1066 The Orangeman

1066 The Orangeman

(STATE COLLEGE PA) --  Meet Roddy O’Malley, a cranky, funny hardworking guy who came over from Armagh, Northern Ireland before they started calling it a city, and settled here.  You can say it either AR-mah or ar-MAH still be right.

Anyway, Roddy and some brothers and a sister settle here in County Centre and do what some Irish do when they get to America, work hard and don’t bother about a driver license because before long it’ll get suspended anyway.

Roddy works long hours in small jobs and buys himself a palatial home.  It’s called a “manufactured home,” earlier known as a “mobile home,” and before that, a trailer.  A nice house on a rented patch in a mobile home park, earlier known as a trailer park.

Sometimes he has a brother or two in the house, other times -- which he prefers -- he’s by himself.

Walks to work across the road, walks home afterward.

Now comes a notice from the landlord:  “You have until July, 2013 to find new accommodations.  We have sold the property -- the neighborhood -- and are putting up a new slum.”

That’s in quotation marks but it’s not exact.

This is the first of two such neighborhood shutdowns in this vicinity within a week. You can add another 100 or so to Roddy’s 299 neighbors for the second park which is to become another overpriced student housing “complex.”

Roddy says “We knew it had to happen.  After all, a shopping mall goes in front, big, expensive houses on the back.  Looks nicer than all this...” as he waves his hand toward a bunch of trailers, some pristine, some ramshackle, most somewhere in between.

Won’t the town stop this?

“Nah... they get rid of us undesirables, put in some new stuff and the taxes go way up.  You know a town doesn’t have its tongue hanging out for more taxes and fewer of... us?”

So how will you get to work?  No answer.  It depends on where Roddy and the rest of the worthless, dirty, unsightly bums land.

Most of the folks in these communities are underemployed.  Some get food stamps.  Others could but don’t and won’t.

The county has a whole program of relocation services because over the last while, many of these neighborhoods have fallen to the wreckers.  The money spent on relocation services maybe would have bought the land and started an ownership co-op for the residents.

But there are those tax increases and those municipal hanging tongues.  

Roddy and his guest crack open a couple of Buds and watch the kids minding this community’s perpetual bike sale which has been going on in the front yard since Ignaz Schwinn was a boy.

“You make any money on the bike sales?”

“Nah, nothing much.  But people see the bikes here.  Bring us more all the time.  We got a nice Fourth of July party out of about a year’s worth.  And we’re going to get some new Christmas decorations this year. Well, we were but maybe not now.”

It’s a community.  People work together to keep it looking decent.  They watch out for one another.  They work in the jobs that the rest of us don’t want in places where we don’t really see them even when we look at them when they’re checking us out of Wal-mart or cooking up ribs-to-go at the takeout or rotating our tires.

Roddy is putting on a little weight and has lost yet another tooth.  But his back and his hands are still able.  He speaks three languages.  Really one and two halves.  But enough to get by back in Armagh and in Shanghai. He’s an avid reader.  He’s an avid storyteller.

He doesn’t want to have to tell the one that’ll uproot him in just a few months after decades of supervising the perpetual bike sale.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
(Certified as all original by the Dustball Plagiarism Checker.)

1065 iVote and GoogleChoose

1065 iVote and GoogleChoose

First off, happy labor day to all my union brothers and sisters in Sagaftra, Nabet/CWA, the Wire Service Guild and the WGA.  And to members of IATSE, IBEW, and the Newspaper Guild. Solidarity forever!

Now, to the business at hand.

Time to download the latest pad and phone app, the most important one since Solitaire for Android or Backpage Cruiser for iPhone.  It’s the internet voting application, iVote for iPad and iPhone and GoogleChoose for the rest of us.

Since the latest mobile devices have front cams to go along with the back cams, all the states that are insisting on photo i.d.s can use live pictures and their facial recognition software to certify that you are not using a the name of a dead person stolen from a tombstone to vote twice or three times.  (Voter fraud is more widespread than you think!  Especially among poor and minority and illegal immigrant voters!  Can’t have enough security.)

And think of the money everyone will save because there need be no absentee or military duty ballots.  You can vote from your villa in Switzerland or from the battlefields of Pakistan, Iran and Syria at the same time as everyone else.

So you pass muster, the ballot opens up on the screen and there you are on the 6:35 to Seaford, doing your patriotic duty.  No worries about finding a parking space at the polling place.  No need to rub elbows with your moron neighbors.  And best of all, no lines.

Of course right thinking Americans will try to blast this out of the 4Gsphere.  Republicans fear big Democratic turnouts, you know -- something over 12 percent.  So they’ll cluck about community and the importance of making a special effort.  But they will lose -- both on the pollingPAD and in the various offices into which they are trying to lie their way.

