When Things Are Going Your Way -- or -- When You're Hot You're Hot

There was a time I gave up drinking alcoholic beverages -- it was some time ago now, and it only lasted for three weeks (much to my own shame) -- but I am getting ahead of the actual story.

Leinenkugel's invited me to entertain at "Camp Leinenkugel" - an occasion where they brought in distributors from all over the country and treated them to the best the Chippewa Valley had to offer (and me).

This particular "camp's" conclusion was a golf tourney at the Chippewa Falls golf course. My younger brother was visiting me for the weekend and I invited him to come along for the festivities.

I know it was late August because we arrived early at the tent that had been set up on the edge of the course, and after setting up my sound gear and lights, and with the invitation of Jake Leinenkugel, who had just left for the second nine holes, we helped ourselves to the free Leinenkugel's beer and listened to a Green Bay Packer pre-season game.

The golfers took an inordinately long time getting around the course and by the time the last of them straggled in, it was already nearly dark and my brother and I had done quite a bit of damage to the tap beer and our brain cells.

The "campers" then dug into provided food -- but my brother and I continued to quaff the taps -- why spoil a buzz being the theory.

It finally came to be show time and it is as show that i don't remember a lot about but I couldn't have done too badly because they asked me back again the following summer.

At the conclusion of the show, Jake bade his guests farewell for the evening with the announcement of what time and where breakfast would be held Sunday morning. The crowd melted away into the dark, leaving the Heagle boys to the tak of tearing down equipment.

It was now very dark, with not so much as a street light, so we packed all gear away except the spot lights, which we saved for last.

While I was dismantling the light standards, unbeknownst to me, my brother parked a full plastic cup of beer on the dash of my van, just above the steering wheel.

With all the lights finally stored away, I asked younger brother if we shouldn't pick up a Sammy's pizza on our way back through Eau Claire. He agreed that food would be good. I reached for the mobile phone -- (remember when they looked like walkie-talkies and weighed about 10 pounds?) and I called in our order.

I started the van, put it into gear, stepped on the gas, and dumped an entire cup of beer across my person.

But we wanted that pizza -- so undaunted and reeking like we had fallen into a vat of beer, we rolled towards Eau Claire. We made it safely to Sammy's pizza, picked up the pie and I returned to my driver's position. We rolled over to Farwell Street and hadn't gone but a block when the red and blue lights came on behind us.

I could not comprehend why we were being pulled over -- God knows, I knew that I would have to drive carefully, maintaining the speed limit and not swerving whatsoever. Was I speeding??? I looked down at the instrument panel. I couldn't see the instrument panel! I had forgotten one important thing! The headlights!

I knew I had but one chance. I signaled a pull over, turned on my headlights, rolled down my window and watched my rear view mirror.

When the officer stood up just outside his vehicle door, I leaned out and yelled: "Thanks, officer! I forgot to turn on my head lights!"

"Okay!" he yelled, waving in return.

He got back in his car, I dropped the van into gear, and signaled to pull back out into traffic. We turned left at Johnny's convenience store and the officer did not follow us.

My brother and I said nothing until we reached the house -- at which time we bubbled over with excited babble about how lucky we were.

I swore I would never drink again!

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Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

As I mentioned earlier, I no longer am able to get ESPN on the "big dish" so I joined friends Tiit and Ann Raid to watch the game this past Monday.

during the course of the evening, Ann, knowing ow much I like to cook and bake, gave me an outstanding new book to add to my collection.

Entitled: "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" (the discovery that revolutionizes home baking), it is a terrific addition to my collection! For years I have tried, with little success, to make Italian-style bread, so the first recipe I turned to was on page 81 and it came out beautifully!

Here are the steps in making truly tasty bread that you DON'T have to do:

1. Mix a new batch of dough every time you want to make bread.

2. "Proof" the yeast.

3. Knead the dough.

4. Cover formed loaves.

5. Rest and rise the loaves in a draft-free location - it doesn't matter.

6. Fuss over doubling or tripling of dough volume.

7. Punch down and re-rise.

8. Poke rising loaves to be sure they've proofed by leaving indentations.

This is why the book is titled "Bread in five Minutes a Day" (not including resting and baking time.) I made up enough dough for four one pound loaves and it stores in the refrigerator for up to 12 days -- no problem!

The book is by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois and retails in hard cover at 27.95 and to my way of thinking is worth every penny!

