reproductive swarmers flying all about, as well as damage to a wall in an adjacent bathroom. From what you could see with the naked eye, the damage or infestation didn’t appear to be too bad.
But after I dropped into the flooded crawl space through a one-by-two opening created by a contractor in a closet, it took me, literally, a minute to learn that this structure was under serious assault, and in serious structural trouble.
On top of all four block walls, the header board was gone, eaten. The sill plates no longer existed, consumed. The main support beam running the length of the addition, the only support, was lying in the mud and water in tiny, tiny little half-eaten pieces. And the termites had even done considerable damage to the floor joists and the sub-flooring. In other words, there was little or nothing remaining. And little or nothing holding the floor above me in place. And since contained within that room was plenty of bulky, heavy-looking furniture, I got the hell out of there. Inspection over. No sense being crushed, of course.
After the contractor consulted with the rightfully horrified homeowner, it was decided that the entire addition needed to be removed. That’s right, excepting for the concrete footer and the 3-foot high block foundation, the entire thing was dismantled and hauled off to a landfill. And during my last visit, after it had been hauled away, the contractor and I discussed termite exclusionary tactics whereas rebuilding the thing from the ground up was concerned.
As I said, there was no available chemical treatment options in this case. But the prescient point is, when termites find their way into your home, when they are systematically working to destroy the single biggest investment you will likely make, your focus quickly shifts from trying to save the earth to doing whatever it takes to save your home. And as I have personally witnessed many, many times over, even the most fervent, the most dedicated of the tree huggers will immediately put their environmental concerns aside when they need my very specialized expertise.
All of which reminds me of the vitriolic non-smoking crazies when I was managing restaurants. Check this hypocrisy, check this phony baloney nonsense that typifies these anti-smoking zealots.
A lady and two kids wander into the restaurant on a relatively quiet Tuesday night. With the restaurant half-full, the lady pretty much has her pick of available seating. “Table for three?” And then, I inquire of her, “smoking or non,” and her face immediately tenses up as her gums begin to flap.
Here we go!!!
Here comes the obligatory lecture.
Here comes her overbearingly annoying zealotry, her vitriolic and incendiary anti-smoking diatribe in 500 words or less.
Here it comes!!!
Blah, blah, effing blah!!!
Oh…but on Saturday night, with a dozen or so deep waiting line, with an estimated wait for a table to be fifteen, perhaps twenty-five minutes, then that same anti-smoking zealot with the flapping gums and the same two kids has a different response when queried, “smoking or non?”
On this night, she dares not step up onto her self-crafted soapbox. On this night, she spares us the unwanted lectures. On this night, she is rational, short-winded…almost, dare I say, pleasant.
On a busy Saturday night, with the waiting line blocking her path to dinner, she says, “Doesn’t matter. Whatever’s faster.”
As with the termites, those with the supposedly unbending allegiances to the cause quickly abandon the cause when circumstances dictate. Or, you could say, they are all full of excrement.
Stay in touch.
Can anyone guess who I sent this e-mail to?
In all honesty, your feigned incredulity is getting really, really, really old.
Brenda? Brenda who?
Tomorrow, perhaps the next day, you’ll be on to your next supposedly cutting edge topic, the next best breaking news on which to latch your sorry-assed self, your next completely calculated, feigned outrage purposely crafted to promote your phony baloney image as some kind of hard-hitting activist-for-life. Another aging reject from the 1960s who always huffs and puffs and blows his own flower-adorned horn.
You and I know you’re nothing of the sort. What you and I both know is that you’re a shameless self-promoter, a self-centered egotist, a shallow little shell of an emasculated man who never came even close to living up to either his father’s or his uncle’s very high standards. You’re clawing and scratching to hang on to whatever it was that you honestly thought you had at one time. You’re hopelessly adrift, right where you always were.
Today it’s Brenda’s turn. A week from now, you’ll be off on some other equally weak and equally tangential pursuit of more attention being paid to…well, to you. It’s never about anyone or anything else. It’s always about you...the Great (edited).
Brenda? A week from now, it’ll be Brenda who?
You’re a hapless user of other people‘s misfortune, other people's sorrow and other people's fragile lives.
You are to journalism what Brenda Williams was to self-restraint.
Markie in Nord End
Clue: It was not Sue Henry.
Bye
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Green is a state of mind
This one showed up on the Drudge Report this morning…
From the Times of London:
Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity
Thousands of bloggers who operate behind the cloak of anonymity have no right to keep their identities secret, the High Court ruled yesterday.
In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of a police officer who is the author of the NightJack blog. The officer, Richard Horton, 45, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, had sought an injunction to stop The Times from revealing his name.
More…
In the first case dealing with the privacy of internet bloggers, the judge ruled that Mr Horton had no “reasonable expectation” to anonymity because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity”.
The judge also said that even if the blogger could have claimed he had a right to anonymity, the judge would have ruled against him on public interest grounds.
Obviously, I got no cloaked dog in this electronic hunt.
My only question is, no matter how it came to be, if those of you that blog anonymously were to be forced to swap the clever-sounding pseudonyms for your real names, would you continue on with the blogging routine?
Just curious.
Gort, I read your succinctly stated comments on the Keystone Opportunity Zones, and I feel the need to weigh in on this one. Not to take issue with you, just for the hell of it.
First of all, our local, state and federal politicians love to remind us of how many local jobs were created in these tax-deferred zones. Admittedly, the vast majority of these new jobs are not what one would normally call well-paying jobs. Mind you, you can earn more than minimum wage. But if you are gainfully employed in one of the many plants in our many hustling and bustling industrial parks, the odds are far better than even that said job is not your only job. Just for the sake of accuracy, the local industrial parks should be reclassified as being Living Wage Free Zones.
Still, the self-absorbed politicos keep yammering on and on about all of the jobs they created by way of the always encroaching and always expanding KOZ programs. Jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs. According to them, it sounds as if we’re struggling to keep our heads above the rising tide of new jobs in the area.
Now, you could argue that without the zones, there would be darn near no jobs at all in NEPA, which would not be a wildly inaccurate argument. Scary, but, perhaps true.
Still though, I think after factoring in inflation, working in these warehouses would be akin to what your forbearers were faced with: working low-paying jobs throughout the entirety of their lives. Sure, you could delude yourself into thinking you’re a highly trained and highly skilled worker because they trust you with the keys to a forklift. But, in actuality, when things are adjusted for the omnipresent inflation, are you not little more than the modern day equivalent of the low-paid coal miners, the seamstresses, the brewery workers, or the train conductors?
In my opinion, the only people that benefit from KOZs are the publicity-seeking vote-for-me elected people claiming credit for their creation, as well as the creation of jobs nobody really wants to apply for. They get the credit, they get the adulation, they get the campaign donations, they get reelected and we are provided the “opportunity” for work for far less than we could have ever imagined ourselves working for.
In effect, despite being better educated than our descendants, and despite thinking we’re so much better informed than they were, our collective localized earning potential is not much more than theirs was. Myself excluded, of course.
If that’s progress, please, count me out.
Anywho, them’s my thoughts on the Keystone Obfuscation Zones. Further proof that it doesn’t take very much to get my vortex spinning violently off it’s bent axis.
I received a particularly nasty e-mail from what I’ll call my “green e-mailer.”
Oh, yeah, an e-mail that she demonstratively stated she did not want published on these pages. Fine, but here’s my rebuttal based on the best available training in the industry, many years worth of hard-earned expertise and an ongoing commitment to excellence.
First of all, what I happen to do for a living does not in any way destroy the earth. What I apply is applied to a depth of no more than 12 or so feet. And the products I apply, in large part due to billions upon billions having been spent on research and development, bind with the soils they come in contact with almost immediately when correctly applied.
When applied correctly, legally by a certified, heavily trained and expertise-laden applicator such as myself, they do not leach off into the ecosystem only to be consumed by any tree huggers anywhere. When applied correctly, they go no further than a couple of feet out from the structure’s foundation they were applied to.
And if I even remotely suspect that something might go amiss based on the structure, the landscape, the soil type or the immediate environs, I then call the treatment off pending a more exhaustive investigation. I do. Me. I need not call anyone in any office anywhere for further advisement. Based on conditions, the weather, unidentified subterranean utility lines or perhaps perplexing construction anomalies, I make the call right on the spot.
So before you read anyone else in my industry any of your environmental riot acts borne completely of abject ignorance, you might want to refer to some reference materials much, much, much more current than the long-accepted and wholly inaccurate bible of the misinformed protectors of the planet everywhere…Silent Spring.
For example, thanks to Rachel Carson’s attack on the use of DDT, that product was banned. And since the banning of DDT, the number of malaria deaths vectored by mosquitoes, once very few and very far between, have been escalating ever since. The millions and millions and millions upon millions and millions of needless deaths of mostly impoverished people in third world countries the world over can and have been directly attributed to the banishment of one single, but effective pesticide.
I know, unintended consequences. Basically, shamefully, the needless and untimely deaths of millions can be summed up by the self-important eco warriors with a single Oops!!!
If given a vote, I’m betting those people would have opted for the use of DDT over the untimely demises the environmentalists inflicted upon them.
And as far as “green” products are concerned, there are really only two varieties of green pesticides. And both, in my opinion, amount to imaginary pest management. There are the natural products, mostly culled from herbs, oils and extracts. And while a guy making a sales pitch may tell you they are the next great thing, plus they protect the environment, your pets and your brats, you need go no further than the people who make the applications to know that they are less effective than the pesticides not touted as being green.
Then there are the “green” products that amount to nothing more than the old product, only now watered down and relabeled as green. It’s smoke and mirrors. The old product, the old active ingredient, let’s say Fiprinil, used to comprise .06% of the total product, combined with inert ingredients. But now, the new and improved and heavily advertised green product has a total of .03% active ingredient. In other words, it won’t be as effective as, or have as long a residual impact as the original product.
And this watering down process so as to call a product “green” also applies to very many household cleaning products making the rounds on the video advertising box. It’s supposedly safer only because it’s weaker. It isn’t as effective as the original more “dangerous” formulation.
“Green” products as advertised on television, are almost always a sham to some degree.
Consider these facts. Organic products, organic foods that is, are closely regulated, monitored and inspected by the United States Department of Agriculture (Organic Foods Protection Act of 1990) so as to guarantee they are authentically organically grown or produced. The USDA even goes so far as to publish a regularly updated “National Organic List” of approved organic-certified products. In effect, if a product label makes the organic claim, you are perusing a legitimate organic product.
But there is no governing body to ensure that “green” products are what their manufacturers claim they are, or what they claim they can accomplish. There is no legal basis to any claims of a product being a green product. Catch that? When it comes to very much of the green advertising you are being pounded with, green is a state of mind with no legal basis.
As far as I’m concerned, a “green” product in the hands of an untrained person can be just as dangerous as can be a clearly labeled pesticide, simply because the person with no training typically thinks the green product is much safer to apply and tends to then apply more of it. So how is the weaker product of the two safer when you’re actually applying more of it? Sounds like a wash to me.
As with everything, you need to know what you’re talking about before you go lecturing others about the dangers associated with the application of pesticides, herbicides or termiticides. I know it’s popular, it’s the politically correct and the en vogue thing to do by classifying yourself as a devout green warrior. But, as with most people who are disproportionately passionate and noisy about what they believe they know, they have been sold a threadbare bill of goods.
As for my approach to the application of termiticides, I always, always err on the sides of both caution and safety. And as I have trained those who came after me just as I was trained by the guy who came before me, “If you’re not sure, don’t do it.”
And therein lies the best of all possible approaches whereas protecting the environment, people, animals and the water supply is concerned. When in doubt, do not apply. Training plus experience equals safe applications.
Please, save any further chastisements for the little-trained and poorly-equipped franchisees listed in your local yellow pages. You know, my competitors.
In review: Green is a state of mind.
Read it, know it and stop wasting your time trying to live it.
Sez me.
Later
From the Times of London:
Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity
Thousands of bloggers who operate behind the cloak of anonymity have no right to keep their identities secret, the High Court ruled yesterday.
In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of a police officer who is the author of the NightJack blog. The officer, Richard Horton, 45, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, had sought an injunction to stop The Times from revealing his name.
More…
In the first case dealing with the privacy of internet bloggers, the judge ruled that Mr Horton had no “reasonable expectation” to anonymity because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity”.
The judge also said that even if the blogger could have claimed he had a right to anonymity, the judge would have ruled against him on public interest grounds.
Obviously, I got no cloaked dog in this electronic hunt.
My only question is, no matter how it came to be, if those of you that blog anonymously were to be forced to swap the clever-sounding pseudonyms for your real names, would you continue on with the blogging routine?
Just curious.
Gort, I read your succinctly stated comments on the Keystone Opportunity Zones, and I feel the need to weigh in on this one. Not to take issue with you, just for the hell of it.
First of all, our local, state and federal politicians love to remind us of how many local jobs were created in these tax-deferred zones. Admittedly, the vast majority of these new jobs are not what one would normally call well-paying jobs. Mind you, you can earn more than minimum wage. But if you are gainfully employed in one of the many plants in our many hustling and bustling industrial parks, the odds are far better than even that said job is not your only job. Just for the sake of accuracy, the local industrial parks should be reclassified as being Living Wage Free Zones.
