The government is talking about whether to send us some more economic stimulus checks, and I say, “bring them on.” Mrs. Doud and I can always use another economic stimulus check, although I will have to say that I don’t know where the last one went. I know we were supposed to spend it on things that would stimulate the economy, but I don’t think we did.
We may have gone out to eat a couple of times, and I think I may have gotten a new shirt, and Mrs. Doud was talking about getting some new shoes.
But that was about it.
We probably paid off some bills and put the rest in the bank.
Which at another time would have been the same as following good advice, but it turned out that putting money in the bank didn’t do much to stimulate the economy, which is kind of embarrassing.
I guess we should have gotten a new refrigerator with the money, and I will promise you here and now that if we get another economic stimulus check, a new refrigerator will be high on our list of uses for it.
I was looking at refrigerators the other day, and the new ones are pretty good. They’ve got them arranged now so that the freezer part is on the bottom and the milk, cheese and egg part is on the top, which makes a lot of sense.
I have a hard time seeing into our refrigerator because the freezer part is on the top and the milk, cheese and egg part is on the bottom, and I have to keep bending over to see into it. The older I get, the harder it is to bend over.
I’m ready for that stimulus check right now. I promise to blow it on a new fridge, and if we have any left over, I think I’ll get the cat a new bed, as she is getting older, too.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Madera County Sheriff’s Office and Citizens on Patrol for their recent assistance during a very difficult time.
My brother recently passed away, and a Mass was held at St. Joachim Catholic Church, with the burial at Calvary Cemetery. The procession was very long, but the assistance of the Citizens on Patrol blocking the streets so that we could get to the cemetery safely made the journey a little easier.
On behalf of my brother and family, it was an honor to have them assist us during this difficult time. I know that they are volunteers and they took time away from their busy schedules to assist my family. They represented the Madera County Sheriff’s Office in a professional manner.
Again, my sincerest thank you.
Mary Ann Chavira-Palacios and family of Alfred “Freddie” Chavira
Appearing on the Jay Leno show last night, Sen. John McCain was asked about the future of the Republican “brand,” in the wake of its defeat in the Nov. 4 elections.
The “party has a lot of work to do,” McCain replied. “We just got back from the woodshed.”
McCain is right. The party is engaged in blame-throwing and navel-gazing right now, but it needs to learn from the pounding the voters gave it in this last year.
First, Republican voters gave self-described maverick McCain the nomination over the wishes of the GOP establishment who didn’t think he was conservative enough. Huh?
It was not McCain who abandoned the principles of conservativism. It was the Republicans in Congress, and to some extent President Bush, who nominally was the party’s leader. They followed in the steps of President Lyndon Johnson and the Democrat-controlled Congress of the mid 1960s, who tried to fight a war and still spend like crazy on domestic programs. That never works.
The GOP needs to relearn its principles, just as a lapsed church-goer needs to relearn his catechism.
Paramount to the conservative is freedom. As Barry Goldwater writes in “The Conscience of a Conservative,” “there is no difficulty in identifying the day’s overriding political challenge: it is to preserve and extend freedom. As he surveys the various attitudes and institutions and laws that currently prevail in America, many questions will occur to him, but the Conservative’s first concern will always be: Are we maximizing freedom?”
People get sick of being told what to do when they sense that what they are being told to do is wrong or wrong-headed.
That’s where the GOP has to start getting it right again.
President-elect Barack Obama held his first news conference Friday, and he handled himself pretty well, except for one thing: In answer to a question about whether he had consulted past presidents for advice, he said he had, but “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances.” He was joking, but he got it wrong.
He wound up having to call Nancy Reagan afterward and apologize. It turns out Mrs. Reagan did not have seances. She sometimes consulted an astrologer, according to one source that has been widely quoted, but she never sat around a table with others trying to talk to the dead.
It was actually Hillary Clinton who did that when she was first lady — sort of. According to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, Clinton had imaginary conversations with her personal hero, Eleanor Roosevelt. That’s not quite a seance, either.
