Rants and Ramblings November 27, 2011

Sukey Forsman Age 61, Union Newspaper,

This has been a good and a bad week.  The good part was a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner and the bad the accidental death of my fiance's son-in-law's father in a car crash as we sat down for dinner.  Her son-in-law is also named Todd and it was a tough day.  The man was 60.  God can take us anytime.  Then today I looked at the obits and I saw one for Sukey Forsman.  She was a classmate of mine and I built her mom and dad's home about 35 years ago.  There was no article, just the announcement of her passing.  Sukey was a very popular girl and it is a great shock. Her dad, Fred needs our prayers.

Reading around the Internet news this morning I see that Newt Gingrich has received the endorsement of the New Hampshire Editorial board of the Union Leader.  They have picked some winners but they have also picked some losers over the years.  Mitt Romney according to many polls has a substantial lead in New Hampshire and is a favorite son.  I expect he will secure the primary in that state.  Newt is coming on though and with every debate it is clear to me ha  and Romney are the class of the group.

Black Friday!  What an odd name to call the day after Thanksgiving here in America.  It is a huge shopping day so in my opinion it should be called "bright Friday".  You can hear the cash registers ding as they are opened and closed!  I was in Yuba City and traveled over to Wal-Mart to see if they had those heavily advertised $198 laptops. The place was packed as were all the streets getting there.  I finally asked a clerk after I was unable to find the laptops and he said there were only 55 of them and they were gone a few minutes after midnight.  There were 100 people in line for the 55!  I was sleeping at midnight.  So, the real bargains were scooped up in the very early morning and those of us who slept in lost out.  I read where a woman was pepper spraying others so she could get to the head of the line for an X-Box!  With her technique she should have been pepper spraying the OWS scofflaws at UC Davis. LOL.

I finally renewed my subscription to the Union newspaper.  I had a two week gap and that was the first time in my memory I was without the trusty little paper.  When I checked the Opinion pages I ran across a response to his critics by a James Currier of Nevada City.  This fellow has a lot of guts to say what he said especially in Nevada City.  He actually called the OWS folks the Occuspineless!  HERE is the opinion piece and I would guess he is speaking for a huge "silent majority" out there. I recommend he secure a pepper spray canister for self protection!

As the year is coming to and end, I am still full of hope we Americans can fix our problems and remain the light for the planet.  There are many bad things happening around the globe but here in America, for the most part in a political sense, we do things without bloodshed.  The so-called "Arab Spring" (who named it that should be flogged), is a fifty-fifty proposition.  In Egypt I have a feeling it is going to fail.  In Tunisia, it appears to be working.  Libya, wait and see.  Syria, well that country is going to be in a civil war and there will be a lot of deaths.  Assad still thinks he is in charge and the "street" wants him out.  Their spring will be deadly.

Iran says they have the bomb.  Israel will not allow them to be in possession of the bomb.  There will be blood.  Russia is a governmental joke.  The people there keep installing Putin and Medvedev as their leaders and I guess as long as their is peace, the Russians will give up their desire for personal freedom to maintain it.  What was it that Ben Franklin said?  Europe is a mess, but we are going to see the return of true capitalism there.  They have tried socialism and now they see what a mess it has made.  There are only so many euros and there will be unrest until the people who pay the bills finally say enough!  They will become good "republicans" and it will be coming soon.

Locally we are starting to see people announcing a run for different offices and I was always a "more the merrier" kind of guy.  Nevada County has had a pretty stable government at all levels for a few years but I sense the natives are restless.  We still have high unemployment and a economy that is hurting.  We don't pay much to our workers here and a great percentage of them work for government.  We could turn into a Plumas County if we don't start loosening up the rules but I don't have much of an expectation that will happen.  One only needs to see the morphing of the "comprehensive site plan" the county requires for every permit to build a structure.

So, I hope everyone has a great December,  Now that we have a warm place for the homeless on Sutton Way, I would expect utter peace here in our little county.