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More and more I am disgusted with the average American's view of the world and what's important.

With the advent of "American Idol" it became evident what most Americans consider important -- being "entertained".

When a program like "Idol" overwhelmingly outdraws presidential debates it says something about our psyche.

The latest? We are all agog over Sarah Palin's glasses. The TV talking heads were covering it again today. Is this really worth any coverage at all?

Word is that women are rushing out and buying the exact or similar style eyeglasses by the droves. Whoppee!

Meanwhile, that damn war and suffering continues unabated in Iraq and Afghanistan and gets minimal if any coverage on the national news.

New Orleans still struggles to regain its balance and our economy is in the toilet. But have you seen Sarah Palin's glasses?

No wonder Europeans think that Americans are self-absorbed imbeciles. We are.

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Check Out The End Zone Viking Fans!

After studying this photograph, I just had to publish it on my blog!

Compare the joy on the faces wearing Packer green to the two sad sacks from Minnesota! How did that credit card ad go? PRICELESS!

____________________GO PACK GO! _____________________________

Sarah Palin: A Trojan Moose Concealing Four More Years of George Bush

Arianna Huffington

Did Sarah Palin wrongfully push to have her ex-brother-in law fired? Was she really against the "Bridge to Nowhere?" Did she really sell Alaska's plane on eBay, or just list it on eBay? Did she actually have any substantial duties commanding the Alaska National Guard?

The correct answer to all these questions is: who cares? Which isn't to say these aren't valid questions, or that Palin and the McCain camp aren't playing it fast, loose, and coy with each of them. The point is that Palin, and the circus she's brought to town, are simply a bountiful collection of small lies deliberately designed to distract the country from one big truth: the havoc that George Bush and the Republican Party have wrought, and that John McCain is committed to continuing.

Every second of this campaign not spent talking about the Republican Party's record, and John McCain's role in that record, is a victory for John McCain.

Her critics like to say that Palin hasn't accomplished anything. I disagree: in the space of ten days she's succeeded in distracting the entire country from the horrific Bush record -- and McCain's complicity in it. My friends, that's accomplishment we can believe in.

Just look at the problem John McCain faced. George Bush has a disastrous record, and the country knows it. John McCain -- the current one, not the one who vanished eight years ago -- has no major disagreements with George Bush (and I'm sorry, wanting to fire Donald Rumsfeld a bit sooner doesn't qualify) and wants to continue his incredibly unpopular policies for another four years. The solution? Enter Sarah Palin, a Trojan Moose carrying four more years of disaster.

And the plan has worked beautifully. Just look at what's being discussed just 57 days before the election. Is it the highest unemployment rate in five years? The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? The suicide bombing yesterday in Iraq that killed six people and wounded 54 -- in the same market where last month a bomb killed 28 people and wounded 72? That the political reconciliation that was supposedly the point of "the surge" is nowhere near happening? That Iraq's Shiite government is now rounding up the American-backed Sunni leaders of the Awakening? That the reason 8,000 soldiers may be leaving Iraq soon is so more can be deployed to Afghanistan where the Taliban is steadily retaking the country?

No. We're talking about whether Sarah Palin was or was not a good mayor, whether she was or was not a good mother, whether her skirts are too short and her zingers too sarcastic.

Contrary to what we're hearing 24/7 in the media, the next few weeks are not a test of Sarah Palin. The next few weeks are a test of Barack Obama.

He needs to dramatically redirect this election back to a discussion over the issues that really matter -- the issues that will impact the future of this country. A presidential campaign is a battle and this is the time for Obama to show some commander-in-chief skills. I'm not talking about calling Palin out for lying about his record and demeaning community organizing. I'm talking about grabbing the political debate by the throat. The country is already angry about what's happened over the last seven-plus years -- he shouldn't be afraid to give voice to that anger. Obama has spent years adopting a non-threatening persona; but he can't let his fear that appearing like an "angry Black man" (a stereotype not-too-subtly fueled by Fox News) will turn off swing voters keep him from channeling the disgust and outrage felt by so many voters --swing and otherwise.

McCain's team, in an effort to distract, is going to keep doing what they're doing -- diverting voters and the media with a tantalizing combination of personal trivia and small lies. It doesn't matter if they're caught in them -- in fact, all the better. Because they know there is no way in hell they can win if this election is about the big truth of the Bush years.

McCain's real running mate is George Bush and the failed policies of the Republican Party. Even if they are dressed up in a skirt, lipstick, and Tina Fey glasses.

