Another wild rumor ... who comes up with this stuff?

Sometimes I think the gossip and rumor mill in the Monroe area is fueled solely by alcohol.
Here's one I heard being whispered around certain municipal corridors and it sounds like it is being circulated by someone who chugged a bottle of Mad Dog: Linda Compora is considering running for mayor!
This is according to a strange scenario involving political skullduggery that really isn't worth repeating.
Either this is the figment of some sadomachochist at city hall or Madame Iko herself is floating this one out just for fits and giggles as part of her fairly transparent effort to make city council meetings a living hell for Mayor Al and his compadres.
Let's drive a spike through the heart of this one: I'm pretty sure it's not true.
In fact, if it is true, I will personally propose marriage to her during the public comment period at a city council meeting. How's that for going out on a limb?

The unkindest cut?

Hey, it's a free country, right?
That's why I feel free to diss Great Clips, the haircut place in front of Walmart.
In case you haven't noticed, this hair salon chain thinks it's really cool to have people stand out alongside Telegraph Rd. with a sign that says Great Clips - Haircuts $5.99. Which is probably about the same hourly rate they're paying people to hold the sign.
I really admire the guy I've seen out there the last two weekends. He probably doesn't actually cut hair at the place, they probably just hired him to hold the sign.
He was out there last weekend in the bone-chilling cold.
He was out there this weekend in the bone-chilling cold and snow.
He was dressed in jeans, a coat and hooded sweatshirt, standing for hours in the same spot.
It made me feel awful.
Just like it makes me feel awful to see those human billboards that Little Caesar's Pizza uses to trod the sidewalk in sweltering weather or cold.
Someone must have the bright idea that it draws in customers.
You know what it makes me do? It makes me boycott the place.
There oughta be a law!

Thanks for this and that

All the doom and gloom reports about the coming global pandemic is becoming a little more real for me. Just had a horrible bout of something. I'm not even going to compliment it by calling it the flu. Suffice to say my head felt as if it had been ringed with IEDs and some joker with a cell phone dialed them up all at the same time. My eyes looked like someone butted out a burning strawberry Twizzler in each one. I'm pretty sure it was some foreign virus brought over by a Canadian or something.
That's the excuse I'm giving for not posting here for a while. But I feel an obligation to thank loyal readers, contributors and rumor-mongerers for their assistance in this enterprise. In fact, I was feeling so low recently I missed the first anniversary of this blog. I think the first post was Jan. 23, 2006.
I don't know how long I can keep this drivel up. I'm running out of ink.
But I think I'm going to get cranked up pretty soon about something, so maybe I'll put up a few more posts before I shut this thing down -- in 2010.

Bedford bozos

Bedford Township, which secretly prides itself on being mostly white, is looking like it's mostly wacko based on what's coming out of that Whitman rezoning-for-Walmart case.
If you haven't been following this melodrama, the owners of the Whitman Ford dealership want to sell some of their land for a Super Walmart. Only cheesy low-lifers in Bedford see a need for this store and, feeling the heat from constituents, the township board has claimed that the land in question isn't properly zoned.
But two awful, nightmarish glimpses of the workings of township government have come out in this trial.
One thing we learned is that Bob Schockman, township clerk and member of the township board, privately advised the Whitmans to sue the township over this issue. Talk about Schocking and Awful.
The second thing we learned was that attorney Philip Goldsmith was representing both the township and the Whitmans. That's simply replusive! Hey Phil, have you ever heard the word "disbarment?" What canons of ethics do you subscribe to?
Boy, if I lived in Bedford (and I'm sooooooo happy I don't), I'd be lighting some torches, dragging these monsters out of the township hall and burying them in shallow graves (with wooden stakes through their hearts, of course).
f

Just go away

With a lot of fanfare, a group called Michigan Citizens for Tax Reform launched an online "petition" today in an effort to get people to send a message to Lansing that they don't want new taxes to replace the Single Business Tax that the last Legislature did away with. Organizers are claiming that Gov. Granholm has appointed a "Pro Tax Panel" that's going to fleece taxpayers. On the surface, this appears to be the kind of grassroots movement that has gathered steam and resulted in real change in Michigan over the years. Dig a little deeper and it appears that these Michigan Citizens are nothing but a bunch of has-been and sore-loser Republicans who are trying to stir the pot in Lansing.
There's nothing wrong with has-beens and sore losers, but when they parade about as if they have the interest of ordinary Joes at heart, it just makes me puke.
Speaking of puking, it appears that one of the "Ordinary Joes" behind this new "movement" is the likes of that binger and puker Matt Milosch, the sore-loser who was turned into a bonafide has-been by Kathy Angerer when she trounced his sorry ass in the last election.
What does it take to get the voters' message to some people that they should just go away. Not only is this disingenuous, it taints legitimate grassroots movements that might really have the interests of the state and its taxpayers at heart.

Why is my time so cheap?

Been a little under the weather recently and went to see the doctor. I made an appointment in advance, so why is it I still have to wait about two hours before I actually get taken into an exam room? Why is it that my time is so cheap and their time is so valuable.
It is just the doctor I'm seeing or does everyone suffer this indignity?