Still, the self-absorbed politicos keep yammering on and on about all of the jobs they created by way of the always encroaching and always expanding KOZ programs. Jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs. According to them, it sounds as if we’re struggling to keep our heads above the rising tide of new jobs in the area.
Now, you could argue that without the zones, there would be darn near no jobs at all in NEPA, which would not be a wildly inaccurate argument. Scary, but, perhaps true.
Still though, I think after factoring in inflation, working in these warehouses would be akin to what your forbearers were faced with: working low-paying jobs throughout the entirety of their lives. Sure, you could delude yourself into thinking you’re a highly trained and highly skilled worker because they trust you with the keys to a forklift. But, in actuality, when things are adjusted for the omnipresent inflation, are you not little more than the modern day equivalent of the low-paid coal miners, the seamstresses, the brewery workers, or the train conductors?
In my opinion, the only people that benefit from KOZs are the publicity-seeking vote-for-me elected people claiming credit for their creation, as well as the creation of jobs nobody really wants to apply for. They get the credit, they get the adulation, they get the campaign donations, they get reelected and we are provided the “opportunity” for work for far less than we could have ever imagined ourselves working for.
In effect, despite being better educated than our descendants, and despite thinking we’re so much better informed than they were, our collective localized earning potential is not much more than theirs was. Myself excluded, of course.
If that’s progress, please, count me out.
Anywho, them’s my thoughts on the Keystone Obfuscation Zones. Further proof that it doesn’t take very much to get my vortex spinning violently off it’s bent axis.
I received a particularly nasty e-mail from what I’ll call my “green e-mailer.”
Oh, yeah, an e-mail that she demonstratively stated she did not want published on these pages. Fine, but here’s my rebuttal based on the best available training in the industry, many years worth of hard-earned expertise and an ongoing commitment to excellence.
First of all, what I happen to do for a living does not in any way destroy the earth. What I apply is applied to a depth of no more than 12 or so feet. And the products I apply, in large part due to billions upon billions having been spent on research and development, bind with the soils they come in contact with almost immediately when correctly applied.
When applied correctly, legally by a certified, heavily trained and expertise-laden applicator such as myself, they do not leach off into the ecosystem only to be consumed by any tree huggers anywhere. When applied correctly, they go no further than a couple of feet out from the structure’s foundation they were applied to.
And if I even remotely suspect that something might go amiss based on the structure, the landscape, the soil type or the immediate environs, I then call the treatment off pending a more exhaustive investigation. I do. Me. I need not call anyone in any office anywhere for further advisement. Based on conditions, the weather, unidentified subterranean utility lines or perhaps perplexing construction anomalies, I make the call right on the spot.
So before you read anyone else in my industry any of your environmental riot acts borne completely of abject ignorance, you might want to refer to some reference materials much, much, much more current than the long-accepted and wholly inaccurate bible of the misinformed protectors of the planet everywhere…Silent Spring.
For example, thanks to Rachel Carson’s attack on the use of DDT, that product was banned. And since the banning of DDT, the number of malaria deaths vectored by mosquitoes, once very few and very far between, have been escalating ever since. The millions and millions and millions upon millions and millions of needless deaths of mostly impoverished people in third world countries the world over can and have been directly attributed to the banishment of one single, but effective pesticide.
I know, unintended consequences. Basically, shamefully, the needless and untimely deaths of millions can be summed up by the self-important eco warriors with a single Oops!!!
If given a vote, I’m betting those people would have opted for the use of DDT over the untimely demises the environmentalists inflicted upon them.
And as far as “green” products are concerned, there are really only two varieties of green pesticides. And both, in my opinion, amount to imaginary pest management. There are the natural products, mostly culled from herbs, oils and extracts. And while a guy making a sales pitch may tell you they are the next great thing, plus they protect the environment, your pets and your brats, you need go no further than the people who make the applications to know that they are less effective than the pesticides not touted as being green.
Then there are the “green” products that amount to nothing more than the old product, only now watered down and relabeled as green. It’s smoke and mirrors. The old product, the old active ingredient, let’s say Fiprinil, used to comprise .06% of the total product, combined with inert ingredients. But now, the new and improved and heavily advertised green product has a total of .03% active ingredient. In other words, it won’t be as effective as, or have as long a residual impact as the original product.
And this watering down process so as to call a product “green” also applies to very many household cleaning products making the rounds on the video advertising box. It’s supposedly safer only because it’s weaker. It isn’t as effective as the original more “dangerous” formulation.
“Green” products as advertised on television, are almost always a sham to some degree.
Consider these facts. Organic products, organic foods that is, are closely regulated, monitored and inspected by the United States Department of Agriculture (Organic Foods Protection Act of 1990) so as to guarantee they are authentically organically grown or produced. The USDA even goes so far as to publish a regularly updated “National Organic List” of approved organic-certified products. In effect, if a product label makes the organic claim, you are perusing a legitimate organic product.
But there is no governing body to ensure that “green” products are what their manufacturers claim they are, or what they claim they can accomplish. There is no legal basis to any claims of a product being a green product. Catch that? When it comes to very much of the green advertising you are being pounded with, green is a state of mind with no legal basis.
As far as I’m concerned, a “green” product in the hands of an untrained person can be just as dangerous as can be a clearly labeled pesticide, simply because the person with no training typically thinks the green product is much safer to apply and tends to then apply more of it. So how is the weaker product of the two safer when you’re actually applying more of it? Sounds like a wash to me.
As with everything, you need to know what you’re talking about before you go lecturing others about the dangers associated with the application of pesticides, herbicides or termiticides. I know it’s popular, it’s the politically correct and the en vogue thing to do by classifying yourself as a devout green warrior. But, as with most people who are disproportionately passionate and noisy about what they believe they know, they have been sold a threadbare bill of goods.
As for my approach to the application of termiticides, I always, always err on the sides of both caution and safety. And as I have trained those who came after me just as I was trained by the guy who came before me, “If you’re not sure, don’t do it.”
And therein lies the best of all possible approaches whereas protecting the environment, people, animals and the water supply is concerned. When in doubt, do not apply. Training plus experience equals safe applications.
Please, save any further chastisements for the little-trained and poorly-equipped franchisees listed in your local yellow pages. You know, my competitors.
In review: Green is a state of mind.
Read it, know it and stop wasting your time trying to live it.
Sez me.
Later
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
I got the knowin'...
You know, if gross mismanagement were to somehow be misconstrued as wise and virtuous, this area would be the new Mesopotamia of modern civilizations everywhere. If utter stupidty were to become a tradable commodity, this would be the financial epicenter of the known universe.
Apollo Group Project Manager Michael Kryzwicki said the deal with Mobilease Modular Space Inc. was not put out for bid because it can be arranged through a state purchasing program. He estimated each unit could hold between 25 and 30 students. The deal includes covered walkways and electrical service to the buildings, but there are some questions that have to be ironed out, including issues with concrete surfaces needed at one of the two schools, Heights Murray, and the capacity of an electrical panel that would likely be used at that school.
Installation would be complete in time to give the district at least two weeks before the start of school to set up furniture and equipement [sic].
Okay, here’s the rub.
While I realize that I am not, nor could I ever be, as completely worldly or nearly as pan chromatically brilliant as anyone serving on our illustrious school board, but isn’t this group the very same group that was considering closing Dan Flood elementary school as little as two years ago?
Forget the election season drug raids. We need not fuss nor fret over rampant cocaine, heroin or model glue usage, no matter who gets wasted in the process. No, what the Luzerne County Drug Task Force has to do is rethink things, retool just a tad, and then devote it’s manpower and all it’s vast resources to the eradication of stupid pills in this area.
Because I have to tell you, when it comes to our various and sundry local school boards not yet indicted, arrested, jailed or flogged, these people are all dealing in stupid pills--the deadliest drug of them all.
Sez me. Sez effing me!
As for her predicament, she had two parents who were gainfully employed, but the opportunities in this area were kind of low-paying once upon a time. There’s was a typical two-earner family in that mom was a seamstress, and dad did menial stuff with his hands. By Wyoming Valley standards back then, your average family. You know, for lack of a better word, poor.
All of that outlandish stuff aside, we ended up talking about what we considered the above and beyond treats back in the day. Not the stuff we had access to once we were growing well beyond our parents control and getting mobile. Not the high school stuff like Kresge’s Pizza, The Orange Bowl or those deliciously steamed soybean burgers at Guys ‘n’ Dolls pool hall. Rather, we were trying to remember the kid stuff, the places we visited when we were still totally dependant upon our elders for both transport and funding.
Wifey’s scant remembrances seemed to be limited to occasional trips to McDonald’s, and the much more frequent jaunts up to what she called “The Cow” for a single-dip ice cream cone. The big cow, better known as Gorman’s Dairy. I do recall being there as a kid, but, I suspect, not very often.
As for my ice cream treats, I was kind of limited to walking on down to the Woodlawn Dairy on North Street with my grandma. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I always looked forward to going there, even though it was situated next to that haunted-looking school from the prehistoric days--the North Street School. As a kid, the decrepit looks of that place just creeped me out. Gave me the heebie-jeebies. Made me want to step up the pace. Spooky, spooky, unspeakably horrible stuff just had to be going on in there, even though my cousin Will testified otherwise. Perjury, I'd say.
Interestingly enough, I once read somewhere that both the Gorman and Woodlawn Dairies in Wilkes-Barre, as well as a couple of others, were supplied with their fresh dairy products by a single farmer somewhere in the Sweet Valley area. And that same farmer also supplied mutton and the like to Percy Brown’s. Kittle, or Kyttle. Something like that.
We both have fond memories of hitting the local drive-in theatres. In these close by environs, mine are almost all borne of the Wilkes-Barre Drive-in. Remember that operation? That was back when Route 309 was one of the darkest and loneliest and most underused stretches of road in the immediate area. Not the congested sprawl nonsense that it is now. Not the unchecked, asphalt-covered producer of storm water runoff that it has become. Not the temple of consumerism that the whole formerly woodsy outpost has devolved into being.
No, back then, save for the big white screen and the tiny ancillary buildings, it was the tree-covered place where kids from a wide swath of Wilkes-Barre used to learn how to operate air rifles. Well, that is, the kids that managed to slip the guns across the road and past the annoyingly ever-present Wilkes-Barre Township cops. For the most part, I think they used to hassle those gun-toting younger kids because they were frustrated with all the teenaged kids continually drinking in those woods, but slipping away into those woods whenever the cops would try to spring forth and bust them.
And oddly enough, even though she grew up, literally, in the shadow of the Wilkes-Barre edition’s enormous screen, her flock always headed over to the West Side Drive-in in Edwardsville. And no snack bar, mind you. Not with five kids in tow. No, the giant, giant jawbreakers would have to suffice. My most fondest of memories from the drive-in era are pretty much limited to the big screen that once graced my summer retreat…Sandy Beach. Every summer, every movie, without fail…grandma, grandpa and myself sitting on the benches right up front.
According to her, her family didn’t get downtown much. Sure, she has the almost obligatory memories of the freshly roasted peanuts from the Planter’s Peanut shop, as we all do. My absolute favorite was the Woolworth’s Luncheonette, where grandma and I would chow down on an affordable lunch, and then order the banana splits with the accompanying balloons concealing the price of the desserts ranging from a penny to ninety-nine cents.
Although, she says she absolutely loved shopping at the Huntzinger’s five & dime store a ways away from the downtown, as did I. If you can call the acquisition of tiny trinkets shopping, then, yes, I too enjoyed that shop. All that I can recall buying there were the smallish and less than spectacularly crafted Tootsie Toy cars. In fact, I still have quite a few of those.
Surprisingly, there were some popular local fast food eateries she has absolutely no memories of. Something I find to be remarkable when you consider that these places thrived well into the 1970s.
She cannot remember, Top Spot, home of the Lulu Burger. Although, with a Top Spot once sitting right up here in the Nord End on River Street, now Antonio’s Pizza, it was easily within walking distance for us. And walk we did, many times over.
She looked at me in stunned disbelief when I asked her about Carroll’s Restaurant, which was part of a then thriving fast food company that had sprawled it’s way through much of New England when I was a kid bopping back and forth between the Derby, CT, area and this one. You don’t remember Carroll’s? It was on Scott Street right about where the Dunkin Donuts now sits. The employees wore these garish-looking plaid uniforms? Chicken burgers? No?
Damn.
When I was a boy, we used to hit the Carroll’s that sat at the end of one of the runways at Stewart Air Force Base in New York. Not far from Newburgh. Next to it sat a Carvelle’s Ice Cream on this lonely, dusty nowhere of a road. Actually, it was quite the much-anticipated attraction while on our way to Wilkes-Barre from Connecticut. First the burgers. Then the ice cream. And all the while, sitting on the car’s hood waiting for fighter jets to scream out just overhead. Literally, just overhead. F-4s, I think. Cool, cool stuff when you’re a vertically-challenged sprat of ten or less. Way cool.
And this one blew my mind. Darn near fried my last few functioning brain cells. She has no memory of the Stop ‘n’ Go burger joints. None. Nada. We had one right here on Kidder Street, which sat almost directly across from McCarthy’s Tire. And then there was the other one in Edwardsville, now an ice cream shop. The one with the oversized slide-away glass doors up front, where, when opened, you could pull up, exit the car and step right into the place. Unique.