A seance is conducted by a spiritualist, usually called a medium, who acts as master or mistress of ceremonies. Participants sit around a table, hold hands and concentrate on the medium’s words and on calling up the spirit of a specific person who is dead.
Although Obama doesn’t appear to think much of seances, apparently many do. A lot of people take great stock in the paranormal, and to them a seance is merely one way of reaching beyond ordinary day-to-day reality.
And if Mrs. Reagan did consult an astrologer — she never discussed it publicly — she wouldn’t have been alone. More people believe in astrology, apparently, than in astronomy.
Obama had better be careful whom he insults. If he makes jokes about astrologers — or for that matter about astronomers (who take themselves very seriously) — he might wind up seeing stars himself. So to speak.
I love this page. Today (Nov. 6) we have an article on a kosher meat packer going broke in Iowa. It claims that the raids from immigration agents (aka) Border Patrol arrested 300 workers. Now the packing plant is filing for bankruptcy.
Not to long ago, I remember the Iowa Meat Packers were in L.A. recruiting Mexican workers, paying relocation expenses to go to Iowa to break the unions. Union workers were making in the $20 bracket, and these workers would work for $8.
Kosher is a special rabbi-blessed product. Somewhere in the Good Book it says, “You shall reap what you sow.” Not sure if it is in the Old Testament or the New, but I hope its in the old. Wonder if they have a “Help Wanted” ad printed in English … the chosen language of the United States.
CEO probably got a big bonus, too. Slavery dead? No, we still profit from the backs of others.
Wall Street financiers are facing another crisis. It appears as though they owe themselves billions in bonuses that they would be glad to pay to themselves, except that their new stockholders, the taxpayers, would likely throw them off the tops of their Madison Avenue skyscrapers if they tried to sneak out the door with such sums.
One of the conditions for getting federal help, the bankers and finance titans were told, was that caps would have to be put on wages and bonuses.
This seemed a terrible thing to people who had been making tens of millions of dollars a year each. Now, they are perhaps going to have to content themselves with mere millions, and not tens of millions, or tens of millions instead of hundreds of millions. Those of us who don’t make tens of millions of dollars — including just about everybody in Madera, for example — would not think it much of a burden to only be able to make a few million a year. I know I would love it, as would Mrs. Doud.
“We will finally be able to get the rain gutters on the house fixed,” she would say if I brought home a paycheck with seven figures on it instead of two.
Wall Street bankers apparently don’t worry about having the rain gutters on their houses fixed. Whenever their rain gutters start leaking or spilling over, they just buy new houses. The same is true if the paint peels a little, or if the rose bushes need pruning. When their cars run out of gas, they just call up and have a new car delivered with a full tank.
Now, however, they will have to start behaving like the rest of us, hanging out in hardware stores and pumping gas. The poor souls.
All comments are edited for length and content. Due to content or space limitations some comments may not be published. Please limit your calls to two minutes or less. Repeat messages on the same subject adding to the length will not be published.
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A man who mentioned the constant criticizing of Madera High football coach Blankenship said, “just remember, a certain retired principal and the school board hired him, so don’t forget to vote.”
A man commented to the lady (last week) who complained the freshman football team is not in the paper. “They should put something in the paper. The kids do a great job. However, nobody cares about freshman football. The parents are just in the stands. At least the parents care. At the varsity games the parents don’t even go to the games. They can’t watch.” (Editor’s note: A story about the frosh championship winners was on Page A1 of the Monday Tribune.)
A woman who called the school Madera North said, she “would like to congratulate Madera High football game for doing an outstanding job again. It doesn’t surprise any of us.” But she heard that “Blankenship is getting the freshmen to try out for the varsity for the playoffs. What does this man think? He’s a farce.” (Note: All callers who refer to Madera High as Madera North, your message will be changed to reflect the actual name of the school.)