RODGERS PROVES HIS LEGITIMACY -- STILL, HE'S NOT THE HILLBILLY FROM ROTTEN BAYOU

Because I am a Big dish "C-Bander", fed up with the high prices and bullshit that came with Directv, I do not receive ESPN any longer, forced out by the corporations who sold out to the little dish boys.

I toyed with finding a "Sports Bar" to watch Monday night's contest between arch-rival Packer/Vikings but decided that I would go there only if I could not beg someone I knew who had ESPN to let me watch with them.

The very idea of sitting in a bar with a crowd that would more than probably be a mixture of local Green Bay fans and snot nosed Minneapolis/Edina college students who have recently returned to flood Eau Claire's University campus was far too repugnant!

I found my respite and solace with Tiit and Ann Raid in Fall Creek, where I put together a large sausage pizza just before game time.

As the news announced this morning, The Packers scraped by, thanks to an Atari Bigby pic in the waning moments.

It's all well and good that the Green and Gold are 1-0 and that Aaron Rodgers just may have shaken the monkey from his back. Still there are things gnawing at me this morning. How long can Rodgers go without getting injured? Is he tough enough to last a season? This gnaws at me.

It also gnaws at me that although he played a good game (check his stats), he is vanilla ice cream to Brett Favre's hot fudge banana split.

He's just not that fun to watch. I know, I know. I am spoiled by the boyish exuberance of the hillbilly from Mississippi. Perhaps I can get past this.

A win is a win is a win!

I perused an article this morning that talked of the tremendous hit Adrian Peterson put on corner back Al Harris last night:

Peterson: Collision with Harris was no accident
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- We have an answer. Vikings running back Adrian Peterson acknowledged Monday night that it was no accident he ran over the player responsible for his right knee injury last season.

As we noted earlier, Peterson ran over Packers cornerback Al Harris in the first quarter of Green Bay's 24-19 victory. Harris, of course, was the player whose low -- but clean -- hit on Peterson resulted in a torn lateral collateral ligament in the teams' 2007 matchup at Lambeau Field.

"No grudges," Peterson said. "But I definitely wanted to come out and, if I had the opportunity, put a little boom on Harris."

Peterson finished with 103 yards on 19 carries, the seventh 100-yard game of his career.

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BAT MAN!

Eleven o'clock P.M. and I am already in bed, evening meds downed, teeth flossed and brushed.

From the kitchen I hear one of those involuntary female blood curdling screams that only a woman can emit when she sees one of two things: a rat or a bat.

I am out of bed in a flash, heading for the sound, now making sounds of my own: "What the hell is it?"
"It's a bat!!" Kim screams and we both immediately begin to try to corral the kittens as they are following the bat's every flight movement and looking to pounce on it if it comes in range.

This, above all else, we do not want!

In a minute or two, we have established a "safe room" in the bed room. Kim and the kittens huddle in there while I try to figure out just how I am gong to kill a bat that has full range of an A-frame house which is almost 40 feet high at its peak!

The bat continues to try to find its way out, flying end to end, circling from the loft to the front of the house.

"Where's the broom?" I shout to Kim.
"In the basement", she calls back.
"Get it!" I command, keeping an eye on the flight of the winged intruder.

This is not something she wants to do, but she slips out of the bed room and tiptoes down to the basement to retrieve the broom, then after depositing it on the floor outside the bed room, she slips back into the safety of it.

The bat lands.

Three feet from the very peak of the 40 foot ceiling on a rafter. The broom is useless.

I remember the snow scraper with the 10 foot extensions that I use to remove snow from the A-frame in winter build ups. Hoping for the best, I open the sliding doors to the deck, then head out to the garage.

I have difficulty locating the scraper but finally do, return to the house with the sections in tow in hopes of looking up at the rafter to find the winged monstrosity gone --- but no such luck.

I assemble the unwieldy scraper and start lifting it, scraper blade first towards the hanging draculean offspring. I inch closer and closer -- it takes to the air and I lose sight of it!

I then go to the garage and get my fish net, which is on a long handle, and duct tape it to the snow scraper, first removing the section that has the blade. Still no sign of the bat.

I get a flashlight and search every beam -- no bat. I finally give up and join the rest of my "family". We decide that we had best hole up in the bed room for the rest of the night so I get the kitty food and the cat box with litter and move them all into the bed room.