How could you grow up in this valley, in this city and never once munch down on that cheap grub? Weren’t the burgers like 15 cents or something? It was the only place where you could get a burger, fries and a Coke, and all for less than a buck. Cheaper than even Mickey Ds was.
No Stop ‘n’ Go? Never? Not even once? Man, that’s mind-blowing. That’s outrageous. That’s, that’s…dare I say it, that’s freaking borderline child abuse. Talk about being deprived.
That‘s just not right.
Anywho, the preceding circumlocution is a great example of what can happen when a bored blogger has way too much time on his hands. Here I sit with my police scanner, my Pepsi Zero and not a damn thing to do. And you know what? I’m loving every minute of my self-inflicted boredom, my vacation.
So, if things keep going at this rate, you can expect to be reading my 6,000 word dissertation on my favorite rummage sale sites when I was a kid tagging along with grandma. Coming soon, I swear.
How did the marooned colony of kids left to fend for themselves put it in Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome? “We got the knowin’ of a lot things, history back.” Yeah, well, I got the knowin' of a lot of things, history back, too. Sadly, mostly useless things.
You have been warned. And if you’re truly smart, you’ll run screaming from this electronic place of mine never to return.
On the count of three…
Buh-bye
Man, it's enough to make you want to divorce yourself from this entire, floundering program. It's enough to make Utah seem attractive by direct comparison.
Wilkes-Barre Area OKs four modular classroom units, KOZ extensions
Wilkes-Barre Area School Board gave the Apollo Group Inc and Pasonick Engineering the OK to move forward in getting four modular classrooms at an estimated cost of $374,576 to relieve overcrowding at two elementary schools this fall. The board also approved a 10 year extension of tax exempt status for a string of properties Wilkes-Barre City is trying to develop.
Wilkes-Barre Area OKs four modular classroom units, KOZ extensions
Wilkes-Barre Area School Board gave the Apollo Group Inc and Pasonick Engineering the OK to move forward in getting four modular classrooms at an estimated cost of $374,576 to relieve overcrowding at two elementary schools this fall. The board also approved a 10 year extension of tax exempt status for a string of properties Wilkes-Barre City is trying to develop.
Apollo Group Project Manager Michael Kryzwicki said the deal with Mobilease Modular Space Inc. was not put out for bid because it can be arranged through a state purchasing program. He estimated each unit could hold between 25 and 30 students. The deal includes covered walkways and electrical service to the buildings, but there are some questions that have to be ironed out, including issues with concrete surfaces needed at one of the two schools, Heights Murray, and the capacity of an electrical panel that would likely be used at that school.
Installation would be complete in time to give the district at least two weeks before the start of school to set up furniture and equipement [sic].
Okay, here’s the rub.
While I realize that I am not, nor could I ever be, as completely worldly or nearly as pan chromatically brilliant as anyone serving on our illustrious school board, but isn’t this group the very same group that was considering closing Dan Flood elementary school as little as two years ago?
Forget the election season drug raids. We need not fuss nor fret over rampant cocaine, heroin or model glue usage, no matter who gets wasted in the process. No, what the Luzerne County Drug Task Force has to do is rethink things, retool just a tad, and then devote it’s manpower and all it’s vast resources to the eradication of stupid pills in this area.
Because I have to tell you, when it comes to our various and sundry local school boards not yet indicted, arrested, jailed or flogged, these people are all dealing in stupid pills--the deadliest drug of them all.
Sez me. Sez effing me!
Somehow, Wifey and I got around to sharing notes on what it was like to grow up, well, to grow up poor. Now, the way she tells it, her family was poorer than mine was. But I find that unfathomable when I remember that all we had was a government-subsidized townhouse, 2 measly welfare checks and some paper food stamps every month. Oh, and that government surplus cheese-like substance. Yum.
As for her predicament, she had two parents who were gainfully employed, but the opportunities in this area were kind of low-paying once upon a time. There’s was a typical two-earner family in that mom was a seamstress, and dad did menial stuff with his hands. By Wyoming Valley standards back then, your average family. You know, for lack of a better word, poor.
Did you ever try to one-up somebody whereas your onetime poverty was concerned?
Oh, yeah! Well, we were so poor, we looked forward to mama's homemade cardboard parmesan on Saturday nights!
Oh, really! Try wearing your Weekly Reader to the sixth-grade spring dance!
Did I save my Bazooka Joe comics? Dude, we knitted those comics into quilts.
Quilts? Must have been nice. We were reduced to burning those comics for heat. At least, when we weren't eating them.
All of that outlandish stuff aside, we ended up talking about what we considered the above and beyond treats back in the day. Not the stuff we had access to once we were growing well beyond our parents control and getting mobile. Not the high school stuff like Kresge’s Pizza, The Orange Bowl or those deliciously steamed soybean burgers at Guys ‘n’ Dolls pool hall. Rather, we were trying to remember the kid stuff, the places we visited when we were still totally dependant upon our elders for both transport and funding.
Wifey’s scant remembrances seemed to be limited to occasional trips to McDonald’s, and the much more frequent jaunts up to what she called “The Cow” for a single-dip ice cream cone. The big cow, better known as Gorman’s Dairy. I do recall being there as a kid, but, I suspect, not very often.
As for my ice cream treats, I was kind of limited to walking on down to the Woodlawn Dairy on North Street with my grandma. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I always looked forward to going there, even though it was situated next to that haunted-looking school from the prehistoric days--the North Street School. As a kid, the decrepit looks of that place just creeped me out. Gave me the heebie-jeebies. Made me want to step up the pace. Spooky, spooky, unspeakably horrible stuff just had to be going on in there, even though my cousin Will testified otherwise. Perjury, I'd say.
Interestingly enough, I once read somewhere that both the Gorman and Woodlawn Dairies in Wilkes-Barre, as well as a couple of others, were supplied with their fresh dairy products by a single farmer somewhere in the Sweet Valley area. And that same farmer also supplied mutton and the like to Percy Brown’s. Kittle, or Kyttle. Something like that.
We both have fond memories of hitting the local drive-in theatres. In these close by environs, mine are almost all borne of the Wilkes-Barre Drive-in. Remember that operation? That was back when Route 309 was one of the darkest and loneliest and most underused stretches of road in the immediate area. Not the congested sprawl nonsense that it is now. Not the unchecked, asphalt-covered producer of storm water runoff that it has become. Not the temple of consumerism that the whole formerly woodsy outpost has devolved into being.
No, back then, save for the big white screen and the tiny ancillary buildings, it was the tree-covered place where kids from a wide swath of Wilkes-Barre used to learn how to operate air rifles. Well, that is, the kids that managed to slip the guns across the road and past the annoyingly ever-present Wilkes-Barre Township cops. For the most part, I think they used to hassle those gun-toting younger kids because they were frustrated with all the teenaged kids continually drinking in those woods, but slipping away into those woods whenever the cops would try to spring forth and bust them.
And oddly enough, even though she grew up, literally, in the shadow of the Wilkes-Barre edition’s enormous screen, her flock always headed over to the West Side Drive-in in Edwardsville. And no snack bar, mind you. Not with five kids in tow. No, the giant, giant jawbreakers would have to suffice. My most fondest of memories from the drive-in era are pretty much limited to the big screen that once graced my summer retreat…Sandy Beach. Every summer, every movie, without fail…grandma, grandpa and myself sitting on the benches right up front.
According to her, her family didn’t get downtown much. Sure, she has the almost obligatory memories of the freshly roasted peanuts from the Planter’s Peanut shop, as we all do. My absolute favorite was the Woolworth’s Luncheonette, where grandma and I would chow down on an affordable lunch, and then order the banana splits with the accompanying balloons concealing the price of the desserts ranging from a penny to ninety-nine cents.
Although, she says she absolutely loved shopping at the Huntzinger’s five & dime store a ways away from the downtown, as did I. If you can call the acquisition of tiny trinkets shopping, then, yes, I too enjoyed that shop. All that I can recall buying there were the smallish and less than spectacularly crafted Tootsie Toy cars. In fact, I still have quite a few of those.
Surprisingly, there were some popular local fast food eateries she has absolutely no memories of. Something I find to be remarkable when you consider that these places thrived well into the 1970s.
She cannot remember, Top Spot, home of the Lulu Burger. Although, with a Top Spot once sitting right up here in the Nord End on River Street, now Antonio’s Pizza, it was easily within walking distance for us. And walk we did, many times over.
She looked at me in stunned disbelief when I asked her about Carroll’s Restaurant, which was part of a then thriving fast food company that had sprawled it’s way through much of New England when I was a kid bopping back and forth between the Derby, CT, area and this one. You don’t remember Carroll’s? It was on Scott Street right about where the Dunkin Donuts now sits. The employees wore these garish-looking plaid uniforms? Chicken burgers? No?
Damn.
When I was a boy, we used to hit the Carroll’s that sat at the end of one of the runways at Stewart Air Force Base in New York. Not far from Newburgh. Next to it sat a Carvelle’s Ice Cream on this lonely, dusty nowhere of a road. Actually, it was quite the much-anticipated attraction while on our way to Wilkes-Barre from Connecticut. First the burgers. Then the ice cream. And all the while, sitting on the car’s hood waiting for fighter jets to scream out just overhead. Literally, just overhead. F-4s, I think. Cool, cool stuff when you’re a vertically-challenged sprat of ten or less. Way cool.
And this one blew my mind. Darn near fried my last few functioning brain cells. She has no memory of the Stop ‘n’ Go burger joints. None. Nada. We had one right here on Kidder Street, which sat almost directly across from McCarthy’s Tire. And then there was the other one in Edwardsville, now an ice cream shop. The one with the oversized slide-away glass doors up front, where, when opened, you could pull up, exit the car and step right into the place. Unique.
How could you grow up in this valley, in this city and never once munch down on that cheap grub? Weren’t the burgers like 15 cents or something? It was the only place where you could get a burger, fries and a Coke, and all for less than a buck. Cheaper than even Mickey Ds was.
No Stop ‘n’ Go? Never? Not even once? Man, that’s mind-blowing. That’s outrageous. That’s, that’s…dare I say it, that’s freaking borderline child abuse. Talk about being deprived.
That‘s just not right.
Anywho, the preceding circumlocution is a great example of what can happen when a bored blogger has way too much time on his hands. Here I sit with my police scanner, my Pepsi Zero and not a damn thing to do. And you know what? I’m loving every minute of my self-inflicted boredom, my vacation.
So, if things keep going at this rate, you can expect to be reading my 6,000 word dissertation on my favorite rummage sale sites when I was a kid tagging along with grandma. Coming soon, I swear.
How did the marooned colony of kids left to fend for themselves put it in Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome? “We got the knowin’ of a lot things, history back.” Yeah, well, I got the knowin' of a lot of things, history back, too. Sadly, mostly useless things.
You have been warned. And if you’re truly smart, you’ll run screaming from this electronic place of mine never to return.
On the count of three…
Buh-bye
Monday, June 15, 2009
Rumble thee forth
Some of you, not many, have asked me to keep you abreast of the latest in my ongoing genealogic journey.
And since there isn't much going on worth scribbling about, I'm reprinting my latest post from my invite-only, family-only blog, "The (Insert Surname) Haunt." A first for me.
Some background: Anne is my first-cousin from Colorado I never even knew existed until around 6 months ago. She tells me we actually met in Florida when I was a toddler and on the lam from the law with my dad. And similarly newfound, Carol, a close, but slightly more distant relative lives in California (pronounced: cauliflower-ia).
While this post may not reveal much about my mostly missing background, it does prove that I am in need of professional help. You know, a properly-fitted straightjacket. Perhaps a healthy dose of electrical current. Good stuff like that. So, rather than think of this as a blog post, consider it more a cry for help.
Be it amusing, disturbing or maddening, it goes as follows:
Annie, long time no…well, long time no hear.
I just knew Carol was pulling my leg when she told me you had run off to Pakistan and joined the Taliban. Totally plausible, as I hear they are eager to recruit and train disaffected Caucasians such as ourselves. Ever consider how you might look in a bomb vest?
First of all, I snagged these morsels from your most recent blog post:
Saturday the girls mother dropped them off at their grandparent's home - a motel cabin court in Lake Butler, Florida.
Jane and Anne were left with their grandparents for some time while their parents sorted out the details of separation and divorce. They slept on canvas cots in a curtained off area of the large kitchen in the motel main building.
Tell me, was I there at the cabin court? Remember my earliest recollections? Sleeping on a cot, playing with other children and bicycling in a circular pattern? Got a picture or two of this place?
V’ger needs to know.
As to the religious persecution thing, I know what you’re talking about and it has always mystified me. Both my mom and her mom were staunch, hard-core Catholics. Big time “bible-thumpers,” you might say. And they raised me to be exactly the same. Church, folk mass, confession, Parochial school (when Leo and my mom were separated) CCD classes, church-sponsored activities, Boy Scouts in the church basement. The whole package.
