A Pittsburgh TV news program tonight reported about a peace rally held in that city today. The report featured comments by a woman who, along with her cohorts, was lying in the middle of a downtown Pittsburgh street. Sayeth this brilliant individual: "They're calling this a pre-emptive strike. I'm a school teacher; how am I supposed to tell my kids not to hit someone first when our President is doing this?"

Um, OK, how do I say this nicely?

YOU UTTER FUCKWIT!! IS THAT THE BEST ARGUMENT YOU CAN COME UP WITH?? Clearly, she doesn't teach logic.

Now, I'm not sitting here (barefoot, clad in overalls, of course) drooling with eager anticipation of military action, but, for the love of God, scuffles on the jungle gym are slightly different from international relations -- or at least I'm just guessing, having had no hands-on experience in either.

Since this clueless teacher hasn't much creativity, I'll provide her with some wording:

Little Johnny: "Mrs. F.W., why are we bombing Iraq?"
Mrs. F.W.: "Well, Johnny, there are many complex issues in the world. Sometimes people like the President have to make very difficult decisions and do what they think is best for the country."

Enough. Stop there. I seriously doubt little Johnny is going to say, "But Mrs. F.W., you always say not to push Sally off the swing? Since George Bush is slaughtering innocent Iraqis, does that mean I can push whomever I want off the swing? Huh, huh, Mrs. F.W.???"

My friend, the Hillbilly in Brooklyn, alerted me to this story in the Charleston Daily Mail: Attorney general's office scraps anti-bullying effort.

The attorney general's office has scrapped its controversial anti-bullying program after critics statewide complained that it promoted homosexuality in the school system.

Deputy Attorney General Fran Hughes announced this week that the office has ended the Civil Rights Team Project, a safe schools initiative operating in about 20 West Virginia public schools.

A handful of students from each school served as role models, reported and stopped harassment and helped create a safe environment for all students.

Here's where they ran into trouble:

Some of the material for the Civil Rights Team Project, which was ultimately removed by the attorney general's office late last year, suggested that role model students wear T-shirts with slogans like "Straight but not narrow" and use words like "parent" instead of mother and father or "date" instead of boyfriend or girlfriend.

I kid you not, the residents of McDowell County are planning a PRAYER VIGIL in hopes of saving their KMart. The KMart in Kimball is one of 326 stores nationwide slated to be closed. While I see why it's important to have a retail store in a remote area of southern WV, I'm not so sure a PRAYER VIGIL is the way to go. Really, do they expect divine intervention?


Recent sportscaster blunder
WV sportscaster to coach during post-game interview: "Coach, you've teached and teached and taught and taught patience to your players..."

Oh good grief, what a sign of the times -- the Hatfields v. McCoys fight has been resurrected in a Kentucky court room. Oh how I yearn for the good old days when such disputes were settled with gunfire and hog-stealing. If the legal dispute should ever move to WV, the two families are evenly matched with four state bar members per family.

Civilization Cometh
About four months after the first TJMaxx in WV opened in Vienna (yes, Virginia, there's a Vienna in WV, too), the first Home Depot will open its doors in St. Albans in mid-February.

This is the second night in a row Geraldo Rivera has been broadcasting live from the middle of a mob scene in Venezuela (and by mob I mean large unruly gathering of protesters, not something out of the Godfather). WHY? Why is he in Venezuela? Why is he trying to anchor a TV show while surrounded by screaming, sign-wielding Venezuelans? Didn't anyone think ahead of time that this might not work logistically? GAH. It seems to me Geraldo should be in Baghdad anyway.

Obit Watch

A funeral home in the southern part of the state has added the following lingo (not once, but twice) to the obituary pages of the Charleston Gazette:

God opened his arms and received (name of deceased), on (date).

Another disturbing trend in obituaries is this twist on the usual "so & so went to be with Jesus" language:

(name of deceased) went home to be with her Lord (date), after an extended illness.

Her Lord? Is hers different from mine??
Another family or funeral director included this somewhat bizarre statement in another obituary:

He had a consciousness of the underprivileged and those in need.

Uhh...he was conscious of them and able to dodge them on the street, or what?