But with the major players in the tech world behind this great leap forward, the Republicans have no chance of trashing it.  They’ll need help from like minded Democrats.
Voila! Instant end to inter party gridlock.  Everyone wins.  Except the jerk behind you on line who insists on violating the laws that sane states have: no electioneering within 50 feet of the entrance to a polling place.  Soon you’ll be rid of him, too.

Shrapnel:

--Why did the Republicans invite Clint Eastwood to speak?  Because John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston and the other four conservative tough-guy actors are dead.  And Fred Thompson is seen as soft on unions.

--We salute the recent push to buy local fruits, vegetables, meat and baked goods.  It helps build community, neighbors helping neighbors in a grand kaleidoscope of warmth and a spirit of cooperation.  And at no time worry about the work-downsized over the road trucker who kills his kidneys to bring in that icky outside stuff, even though he's somebody's local, too.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012

1064 Romney and Minorities

1064 Romney and Minorities

Plenty of support out there.  

African Americans For Romney:
They’ll be meeting in Condi’s SUV.  If everyone shows up, Herman Cain will offer use of one of his pizza delivery minivans.  If, as expected, they don’t need the minivan, they can lend it to the...

Mexican-Americans For Romney:
Which will be stopped on the Jersey Turnpike and the cop will turn them over to the INS which will find that they’re all citizens, just misguided.

Muslims For Romney:
They are hiding, probably in Montana.  No worries.  The NYPD will dispatch half a dozen red haired, freckle-faced Irishmen to infiltrate and report back.

Jews For Romney:
They’ll meet in Joe T’s Miata two-seater.  Joe at the wheel and that casino guy who used throw money at Newt will be in the passenger seat.

Native Americans For Romney:
Meeting scheduled for the 3rd floor men’s room at Foxwoods.

Gays and Lesbians For Romney:  They are meeting outdoors on Temple Square in Salt Lake City just because they can.

Deposed Heads of State For Romney:
Even though they can’t vote, they’re going to use some of their Swiss bank accounts to help out.  Gorbachev, Mubarak, Baby Doc, Robert Mugabe and Darth Vader are all on board.

Non White Children For Romney:  The majority of newborns in this country are minorities of one kind or another.  The children, of course, cannot vote.  But they can be displayed wearing badges and buttons and ribbons and baseball caps that say “Romney/Ryan in 2012.”  A survey of badge, button, ribbon and baseball cap makers shows a total of about four of each has been ordered.

So, let’s see what we have here.  Five deposed heads of state, eight Native Americans, two Jews, an unknown number of Muslims and gays, 18 Mexicans in a minivan stopped on the Jersey Turnpike with a newly broken taillight, and 18 African Americans (19 if Clarence Thomas wakes up this year.)

Pretty good.

You have to feel sorry for this guy, Willard.  He’s not overtly malicious.  He’s not overtly racist.  He isn’t even as out of touch and robotic as everyone says he is.  But he was raised in a double walled cocoon.   Wall one is privilege, wall two is absolutism.  And you never fully leave the ghetto, whether it’s a walled city in Poland, a housing project in Los Angeles or a mansion on the hill where “the trees are the right height” and a long trip with a dog strapped to the roof of the car is acceptable.    He, like the rest of us, is a product of his genes and his upbringing.  He doesn’t have to “be one of us,” but he does have to show something of a visceral understanding of people he just doesn’t get.

Shrapnel:

--No Bush attended the GOP convention except Jeb.  That’s the same as having to go to Sunday dinner at creepy Aunt Sophie’s if you’re the next candidate up when the present one loses. Still, it’s a large scale boycott, as more  Bushes are for Romney than are Mexicans and Jews.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012

1063 Dr. Cupcake

1063 Dr. Cupcake

(CHARLOTTE, NC) -- The Democratic national convention is coming to this fake city and people who still believe their votes count are getting busy.

Charlotte was built on the backs of slaves, run by King Cotton and Prince Tobacco.  The plantations and farms and auction barns of yore have given way to the puny wannabe skyline. And the plantation owners and farmers now have suits and run gluttonous banks that --like cotton and tobacco and slavery-- are too big to fail but do, anyway.

Their buildings are overlooked by the Lord Highest Bank of America Building, all 871 feet of it.  For perspective that's about 100 feet shorter than the Eiffel Tower and around the same height as the undistinguished and easy-to-miss CitySpyer Center on 56th Street in New York.

Onto this movie set will come thousands of supporters of President Obama who will cram into the TimeWarner Cable Arena, a basketball venue that looks like a huge clock that was knocked off a huge mantle and landed on its face. It is home to the hapless and hopeless Bobcats of the NBA, M. Jordan, prop.