For reasons that really do escape me, once I struck out on my own, I had no interest in any of that. None. I simply turned my back on all of it. Ironically enough, I then went and hooked up with a girl, (Wifey), who’s mom just happens to be an ex nun. So I suffered through this period when she would try to correct what my mom and grandma had gotten wrong. She would make me into a devout churchgoer. And in these respects, she failed miserably.
But, I never understood this your-either-with-us-or-against-us mentality wherein the non believers constantly attack, belittle and mock the believers. I live by a simple credo: Don’t touch me, mine or any of my stuff, and we’ll get along just fine. Cross any of those lines and you might find your eye socket relocated to where your nose normally resides. You do your thing over there, and I’ll do mine over here. No sense hacking on each other. So why does it bother so many over there what the folks further on over there are doing? I don’t get it. Whatever floats your heavily-listed boat, no? Perhaps Prozac should be mandated for everyone by executive fiat.
It’s like the divisive abortion thing. Why all the menacing glaring back and forth at each other? Why all of the discontent? While I find abortion to be quite repulsive, that’s your decision to make and you’ll have to live with it. What you do has no bearing on me, so why all the fuss? I dunno. Perhaps people spend way, way too much of their time sober.
I’m kidding! I’m joshing. Chill out, chickadees.
As far as the family get-together is concerned, I am all for the idea with the following proviso: (Wifey) does not travel well. Wait, allow me to amend that. (Wifey) cannot travel. For example, it’s a 16-mile ride from here to Harveys Lake, a ride that gets her to scrambling for something to upchuck into. It’s horrible for her. Horrible. Awful. As for myself, I’d rather invade a heavily-armed, well-fortified country all by my lonesome than get in an aircraft ever again. That ain’t happening. Remember William Shatner in the Twilight Zone movie? That would be me. And I make no apologies because the way I figure it, we’re all entitled to at least one totally irrational phobia.
I’ll say this, if any of you are up for the long drive, we’ve got an extra bedroom with three beds of varying sizes as well as plenty of off street parking. And, a yearly blowout scheduled on the second Saturday of every August, where almost all of my local relatives make an appearance. Consider that an open-ended invite.
Getting back to the religion thing, I’ll inflict the following true story upon you. For Peace, this is one of those, “Dad, I can’t believe you wrote that” moments. As I had warned her of before we got into this reconnecting with long lost relatives adventure…here I come, warts, boils, scabs, really cool-looking scars and all.
A couple of years ago, I was on vacation mid-summer when it was announced that the girls were taking mom out shopping. Trust me, while (Wifey) is very active and has plenty to do, she rarely leaves the house. That’s just the way she is, and, as I said, she’ll be losing her lunch right quick with even the shortest of trips.
So, no sooner had they pulled out of the lot, I powered-up the mixer, turned on the amp, and slid a Def Leppard CD into one of the two drawers.
And, true to form, I cranked that volume knob higher and higher until pieces of the foundation were being rumbled loose. Trust me, my speakers, er, my columns, are bigger than those giant redwoods Carol has in her back yard. By the way, the biggest lie my grandma ever told me was that I’d be deaf when I grew up. See, if it ain’t got pedal-distorted guitars blazing away, and if it ain’t at least 120 decibels or so--loud enough to kill most Polka-loving people--I’m rarely if ever interested.
As for the lack of hearing loss, luck or heredity?
Anyway, having the house to myself on this rarest of rare occasions, I then decided to crack open a frosty 16-once beer and plug my Strat into the mixer and play along with Def Leppard’s “Switch 625,” a fast, faster and furious guitar-dominated instrumental.
So there I was at near about 11 AM, in shorts, shirtless, playing the Strat and enjoying an ice cold beer for breakfast. And when Switch 625 ended with a mighty arpeggio, I realized that some boob was thumping on the screen door. And when I appeared in said doorway with no shirt, a guitar around my neck and a beer in my hand at least an hour before high noon, there stood two of these Jehovah Witness door-to-door do-gooders launching into their usual spiel without missing a beat.
And I have to say, they seemed kind of puzzled, almost startled, when I said to them smiling, “Guys, is it not obvious that you’re too late to save the likes of me?”
And with that, one flick of a fader got the foundation to rumbling itself loose again.
From the thoroughly ersatz, blasphemous and little-known book of Markie: Blessed are they who rumble thee forth.
Stay in touch.
Mark
And since there isn't much going on worth scribbling about, I'm reprinting my latest post from my invite-only, family-only blog, "The (Insert Surname) Haunt." A first for me.
Some background: Anne is my first-cousin from Colorado I never even knew existed until around 6 months ago. She tells me we actually met in Florida when I was a toddler and on the lam from the law with my dad. And similarly newfound, Carol, a close, but slightly more distant relative lives in California (pronounced: cauliflower-ia).
While this post may not reveal much about my mostly missing background, it does prove that I am in need of professional help. You know, a properly-fitted straightjacket. Perhaps a healthy dose of electrical current. Good stuff like that. So, rather than think of this as a blog post, consider it more a cry for help.
Be it amusing, disturbing or maddening, it goes as follows:
Annie, long time no…well, long time no hear.
I just knew Carol was pulling my leg when she told me you had run off to Pakistan and joined the Taliban. Totally plausible, as I hear they are eager to recruit and train disaffected Caucasians such as ourselves. Ever consider how you might look in a bomb vest?
First of all, I snagged these morsels from your most recent blog post:
Saturday the girls mother dropped them off at their grandparent's home - a motel cabin court in Lake Butler, Florida.
Jane and Anne were left with their grandparents for some time while their parents sorted out the details of separation and divorce. They slept on canvas cots in a curtained off area of the large kitchen in the motel main building.
Tell me, was I there at the cabin court? Remember my earliest recollections? Sleeping on a cot, playing with other children and bicycling in a circular pattern? Got a picture or two of this place?
V’ger needs to know.
As to the religious persecution thing, I know what you’re talking about and it has always mystified me. Both my mom and her mom were staunch, hard-core Catholics. Big time “bible-thumpers,” you might say. And they raised me to be exactly the same. Church, folk mass, confession, Parochial school (when Leo and my mom were separated) CCD classes, church-sponsored activities, Boy Scouts in the church basement. The whole package.
For reasons that really do escape me, once I struck out on my own, I had no interest in any of that. None. I simply turned my back on all of it. Ironically enough, I then went and hooked up with a girl, (Wifey), who’s mom just happens to be an ex nun. So I suffered through this period when she would try to correct what my mom and grandma had gotten wrong. She would make me into a devout churchgoer. And in these respects, she failed miserably.
But, I never understood this your-either-with-us-or-against-us mentality wherein the non believers constantly attack, belittle and mock the believers. I live by a simple credo: Don’t touch me, mine or any of my stuff, and we’ll get along just fine. Cross any of those lines and you might find your eye socket relocated to where your nose normally resides. You do your thing over there, and I’ll do mine over here. No sense hacking on each other. So why does it bother so many over there what the folks further on over there are doing? I don’t get it. Whatever floats your heavily-listed boat, no? Perhaps Prozac should be mandated for everyone by executive fiat.
It’s like the divisive abortion thing. Why all the menacing glaring back and forth at each other? Why all of the discontent? While I find abortion to be quite repulsive, that’s your decision to make and you’ll have to live with it. What you do has no bearing on me, so why all the fuss? I dunno. Perhaps people spend way, way too much of their time sober.
I’m kidding! I’m joshing. Chill out, chickadees.
As far as the family get-together is concerned, I am all for the idea with the following proviso: (Wifey) does not travel well. Wait, allow me to amend that. (Wifey) cannot travel. For example, it’s a 16-mile ride from here to Harveys Lake, a ride that gets her to scrambling for something to upchuck into. It’s horrible for her. Horrible. Awful. As for myself, I’d rather invade a heavily-armed, well-fortified country all by my lonesome than get in an aircraft ever again. That ain’t happening. Remember William Shatner in the Twilight Zone movie? That would be me. And I make no apologies because the way I figure it, we’re all entitled to at least one totally irrational phobia.
I’ll say this, if any of you are up for the long drive, we’ve got an extra bedroom with three beds of varying sizes as well as plenty of off street parking. And, a yearly blowout scheduled on the second Saturday of every August, where almost all of my local relatives make an appearance. Consider that an open-ended invite.
Getting back to the religion thing, I’ll inflict the following true story upon you. For Peace, this is one of those, “Dad, I can’t believe you wrote that” moments. As I had warned her of before we got into this reconnecting with long lost relatives adventure…here I come, warts, boils, scabs, really cool-looking scars and all.
A couple of years ago, I was on vacation mid-summer when it was announced that the girls were taking mom out shopping. Trust me, while (Wifey) is very active and has plenty to do, she rarely leaves the house. That’s just the way she is, and, as I said, she’ll be losing her lunch right quick with even the shortest of trips.
So, no sooner had they pulled out of the lot, I powered-up the mixer, turned on the amp, and slid a Def Leppard CD into one of the two drawers.
And, true to form, I cranked that volume knob higher and higher until pieces of the foundation were being rumbled loose. Trust me, my speakers, er, my columns, are bigger than those giant redwoods Carol has in her back yard. By the way, the biggest lie my grandma ever told me was that I’d be deaf when I grew up. See, if it ain’t got pedal-distorted guitars blazing away, and if it ain’t at least 120 decibels or so--loud enough to kill most Polka-loving people--I’m rarely if ever interested.
As for the lack of hearing loss, luck or heredity?
Anyway, having the house to myself on this rarest of rare occasions, I then decided to crack open a frosty 16-once beer and plug my Strat into the mixer and play along with Def Leppard’s “Switch 625,” a fast, faster and furious guitar-dominated instrumental.
So there I was at near about 11 AM, in shorts, shirtless, playing the Strat and enjoying an ice cold beer for breakfast. And when Switch 625 ended with a mighty arpeggio, I realized that some boob was thumping on the screen door. And when I appeared in said doorway with no shirt, a guitar around my neck and a beer in my hand at least an hour before high noon, there stood two of these Jehovah Witness door-to-door do-gooders launching into their usual spiel without missing a beat.
And I have to say, they seemed kind of puzzled, almost startled, when I said to them smiling, “Guys, is it not obvious that you’re too late to save the likes of me?”
And with that, one flick of a fader got the foundation to rumbling itself loose again.
From the thoroughly ersatz, blasphemous and little-known book of Markie: Blessed are they who rumble thee forth.
Stay in touch.
Mark
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Mayor of Home Rule
"Incidents like this make us step back and realize how difficult the job of a law enforcement officer is...more difficult than any other job out there. Trooper Miller set an example for others."--Governor Ed Rendell
After my mom passed away and I finally found the strength to sift through her most personal of archived things, I found an intact, yellowed newspaper dated December 8, 1941. And I found another, wrapped in plastic, dated November 23, 1963.
It was obvious that the seminal moment for my mom’s generation was the shocking assassination of president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, while that of her mother’s before her was the attack on Pearl Harbor. And after the attacks of September 11, 2001, I remember thinking that those in my age group had not one, but two newspapers stuffed away somewhere to be found only in the event of our deaths.
I still have the newspaper from the day after the space shuttle Challenger exploded on it’s way skyward. An event my then four-year-old son and I watched together. I also still possess the various and sundry papers from September 12, 2001. And after yesterday, I’ll have yet another newspaper to be filed away due to the inescapably remarkable, unique, once-in-a-lifetime nature of what I witnessed early yesterday afternoon. Not a seminal moment perhaps, but an unforgettably somber and awe-inspiring scene.
I think we all know what became of Pennsylvania state trooper Joshua D. Miller--Valiant Trooper Miller honored by thousands--this past Sunday. We all know of his recent heroic death. Well, after listening to his gut-wrenching tearjerker of a funeral on WILK radio yesterday, I felt compelled to saunter on down the hill from where I was working and take in the procession of his fellow law enforcement officers escorting him to his final resting place. And what I encountered down there on Main Street in Pittston is something I will never, ever forget.
Not usually easily moved or driven anywhere near tears, this here hated author of yours got nailed with more than his fair share of goose bumps. And this annoyingly persistent lump in the throat.
Damndest thing I ever saw.
There seems to be some confusion regarding the public “meetings” of the Luzerne County Government Study Commission.
A meeting constitutes a gathering of study commissioners with a quorum, a meeting agenda and perhaps a vote or two riding on that agenda. And all of those meetings should be open to the public. All of them.
A hearing is an information gathering session wherein a person or persons would appear before the study commission for the purposes of being interviewed, grilled, or interrogated, depending on how open and forthright they choose to be. For obvious reasons, they need not be open to the public.
So, while the Times Leader’s Mark Guydish, commission member Walter Griffith and myself are all on the record saying that all meetings should be advertised and open to the public, never did I say that hearings should be open to the public.
So, just to clarify things for you e-mailing imbeciles, I understand the distinction. And my call for erring on the side of transparency is not only necessary, it should be demanded of the study commission.
But, after only one meeting, supposedly an introductory organizational meeting no less, it’s becoming obvious that any requests or demands from the taxpaying public will have to be forwarded directly to the self-anointed, his-way-or-the-highway Mayor of Home Rule…Jim Haggerty.
Agenda Item: Vote for previously agreed upon officers.
Agenda Item: How to limit transparency.
Agenda Item: How to limit public input at meetings.