And, sadly, one woman's family felt it necessary to describe her long, no doubt dedicated and admirable teaching career as "50-odd years of teaching."

I closed on my shack house yesterday. I've learned that the going rate for changing the name on a utility account -- without turning off the utility -- is $30. Oh sure, I know someone comes out and reads the meter, but how arduous is that?

I also learned that West Virginia still uses the category of "single woman" (not, for example, a single person) in real estate transactions. The realtors sugar-coated the contracts they did, using "a single person," but indeed, there it was on the final contract for the house, just one of numerous papers shuffled in front of me to sign -- A SINGLE WOMAN. As if a single woman is somehow different than a single man or a single person. There's some kind of implied danger to that phrase, like there's no one to keep me in line. I don't have to tell you how hopeless it is trying to research this on the internet. Typing in "single woman," even with numerous real estate terms, yields a host of unsavory results.

A whole lot of whining and complaining coming out of the nation's capital today, a day after the WVU Mountaineers just about beat Georgetown on the Hoyas' home court. This is a big deal because WVU starts 3 freshmen and 2 sophomores, has a grand total of - if I'm counting correctly - seven scholarship players, and is in Coach John Beilein's first season. Despite WVU's upset victories over Florida and Tennessee back in December, our Big East brothers still don't respect the Mountaineers -- nor do the sportswriters in DC:

Sophomore guard Tony Bethel saved Georgetown from serious embarrassment yesterday against unheralded West Virginia in its Big East Conference opener, hitting an extremely difficult three-point shot from the left baseline that sent the game into overtime and the two free throws that clinched an 84-82 victory at MCI Center.

Oh indeed, what a serious embarrassment to have been outplayed by a team that's already knocked off Tennessee, Florida, and Miami, and played a hell of a game at UNLV! The Washington Times termed it "near-disastrous."
Here's where the pissing and moaning comes in:

No one who has watched (Georgetown coach) Esherick in public during his four-plus seasons as Georgetown's coach had ever seen him so furious. His anger was directed at officials who he insists allow opponents to foul Mike Sweetney too often without being called but whistle "hand checks" on the Hoyas' perimeter players.

"I'm sick of the way Mike Sweetney is being treated in our league," Esherick said, "and it makes no sense. And it is unfair. It's unfair to have to make a 20-year-old have to deal with that . . . One time Mike didn't even want to go down court he got fouled so bad."

Oh cry me a river, jackass. Poor little 260-pound, 6'-8" Sweetney. Clearly he was unfairly man-handled by the big, mean Mountaineers (the heaviest of whom weighs 225). He did, after all, finish the game with only 35 points, 19 rebounds, 5 blocks, 4 assists, 3 steals and ONE PERSONAL FOUL!
Get a frigging grip, Esherick. You were out-played and out-coached and are damn lucky to have escaped "serious embarrassment" -- tis far less embarrassing, you know, to wail like a schoolgirl after WINNING a close game than to lose to the "unheralded" Mountaineers. You're gonna have a wonderful trip to Morgantown come March 5.

UPDATE: An even better article is here...

Since I was away from my computer for a full 48 hours, I managed to rack up about 50 spam messages (spammers must have taken the weekend off -- usually have 100 or more). This one, from marriedalone13045p13@hotmail.com, has my favorite subject line of the lot:

Lonley and married people alike are looking to meet someone

Sounds like an above-average thesis statement from my former English 1 students.

I'm sure the state (and nation, no doubt) watched with eager anticipation as Gov. Bob Wise delivered his annual State of the State address tonight. Highlights include proposals for raising the cigarette tax from 17 cents to 55 cents per pack (ouch), adopting the .08 alcohol level as proof of impairment and maintaining funding of the PROMISE scholarship program (don't even get me started on that).

The Governor is also concerned that too many senior citizens have to "choose between food and medicine" or "skip pills to make a prescription last until the next Social Security check arrives." He suggests "fighting" the "big brand name drug companies." Of course, as I learned today, there is another option for senior citizens in need of cash.

