January 2008 Archives

January 25, 2008April 18, 2020

Blizzard of ’78 – 30th Anniversary

In the early morning hours of January 26th 1978, thunder woke me up. Rain was hitting our trailer hard. We lived on Trenton Ave. where the Wal-Mart store is now, at the intersection of US 224 and I-75.

At the time I was 10 years old and afraid of thunderstorms so I did my usual run to mom’s room and I crawled into bed with her. I fell asleep soon after.

That didn’t last long. Blizzard of '78

Just before dawn the roar of the wind woke both of us up. The wind banged the various loose metal pieces and trim around our windows. My mom turned on the radio and WFIN was broadcasting about a blizzard hitting Findlay. It wasn’t even 5 am and Findlay City Schools closed for the day. In fact all the schools in the county closed.

We laid there in the morning gloom listening to the radio until the power went out. Not only was the radio off but so was our propane furnace. Mom got up and filled a bucket and some empty milk jugs with water. She told me to put on some extra clothes to guard against the cold.

The roar of the wind didn’t stop. I looked out the window and saw nothing but sheets of snow.

The Great Blizzard of 1978 had arrived in Findlay.

That first day was an adventure. Mom got out our camping gear and setup the Sterno stove so she could have some coffee. We had little food in the house as the storm caught us off guard. Later in the day, when we tried to open our front door to let the dog out to pee, it was frozen shut. The rain the night before froze on the metal frame. My poor dog couldn’t go outside even if she wanted to. It took about a half hour and a butter knife to get it open. The dog went to the open door, sniffed around, and refused to go out in the wind and snow.

I had to lift her down onto the stoop and as she went into the drift around the door I only saw her snout. She was gone for only a minute and slowly made her way up the stoop. I had to reach out and lift her back into the house.

Being 10, I started to complain about being cold. Even cuddling with Mom on the couch under every blanket we owned I was still cold. Mom told me to stop thinking about it. But I couldn’t. She got up and poured me a shot of whiskey and said that it would make me feel warm. It made me sleepy. We both got into my bed and pretty much slept the rest of the day away.

The next day the power came back on so life returned to some what normal. We needed some food and the radio said that Great Scot down the road would be open for a few hours. I got out my sled and we started out for the store. Before we left the trailer park we stopped off to see our neighbors, the elderly couple Pert and Lou and found out they had a wood stove and were fine. We asked if they needed any food and Pert said he needed toilet paper for sure.

My mom and I walked the mile or so to the store. Driving was banned so dozens of people were walking to the store like we were. Some used cross country skis. There were some snowmobiles and a few 4 wheel drive trucks. The only clear spot was the middle of Broad Avenue. The store had plenty of can goods but no bread or milk. I was just happy to be out of the house.

On the way back we looked down on I-75 and there were cars and trucks abandoned on the highway. The drivers had been rescued the day before.

It took a few days and front end loaders from the National Guard before they allowed people to drive again. We were out of school for a week and I remember burning out on sledding down the hill of the US 224 I-75 interchange. I also spent a lot of time digging our car out.

The next weekend we went to McComb to visit my grandparents and the drifts along the roads were huge. At one point it was like driving through a tunnel as banks of snow towered over our car and the road.

The one thing we learned during that Blizzard was not be unprepared again. For years we stocked up on can goods during the winter months and if a storm was coming we bought extra bread and milk just in case. We also made a Blizzard box with extra blankets, candle, more Sterno, and a battery operated radio.

Toledo TV station WTOL has posted video of their newscasts on January 26th and 27th 1978 so you can see what it was like back then. The ironic thing is since our power was out we never got to see the shows when they first aired.

Blizzard of ’78 – 30th Anniversary

January 14, 2008April 18, 2020

It’s the real economy stupid

The recent trouble with the subprime mortage lending business showed a problem with the foundations of the US economy. I like it when I find blogs or articles by people able to explain the issues without a lot of jargon.

acerimusdux in a post on Daily Kos explains why 30 years of libertarian influenced laissez-faire fiscal policy has led to a failure to invest in America, and THAT is the most dangerous threat to our way of life.

What [Alan] Greenspan glosses over here, is that for nearly 30 years now, our economic policymakers, of both parties, have operated under the misguided theory that savings would somehow automagically equal investment, by some mysterious operation of the “invisible hand” of the free market. As a result, we now have nearly 30 years of economic data which proves that this just ain’t so. Perhaps Greenspan, having held his influential position throughout parts of all 4 administrations which pursued these policies, and having used his position to aggressively promote these same policies, is incapable of giving a more honest assessment of their failure.
So when you hear or read economists and financial writers today talking about a global “savings glut”, consider that the only difference between a “savings glut” and an “investment deficit” seems to be one of interpretation. And ask, what evidence is there that the private markets have invested at an optimal level?
And likewise for those who say the government only needs to get out of the way for the private sector to invest. I would ask, as we have tried this now for nearly 30 years, where are our modern factories? Where is our modern production equipment? Where is our domestic industry? Why are we falling behind the rest of the developed world even in our transportation, communication, and health care systems?
It Ain’t All “Bubbles” Greenspan’s Fault

Failure to invest in America is about as bad as ignoring external threats. Reaganomics was a failure.

January 1, 2008April 18, 2020

Primary start to long election cycle

This week is when the rubber hits the road and all the glad handing and baby kissing done this past year takes a breather as the 2008 US Presidential election begins its primary phase. Politically I am an independent so I don’t get to vote for a candidate during the primaries nor do I want to.

Although I don’t vote in the primaries, I want to write about some of the choices available and why it doesn’t matter anyway and that primaries are only a dog and pony show at tax payer expense.