Agenda Item: P.O. Box, or all correspondence goes to the Mayor of Home Rule, thereby assuring no further leaks of information to the press.
Does that sound all-inclusive to you? Does that sound like a recipe for an improved system of governing? Or does it sound eerily familiar?
But why shouldn’t the only attorney in the bunch be put in charge by way of executive fiat? He’s an attorney, see? And if there’s one thing we’ve learned in this dispirited county over the course of the past few scandal-ridden, indictment-filled months is that attorneys know how to get things done.
They’re not like us ignorant, average fools who stubbornly believe tiny pebbles grow to be large rocks. They’re all ejamuckated and whatnot. They say clever-sounding things such as, “The law is vacant on that.”
Translation: There’s no precedent, so we can do whatever the funk we want.
Gee, that sounds like the perfect starting point, the correct basis, the most awesome of cornerstones while endeavoring to devise a new, much-improved system of government, don’t it? The law is vacant on that? What, we’re going to replace one set of purposely crafted gray areas with newer, sleeker, sexier gray areas from which to govern? Vacancy? When presented with an issue, we’ll run for the cover of vacancy?
Ah, cripes! I knew better. I really, really did. Against my normally astute judgment, I voted “Yes” on that Home Rule question. And that “Yes” garnered me a panel of felons, drunk drivers, defrocked school board members, the nickname-dependant and the haplessly easily-led doing what they’re told by an ambitious politician hailing from Podunk, Pennsylvania. Sadly enough, that apt description of our study commission closely resembles the makeup and goings-on of our county government.
As for myself, I need not any clock-watching study commission members trying to restrict my public comments to two, three, or four minutes--whatever the hell they decided upon. As for myself, I can relay my rather pointed comments to the fledgling study commission in two words or less…Go away. Funk off. Disband.
I tell you, the next blockhead who calls for Home Rule needs to be hog-collared, packed in Styrofoam peanuts and FedExed directly to Pakistan, and with an affixed packing label that reads: Hello, I am from America, my name is Blockhead and Allah sucks donkey genitalia.
Do any legal vacancies apply to that? Or, not apply to that?
Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Mayor. Was that too long? Did I exceed my horribly foreshortened allotted time?
Too bad.
Long story short, I knew better. I freaking knew better. When I called in to the Sue Henry show on election day morning and gave my report from my precinct, Sue asked me if I voted for or against Home Rule. And when I applied in the affirmative, she sounded so surprised, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that she jumped right out of her imported moccasin type thingies.
But, unfortunately, I did vote for the formation of the study commission. And now I’ve got the vacancy-clinging, the legalese speaking politician leading the newfound quasi celebrities, the previously unknown, the suddenly subservient blind. And if we actually believe, if we’re fool enough to think that’s going to translate into anything resembling government for and by the people, we deserve the disappointing folly that will be the likely outcome of all of this.
The vacant leading the blind.
Wonderful.
As a result of Trooper Miller’s untimely death, I’ve heard quite a few callers to WILK this past week suggesting that all of this was for not, and only because police officers should not engage in risky high-speed pursuits.
You’ve heard the threadbare arguments against chasing fleeing vehicles with criminals contained within. There’s no need to repeat them here.
But one caller in particular piqued my interest when she suggested that if Troopers Miller and Lombardo had not chased down that fleeing vehicle with the gun-toting dad and the kidnapped 9-year-old boy on board, the police could have simply investigated things a tad and found the child somewhere or other later on.
The thing is, I am living proof that snatched children do not necessarily turn up a day or two later. And I honestly believe that I am living proof that, when kids are plucked from their lives by angered, distraught or vindictive parents, perhaps a robust police pursuit would save them from being separated from their true nurturers for not only weeks or months, but for years.
Anywho, even though I know the guy hates me, I sent the following e-mail along to WILK’s Steve Corbett during the height of the “high-speed pursuit” debate.
Steve,
Allow me to share with you what can happen when the police choose not to pursue.
My father smashed his way into my grandparent's Wyoming Street, Wilkes-Barre home in 1961, and fled the scene with myself in tow. He assaulted my teenaged uncle and my grandfather, and my grandpop suffered a massive heart attack as a result. He damn near died. I was barely 2-1/2-years-old at the time.
For reasons that escape me now, my grandmother begged the police to high-tail it to the airport (which one I'm not sure), but they declined. They told her, "He'll show up eventually."
Well, I did show up. Almost two years later, I showed up in a Pinellas County, Florida courtroom in the custody of my father's lawyer. My father was jailed some months earlier and steadfastly refused to divulge my whereabouts. Turns out, I was living with his new girlfriend in Clearwater.
During those two years, both my mom and her mom were beyond frantic to find me. They barely ate, slept or thought of anything but finding me. My grandmother spent ten of thousands trying to locate me. And during this drawn-out nightmare for my mom, she lost her baby, which would have been my only sister.
With all of that said, my grandma went to her grave swearing that all of it could have been avoided if only the police had listened to her when first they arrived on the scene.
As for this state trooper's death--a hero--the police pursued, something horrible happened as a result, but there's a 9-year-old boy still safe and sound with his mom.
The point is, there's no telling what could happen to, or where some little kid might end up if the police do not pursue.
Markie in Nord End
For what it’s worth, them’s my scattered thoughts on all of that.
After my mom passed away and I finally found the strength to sift through her most personal of archived things, I found an intact, yellowed newspaper dated December 8, 1941. And I found another, wrapped in plastic, dated November 23, 1963.
It was obvious that the seminal moment for my mom’s generation was the shocking assassination of president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, while that of her mother’s before her was the attack on Pearl Harbor. And after the attacks of September 11, 2001, I remember thinking that those in my age group had not one, but two newspapers stuffed away somewhere to be found only in the event of our deaths.
I still have the newspaper from the day after the space shuttle Challenger exploded on it’s way skyward. An event my then four-year-old son and I watched together. I also still possess the various and sundry papers from September 12, 2001. And after yesterday, I’ll have yet another newspaper to be filed away due to the inescapably remarkable, unique, once-in-a-lifetime nature of what I witnessed early yesterday afternoon. Not a seminal moment perhaps, but an unforgettably somber and awe-inspiring scene.
I think we all know what became of Pennsylvania state trooper Joshua D. Miller--Valiant Trooper Miller honored by thousands--this past Sunday. We all know of his recent heroic death. Well, after listening to his gut-wrenching tearjerker of a funeral on WILK radio yesterday, I felt compelled to saunter on down the hill from where I was working and take in the procession of his fellow law enforcement officers escorting him to his final resting place. And what I encountered down there on Main Street in Pittston is something I will never, ever forget.
If the president were to be killed, the funeral procession would not nearly be as long as this one was. Not even close. And if another shuttle were to explode upon liftoff, or if we were to be surprise attacked once more, any corresponding procession to come about as a result could not nearly be as well-attended or as astonishingly long as this one was. What I spied from my sidewalk perch yesterday was moving in that so many would come from so near and so far to honor the fallen trooper who lost his life in a hail of gunfire while selflessly saving a nine-year-old boy. No matter which direction you looked, there were police vehicles as far as the eye could see.
WILK reported later on in the afternoon that law enforcement officials from all of the 48 continental states participated in that touching tribute, and I was not surprised to learn as much. Because I came away thinking: name a city, name a county, name a state, and they were there. Pittsburgh PD, Scranton PD, NYPD, Rochester PD, New York SP, Maryland SP, New Jersey SP, PA park rangers, PA Department of Corrections, Mayfield, New Rochelle, Harveys Lake, Jessup, Wilkes-Barre, etc., etc., etc.
Not usually easily moved or driven anywhere near tears, this here hated author of yours got nailed with more than his fair share of goose bumps. And this annoyingly persistent lump in the throat.
Damndest thing I ever saw.
There seems to be some confusion regarding the public “meetings” of the Luzerne County Government Study Commission.
A meeting constitutes a gathering of study commissioners with a quorum, a meeting agenda and perhaps a vote or two riding on that agenda. And all of those meetings should be open to the public. All of them.
A hearing is an information gathering session wherein a person or persons would appear before the study commission for the purposes of being interviewed, grilled, or interrogated, depending on how open and forthright they choose to be. For obvious reasons, they need not be open to the public.
So, while the Times Leader’s Mark Guydish, commission member Walter Griffith and myself are all on the record saying that all meetings should be advertised and open to the public, never did I say that hearings should be open to the public.
So, just to clarify things for you e-mailing imbeciles, I understand the distinction. And my call for erring on the side of transparency is not only necessary, it should be demanded of the study commission.
But, after only one meeting, supposedly an introductory organizational meeting no less, it’s becoming obvious that any requests or demands from the taxpaying public will have to be forwarded directly to the self-anointed, his-way-or-the-highway Mayor of Home Rule…Jim Haggerty.
Agenda Item: Vote for previously agreed upon officers.
Agenda Item: How to limit transparency.
Agenda Item: How to limit public input at meetings.
Agenda Item: P.O. Box, or all correspondence goes to the Mayor of Home Rule, thereby assuring no further leaks of information to the press.
Does that sound all-inclusive to you? Does that sound like a recipe for an improved system of governing? Or does it sound eerily familiar?
But why shouldn’t the only attorney in the bunch be put in charge by way of executive fiat? He’s an attorney, see? And if there’s one thing we’ve learned in this dispirited county over the course of the past few scandal-ridden, indictment-filled months is that attorneys know how to get things done.
They’re not like us ignorant, average fools who stubbornly believe tiny pebbles grow to be large rocks. They’re all ejamuckated and whatnot. They say clever-sounding things such as, “The law is vacant on that.”
Translation: There’s no precedent, so we can do whatever the funk we want.
Gee, that sounds like the perfect starting point, the correct basis, the most awesome of cornerstones while endeavoring to devise a new, much-improved system of government, don’t it? The law is vacant on that? What, we’re going to replace one set of purposely crafted gray areas with newer, sleeker, sexier gray areas from which to govern? Vacancy? When presented with an issue, we’ll run for the cover of vacancy?
Ah, cripes! I knew better. I really, really did. Against my normally astute judgment, I voted “Yes” on that Home Rule question. And that “Yes” garnered me a panel of felons, drunk drivers, defrocked school board members, the nickname-dependant and the haplessly easily-led doing what they’re told by an ambitious politician hailing from Podunk, Pennsylvania. Sadly enough, that apt description of our study commission closely resembles the makeup and goings-on of our county government.
As for myself, I need not any clock-watching study commission members trying to restrict my public comments to two, three, or four minutes--whatever the hell they decided upon. As for myself, I can relay my rather pointed comments to the fledgling study commission in two words or less…Go away. Funk off. Disband.
I tell you, the next blockhead who calls for Home Rule needs to be hog-collared, packed in Styrofoam peanuts and FedExed directly to Pakistan, and with an affixed packing label that reads: Hello, I am from America, my name is Blockhead and Allah sucks donkey genitalia.
Do any legal vacancies apply to that? Or, not apply to that?
Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Mayor. Was that too long? Did I exceed my horribly foreshortened allotted time?
Too bad.
Long story short, I knew better. I freaking knew better. When I called in to the Sue Henry show on election day morning and gave my report from my precinct, Sue asked me if I voted for or against Home Rule. And when I applied in the affirmative, she sounded so surprised, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that she jumped right out of her imported moccasin type thingies.
But, unfortunately, I did vote for the formation of the study commission. And now I’ve got the vacancy-clinging, the legalese speaking politician leading the newfound quasi celebrities, the previously unknown, the suddenly subservient blind. And if we actually believe, if we’re fool enough to think that’s going to translate into anything resembling government for and by the people, we deserve the disappointing folly that will be the likely outcome of all of this.
The vacant leading the blind.
Wonderful.
As a result of Trooper Miller’s untimely death, I’ve heard quite a few callers to WILK this past week suggesting that all of this was for not, and only because police officers should not engage in risky high-speed pursuits.
You’ve heard the threadbare arguments against chasing fleeing vehicles with criminals contained within. There’s no need to repeat them here.
But one caller in particular piqued my interest when she suggested that if Troopers Miller and Lombardo had not chased down that fleeing vehicle with the gun-toting dad and the kidnapped 9-year-old boy on board, the police could have simply investigated things a tad and found the child somewhere or other later on.
The thing is, I am living proof that snatched children do not necessarily turn up a day or two later. And I honestly believe that I am living proof that, when kids are plucked from their lives by angered, distraught or vindictive parents, perhaps a robust police pursuit would save them from being separated from their true nurturers for not only weeks or months, but for years.
Anywho, even though I know the guy hates me, I sent the following e-mail along to WILK’s Steve Corbett during the height of the “high-speed pursuit” debate.
Steve,
Allow me to share with you what can happen when the police choose not to pursue.
My father smashed his way into my grandparent's Wyoming Street, Wilkes-Barre home in 1961, and fled the scene with myself in tow. He assaulted my teenaged uncle and my grandfather, and my grandpop suffered a massive heart attack as a result. He damn near died. I was barely 2-1/2-years-old at the time.
For reasons that escape me now, my grandmother begged the police to high-tail it to the airport (which one I'm not sure), but they declined. They told her, "He'll show up eventually."