In the midst of all of this, there is at least one bright spot, Dr. Cupcake, aka Michelle Wilson, aka Chelly.

What do you do with a PhD in an ... um ... fast moving field like anthropology?  The answer is either teach or find a real job.  And Dr. Wilson has, for the moment chosen the latter.

She bakes and sells retail and wholesale vegan relatively healthy cupcakes. A thing of beauty that won't hurt you if you don't overdo it.  And she's taking her show on the road to the convention, joining other pro-Obama merchants of health outside Mr. Jordan's Fallen Clock Arena.  It’s a short road. Chelly’s is based nearby.

She calls herself a "southern hippie." Hence everything in her baked goods is local.  Very 1960s.  Very American Dreamy.  Food with a mission.  

Attending the convention is a waste of time.  But come to Charlotte for the cupcakes.  They're worth the trip.

Want to hone your sugar craving skills?  Click here.

(Additional reporting by Dianne Thompson Stanciel in Charlotte)

Shrapnel:

--Where's Pat Robertson when you need him?  God is using "Isaac" to disrupt and visiting fear and shortness on the Teajadist Party Convention, as Katrina did to New Orleans.  Not a peep from the guy who keeps getting messages from the throne.

--Why some of the smart money is shorting the already bloated Apple stock even after Samsung was forced to drop major bucks for patent infringements:  If you think the engineers at Google, Verizon, T-Mobil, ATT and Sprint are going to sit still and pay the "apple tax," think again.  It won't be long until they come up with workarounds and find other sweet revenge.

--New info on why Generation Goofy is Generation Goofy.  A new study from a Duke University team operating in Australia says prolonged marijuana use leads to lower IQ test results.  The study compared scores from the same people at ages 13 and 38.


I'm Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them. (R)
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
(C) WJR 2012

1062 Bad Shot? So What?

1062 Bad Shot? So What?

Police officers Craig Matthews and Robert Sinishtaj are not going to win any marksmanship awards any time soon.  They're the officers who shot and killed a gunman in front of the Empire State Building.

But what they'll probably win for putting Jeffrey Johnson out of his and our misery is trial by public opinion and probably desk duty until the NYPD's glacial and assume-guilt internal affairs bureau finishes second guessing their decision to open fire in rush hour in front of one of the world's busiest and best known tourist attractions.

Johnson had killed his former supervisor Steven Ercolito on 33rd Street, rounded the corner of Fifth Avenue with his gun in a bag, pulled the gun and took aim.  Apparently he was felled before he got to pull the trigger. There were two bullets in the weapon.

Officers Matthews and Sinishtaj fired a lot of rounds.  Sixteen between them.  Five or seven or ten hit Johnson, depending who's telling the story and when.  Nine bystanders were wounded, three by actual bullets and six by flying debris. Unfortunate.  Sometimes unavoidable.  

Victim Ercolito has been elevated to the instant sainthood that often is visited upon the newly and violently dead by friends and relatives.

So, say you're a cop on a crowded and famous street and a guy pulls a gun, but not the trigger.  Not some newbie cop two days out of the academy and who doesn't need to shave... but a 15 year veteran of the force.  You're going to fire.  It's training.  It's reflex.  It's adrenaline.  Later, you will say you had to make an instantaneous judgment and wanted to save lives.  You'll remind people that you had no way of knowing how many bullets were in Johnson's handgun.

And many people will believe you.  But the number of people doesn't matter.  It only matters what IAB thinks and rules. 

What IAB will ultimately declare is that this is a good shooting by some bad shots.  A "good" shooting is police-speak for one that was proper and timed right.  But there will be some hoof-scraping and snorting about the injured.

Better to be wounded by a stray shot from a cop than killed by an aimed bullet by a killer with a .45 semi automatic in his hand.  Neither is a good result.  But one is better than the other.


Shrapnel:

--Neither cop had fired his weapon on duty before.  Many if not most cops never do.  No calls yet for "they should have used a Taser" or a tranquilizer dart, but someone's to make that kind of second guess.

--The two officers, one aged 39 and the other aged 40, will be eligible to retire after 20 years in, which will mean at ages 44 and 45.  That seems pretty young.  But a lot of cops do it because guys like Johnson can make you older than your years, and fast.



I'm Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them. (R)
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
(C) WJR 2012

1061 The UnConventions

1061 The UnConventions

The television networks got it right for a change.  Their coverage of the Democratic and Republican national conventions will be minimalist.  If you blink, you miss... nothing.

The conventions are bound to be dismal affairs for anyone who is not (a) a political junkie, (b) content-free show biz extravaganzas but without the leggy dancing girls, (c) rubber stamps for the candidates and above all, (d) boring and filled with lies.