A gentleman said he “was driving past the intersection of Yosemite and Tozer when I saw a bunch of kids planting flowers at the Welcome to Madera sign. I later read that it was students from Mountain Vista and help from the Parks Department. Congratulations to both the school and parks for planting the flowers. It certainly helps the area and is a nice greeting for those coming into town from the mountains.”
A man said, “On Oct. 31, a lady was arrested (name given), and she was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and burglary. This was in front of Longs on Country Club (Drive). The story never appeared in The Madera Tribune.” The gentleman was “wondering why the cover-up? Is it because she is Madera Unified School District employee and she was around our kids? Parents need to know that information. It may be more widespread than we know. Look into it, thank you.”
A man said, “congratulations to the (Madera High) Freshman (football) team, great job, great season, keep up the hard work.” He then added, “all you can do is hope when you get to the varsity level the coach is gone.”
“All of you liberal Democrats out there got what you wanted,” said a woman. “Well, talk is cheap. Now, ‘ see what the president does. I believe in backing the president because he is now the president of the United States no matter what party. Stay united. But there is a lot of talk going around. A lot of bull going around so lets see now what happens. Lets hope this country never becomes socialist. And Republicans, stand up for what you believe.”
“Did you really think he would change,” said a gentleman concerning “another letter (Monday, Nov. 10) by Gordon Skeels … He says the country should unite, then criticizes the liberals for calling Bush the worst president in memory. Well, Mr. Skeels, I’m a veteran, fought in Iraq and he is and, regardless of what you say, history won’t change it. Bush has already written his own history. As for you watching our next president as you say ‘like hawks,’ I would expect nothing less.”
A woman left a lengthy message, but before the Red Line cut her off she gave “commendations to Wal-Mart security. I talked to quite a few friends and we need to give them recognition.” The caller listed several incidents in which security did an outstanding job. “They seem to be taking people off to the police quite often … You’ve got somebody who is doing their job.”
A woman, self-identified as “Megg Lasswell,” responded to a letter to the editor about a school not allowing costumes on Halloween. “I will be sending my daughter to school in a costume every year,” she writes. “When the phone call comes that day, and the principal says her costume isn’t allowed, I will let him/her know that it was laundry day and that’s all she had to wear. Besides, isn’t it more important that she is at school learning?”
A reader commented on a controversy at the start of this year over a Tribune article on the murder of 18-year-old Krista-Rae Pike. “I for one, who have had a sibling murdered in cold blood, feel it is very necessary for the details of said crime to be revealed to the public,” the reader writes.
“Two people conspired to kill another human being, and you all are bickering about the media’s release of information. By personal experience I can assure you all that the media does go too far in some cases, they may intrude on the lives of those that do not want it. But the young woman will be remembered in the lives of her family, the thoughts of her friends and the outcome of this trial.”
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Thank you for your calls. Remember, the Red Line is open for your messages 24 hours a day by calling 674-4478, or by visiting www.maderatribuneredline.com.
It has long been a given that only veterans can understand how veterans themselves feel about their service in the armed forces, and about whether the United States should continue to maintain the most powerful military establishment in the world.
While you can’t say the following applies to all veterans, most tend to agree with the basics of it:
(1) The United States should not send its forces into combat without a clear idea of why they are being sent and without a clear objective — usually to achieve victory over the opposing forces.
(2) All other things being equal, the United States should never underequip or understaff its forces.
(3) The United States should never punish its forces for doing their jobs.
(4) The United States should be clear about the benefits of service that it offers its forces, and quick to make them available to veterans when they leave the service. Veterans should not have to sue to get benefits due them. If the United States can afford to hand out $700 billion to Wall Street, it can afford to have hospital beds available to those veterans who are entitled to them and need them.
(5) Greater effort should be made to help veterans who suffer mental problems as a result of their service, especially those who are homeless. It seems ludicrous that some men and women who served to keep the nation safe wind up themselves at risk sleeping in parks and under bridges.
