LT Saloon

Inspection- Of Rats and Their Ship

“Our next President: 2013?”

Image courtesy tombsofkobol.com

Last week’s column has solidified into a flood of Politico Breaking News updates slamming my mailbox. Does God read Inspection? Probably not, but I think my own premise of the Dems losing big in November has a lot more gravitas now. Everyone knows about the proverbial rats leaving a sinking ship. Frankly, in this case, I think the comparison is a little backwards. I think Democratic pols know the rats are about to storm the ship and retake control… they’re just getting the hell out of the way. All those prosecutors Bush installed and judges are eager to help the rats as much as possible: willing to find anything they can threaten Dem pols with.

It reminds me of a voice my wife and I heard when we went parking back in the Flintstone days, when we were young and dating. Dead end road; and abandoned Victorian in the distance. The motor was probably still warm, and we weren’t even starting to get hot, when we both heard a voice say…

“Get out! Get out. Get out!!!“

We listened. And I think our politicians are listening too, only these aren’t “ghosts.” They’re the same demons that brought us to where we were when Barack Obama ran for the presidency.

Who’s abandoning ships to the rats? Well, every day I have received two or more “Breaking News” reports, and they look just like this…

“Representative William Delahunt (D-Mass.) will not seek reelection, the Boston Globe is reporting.”

Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) plans to resign his House seat on Monday.

All Democrats. Not a single stinking Republican in the lot. I think they see a huge wave coming. I can’t say I’m unhappy each and everyone is leaving: there are some big losers in the bunch. The problem is I don’t see a lot of great viable replacements, and I do see the Right rallying.

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Inspection- Want to Make a Bet?

It’s a gentleman’s bet; and I don’t mean that in a sexist way. No money. Lose or win, here is what I’m asking you to do if you disagree with me. You write something about your own predictions; post it or put it in the comments here. I’ll save any comments and this column. You save any predictions you post. If you don’t post anything on site then I can be reached at ken@ltsaloon.org. After the election, in November you write something regarding how wrong, and how right, you felt either of us were: I’ll do the same.

Our bet is about what will happen…

The day after election day: November, 2010.
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Inspection- New York Attempts to Murder a Town

The docks at Grassy Point near Beaver River Station

Call the detectives. Call the cops. Pray for divine intervention. Or better yet, defend yourselves; defend your fellow citizen’s rights to not have their property taken away from them… please. If for no other reason then you; your town, may be next.

A state may just be about to commit murder.

Quick quiz: New York State floods a reservoir and obliterates the only road access to a town. Over a century, especially after rail service stops and never fully starts again, deals are made: gentlemen agreements; verbal and otherwise, for town folk to park and store boat trailers in the closest town to Beaver River Station. Property owners use their own boats. Further accommodations are made; a barge business grows that helps the property owners take their cars over to town; lessening the booming storage and parking lot problem in the summer.

For many, many years this give and take continues between the state and the town folk. Property is bought, sold: investments made… all with the understanding that the state will allow the property owners access to their own property.

Gentleman’s agreements that have been honored for more than half a century.

A year or so ago a new sheriff rode into town when Terry Perkins, the old Ranger retired. Meanwhile the State through the DEC has decided that parking and storage in Stillwater; parking that Beaver River Station property owners have used for well over 50 years as a means to access their property, can no longer be used by property owners for more than two days. Campers who sign up for free campsites all up and down the reservoir on state land can use the parking and trailer storage for two weeks. We can’t.

They also want our docks gone. Again: state land, but state land that has been used for this purpose by mutual agreement for well over 50 years.

And the barge that takes pressure off parking and storage? Since it lands on state land, the barge business must stop… despite the fact there are other businesses that use state land. According to the Thompsons, who own and run the barge, the state position is that state land is never to be used to access private property. In a Forever Wild wilderness area; where new construction is pretty much verboten, essentially, effectively, this takes the use of private property out of the owner’s hands. Access that was denied by the state to begin with by flooding the reservoir area.

There could be one more reasonable way to get to Beaver River Station. There are train tracks going through the town. They were abandoned during the early sixties and long made promises to bring the tourist-based train into town have faltered over the years. And, to slam another nail into the coffin, the state is reconsidering whether to support that venture at all.

Essentially; effectively, murdering a town.

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Inspection-No Need in Going on Auto, part IV… Toyota

Well, this is one for the records: a part four Inspection. I’m usually reluctant to do a part two, and cringe when I do part three. I may have done two or three part III columns since my first Inspection , September 1972. Reminds me of on old Night Gallery. When a rather specific topic acts like a corpse that not only digs itself out of the grave I put it in, but then walks up to my door… and starts to slam on that door with its fist, I pay attention.

As a former gravedigger myself, I’d wonder, do I need a better shovel, or a better backhoe? Maybe the business community does when it comes to inadequate responses to recalls, or burying certain CEOs checks or bonuses?

You know the skew to this edition this time, unless you live on Venus: Toyota.
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Inspection- Of Ironing Out the Ironies….or Not

You’ll never get them all. I’m not sure I would want to. Old truism: “life is filled with ironies.” Let me get out my pundit-based Sunbeam and at least steam out a few of the more embarrassing and problematic wrinkles, because these “wrinkles” are so big they threaten to rip the fabric of society. And when it comes to the certain current topics the irony is so thick it’s wrapping itself around Uncle Sam’s neck; strangling the freedom out of a nation.