Kim insists that I close the deck doors for fear of letting God knows what else into the house overnight if left open.

I return to the bed room and we convince ourselves that the bat has flown out the open door without my seeing it.

The next morning we cautiously leave the relative safety of the bed room and spend the day nervously looking upwards. I examine the house for openings to try to figure out how the little bastard got in in the first place. the only thing I find is an open flu in the basement which was put there when the house was built in case the owner wanted to add a stove in the basement.

I go to Menards and purchase a batten of fiberglass insulation and stuff the chimney flu tightly.

Saturday night arrives. Darkness descends. Midnight. No sign of a bat. Satisfied that we have won, we go to bed, letting the kittens have the run of the house.

Three AM. I awaken. I want an Oreo. I round the corner of the bed room door and look down the long hallway. I see a small pile of what I think, from my observation point, is kitten throw up.
"IT'S THE DAMN BAT!" my brain screams. Thanking my lucky stars that the kittens have been sleeping with us, I close the bed room door quietly and wish to hell I hadn't returned the broom to the basement.

My mind is racing to what I read after googling "bats": 'bats need to get a start in flying by dropping from some place high and then putting the wings in gear -- they are almost helpless if on the ground'.

Still -- this one is moving and wants to get away. finally I remember the recent purchase of a Bissell non-motorized carpet sweeper which is just inside the bed room door. I seize it and make my move, smashing it straight down on the bat, much like tamping cement.

Bam! Bam! Bam! I hit him three times without checking for results. One of the bristled rollers skitters across the floor! Now I check him and he is not doing very well -- still jerking a bit. I discard the sweeper in favor of the flat ash shovel near the fireplace and deliver one more flattening blow, scoop the thing up in the shovel, throw open the deck door and flip him out onto the deck.. well, I thought onto the deck.

I return to Kim in the bed room and I don't need to tell her what h as happened. She has heard the battle. But now I am "adrenalized". It is an amazing drug. I babble for some time before I stop fidgeting and attempt to get back to sleep.

Next morning in the light of day, I find him in the position you see in the photo, on the metal patio table which sits on the deck.

I manage to get the bristle roller back in place on the carpet sweeper, but the handle has a bit of a lean to the left.

PLEASE! NO MORE BATS! one is enough.

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Alaskans Speak (in a frightened whisper): "Palin is Racist, Sexist, Vindictive and Mean"