Well, I did show up. Almost two years later, I showed up in a Pinellas County, Florida courtroom in the custody of my father's lawyer. My father was jailed some months earlier and steadfastly refused to divulge my whereabouts. Turns out, I was living with his new girlfriend in Clearwater.
During those two years, both my mom and her mom were beyond frantic to find me. They barely ate, slept or thought of anything but finding me. My grandmother spent ten of thousands trying to locate me. And during this drawn-out nightmare for my mom, she lost her baby, which would have been my only sister.
With all of that said, my grandma went to her grave swearing that all of it could have been avoided if only the police had listened to her when first they arrived on the scene.
As for this state trooper's death--a hero--the police pursued, something horrible happened as a result, but there's a 9-year-old boy still safe and sound with his mom.
The point is, there's no telling what could happen to, or where some little kid might end up if the police do not pursue.
Markie in Nord End
I know firsthand what the residual after-effects of such a traumatic event can do to a close-knit family, unwanted after-effects that can last for years, and for some, decades on end. And in my heart of hearts, I truely wish that, back in the day, there was this responding police officer who was aggressive in nature whenever toddlers were being illegally whisked away from their lives. If only.
It all reminds me of when my first step-father would lash my bared back and bottom with a fake diamond-encrusted leather belt to the point of dripping blood onto the floor beneath me. When I screamed out not only in horror, but in the utmost of shocked defiance. When my defenseless 3-year-old step-sister was punched in the face and sent spinning like a top into the wall behind her. When I wondered how and why all of this was happening to me. When my battered and obviously bruised and bloodied mother would seek out police assistance only to be told, "He's drunk. Put him to bed." Where were the Trooper Millers of the world on those most darkest of our usual days?
Different time, different mindset, I suppose.
I know Trooper Miller made the ultimate in sacrifices, and I'm heartsick about that. And it's beyond regrettable that things had to be culminated the way they did. But I'm thinking there's a 9-year-old boy out there that will never, ever forget him no matter what.
For what it’s worth, them’s my scattered thoughts on all of that.Later
Editor's shout out: Hey, Norton...good luck with the upcoming judicial review. I sure hope they don't permanently disbar you.Sunday, June 7, 2009
Philanthrophy: Out of sight and out of mind
Graduation season is afoot. So, yesterday, I attended a graduation party rather than the gathering of The Saturday OT Committee and Operatic Society. And as far as future blogosphere gatherings are concerned, you people need to give me more advance warning.
I know these sorts of soirees always coincide with those high-stakes horse races. But the thing is, I pay horse racing about as much attention as I give my former mayor praise.
As far as my attending graduation parties is concerned, I’d rather have my skin peeled off and force-fed to me. Covered in barbeque sauce, of course.
Whatever.
Has anyone paid a visit to the new Sonic yet?
I had a job half rained out on me Friday, so I decided to hit the Orloski’s Lube Shop on Mundy Street for an oil change. Coming from Parsons, I stupidly passed my turn and continued down Kidder and waited to turn left into the mall entrance.
Needless to say, Sonic was flat-out bombed. Every one of those ordering stalls were filled with cars, there was a huge line at the drive-thru and there were people milling all about. With all of those stalls filled with perfectly lined up cars, it has this drive-in movie feel about the place. Weird.
But here’s the weirder part. The entrance to the place was essentially shut down. Yeah, the path was blocked by a guy wearing a high-visibility vest, he was waving a flashlight with an attached safety wand while standing in front of a wall of traffic cones. And with people wanting to get in there, this was creating an impromptu traffic snarl as confused drivers were stopping their vehicles dead in the water. With my path blocked, my confusion resulted in my joining the rubbernecking orgy. Or in more common parlance, what the (F-based curse word)?
Once I finally made my left turn towards Mundy Street, I encountered the first arrow-laden sign that read: Sonic Staging Lot. And there, just to my right, was this growing army of cars being jockeyed into a waiting line of sorts by more of these guys sporting the vests and the flashlights. What the (another F-bomb)?
While none of this makes sense to me--waiting in an hour-long line to snag a burger--it now makes sense to me when Sue Henry said on WILK that her kids waited over an hour to get into this burger joint. Now I understand.
While I understand the novelty aspect of all of this, the fact is, it’s easier to gain entrance to Giant’s Stadium when those cheap-shot, late-hit bastards from Philthydumpia head north than it is to get a shot at Sonic.
I don’t know anyone who’s actually toughed it out and made it in there, but you can read one local man’s review here.
So, if you’re planning on heading up to Sonic anytime soon, plan accordingly. And since we’re all alarmed over the quickening pace of homicides in this county of late, try cutting in that line and see if that doesn’t generate some more work for the district attorney’s office.
Good luck with that.
This one caught my eye:
Junior League raises funds for Ruth’s Place
The Junior League of Wilkes-Barre, a women’s philanthropic organization, will bestow a sizable donation to recently relocated homeless shelter Ruth’s Place during its 75th anniversary dinner on Tuesday.
The JLWB, comprised of 40 active members and more than 150 sustaining members, raised $24,000 for Ruth’s Place, which provides transitional housing for local homeless women.The Junior League’s mission is to meet community needs, especially those of women and children, said Jo-Anne Moss, the JLWB board adviser.
Moss joined the League in 1999, looking for volunteer opportunities after her son began high school.
“Now I’ve been here 10 years,” she said, taking a break from painting a room at the new Ruth’s Place shelter.
Trust me, I do not intend to bore you by railing against Ruth’s Place every time it gets a mention in the press. It’s in very, very close proximity to this modest adobe, it’s my idiot magnet, it’s my problem and my issue to deal with. And deal with it I will!
But…this snippet from the tail end of the article had me shaking my head in disbelief and babbling incoherently to myself under my breath.
“I think this gift is going to be an extraordinary help for Ruth’s Place,” Bolan said. “We are moving into our new home, which is in dire need of renovations. This will allow us to provide to the women a safe, secure, productive environment in which they can find permanent housing.”
Junior League members will celebrate their organization’s 75th anniversary with a dinner Tuesday at the Westmoreland Club in Wilkes-Barre. During the dinner, members will present the check to Bolan and Keith and Julie Benjamin, shelter coordinators.
How perfect is that? The Westmoreland Club. The Westmoreland Club crowd. The cloistered meeting place of the high and mighty, the privileged and the self-absorbed haughty who celebrate their philanthropic ways that undeniably help to destabilize the already fragile neighborhoods they’ll never, ever see.
I know these sorts of soirees always coincide with those high-stakes horse races. But the thing is, I pay horse racing about as much attention as I give my former mayor praise.
As far as my attending graduation parties is concerned, I’d rather have my skin peeled off and force-fed to me. Covered in barbeque sauce, of course.
Whatever.
Has anyone paid a visit to the new Sonic yet?
I had a job half rained out on me Friday, so I decided to hit the Orloski’s Lube Shop on Mundy Street for an oil change. Coming from Parsons, I stupidly passed my turn and continued down Kidder and waited to turn left into the mall entrance.
Needless to say, Sonic was flat-out bombed. Every one of those ordering stalls were filled with cars, there was a huge line at the drive-thru and there were people milling all about. With all of those stalls filled with perfectly lined up cars, it has this drive-in movie feel about the place. Weird.
But here’s the weirder part. The entrance to the place was essentially shut down. Yeah, the path was blocked by a guy wearing a high-visibility vest, he was waving a flashlight with an attached safety wand while standing in front of a wall of traffic cones. And with people wanting to get in there, this was creating an impromptu traffic snarl as confused drivers were stopping their vehicles dead in the water. With my path blocked, my confusion resulted in my joining the rubbernecking orgy. Or in more common parlance, what the (F-based curse word)?
Once I finally made my left turn towards Mundy Street, I encountered the first arrow-laden sign that read: Sonic Staging Lot. And there, just to my right, was this growing army of cars being jockeyed into a waiting line of sorts by more of these guys sporting the vests and the flashlights. What the (another F-bomb)?
While none of this makes sense to me--waiting in an hour-long line to snag a burger--it now makes sense to me when Sue Henry said on WILK that her kids waited over an hour to get into this burger joint. Now I understand.
While I understand the novelty aspect of all of this, the fact is, it’s easier to gain entrance to Giant’s Stadium when those cheap-shot, late-hit bastards from Philthydumpia head north than it is to get a shot at Sonic.
I don’t know anyone who’s actually toughed it out and made it in there, but you can read one local man’s review here.
So, if you’re planning on heading up to Sonic anytime soon, plan accordingly. And since we’re all alarmed over the quickening pace of homicides in this county of late, try cutting in that line and see if that doesn’t generate some more work for the district attorney’s office.
Good luck with that.
This one caught my eye:
Junior League raises funds for Ruth’s Place
The Junior League of Wilkes-Barre, a women’s philanthropic organization, will bestow a sizable donation to recently relocated homeless shelter Ruth’s Place during its 75th anniversary dinner on Tuesday.
The JLWB, comprised of 40 active members and more than 150 sustaining members, raised $24,000 for Ruth’s Place, which provides transitional housing for local homeless women.The Junior League’s mission is to meet community needs, especially those of women and children, said Jo-Anne Moss, the JLWB board adviser.
Moss joined the League in 1999, looking for volunteer opportunities after her son began high school.
“Now I’ve been here 10 years,” she said, taking a break from painting a room at the new Ruth’s Place shelter.
Trust me, I do not intend to bore you by railing against Ruth’s Place every time it gets a mention in the press. It’s in very, very close proximity to this modest adobe, it’s my idiot magnet, it’s my problem and my issue to deal with. And deal with it I will!
But…this snippet from the tail end of the article had me shaking my head in disbelief and babbling incoherently to myself under my breath.
“I think this gift is going to be an extraordinary help for Ruth’s Place,” Bolan said. “We are moving into our new home, which is in dire need of renovations. This will allow us to provide to the women a safe, secure, productive environment in which they can find permanent housing.”
Junior League members will celebrate their organization’s 75th anniversary with a dinner Tuesday at the Westmoreland Club in Wilkes-Barre. During the dinner, members will present the check to Bolan and Keith and Julie Benjamin, shelter coordinators.
How perfect is that? The Westmoreland Club. The Westmoreland Club crowd. The cloistered meeting place of the high and mighty, the privileged and the self-absorbed haughty who celebrate their philanthropic ways that undeniably help to destabilize the already fragile neighborhoods they’ll never, ever see.
I had this conversation a while back with a certain mayor, and I was told it’s best to not go there. It’s best not to badmouth or criticize in any way the uppity self-important who think they know best how to cure the ills they have purposely insulated themselves from. Yes, the hoity-toity donate to all of the “worthy causes,” so they are apparently above reproach.
Meanwhile, what they would never admit to is that they’d be concerned for their safety if caught after dark anywhere near any of the recipients of their philanthropy. These people, by way of their “generosity,” enable the idiot magnets, but then turn around and join the cacophony of voices holding to task the elected officials who’s job it is to ensure the public’s safety.
And that was the point I was trying to make with that mayor. That the Richie Richs of the world want to be basked in all of the warm and gooey accolades that their charitable ways afford them, but they’ll also direct their ire at you in a very public way when the perception is that crime is on the rise. And god forbid if crime were to actually reach out and touch them. God forbid the day when some malnourished, hung over homeless chick beats the freaking snot out of their khaki-wearing honor student just home from the Ivy school.
Crime? That’s what happens to those unsophisticated types that wallow away in the cities, correct? Crime? That’s the well-deserved plague of the poor people, yes? Well, Trevor, that could never happen to us. Now lift some cake to your mouth and put such disturbing thoughts out of your head. And where is Fillmore with that caviar? Good help is so hard to find. Fillmore!
I swear, there should be a duality law whereas philanthropic endeavors are concerned. It goes like this. If you donate, say, $35,000 to any inner-city idiot magnet, there should have to be a matching donation of $35,000 paid to the city in question for the purposes of hiring a new police officer. It’s only fair to pay to offset the idiocy you perpetuated by way of your charity. It’s the right thing to do. You enabled the idiocy, so pay for the necessary control measures and the people who will have to carry them out.
And, please, resist the urge in any e-mail form to tell me how utterly mean, hard-hearted or rigidly callous I may seem to be. I need no dissertations on poverty or how debilitating it can be for the mind and the soul. Before you go there, know that I spent my formative years in a public housing project while our only income was welfare. My mom waited in long lines for government surplus cheese. We shopped at rummage sales in church basements. While you were bored with and complained about your Fruit Loops, I ate those substandard bagged cereals that farmers wouldn’t inflict upon their hogs. I suffered the indignity of having to use government-issued coupons to secure a lunch in the school cafeteria. And hand-me-downs from relatives and friends kept us clothed much of the time. I want nor need any lectures about how tough some people may have it.
The biggest difference between poor people then and poor people now is that the poor people of old spent far, far less of their time committing crimes than do the poor people of today. Today, the poor people will smash your car window for an open pack of cigarettes. Back then, the poor simply did without. Today, the poor people will assault you, perhaps kill you for the measly contents of your pockets. In the old days, the poor only got to assaulting people when other more well-heeled people had demeaning things to say about the poor. Well, at least, that’s the way I approached it. That’s what the enormous chip on my shoulder commanded me to do.