First up is Iowa and New Hampshire. Basically these 2 states are the 4th quarter of a close football game as one team tries all out to win it in the last 2 minutes of the game. If it works the winning team moves on to the playoffs and if not then they pretty much go home.

These first 2 contests starts the process of shaking the chafe from the stalks, as lessor candidates start to drop out as momentum and money flows elsewhere if they lose or lose badly.

The end of primary phase is the respective party conventions before Labor Day.

GOP

Sorry, I just can’t force myself to write anything about the GOP candidates. The part they are all playing this year is the anti-immigrant, anti religious freedom bigots and they all simply disgust me. If you really want to read something about them then check out this website that seems to gloss over their anti-American stances – Election Center 2008. I just can’t bring myself to give them any space for their so-called views in my blog.

Democrats

This is going to be the election that the Democrats have the inside track of winning since the GOP is in a tailspin and old 24% Dubya is in his last organismic throes as the guy that stands in front of microphones and tells us what Lord Cheney tells him to say.

Congress changed hands in 2006 even though the Dems have really not done anything yet less they upset Lord Cheney so while they have a good chance of winning the White House in 2008, they also have a great opportunity to fuck it up like they did in 2004.

While my fingers are crossed I will leave the party poppers in the closet until January 20th 2009 when a Democrat is actually taking the oath of office.

But who?

I would like to see Dennis Kucinich get the nomination but unless a majority of Democrats “grow a pair” I doubt he will get it. Kucinich is my kind of Democrat – against the war from day one, calling for impeachment of Lord Cheney, and I agree with most of his positions as to the economy and civil rights. Dennis is portrayed in the “media” as a kook but he is the only one I see who isn’t playing the “Republican Lite” game.

The “media” and most political insiders have Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as the ones duking it out for the nomination.

I really don’t have a problem with either one, but seeing as candidates are suppose to play to the extreme side of the party – since they are ones most likely to vote in the primary – Clinton and Obama have the “Republican Lite” down pat. We know how that worked for President Kerry…. oh wait….. Maybe this time the Dems could show an actual contrast with the GOP rather than a less extreme form of them.

Clinton is making an issue of experience claiming that since she was First Lady for 8 years that she is more experienced than Obama at being President. I don’t know how that claim is valid. That is like saying the wife of the fire chief is more experienced at being fire chief than an actual fireman.

I have just never bought into the idea that someone who has NEVER been the President of the United States can claim they have more experience just because they lived in the same house as a President. Someone can learn what the job is like but until you have to make the same decisions and take the responsibility for the decisions then you can’t claim you have experience in it.

Who would I choose?

One thing I tried to do was find out – If I could vote in the primaries – who I should vote for. By that I mean which person shares most of my views.

There are several unscientific “candidate match” websites out there. Basically they all present quotes or issues and you choose which ones that you agree with. At the end the websites show you which candidates matched your responses.

The first one I used is called Select Smart. The results I got is as follows:

1. Dennis Kucinich (86%)
2. Barack Obama (84%)
3. Joseph Biden (77%)
4. Christopher Dodd (77%)
5. Hillary Clinton (76%)
6. John Edwards (72%)

Another one I used was simply called VoteMatch Quiz

Chris Dodd (75%)
Cynthia McKinney (75%)
Dennis Kucinich (70%)
Hillary Clinton (68%)
John Edwards (63%)

The My Election Choices.com website uses actual quotes on different topics and you decide which one you agree with most. I decided to reduce the amount of time I would spend on the quiz and picked only a few of the topics available. The ones I picked were Education, Environment and Energy, Foreign Policy (General), Iraq War, and Separation of Church and State/Religion. The candidates I matched up with most were (number of quotes I agreed with follow the names):

Christopher Dodd (18)
Bill Richardson (14)
Hillary Clinton (11)
Dennis Kucinich (10)
Barack Obama (10)
John Edwards (9)

Cult of Personality

Of course, to the “media” and so-called talking heads, issues really don’t matter in a primary. I tend to agree that it is all a dog and pony show because the nominees will then morph into something bland and tasteless for general consumption during the run up to the general election.

If I were a registered Democrat or Republican, it really wouldn’t matter whom I voted for in the primary. No one will find a candidate that agrees with you 100% on every issue. If they did then it might just be your clone. Yet, progressive friends of mine use that as an excuse not vote period. They want perfection.

The candidates sometimes go negative and trash their competitors during the primaries then the party expects everyone to fall into line behind the winning nomination. Of course they forget the other party then uses the trash from the primary against them.

The reason I stay an independent and refuse to vote in a primary is because I think the whole primary system is a sham and at tax payer expense. It is a prime example why our elections are broken and suspect now. Both parties have used their power to pass laws to protect their “machines”. Where else, like the Ohio Revised Code, can one find detailed laws on how a state central committee is formed and operated. If that doesn’t smack of communism I don’t know what does. Is it really the business of state law to decide how a party is to govern itself?

Why is that when an office becomes vacant before an election that party of the past holder can appoint a replacement? It is just one way the system is manipulated by the two parties. They appoint a replacement who then is considered an incumbent in the next election.

Ballot access laws favor the two major parties because they wrote the law. They have different requirements for current parties and make it difficult for new parties to get on the ballot. Next to being an incumbent, the party label next to one’s name is a huge advantage (also having the same last name as a past or present office holder doesn’t hurt either).

I feel that if parties want to have primaries and conventions then they should do it on their own dime – not mine. Elections should be open to anyone who wants to run and we should have preferential voting.

Then maybe we’ll see the end of the dog and pony show and get back to elections about issues.