(6) Funding to provide benefits promised veterans should have the highest of priorities. No earmark should be added to any federal spending bill until vets’ needs are funded.
I thank all you veterans for keeping our land safe and making freedom possible.
If you ever want proof of the fact that people have different preferences, take a look at their dogs sometime.
The other day, for example, I saw a neighbor walking his Irish wolfhound, and it seemed to be just barely smaller than a horse. The leash he had on it wasn’t much more than a thin string, kind of like that stuff that gets shot from a can at Halloween parties. If this dog had decided to take off after a cat, it would have snapped that string easily.
Later that same day, I saw another neighbor out with her dog, a little Chihuahua. It might have been a mini-Chihuahua, if there is such a thing. She had a leash on that dog that could have been used to tow a truck. Had it taken off after a cat, the owner could have just flicked her wrist, and it would have jerked that dog backward like a slingshot.
I was driving past a veterinary clinic and saw another dog lover come out leading his bulldog, which was about the size and shape of a 100-pound sack of spuds. The dog walked slowly, and when it got to the owner’s pickup it tried gamely to jump in, but couldn’t make it. A few too many Gainsburgers on board, I imagine. The dog’s master lovingly, gently picked it up and helped it into the cab of the vehicle.
These three dog owners all belong to the classification caninus affectionus, but each expresses it in a different way.
The same might be said of those who voted in Tuesday’s election. They all loved their country, but had different ways of demonstrating it.
Some of us like more than one variety of dog, and some of us vote all over the ballot. Which is why elections and dog shows are so interesting.
Headline: “Governor planning $3b in budget cuts:” And the biggest cuts will be to school budgets while they complain about the high cost of welfare. Don’t they know that the lack of education is one of the major contributors to the price of welfare?
The California Lottery winner’s purse is only a third of the gross. Supposedly another third goes to the administration of the lottery, leaving the final third for schools and education with so many restriction on its use that they have tied the hands of the people that run the schools and know where it should be used. Plus the fact that if there is a winner of the lottery, the winner will only receive 40 to 50 of the total with the rest going to the general fund.
I suggest that someone ask those legislators where they received their educations. What we have here is dummies leading dummies. If you ask the homeless and the people on welfare how they got in those positions they would say something like “cuz I didn’t get no learning” or “drugs and alcohol got me here.”
This country has the highest education homeless in the world. Where did this school money go? Why is it that the lottery money’s disbursement is not published?
There should be a limit on the use of state credit and gasoline cards, put a limit on the users of these cards and if they go over that limit then they pay the overage out of their own pockets. They want to cut back on state spending, then start at the top.
Close those tax loopholes, the rich should pay taxes at the same rate as the poor and not so rich. Limit or do away with those tax write-offs. I remember about 20 years ago when I was making less than $20,000 a year, I paid more state income taxes than Standard Oil of California did for that year. Does that seem right? Large companies claim they spend their money on R&D (research and development) and write those costs off on their taxes.
Take oil for instance, there is more oil seeping from the ocean floor off California then was ever spilled by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska, per year! Oil companies don’t have to drill for oil, just find the leaks, cap them off, and start pumping. No need to explore any further. There is a small oil company in Long Beach with four “man made” islands in the harbor that drills down to a specific depth and then drills horizontally (East) under the city and pumps oil. What did this cost as a write-off in R&D money?
Another cost that sticks is my craw, is the cost of health care. (As an example) if your doctor prescribes “Boniva” for your Osteoporosis and you don’t have health insurance that covers that prescription, that “once a month” pill will cost you $99.95 a month, the manufacturers want their R&D money back, now! If you are one of the millions of people that do not have health insurance you probably wouldn’t go to a doctor in the first place. You would probably just go through life with your bones decomposing while you are still using them. Isn’t that an attractive thought! Without family to take care of you its “toe tag city” sooner then it should be.
My opinion may seem a little harsh, but if we don’t speak-up about what going on around us then it will continue to go on, business as usual, and the winners are big money. Everybody but us.