Long story short, being miserably poor sucks. And having no real hope or reachable dreams can lead one to some very dark places, places where most have never gone, places I‘ve seen firsthand. But there is no excuse for lawlessness, idiocy and mayhem coming from those who do not like their current predicament.
Back then, you waited in line for free cheese-like substances made from fermented curd-like materials. These days, you do what you will, laws, civility and courtesy be damned, and all on the donated dime of the insulated do-gooders who do not want to be anywhere near what they alone create and then perpetuate. They wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near what they have now situated, literally, in my back yard.
So, despite the advice I received, I went there. I went and chastised the uppity, the self-important philanthropic who fund reverse-gentrification in my city. And now, in my neighborhood. In my back yard. It’s personal for me. But for the self-absorbed upper crust, it’s, as always, out of sight and out of mind.
Later
Durango
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Erring on the side of transparency
WARNING: The following internet post includes…well, you’ll see.
This is what I typed on May 5, 2009:
And then we’ve got twenty people running for the study commission, if and when the voters vote yes to the formation of another governmental reform brain trust. I believe we can vote for eleven.
I have followed the less than heavy publicized exploits of this current group, and I have followed the latest on their Web site. And I have to tell you, other than Walter Griffith, this group is comprised of 19 complete strangers. In all honesty, I know so very little about any of them, I fail to see how I could or would cast a vote for any of them. A commission of unknowns? Who best? Got me by the ball bearings.
With the election now behind us, the Government Study Commission members are as follows: Jim Haggerty, Walter Griffith Jr., John Adonizio, Veronica Ciaruffoli, Frank E. P. Conyngham, Jack Schumacher, Rick Morelli, Richard “Kick” Heffron, Robert “Whammer” Wanyo, Christopher “C. J.” Kersey, Charmaine Maynard.
Since that election, I have come to learn that one of the commission members is a convicted felon. A person who I voted for based completely on her strong and loyal WILK following, on ‘word of mouth’ if you will. So much for that voting criteria. Never again. And I’ve also learned that another member is a convicted serial drunk driver. Nice.
With that typed, go back to what I wrote before we chose from the longish list of unknowns: In all honesty, I know so very little about any of them, I fail to see how I could or would cast a vote for any of them. And yet, here they are, warts and convictions and all, reinventing the governmental wheel.
But I did vote for two from that elongated list. Yeah, I did. And as fate would have it, we are now dependant upon a convicted felon and a drunk driver for a better form of county government. Wonderful. And what other wonderful surprises are we in for?
Will the pederasts please step forward?
And what’s with the constant use of the nicknames in the press? Is this a professionally-minded government study commission, or is this junior high school revisited? (Quit nekkin' on me, you fem!) “Kick?” “Whammer?” Get over it.
…so vote for me, Mark “The Durango Kid” Cour. While I may not be the smartest of the bunch, I am unpredictably wild and crazy, fun at parties and a proven street fighter.
*Photo: Zachary Bryce Cour. Like grandfather, like grandson.
This is what I typed on May 5, 2009:
And then we’ve got twenty people running for the study commission, if and when the voters vote yes to the formation of another governmental reform brain trust. I believe we can vote for eleven.
I have followed the less than heavy publicized exploits of this current group, and I have followed the latest on their Web site. And I have to tell you, other than Walter Griffith, this group is comprised of 19 complete strangers. In all honesty, I know so very little about any of them, I fail to see how I could or would cast a vote for any of them. A commission of unknowns? Who best? Got me by the ball bearings.
With the election now behind us, the Government Study Commission members are as follows: Jim Haggerty, Walter Griffith Jr., John Adonizio, Veronica Ciaruffoli, Frank E. P. Conyngham, Jack Schumacher, Rick Morelli, Richard “Kick” Heffron, Robert “Whammer” Wanyo, Christopher “C. J.” Kersey, Charmaine Maynard.
Since that election, I have come to learn that one of the commission members is a convicted felon. A person who I voted for based completely on her strong and loyal WILK following, on ‘word of mouth’ if you will. So much for that voting criteria. Never again. And I’ve also learned that another member is a convicted serial drunk driver. Nice.
With that typed, go back to what I wrote before we chose from the longish list of unknowns: In all honesty, I know so very little about any of them, I fail to see how I could or would cast a vote for any of them. And yet, here they are, warts and convictions and all, reinventing the governmental wheel.
But I did vote for two from that elongated list. Yeah, I did. And as fate would have it, we are now dependant upon a convicted felon and a drunk driver for a better form of county government. Wonderful. And what other wonderful surprises are we in for?
Will the pederasts please step forward?
And what’s with the constant use of the nicknames in the press? Is this a professionally-minded government study commission, or is this junior high school revisited? (Quit nekkin' on me, you fem!) “Kick?” “Whammer?” Get over it.
…so vote for me, Mark “The Durango Kid” Cour. While I may not be the smartest of the bunch, I am unpredictably wild and crazy, fun at parties and a proven street fighter.
What the (mother of all curse words)?!?
And then we have this ridiculous flap, courtesy of today's Times Leader:
Home rule study transparency mulled
A debate is brewing over whether the new Home Rule Study Commission will comply with the state Sunshine Act, which requires public agencies to keep certain meetings and hearings open to the public.
Commission member Jim Haggerty, an attorney, points to a section of the state’s home rule law that says study commissions “may hold private hearings.”
Haggerty said he believes commission meetings should generally be open to the public, but he wants to reserve the right to meet in private to discuss “sensitive” matters.
“To get honest answers on certain issues, it may require private hearings. To get frank opinion on the usefulness of a row office or one of the county’s 50 agencies, for example, we may have to deliberate in private,” Haggerty said.
But commission member Walter Griffith said the commission owes it to the people to keep all deliberation open to the public so everyone understands the rationale behind the panel’s decisions. That includes topics that are “dicey” and controversial, he said.
The state Department of Community and Economic Development manual on home rule says study commissions meet the definition of an agency that must comply with the Sunshine Act, he stressed.
“The people want transparency in government,” Griffith said. “That’s what made 77 percent of the people pull the lever to study home rule, and we’re going to give them less transparency?”
Err on the side of caution, anyone? Why not go above and beyond whereas transparency is concerned? Why not?
This is disturbing in it’s similarity to the mindset of the locally elected. Then again, consider the source:
“My concern is simple: We operate under the home rule law and should not create a perception that we are bound by anything other than home rule law,” Haggerty said. “It doesn’t mean we can’t choose to honor most of the requirements of the Sunshine Act, but it shouldn’t be forced on us.”
So, much like the government it has been charged to improve, the study commission will pick and choose which sets of rules and guidelines it feels like abiding by. The letter of the Sunshine Law should not be forced upon them. Does that not sound eerily familiar to what a county commissioner might say to a probing local reporter?
So, right out of the gate, the first issue on the agenda is whether or not to create the ultimate model of transparency? Right from the get-go, they can’t decide whether or not to conduct their business like the politicians they were elected to clean up after? A commission member, the Mayor of Kingston, thinks the meetings should “generally be open to the public.” Generally. Generally, I’d say he ought to defer further public statements to the felons and the drunk drivers.
It sounds to me as if the career politician in him has spoken. And spoken very, very poorly, I might add.
So, while we’re all trying to discern which one, or how many of these study commission members, these candidates were born and raised in Manchuria, I’d say we’ve got ourselves an early frontrunner.
And I’ll say this much for Walter Griffith. Whether he’s correct or wildly incorrect with his interpretation of the way the rules may or may not apply to government study commissions, if he’s wrong, then all that he is guilty of is erring on the side of transparency. In my denuded mind, not a bad error to make.
And in that respect, his credibility as a true reformer of government has risen exponentially.
Remember what Wilkes-Barre School Board candidate Harry Haas had to say to the following prompt from your hated author:
Question: What’s your favorite color?
Answer: Transparency.
God damn right!!!
Like ‘em or not, them’s my thoughts on all of that.
Later
Mark “The Durango Kid” Cour
*Photo: Zachary Bryce Cour. Like grandfather, like grandson.Friday, June 5, 2009
Stimulate this!
Not much time to write of late. I’ve been working a lot. I’ve been working in the rain a lot, but that’s a whole other dilemma.
If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ve probably figured out on your own that this so-called “stimulus package” bullsh*t is just that--bullsh*t. The great majority of these funds are being funneled into projects that benefit the, quote/unquote, “low to moderate-income residents.” Those would be the voters who vote based on their wants rather than what the country needs.
That’s code for one of the largest and most loyal democrat voting blocs--the perpetually underachieving poor. And almost all of the so-called ”shovel-ready” projects that are receiving stimulus funding directly benefit both unionized tradesman, and black entrepreneurs; two other very large and extremely loyal democrat voting blocs.
And yet, the lame brained are on WILK most days telling republicans what they must do to reenergize their party. I say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or in this case, do what the democrats did as in mortgage the future for the benefit of one’s political party right now. Oh, and in 2010 when those mid-term elections come due. You know the disingenuous drill: create some emergency, create the solution, and then reward all of your voting blocs.
From the Times Leader:
12 county projects funded
Luzerne County officials are spending their $1.3 million in stimulus funding on 12 projects, including a new outdoor reading area at the Hoyt Library in Kingston and renovations at the new site of Ruth’s Place women’s homeless shelter.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding must be spent on projects that will be completed by Jan. 31.
The projects must also principally benefit low/moderate-income residents, eliminate slum and blight or meet an “urgent need” as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said county Community Development Director Andy Reilly.
County commissioners designated a team of seven employees to rank the 25 applications.
So far, so bad. Basically, they formed the local version of the Goodies R Us Advisory Panel. Thank you, Jesus. Sorry. I meant to say, thank you, Barack. We love you, even though you keep apologizing for “your” country every time they fire up the teleprompter.
Andy Reilly? Is he still living on the taxpayer's dole? Man! Some people. Some people have no respect for themselves, nor do they deserve any.
On with the financial idiocy, i.e., the financial/political gamesmanship.
“The committee worked diligently to fund the best projects that were submitted, and we look forward to seeing completion of these worthwhile community development projects,” Reilly said.
Ruth’s Place will receive $25,000 for move-in renovations at its new leased location at rear 425 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, Reilly said.
The shelter has been housed at the First Baptist Church on River Street since November but serves only as an overnight shelter. Once the shelter moves into its new home, it will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to better help women overcome problems that led to their homelessness.
“This money is invaluably helpful to Ruth’s Place,” shelter board President Bill Bolan said on Tuesday.
The shelter is still seeking more donations to complete renovations, so an opening date has not been set, Bolan said. The work funded by stimulus money must be bid out, Bolan said.
And I ask you, what better way is there to stimulate the economy of Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County than by pouring “free” money we do not have into yet another feel-good pet project of the politicos? What, exactly, will that $25,000 stimulate other than calls for police assistance from the neighbors of that drunk tank posing as a quasi social service agency?
And no opening date has been set? Well then, I guess Bolan was telling a major league fib when he testified before the Zoning Board on April 15th that, if the zoning variance were to be approved, the new and improved drunk tank would be open within 30 days--by May 15th.
And I guess he was simply in error, not lying, when he testified that the drunk tank’s tenants would not have easy access to alcohol. Thing is, if you stand just outside the front door of the new location, you can see the neon signs at Mahon’s Pub just across the boulevard.
And when I did my last police ride along on May 3, 2007, Officer Rolman and myself toured what little was left of the complex after a call came in that kids were mucking about in the wreckage back there. In less than a year, the inattentiveness of the owner combined with the recyclable-seeking homeless had left the place a vandalized shell of it’s former slipshod self. It was destroyed.
And don’t get me started about the owner, Patel, who is currently suing the city of Wilkes-Barre over the city’s forced closing of that sh*thole. His suit is groundless, baseless and laughable at best. To call it a frivolous lawsuit would be to grossly understate how completely absurd it truly is. It was ordered closed because he allowed it to become what it became under his ill-fated and lackadaisical ownership…a total sh*thole.
In conclusion, if that dump, if that idiot magnet burned to the ground and no one was injured in the process…that sounds like a plan to me. And the next time anything on that long-abandoned property bursts into flames, I’d have absolutely no problem with the fire department being ordered to stand down.
It’s time for the homeless to move on. It’s time for them to find a new place to ransack, vandalize and strip bare. It’s time for a new 10 or 20,000-square-foot toilet and empty beer bottle depository in which to bed down in. That is, assuming they won’t all be living directly across the street from this modest adobe.
That reminds me, before that ‘stimulating’ homeless shelter opens, I’ll have to get on over to Home depot and buy plenty of batteries for the portable police scanners.
Remember, I’ll be playing the fly to that excrement.
Times Leader, April 16, 2009 again:
About 20 people attended Wednesday’s hearing, many of them supporters of the shelter. Mark Cour, who told the board he lives “within 120 feet” of the shelter’s new location, said he’s concerned about crime and other problems that could occur because of the shelter relocating.“This is a neighborhood. They just about characterized it as an industrial park,” Cour said.
“I do not believe a neighborhood that has not been ravaged by crime (or reverse-gentrification) … is the right place for a 24-hour homeless shelter. The North End is a pretty peaceful neighborhood. We aim to keep it that way.”
