Author: Dick

Sometimes I like to cast my lazy eye toward news in the places we don’t often hear from. You can learn a lot by doing that such as this VOTER FRAUD ALERT!!! courtesy of The Stowe Reporter in Stowe, Vt. It seems plans to renovate the Akeley Memorial building — a city office building from best I can tell — failed by a suspicious two votes.

“I a’m very discouraged this morning because obviously the election has been compromised,” Town Clerk Alison Kaiser said Wednesday.

Apparently someone is either bad with math there or someone is up to some shenanigans.

“Election workers checked and rechecked, but came up with the same numbers: 909 voters, 912 ballots cast. It is very unlikely that three people passed by the two voter-registry tables and cast ballots, election officials said. A more logical explanation is that three people were mistakenly given an extra ballot, used it, and told no one.” the Stowe Reporter article said.

I’m not totally sure what’s up with this picture from the Tobacco Valley News in Eureka, Mont. This is how the caption reads:

“Larry Driver, a carpenter with Burton Construction of Spokane, rivets planks into place at the Murphy Lake Ranger Station where their company is in charge of supervising the station’s’s expansion.”

Maybe I’m mistaken but it looks like a little grabassing going on to me. You two kids get back to work and finish riveting those planks or you’ll start paying me an allowance!

From the Mountain Home News in Mountain Home, Idaho. Well, just a bit of confusion. Granted, at more than 11,000 people, Mountain Home is not as small as say Sacul, Texas, or Tick Fever, Ark. But do you really think this is necessary:

“The Mountain Home City Council formally approved the creation of the new Urban Renewal District, after creating at its previous meeting the Urban Renewal District and appointing its commissioners.”

Next week look for the council to approve appointment of the commissioners for the new Urban Renewal District after formally approving the creation of the Urban Renewal District during the past week, one week after creating the Urban Renewal District.

There is just too much information out there in the world. It’s going to make my head explode. I’m sure you will read about it.

This is not the real Saleah. It is another dog that looks like Saleah and a rather pensive looking pooch at that.
There is a little good news to report on this cool and windy Wednesday. Saleah, a rambunctious chocolate lab, is back home with its family after its big adventure in Mr. EFD’s neighborhood.

I was out for a walk this morning when I found Saleah. I had just encountered the grouchy, shaggy, black dog that hangs out on Sixth Street. That mutt had barked at a safe distance (for the dog, it really is a bit of a wus)from me and each time it barked I would reply: “Shut up!” It didn’t listen to me of course. Just down the street I spotted this pretty chocolate lab looking at me. It was wagging its tail and then came running toward me and jumped up on me repeatedly as if it expected me to lead it in a tango.

This pooch had a collar and tags. But I had a Charles Dickens of a time getting it to sit still. I finally ordered it to “sit” and “stay” long enough to find a phone number on the tags. Good fortune raised its head a tad more in that I was able to actually read the phone number without my glasses, which I do not carry on my daily walks. I called the number. But got a recording.

I really wasn’t sure what to do with this dog. I told the recording that I would try to get the dog to come home with me so the people with whom it was associated could pick it up. The dog was following me when it wasn’t running at various shadows and peeing on every third bush.

We got to some kind of office and this woman had pulled up with an elderly woman in a van. They appeared to expect me to control my dog, which I tried to explain through rolled up windows that it wasn’t my dog. I suppose the woman driving was a bit leery because I had on a black sweatshirt with a hood and was wearing sunglasses, and was perhaps appearing a little too much like that police sketch of the Unabomber. I got the dog to come along though.

Fortunately, Saleah’s friend called me back in a couple of minutes. He said that he was just leaving work and could meet me at the intersection of North and Seventh streets in about five minutes. And he told me the dog’s name was Saleah, which I could see on the tags but didn’t know how to pronounce it.

It was rather difficult getting Saleah to stay but the fellow showed up and thus united were a boy and his dog. You may now wipe your eyes and blow your nose.

When I was younger I was in kind of a weird denial about feeling good when performing benevolent acts. It’s a rather complicated issue and I will not delve into it here. But at some point in time I felt it was okay to feel good about such deeds. You can feel all warm and tingly while helping out someone or something. A license for a little taste of selfishness. Heck of deal! So reuniting Saleah and its dude made my day. In the words of that great prophet James Brown: “I feel good.”

Using a six-shooter in knee-level warfare can be considered rather risky.
Since the Iraq war began I have listened, trying to keep from sometimes yelling inappropriately, whenever I heard the president’s propagandists saying that critics against the war were unpatriotic or traitorous. Now since the Bush administration is largely in the crapper, President GW is saying that himself to the American public. If the polls are right and since so many polls say the same thing, I suspect that the majority of the public recognizes a snake oil salesman even if he’s dressed up like a pig. Huh? Oh sorry. My metaphors were taken away and tortured by Dick Cheney. Or was it another Dick. Who knows?