And a little tip to the Gov.'s communications team -- when posting speeches online it looks a tad silly to post the actual speech that the Gov. read from. Reading "point-oh-eight" instead of .08 and the pronunciations of big words like "Blanchette" in parentheses (e.g. "BLAWN-CHET") really detracts from what would otherwise be a spiritual experience.

CBS' Hillbilly Reality Series Criticized

The Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg placed quarter-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Cincinnati Enquirer.

"The brass at CBS clearly think it's safe to make fun of and commercialize low-income rural folks," center President Dee Davis said. "We intend to lessen their comfort zone and make them rethink this premise."

Center for Rural Strategies? What the heck do they do? I mean, besides use the phrase "low-income rural folks" a lot.

The cost of Tuesday's three ads was $75,000, Davis said.

In my home county, one could easily purchase two decent homes for "low-income rural folks" for $75,000. And that probably would have done more good than whining about some reality TV series. People are eating horse rectums on Fear Factor -- what does that say about TV, American culture, etc.? I'm more offended that people WATCH people eat horse rectums than I am about some proposed hillbillies-go-to-Beverly-Hills reality show.

By the way, it is perhaps even more gross to read about dimwits eating horse rectums than it is to actually view the show (I can only speculate because I would NOT watch it).

Wrong number du jour
My phone rang last night at 6:20 p.m., which is in and of itself an entirely unusual occurrence. It became even more unusual when the caller asked, without even a polite hello, "DID YOU GET THE TACOS OUT OF THE OVEN?" I paused a moment, wondering if this was a Mexican variation of the old "Is your refrigerator running?" joke, but then calmly told her she had the wrong number (too bad -- tacos would have been nice). But then I was immediately overcome by curiosity -- Do people BAKE tacos? Sure, I've heard of warming the shells, but why would one go off and leave tacos in an oven? Does she have some new-fangled taco recipe that requires extensive baking? It wasn't until 11:15 p.m. that I came up with a hypothetical scenario that allowed me to finally go to sleep: Perhaps the woman made the tacos, then left them in a warm oven for her daughter to find when she got home. So in the end, you see, 'tis I who is stark-raving mad and not the taco lady.

Answer-phone joke triggers terror raid
Let this be a lesson to all you answering machine comedians.

You know, that clone-happy Raelian doctor looked kind of familiar the first time I saw her. I've finally figured it out -- either she is Grandmama from The Addams Family or she is Grandmama's clone!

Cavalier Obits
Since we have established that Charlottesville, VA, is, apparently, the hub of civilization, I turned to the Charlottesville Daily Progress to see how our cosmopolitan neighbors commemorate the dead. I was relieved to find that residents of that distinguished city -- like their neighbors to the west -- often "enter enternal rest" or "go to be with the Savior" instead of merely dying. (see also related Dec. 6 rant) While perusing the Dec. 29, 2002 obits, however, I happened upon the mother lode of obituary folly:

Mrs. ________ was blessed by many God-given talents and will be fondly remembered by her marvelous memory of telling family stories and reciting lyrics, such as "Froggie Went a Courting."

2002 was the WV Legislature's year of the overweight coal trucks; 2003 is shaping up to be the year of the doctors. The doctors are doing a great job of getting this issue out right before the start of the legislative session and the governor's state of the state address next week. And, since we're in the post-holiday news lull, national news outlets are picking up on the story.

Since I'm arriving back in cyberspace so long after the Continental Tire Bowl incident sparking the furor between UVA and WVU, I'm not going to say much on the issue. I will, however, direct you to several articles gracing the pages of newspapers across the country.

Skit by U-Va. 'Scramble Band' Jeered
Parody of TV's 'The Bachelor' Offends West Virginia Fans (this story in The Washington Post provides the most background about the UVA band)

Virginia sorry about pep band parody of West Virginia (AP story picked up by San Francisco Chronicle and many others)

'I'm surprised that pigtails are offensive'
UVa. band leader says aim wasn't to offend
WVU calls 'hillbilly' skit unsportsmanlike

As you might guess, I'm not horribly offended by the term hillbilly (duh -- it's in the name of my blog), and it is rather difficult for me to make a decent argument against the skit (which, for the record, I did not see) when our official team mascot wears buckskin and a coonskin cap.