When TV started covering these freak shows, it was gavel to gavel.  The main point back then was for ABC, CBS and NBC to say "Hey, look what we can do!"

Now it's time to say something else:  "Even in a time when prime time network viewing is waaaay down, we don't need you as much as you need us."

A story on this subject has been running on the internet and in the newspapers.  And one comment writer said "Bill Paley would never have permitted..." this short coverage.

Wrong.

Bill Paley wanted viewers, advertisers and money.  Reruns attract more of each than any convention in the last 374 years except '08, and that's just because Obama and Hillary were doing their pro-wrestling act.

My friend and colleague Brian Williams of NBC told the New York Times to increase viewer interest they might "sprinkle in some Olympic events. Floor vault is a personal favorite. Badminton, but that takes a lot of floor space."

Williams turned serious and said people are fed up with political news.  Indeed.

All three networks and Fix News will stream TV-like coverage on the internet.  And that should be enough.  More than enough.

I will miss Ann Romney's Stepford Speech on Monday night.  But I'd rather watch the Hawaii Five-O rerun more, even though I know how it turns out.

We'll miss the fake enthusiasm, the choreography more elaborate than anything Alvin Ailey or George Balanchine could have cooked up.

But at least this time, the networks won't have to post choking hazard warnings.

Shrapnel:
--The major party candidates agree on at least one general idea: we're in Afghanistan for awhile yet and we don't have a reason even though the American death toll has reached 2,000. And since we've unseated the Taliban and chased al Qaeda into our other great ally, Pakistan the job of killing US soldiers has fallen to a new terrorist organization.  The regular army of Afghanistan, trained, armed and financed by... us. 

--It's always nice to hear from friends on Facebook.  So thanks to Robert B. Parker.  Didn't have time to answer fan mail while you were alive but now that you're dead, you have more time because you don't need to eat or sleep?

--Things are getting busy at the WestraDamus secret mountain laboratory.  We are putting the finishing touches on "Sandusky, The Board Game."  We're hoping to have it on store shelves before the holiday gift-buying season.


I'm Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them. (R)
Please send comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
(C) WJR 2012

1060 Finally, an Answer

1060 Finally, an Answer
Finally figured out what was offputting about living in the country.  And the answer came when studying the difference between the brakes on a car and the brakes on a train.

Car brakes always are off unless you “turn” them on.  Train brakes are always on unless you “turn” them off.  You drive.  You come to a stop sign.  You push the brake pedal.  The car stops. 

On a train (or a truck with air brakes) you come to a stop signal and take your hand off the control lever.  The brakes return to their default position, which is clamped around the axles. 

Let’s backpedal.  The usual complaint about this country town is there’s no energy.  Responses range from “make your own energy,” to “but there’s plenty to do here.”  The first answer is irrelevant because community energy comes from communities.

The second statement is true but is not an answer.

Cities are cars.  Momentum, forward motion, is the default situation.  Small towns and rurals are trains.  Nothing-happening is the default situation.  Every event is a reinvention of the wheel.  In the cities, it’s like a wave.  There’s always plenty of something happening.

How someone relates to these differing pictures matters much more than the situations themselves.  Neither is good or bad.  It’s just the presence or absence of what you’re used to.

The “plenties to do” requiring gearing up, getting ready, getting into action.  The urban momentum is a thing-itself.  When something happens, you have to gear

down to meet it. 

Momentum.  Inertness.

Brakes off.  Brakes on.

It’s not “something to do” or even “lot’s to do” that makes a city vibrant.  It’s the gas pedal.

Shrapnel:

--Arkansas is circling the wagons around the death of Chavis Carter, the left handed black guy who supposedly shot himself in the right temple while sitting in the back of a patrol car while his hands were cuffed behind his back and after the cops had searched him twice and found a small bag of pot but no gun.  The latest:  Carter had meth in his system.   Even so, he still was left handed, shot in the right temple and had his hands cuffed behind his back both before and after he died.

--Followup to an earlier post:  Home Despot greeted customers the other day with a huge display of cheap, name brand 100 watt incandescent lightbulbs. Contraband. Where are those two beer bellied bulb cops when you needed them? A citizen’s arrest was warranted but for the paperwork involved.

--Someday, the ghosts of Jerry Sandusky and Todd Aken will meet in Hell.  And at that point, maybe Jerry can teach Todd what rape is all about.  But you have to think that Todd said what most people of his political ilk think and his Big Mistake was nothing more than putting it into plain English where we can all see what’s under the cesspool cover.

Friend and colleague Dianne Thompson Stanciel has a lot to say about the Missouri Moron and his rape nonsense.  See it here:

http://www.highheelshotflashes.com/2012/08/dont-get-raped/

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com 

© WJR 2012