I don’t know about you folks but I have had just about enough of people telling me I am a traitor or I am unpatriotic because I don’t think we should’ve gone off to invade Iraq. And that goes for Commander-in-chief (CinC) Shrub as well!

Such a cheap political ploy which actually encourages the degradation of our First Amendment rights is bad enough. But one facet of this sorry spectacle that I have not heard raised by punditry, port and starboard, is that implying such dissent hurts the troops can hurt the troops even more than the anti-war sentiments.

Basically, the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbergers as well as the Shrub Bushers are insulting U.S. military personnel by saying they can’t handle dissent. The country has come a long way since Vietnam in that the public can understand that the military has a job to do. Not everyone loves the military. But there is no big festering hatred of the troops among the many war critics.

Bush’s argument says to the U.S. service men and women: “You can’t handle the truth!” And that’s doing them a big disservice even though some of them are still in their teens. And can’t drink. And can still get killed fighting in service of their country.

Ours is not an army (or Navy or Marines or Air Force or Coast Guard) of babies. These troops hear a lot of things they don’t want to hear every day from their superiors. So I don’t think the truth is going to mortally wound them.

I am becoming convinced that my desktop computer is possessed by demons. Perhaps it has Demon 7.0 or some such. It either has demon possession, a virus or is just a temperamental sumbitch. I don’t know but perhaps it has a touch of all three. Some days it operates on all cylinders and other days — like today — it’s saying in a Mr. Bill voice:

“Oh no. Go away, leave me alone! All I want to do is sleep!

Perhaps I shouldn’t speak ill of my computer lest it explodes. I thought that was going to happen the other day. It started making a ticking sound. As I explained to my computer wiz friends in North Texas, if you wanted to be optimistic you’d say the noise sounded like a clock. If you are a pessimist (Who? Me?) then you might believe a timing device was inside your machine such as those used for, as Inspector Clouseau would say, “A bimb.” I also couldn’t cut the damn machine off. I finally resorted to throwing the power switch on the back of the computer. Weird!

So, short of reinstalling the operating system, I really don’t know what I should do. Should I gently stroke my computer and hum a soothing melody like “Fairies Wear Boots?” Or should I use tough love and threaten the machine with my use of its evil cousin the laptop? Or, should I just go bury my head in my pillow and think about it? You make the call? No. I’ll make the call this round. But thanks for offering.

A boat carried a mile or so by Rita from the water near Sabine Pass.
I just finished watching a special our local KFDM-TV 6 that looked back at Hurricane Rita in Southeast Texas. Lately all three local TV stations have had these annoying promo ads to claim they were there during the crunch time of the storm for the viewers. Maybe so. But I wonder how many viewers were left to see the local reports, especially when nearly all of the electricity was clobbered throughout these stations’ viewing area? Not to mention probably most of those viewers were hundreds of miles away from the local TV signals in safe places watching people like Fox News’ Shepherd Smith getting blown down by Rita’s wind in their home environs.

With that said and realizing that it is November “Sweeps” time for local stations, I did find the Channel 6 special to be a good recap of what happened during those first few days of the storm.

After some time to reflect on the storm I think maybe I really would have been safer at my apartment 45 miles from the coast than at my brother’s home almost 80 miles away from the Gulf. That sounds kind of weird I suppose. But Rita turned out to be hell on trees. And although you can still see blue tarps covering probably an average of every 10th house on my street for a two-mile stretch, this area was not then — and certainly not now — as covered with timber as where I rode out the storm. And the wind turned out be just as fierce where I “evacuated” as it was here in Beaumont at my apartment.

Theoretically no one was safe near where Rita made landfall. The photo I took above of the boat at Sabine Pass and quite a distance from the water is a good example. The Channel 6 report told of a couple of people who emerged from the hurricane at Sabine Pass, not too far west of where Rita came on shore, who were dazed and very lucky to be alive.

Alive is the operative word. No accurate death count exists that I have heard as to Rita’s damage. Channel 6 said something like 119. That is the most I’ve heard so far. I’ve also heard figures given for many less casualties. Very few died from the direct effects of the storm. That is not to lessen the sadness of those who lost loved ones.

But really, I said this just after Rita and I will say it forever: “We were fortunate.” And unfortunately part of that fortune stems from nearby Hurricane Katrina that preceded Rita by a week or two. We are still trying to figure out all that happened during Katrina. However, a lot of people here in Southeast Texas — from Western Louisiana to Surfside Beach near the southwest of Houston — took notice of Katrina. And they got out of Rita’s way.

One thing the TV report I saw tonight brought back was just how long this storm went on. Hurricanes are slow and noisy creatures. I have said before that I wasn’t really scared during the hurricane. If I had been able to fully hear, however, the huge trees in my brother’s yard being uprooted during that howling storm I can’t say how I might have felt then. That is of little consequence though. All that matters is that I’m here today. My family is here today. And although a lot of people lost stuff, that is all many of them lost, stuff.