Gays in the military.
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Inspection- An Abusive Relationship

President Obama gave a great speech, according to many reports. I don’t know. I didn’t bother tuning in. I already know he gives good speeches. But no matter how good the speech results are what really matters; and “results” rely mostly upon how we really react when faced with the inevitable opposition after the speech.

Once that meant they just disagreed with us… or not. It meant a few would vote with us… most would vote the other way. Now it’s become a name calling contest, mostly from extremists on the other side of the aisle. A race to find the most inaccurate, most offensive, way to portray our efforts, our President and what we have proposed.

We wince.

We put up with it.

We claim we want to “move forward.”

If we believe in change, are we going to continue to put up with the same old patterns enough to actually “move forward?” Guess not. Already Libs are twisting their panties over the fact that Republicans are headed the opposite direction: being even more uncooperative.

Doing something about it? Eh, not so much.
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Inspection- Representative Government Takes a Back Seat to Fascism

I tried really hard. I had an Inspection column almost ready to go, asking if we had made the right decision when choosing between Hillary and Barack exactly a year ago. But I had to take it down. Events simply washed the whole concept away.

No, I’m not about to write about Massachusetts. Democrats: specifically Barack Obama, got the spanking they deserved. Yes, they’ve learned the wrong lesson since Barack has declared he’s going to be even meeker and less aggressive. But all that means squat now.

Like ten years ago, the Supreme Court has struck again. We no longer live in anything remotely like a representative form of governance. Welcome to corporatocracy. Say hello to fascism.
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Inspection- All Terrorists Are…

Listening to the Alex Bennett Show on Sirius Left I heard one of those common curious talking point cliches’ that is convenient, but wrong.

“All terrorists are Muslim.”

-Caller to The Alex Bennett Show

Now being somewhat left of what is considered center these days… center being far more right, in my opinion, than it has been since the 50s and some of the 60s… I find this statement absurd: at best.

Why?

Hmmm… I bet you think you know where I am about to go with all this. Yes, I think it goes without saying that dropping bombs on a population that may be filled with innocents, keeping suspects forever in some hell hole, or killing innocents in the process of prosecuting war, might all be considered terrorism: terrorism committed by the State.

But… never mind. That’s not the point I wish to make at all.

I won’t get into Native American history and how we treated them. Forget that for now.

I won’t go to the old truism/chestnut: “one person’s definition of terrorism is another person’s patriotic act…”

…or how settlers who shot from behind trees were considered terrorists.

…or how yesterday’s terrorist actions become part of regular warfare.

Scratch each and every one of the previous examples: for now. We’ll save all that for some other discussion. Let’s limit terrorism only to the following: individuals and groups specifically designed to commit terrorism. Ready? Let’s play, “Top asinine statements of the past 20 years!”

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Inspection- Do Your Damn Jobs

Re: the Christmas bomber.

Does the following sound more than just a wee bit familiar?

“The problem was the inability to share between data bases.”

So almost nine years after 9/11 they’re still pulling out that old well rotted chestnut?

Paid cash, one way ticket(s), no luggage, an explosive merely moved from a shoe to a crotch?

Hellllloooooooooooo…. the shoe bomber? And almost nine years ago? You know that collection of numbers that pols loved to regurgitate over and over to excuse anything and everything, “9/11?” Remember we were told 9/11 “changed everything?” Maybe they stayed the same, only got much, much worse?

Oklahoma City was an act of terrorism. There were acts of terrorism, and attempts, long before 9/11, and acts or attempts after. Since the first tower bombing perp did a, “We’ll be back,” Terminator imitation, maybe some pol should have paid attention, don’t you think?

The excuses every time? Well… too often the same damn ones. Solutions pols and pundits pushed back then seem weak echoes of the same solutions pushed after 9/11. Maybe they have always honestly thought the best way to protect us was to dump our freedoms like they were toxic waste. You know, the very same “freedoms” they keep telling us we’re hated for? Can’t be that they hate us for what they have done in our name. Never that. No, no, no… not our nation’s policies, or our “mistakes.”

Even if we, as a nation, went overboard with our own citizens, it was all to protect us.

Unless…

…well, it couldn’t be, could it?

No, I won’t even go there…
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Inspection- Gifts Given, Wishes Granted

The old Robert Frost poem about two different paths we choose from reminds me of this past Christmas, New Years, and 2001. I swear some scientist invented a machine that transferred personalities between different time periods; targeted the Left and the Right, switching personalities back and forth between the two across the span of time.

Eight years ago many of us were still angry and suspicious regarding the last election, the winning candidate… and far more than just “suspicious” about all that had happened during the year after that election . An administration was moving as fast as it could, pushing an agenda we found offensive at best; doing all it could to make its vision for America come true. The anger on the Left was pulsating; on high, vibrant and filled with hate.

Do any of these feelings seem at all familiar to some of you who didn’t vote for Obama, now?
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