The supreme sacrifice

George W. is taking a pasting from the usual suspects over his "solution" to the Iraq problem.
Unless you've been in a spider hole for a few days, you know he said what we really need is more resolve and maybe 20,000 more troops.
The unspoken commitment here is that W plans to make the supreme sacrifice and send over the twins, Jenna and Barbara.
You're going to do that aren't you, Mr. President?
Mr. President? Hello?

Maybe not.

Strangled by cable?

Can't live without that HBO, but steamed that cable rates seem to keep rising?
Tough.
Thanks to the effectiveness of cable lobbyists and the weak spines of those in the last Congress, the cable industry managed to manipulate their way to erase most of the last iotas of control that local governments had over their operations.
At the most recent city council meeting, wannabe mayor Mark Worrell raised pointed questions about upcoming revenue problems the city might be facing and he asked about cable franchise fees and the potential impact of recently weakened cable legislation.
Mayor Al dropped the bomb that made me want to press rerun on the TiVo. He said it's conceivable that the city could lose about $225,000 if cable companies decided not to be charitable. He then told a story of a past cable fee increase where he was told by the cable representative that a increase in customer fees probably would be forthcoming. Because the cable company had settled on the increase, the mayor figured it was fruitless to raise the issue before council.
Note to the mayor: You may be powerless in this, but you should wield the power you have. In the past, council concerns about cable have gotten the attention of cable companies fairly quickly. If no one complains about the concerns and makes them uncomfortable, they'll run over you like a steamroller. At least use the power of your public meetings to beat them up so even though they get fatter and richer, they end up with bruises and a public image that they really can't repair with money.
Maybe then, citizens will do more than sit on their butts in front of the TV and start writing legislators about it to get some of the wacky free rides for cable reversed. If someone doesn't take a stand or raise some hell, before you know it even your council meetings won't be televised anymore.
On second thought, maybe that's not such a bad idea.

Forget the contract, let's have an election

Boy, the county offices have been buzzing lately about the fat case of paranoia that apparently has infected Charles Londo, the county administrator. Some of the county commissioners said they just wanted to review his ironclad-fire-me-if-you-dare contract and he goes off the deep end. During a special meeting Friday night, which followed an apparent illegal closed door meeting Friday morning, county commissioners said they didn't really want to fire him, they just wanted to review the terms of the contract.
How about we forget the contract and just do the right thing and have an ELECTED county administrator like a lot of other counties have. That way the people who really pay the administrator's salary can hire or fire him or her. And whoever is administrator might be more responsive to individual commissioners, too.
I'll start to pass around a call for a referendum on this if it seems to have any support. Wait. Maybe a progressive commissioner might suggest that.
Nah.

A New Year resolution

A few days ago I caught "Super Size Me" on TV. It's that acclaimed documentary film about eating habits in America. On the heels of that came the wacky report that the government is thinking of categorizing cheese, previously believed to be a dairy product, as a junk food, largely because it's loaded with artery-clogging saturated fat.
That seems kind of extreme from a government that can't see it's way clear to make cigarets illegal.
But after watching Super Size Me (which should be required viewing for every school administrator and board member), I'm convinced that school districts and parents should change the way they feed kids. Especially the school districts. If parents want to slowly kill their kids, I guess that's their business. But why should schools, subsidized by state and federal governments, sell out to the almighty dollar at the cost of kids' health. Pop and candy in vending machines, permitted in exchange for near-bribes from the big corporations that manufacture them, have school districts mortgaging students' future health for payola.
I like a free, nifty scoreboard as much as the next guy, but these tradeoffs are unconscionable.
Let's have some gutsy local school districts show some leadership, set an example for others, and get rid of the the food porn in the schools this year. Whadya think?

Death to our buddy

In the better-late-than-never department, I have this sudden urge to weigh in on the execution of the U.S.'s one-time buddy, Saddam Hussein. For those of you living in a cave (Osama, this means you), the worst dictator since George W. was hanged by the neck until dead after a fair trial by the Baghdad chapter of Iraqis Who Now Love the West.
If you haven't been followed the aftermath of this court-ordered killing, you might not have heard that a guard at the execution site filmed the hanging and some of the taunts and insults hurled at Saddam just before his necktie party.
This caused the Shiite to hit the fan. Now it seems like all sorts of people have their burkas in a knot about this because the photos got spread around on the Internet.
I don't get it. It was a hanging, folks, not a honeymoon.
The fact that someone recorded this is considered some sort of barbaric act?
But the hanging itself isn't?
I think they should have just beheaded the guy on live TV. The Fox Network would have let them use their studios and Budweiser would have sponsored it.
Besides, it would have been a lot more palatable than that planned O.J. show.

Yeah, it's scary isn't it?

Bill Sisk was picked as chairman of the Monroe County Board of Commissioners tonight.
Loyal readers of this blog might remember that yours truly predicted this on Nov. 15, shortly after the general election.
It's scary, isn't it?
No, the scary part for anyone watching the meeting was how uncontentious this selection process was. Sisk was elected unanimously, with no obvious opposition. And Jerry (The Bull) Oley (Ole'), the outgoing chairman, nominated him.
Hey, this wasn't cut and dried was it?
Look for a lot of good things to come from this cooperative board in the year ahead. All the members must own stock in a cell phone company or something. Who can forget Sisk's last uneventful stint as chairman?
From this organizational meeting, it looks like the county board sessions might end up being just as scripted as the Monroe City Council meetings.
Looks like we're in for a very HAPPY New Year.