Bye
If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ve probably figured out on your own that this so-called “stimulus package” bullsh*t is just that--bullsh*t. The great majority of these funds are being funneled into projects that benefit the, quote/unquote, “low to moderate-income residents.” Those would be the voters who vote based on their wants rather than what the country needs.
That’s code for one of the largest and most loyal democrat voting blocs--the perpetually underachieving poor. And almost all of the so-called ”shovel-ready” projects that are receiving stimulus funding directly benefit both unionized tradesman, and black entrepreneurs; two other very large and extremely loyal democrat voting blocs.
And yet, the lame brained are on WILK most days telling republicans what they must do to reenergize their party. I say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or in this case, do what the democrats did as in mortgage the future for the benefit of one’s political party right now. Oh, and in 2010 when those mid-term elections come due. You know the disingenuous drill: create some emergency, create the solution, and then reward all of your voting blocs.
From the Times Leader:
12 county projects funded
Luzerne County officials are spending their $1.3 million in stimulus funding on 12 projects, including a new outdoor reading area at the Hoyt Library in Kingston and renovations at the new site of Ruth’s Place women’s homeless shelter.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding must be spent on projects that will be completed by Jan. 31.
The projects must also principally benefit low/moderate-income residents, eliminate slum and blight or meet an “urgent need” as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said county Community Development Director Andy Reilly.
County commissioners designated a team of seven employees to rank the 25 applications.
So far, so bad. Basically, they formed the local version of the Goodies R Us Advisory Panel. Thank you, Jesus. Sorry. I meant to say, thank you, Barack. We love you, even though you keep apologizing for “your” country every time they fire up the teleprompter.
Andy Reilly? Is he still living on the taxpayer's dole? Man! Some people. Some people have no respect for themselves, nor do they deserve any.
On with the financial idiocy, i.e., the financial/political gamesmanship.
“The committee worked diligently to fund the best projects that were submitted, and we look forward to seeing completion of these worthwhile community development projects,” Reilly said.
Ruth’s Place will receive $25,000 for move-in renovations at its new leased location at rear 425 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, Reilly said.
The shelter has been housed at the First Baptist Church on River Street since November but serves only as an overnight shelter. Once the shelter moves into its new home, it will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to better help women overcome problems that led to their homelessness.
“This money is invaluably helpful to Ruth’s Place,” shelter board President Bill Bolan said on Tuesday.
The shelter is still seeking more donations to complete renovations, so an opening date has not been set, Bolan said. The work funded by stimulus money must be bid out, Bolan said.
And I ask you, what better way is there to stimulate the economy of Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County than by pouring “free” money we do not have into yet another feel-good pet project of the politicos? What, exactly, will that $25,000 stimulate other than calls for police assistance from the neighbors of that drunk tank posing as a quasi social service agency?
And no opening date has been set? Well then, I guess Bolan was telling a major league fib when he testified before the Zoning Board on April 15th that, if the zoning variance were to be approved, the new and improved drunk tank would be open within 30 days--by May 15th.
And I guess he was simply in error, not lying, when he testified that the drunk tank’s tenants would not have easy access to alcohol. Thing is, if you stand just outside the front door of the new location, you can see the neon signs at Mahon’s Pub just across the boulevard.
And this one gets me to slapping my surgically-reconstructed knee. The following knee-slapper is from a Times Leader story published on April 16, 2009:
“Bolan said the women who stay at the shelter are required to participate in drug and alcohol counseling and other treatment on site. The shelter has a “zero tolerance” policy of drugs and alcohol, and finds other facilities for women who do not obey the shelter’s guidelines.”
Really? Fine, then name for me another women’s shelter in the greater Wilkes-Barre area. Better yet, name for me one willing to take the drunken rejects from the competing (for grant monies) homeless shelters. That’s right. You nailed it. There ain’t any.
It seems to me as if that there Wilkes-Barre Zoning Board of ours is either totally incompetent, unable to think things through to a logical conclusion, or is easily swayed by the grant-dependent do-gooders armed with their make-it-up-as-you-go bullspit, bleeding heart stories.
Anyway, there you have it. There are your “stimulus” dollars at work: bringing the hapless, the incorrigible, the inebriated, the opiate-numbed, the paroled and the potentially violent to an otherwise peaceful neighborhood.
So, what the downtown soup kitchen did for it’s surrounding area--render it completely uninhabitable--so will the homeless shelter do for this minute part of Nord End. We’re using “stimulus” dollars to bring an unwanted idiot magnet to an otherwise quiet oasis here in the Nord End.
Stimulate this!
It irks me every single time WILK’s Steve Corbett says to a caller, “Why do you believe what you think you believe?”
Oh…isn’t that clever? Steve, you are so freaking clever. Did you think that one up all by yourself? Or did one of your Marxist, same-sex, America-hating college professors hit you in the chops with that one while you were nursing a hangover?
Point blank, it’s an insult. He’s basically saying you are too completely dumb to know what to believe. You know, you should believe the right things, the things that he believes. This insulting bilge from the man who frequently shouts, “I am a feminist.”
A feminist? Nah. More like thoroughly henpecked. More like easily emasculated.
Well, I’ve got one for him.
Steve, why do you believe only what your wife allows you to believe?
Answer me that.
I hesitate to say such a thing, but I was pleased to learn late yesterday afternoon that the Red Carpet Inn on Kidder Street was engulfed in flames. I hesitate to say such things because working structure fires translate into meaning that firefighters are risking their lives.
Then again, knowing that complex like I know the back of my hand, I figured it’d be a “surround & drown,” meaning, the firefighters would not enter the structure until the fire was well under control.
My history with this complex goes back to my restaurant management days. And somehow, continued until just about today. When the city’s health department shut the place down in 2006 due to the limitless zoning violations as well as the deplorable sanitary conditions, the threat to the public’s health, I was there for two long days.
And when I did my last police ride along on May 3, 2007, Officer Rolman and myself toured what little was left of the complex after a call came in that kids were mucking about in the wreckage back there. In less than a year, the inattentiveness of the owner combined with the recyclable-seeking homeless had left the place a vandalized shell of it’s former slipshod self. It was destroyed.
And don’t get me started about the owner, Patel, who is currently suing the city of Wilkes-Barre over the city’s forced closing of that sh*thole. His suit is groundless, baseless and laughable at best. To call it a frivolous lawsuit would be to grossly understate how completely absurd it truly is. It was ordered closed because he allowed it to become what it became under his ill-fated and lackadaisical ownership…a total sh*thole.
In conclusion, if that dump, if that idiot magnet burned to the ground and no one was injured in the process…that sounds like a plan to me. And the next time anything on that long-abandoned property bursts into flames, I’d have absolutely no problem with the fire department being ordered to stand down.
It’s time for the homeless to move on. It’s time for them to find a new place to ransack, vandalize and strip bare. It’s time for a new 10 or 20,000-square-foot toilet and empty beer bottle depository in which to bed down in. That is, assuming they won’t all be living directly across the street from this modest adobe.
That reminds me, before that ‘stimulating’ homeless shelter opens, I’ll have to get on over to Home depot and buy plenty of batteries for the portable police scanners.
Remember, I’ll be playing the fly to that excrement.
Times Leader, April 16, 2009 again:
About 20 people attended Wednesday’s hearing, many of them supporters of the shelter. Mark Cour, who told the board he lives “within 120 feet” of the shelter’s new location, said he’s concerned about crime and other problems that could occur because of the shelter relocating.“This is a neighborhood. They just about characterized it as an industrial park,” Cour said.
“I do not believe a neighborhood that has not been ravaged by crime (or reverse-gentrification) … is the right place for a 24-hour homeless shelter. The North End is a pretty peaceful neighborhood. We aim to keep it that way.”
Bye
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Safety helmets must be worn
I’m not really understanding this forced reworking of General Motors.
According to the federal Department of Go-karts, GM will be abandoning it’s Hummer line, discontinuing it’s obvious obsession with building larger and larger and heavier SUVs, and will be building mostly golf cart-sized vehicles from here on out. In other words, it will be abruptly turning it’s back on what used to be it’s better selling product lines. (?)
So, since it’s sales are badly slumping, and since it can no longer sell the oversized vehicles America has obviously wanted for the past couple of decades, then the new plan is to build and market the much, much smaller vehicles America did not want all along?
Nothing perplexing about any of that.
Face it, Smart Cars and Chevy Volts are just not going to cut it, they are not practical vehicles if you happen to have more than zero children. If you have more than one child, I’d pay good money to watch you try and fit two of those horribly large child safety seats into any glorified go-kart.
My kid has a mid-sized Mazda. Not big, but not smallish. But, when she makes the trip from Knoxville to Wilkes-Barre, she has to rent a large SUV to fit herself, her husband, her two kids, the two horribly large child safety seats, the dog and the resulting luggage into the vehicle. All of which would never, ever fit into the Mazda. Long-run, it would be smart and prudent for her to purchase a new SUV when the Mazda starts showing it’s age.
Although, with the Oblahblah administration desperately trying to attach new taxes to practically everything without calling them taxes; and with democrats continually trying to force behavioral changes by way of illegally-applied sin taxes, I’m thinking my kid would be financially punished for simply going out and buying what’s smart and prudent to buy…exactly what she needs.
And rather than pay the sin taxes, and rather than become a social pariah in an increasingly dumbed-down and brainwashed society, perhaps she ought to just go with the tyrannical flow and buy two used Yugos for the purposes of visiting Pennsylvania.
Another thing. Have we given any concern to our safety while out and about amongst the hordes of unthinking people who regularly ignore stop signs, red lights and the yield signs? Almost all of which is done while greatly exceeding those annoying posted speed limits? Do we really feel like being T-boned in what amounts to as the new Yugos?
I could be missing something vitally important, but I just can’t see Americans clamoring for and purchasing vehicles barely the size of refrigerator shipping cartons. And if I’m truly getting it and accurately depicting what will likely happen, how does the GM transition from selling the more popular vehicles to building and marketing the far, far less in-demand vehicles make for a greater market share?
Personally, I think this will greatly enhance my safety while out and about on a bicycle. Because if you collide with my bicycle with one of your tiny new hybrid thingamabobs, there’s a good chance I‘ll be puffing on a smoke and watching intently while you’re being loaded into the waiting ambulance.
Chevy Volt versus Rock Stomper? Smart Car versus Hummer bicycle?
Bet on the bicycle.
And to those of you who may be tempted to dump your dinosaur of a vehicle for one of these toy cars of the future, a bit of good advice.
Remember, always wear your helmet. Because in the new motoring Amerika, safety helmets must be worn.
You’re welcome.
I understand that the actions of police officers must be scrutinized at all times. And I suspect, so do most responsible police officers. Being that they are entrusted with enormous powers, they need to be scrutinized by their higher-ups, the media and the general public.
And I’m not one for much hand-wringing when police officers discharge their weapons, resulting in the death of a civilian. Usually, a precursory look at the facts is enough to satisfy me that their actions were justified. Let’s see here. The guy was totally polluted, swinging a machete at the police officers and he ignored repeated commands to disarm himself and back off.
BANG!
While it may seem hard-hearted, while it may seem to be lacking some necessary concern or compassion, I’m good with that.
But in this Scranton case, while I’m hesitant to mention it in lieu of many much-needed facts, I can’t imagine why three or four police officers could not subdue a knife-wielding 52-year-old woman without shooting her multiple times, without killing her.
I know a few Wilkes-Barre cops. And one I would even call a friend. Now, if he were to have shot to death that very same woman, I would not make light of it due to the possibility that it may be weighing heavy on his heart. I’m close, but I’m not as yet that completely stupid.
But the juvenile part, the more dominant part of me would be just dying to bust his ball bearings. The thing is, I fully expect my Wilkes-Barre City cops, very many of which have military training, to be able to subdue just about any 52-year-old woman without killing them. There it is. I said it.
Yes, I know, the circumstances dictate the response. And quite often violent acts go down at dizzying speeds necessitating that one reacts before being able to think things through. But I can’t understand how an outnumbered, overmatched, off-her-game middle-aged woman (even one presenting a clear and present danger to the police officers involved) had to be what some might call...summarily executed. And, yeah, I said that, too. Summarily executed.
What? No electronic stun guns? No pepper spray? No non-lethal component? And if not, why not?
And to Scranton City officials, I really resent having to speculate at all. To think that city officials would be so wholly tight-lipped in the aftermath of such an unsettling incident is insufferably frustrating and terribly ill-advised. Five days have passed and not a word. No statement. No nothing. Three shooting deaths in seven years at the hands of the Scranton police, and mums the word? That’s unacceptable, ongoing investigation or no ongoing investigation.
Say what you will about them, but them’s my thoughts on that.
No takers on the Oblahblah questions, huh?
A rather shrewd experiment on my part.
To be honest, that’s about what I expected. Nobody from the Hope & Change crowd is of yet willing to admit that they’re beginning to have second thoughts. Any doubts.
Well, at least unwilling to post them as a reader’s comments, that is.
Here’s a sampling from the e-mail inbox:
Worrisome…disconcerting…alarming…problematic…and empty suit.
And you know damn well that smattering came from Oblahblah supporters. Because, any hard-core republican worth his weight would have been more than willing to blast the president in the comments section.
Whatever.
You wanted the inexperienced trainee and you got ‘im.
End shrewd experiment.
Later
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