by Charley James –
“So Sambo beat the bitch!”
This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.
“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.
Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”
Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.
Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.
But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.
No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it’s in their genetic code. So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.
Tough Getting People Who Know Her to Talk
It’s not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak critically about Palin – especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that “all circuits are busy” or numbers just wouldn’t ring. I should think a state that’s been made richer than God by oil could afford telephone lines and cell towers for everyone.
On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they’re afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.
“The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here,” an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. “It’s corrupt and arrogant. They’re all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.”
“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.”
Like most other people interviewed, he didn’t want his name used out of fear of retribution. Maybe it’s the long winter nights where you don’t see the sun for months that makes people feel as if they’re under constant danger from “the authorities.” As I interviewed residents it began sounding as if living in Alaska controlled by the state Republican Party is like living in the old Soviet Union: See nothing that’s happening, say nothing offensive, and the political commissars leave you alone. But speak out and you get disappeared into a gulag north of the Arctic Circle for who-knows-how-long.
Alright, that’s an exaggeration brought on by my getting too little sleep and building too much anger as I worked this article. But there’s ample evidence of Palin’s vindictive willingness to destroy people she sees as opponents. Just ask the Wasilla town administrator she hired before firing him because he rebelled against the way Palin demanded he do his job, or the town librarian who refused to hold the book burning Walpurgisnach Mayor Palin demanded.
Ironically, Palin was pushed into hiring the administrator by the party poobahs who helped get her elected after she got herself into trouble over a number of precipitous firings which gave rise to a recall campaign.
“People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day,” states Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident and one of the few Alaskans willing to speak on-the-record, for attribution, about Palin. In fact, Kilkenny actually circulated an e-mail letter about Palin that was verified and printed by The Nation.
For good measure, Palin booted the Wasilla police chief from office because, she told a local newspaper, he “intimidated” her.
Running on Extreme Fringe Evangelical Views
Sarah Palin drew early attention from state GOP apparatchiks when, during her first mayoral campaign, she ran on an anti-abortion platform. Normally, political parties do not get involved in Alaskan municipal elections because they are nonpartisan. But once word of her extreme fringe evangelical views made its way to Juneau, the state capitol, state Republicans tossed some money behind her campaign.
Once in office, Palin set out to build a machine that chewed up anyone who got in her way. The good, Godly Christian turns out to be anything but.
“She’s doesn’t like different opinions and she refuses to compromise,” Kilkenny notes. “When she was mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t hers. Worse, ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them.”
Sound familiar? Palin may well be Dick Cheney’s reincarnate.
Something else has a familiar Republican ring to it: Her tax policies, and a “refund surpluses but borrow for the future” attitude.
According to Kilkenny and others in Wasilla as well as Juneau, Palin reduced progressive property taxes for businesses while mayor and increased a regressive sales tax which even hits necessities such as food. The tax cuts she promoted in her St. Paul speech actually benefited large corporate property owners far more than they benefited residents. Indeed, Kilkenny insists that many Wasilla home owners actually saw their tax bill skyrocket to make up for the shortfall. Two other Wasillian’s with whom I spoke said property taxes on their modest, three bedroom homes rose during the Palin regime.
To an outsider, it would seem hard to do, but an oil-rich town with zero debt on the day she was inaugurated mayor was left saddled with $22 million of debt by the time she moved away to become governor – especially since nothing was spent on things such as improving the city’s infrastructure or building a much-needed sewage treatment plant. So what did Mayor Palin spend the taxpayer’s money on, if not fixing streets and scrubbing sewage?
For starters, she remodelled her office. Several times over, as a matter of fact.
Then Palin spent $1 million on an unnecessary, new park that no one other than the contractors and Palin seemed to want. Next, Sarah doled out more than $15 million of taxpayer money for a sports complex that she shoved through even though the city did not own clear title to the land; now, seven years later, the matter is still in litigation and lawyer fees are said to be close to at least half of the original estimated price of the facility.
She also worked hard to get voters approval of a $5.5 million bond proposal for roads that could have been built without borrowing. Anchorage may not be the center of the financial universe but, like good Republicans everywhere, Sarah Palin knows how to please Alaskan bankers and bond dealers.
For good measure, she turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots.
Sarah Barracuda
En route to the governor’s igloo, Palin managed to land what Anne Kilkenny says is the plumb political appointment in the state: Chair of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC), a $122,400 per year patronage slot with no real authority to do anything other than hold meetings. She took the job despite having no background in energy issues and, as it turned out, not liking the work.
“She hated the job,” an OGCC staff member who is not authorized to speak with the news media told me. “She hated the hours and she hated what little work there was to do. But she couldn’t figure out a way to get out of the thing without offending Gov. Murkowski” and the state Republican Party regulars, some of whom were pissed off they didn’t get appointed.
But ever the opportunist, Palin quickly concocted a way. First, she waged a campaign with the local news media claiming that the position was overpaid and should be abolished – despite the fact that she lobbied Murkowski hard to get it. Then, mounting what she saw as a white horse, Palin raised a cloud of dust by resigning from the OGCC and riding away with an undeserved reputation as a “reformer.”
But when a local reporter dared to suggest that the reformer Empress has no clothes, Palin tried to get her fired.
“She came at me like I was trying to steal her kids,” said the targeted reporter, who now works for an oil company in Anchorage. “I heard she had a wild temper and vicious mean streak but it’s nothing like you can imagine until she turns it on you.”
Not surprising since some of her high school classmates still openly call her “Sarah Barracuda,” Kilkenny insists.
Still, as a Republican Party hack Palin managed to get herself elected running under the false flag of a “reformer.”
And what did she bring to the job? No legislative experience other than a city council of a village of 5,000 people, which is smaller than some high schools in Chicago. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; after all, she needed to hire a city administrator to run Wasilla. No executive experience, except for almost being recalled as mayor. A philosophy of setting public policy based on one word: No.
And what has she done since winning the job?
According to Kilkenny, nothing. Well, nothing other than suggesting the state’s multi-multi-million dollar, oil-generated surplus be distributed to residents and finance future state needs by borrowing money. Gee, doesn’t that sound precisely what George Bush did with the surplus he inherited from Bill Clinton in 2001 and we all know in what great shape Bush’s economic policies left the nation.
It may explain why, when asked by reporters, including me, what she thought about Palin being picked to be McCain’s running mate, her mother-in-law replied with a sardonic, “What has Sarah done to qualify her to be vice president?” Of course, when the woman – said by many I spoke with to be well-respected in Wasilla – was running to succeed Palin as mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her, so that may explain the family tension.
As Governor, Palin gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, according to the chair of a legislative committee. But then she staged a huge grandstand play of line-item vetoing countless projects, calling them pork. “They were restored because of public outcry and legislative action,” the aide said. “She vetoed them mostly because she had no idea what they were or why they were important.”
But it was enough to get the McCain, who is mostly unobservant of the world around him anyway, to think Palin has a reputation as being “anti-pork”.
In fact, Juneau observers note that Palin kept her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork ladled out by indicted Sen. Ted Stevens. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be politically unwise to keep supporting it, these same insiders assert. Then, Palin fell back on her old habits and publicly humiliated him for pork-barrel politics.
As for being “ready on day one” to be commander in chief, despite the repeated public claims she’s made, the Alaska National Guard commander said that, “she has made no command decisions, other than sending some troops to help fight a few brush fires and march in parades at county fairs.”
“Sambo Beat the Bitch”
“Palin is a conniving, manipulative, a**hole,” someone who thinks these are positive traits in a governor told me, summing up Palin’s tenure in Alaska state and local politics.
“She’s a bigot, a racist, and a liar,” is the more blunt assessment of Arnold Gerstheimer who lived in Alaska until two years ago and is now a businessman in Idaho.
“Juneau is a small town; everybody knows everyone else,” he adds. “These stories about what she calls blacks and Eskimos, well, anyone not white and good looking actually, were around long before she became a glint in John McCain’s rheumy eyes. Why do I know they’re true? Because everyone who isn’t aboriginal or Indian in Alaska talks that way.”
“Sambo beat the bitch” may be everyday language up in the bush. Whether it – and the outlook, politics and worldview Palin reflects when she says such things in public – should be part of a presidential campaign is another thing altogether. The comment says as much about McCain as it does about Palin, and it says a lot of things about Americans who overlook such statements (as well as her record) and vote anyway for McCain.
by Charley James
Charley James is an American journalist, author and essayist who lives in Toronto.
Reprinted with permission from The Progressive Curmudgeon
================
Emeritus Professor of Music
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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The following is a list of books that Sarah Palin tried to get banned when she was mayor of Wasilla.

This information is taken from the official minutes of the Wasilla Library Board.
When the librarian refused to ban the books, Palin tried to get her fired.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Does this sound like someone that you want to be a heartbeat away from the presidency???? God help us!

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Of Chicken, Minnesota Vikings, and Bicycles

Kim, Gordy Bischoff, Alice Hampton, and I made the thursday night trek over to the Durand Rod and Gun Club for the delicious John Harmon Chicken Dinner. That makes my string of attendance 3 for 3 this year!

We had a great time albeit we were served last. In fact, being served last gave us an opportunity to sit with "the help". A good laugh was had by all when one of the gals came by with an errant purse and asked if it belonged to any of us. Gordy said (in his best falsetto): "Yes, that's my purse!"

Then our attention was drawn to the young lady pictured as the rest of the staff was ripping on her all night in the kitchen for wearing the tee shirt she is displaying. (In case you are having trouble deciphering what it says on her shirt, it reads: My favorite team is the Minnesota Vikings and anyone who beats the Packers." Such venom!

I found it imperative to go out to the car and get my Packer jacket to strike a balance in the photo! Her name is Becky
Sobota and I asked if she wore the shirt because she is originally a Minnesota "mud duck" -- to my amazement she told me she is an Arcadia, Wisconsin, Sobota! (that's tantamount to being a Bauer from Durand).

Not only that, she is a Wisconsin Badger fan as well as a Milwaukee Brewer follower! I asked if her mother had dropped her on her head when she was a baby!

At any rate, HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, BECKY! (She was born on Labor Day). How very fitting, eh?


After several trips to the Eau Claire Cycle Shop on 'Water Street, I could no longer resist the bike that I fell in love with on our first visit there some weeks ago to get our bikes tuned up.

I put a down payment on this beauty and hope to be able to pay off the balance in time to ride it during the Fall color season!
Terry, the store owner, is just one of the nicest people you could ever do business with. If you are looking for a bicycle, please visit him -- you won't be sorry.

They also do an excellent job of repairs and tune ups and are very accessible with parking behind the shop next to Racy D'lene's Coffee House.

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