The Slide Continues

I just read that in California, U.S. President George Walker Bush’s approval rating has hit an all-time low. Only 34 percent approve of the job Mr. Bush is doing. Sixty-five percent have doubts about Mr. Bush’s trustworthiness. One poll found that just 30 percent of the people polled felt the nation is going in the right direction source. Them’s scary numbers when you’re talking about the president of the United States of America. If we can’t trust our own leaders, how can we expect the rest of the world to trust any of us?

Mr. Bush is in Argentina today at a summit. He was met by thousands of protesters, chanting, “Fascist Bush, you are the terrorist source.” When asked how he was going to handle Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Mr. Bush commented, “Well, I will, of course, be polite. That’s what the American people expect their president to do is to be a, you know, a polite person.” source Actually, Mr. Bush, we expect a lot more than that… We expect you to be accountable for your actions. We expect you to make wise, educated decisions. We expect you to act on OUR behalf, not yours. We expect a lot of things, and I expect we’ll continue to be disappointed.

Speaking of disappointment, the senate passed a bill yesterday allowing drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge source. Mr. Bush has been pushing this issue for five years – he does, after all, have very, very close ties to the oil industry. The pity and shame of this bill is not immediately apparent until the numbers are crunched. It turns out that the major oil companies will now be able to do pretty much whatever they want in the wildlife refuge, and, in about ten years, we’ll start to get oil. The oil we will produce will last the nation for six months. To put it another way, gas prices are NOT going to fall due to this action source. We’re not gonna see any results for ten or twelve years, and what we do get really isn’t worth damaging the environment for, in my opinion. But, Mr. Bush’s friends in the oil industry will profit, and I guess that’s what’s important… The republicans claim that drilling in the arctic will produce up to 736,000 jobs. I have to admit, I don’t know where those jobs are going to come from. That number seems too large.

To name names, democrat Bill Nelson of Nebraska voted for this bill. He has done a few other things lately that go against party line (example – he supports Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee). A maverick? Or a man who simply votes his conscience over his constituents? It’ll be interesting to see where Mr. Nelson is in a year or two.

Closer to home…

In my last post, I commented on our local elections here in Sioux City. Next Tuesday are the elections, and thus far I’ve not found a single candidate knocking at my door. I’ve been trying to research the various candidates and haven’t really found much.

The Sioux City Journal is running a series of articles on the candidates. You can find the article about Jim Rixner here. I mentioned yesterday that Mr. Rixner is, thus far, the candidate I’m voting for. The article in the Journal confirms that feeling – it seems that Mr. Rixner is, in my opinion, on the right track. Incumbents Dave Ferris and Karen Van De Steeg, on the other hand, don’t seem to have done much in their terms that they can point to and say, “vote for me, I did thus-and-such.” In another article (found here), Ms. Van De Steeg commented on young people from moving away from Sioux City by saying, in part, “You have to go where you can find a job.” That implies that our very own leaders know there are no jobs to be had in this area, and don’t seem to be doing much about it. Spooky.

In both articles, Mr. Rixner seems to be the only candidate that knows what’s happening.

Mr. Rixner is endorsed by the labor movement here in Sioux City, and is mentioned in a rather interesting blog on the Woodbury County Democrats web site, found here.

In the Personal Section…

Just when I start thinking that no one reads this but Dagmar and myself, someone will pop up out of the proverbial woodwork and prove they’ve been paying attention. Last week poor Dagmar was feeling ill, and I mentioned it on-line. Two days later she got a “Get Better” card from some friends across town. That made us both a little misty-eyed…

We’re still struggling with money – we have enough to pay our bills and eat with, but that’s about it. And, you know, we’re pretty happy… We often curl up on the couch with the cat and a bowl of popcorn and watch TV, knowing full well that we’re lucky to have a warm house and a good marriage.

But I still wish my neighbors would calm down… They scare me a little. People coming and going at all hours, screaming in the street on a regular basis, parking in my driveway, throwing trash in their yard – it’s bothersome. I enjoy walking to work (it saves gas and is good for the environment and my health), but if the neighbors are out, I get in the car and drive, just so I don’t have to walk past them.

I’ve not had a cigarette since July 26th (not that I’m counting or anything). It’s getting easier every day. My lollipop consumption rate has fallen to three or four a day, and I haven’t thrown anything at anyone in a couple of months now. I am, however, still waiting for my sense of humor to get back to normal. I had hoped by now that I’d have saved enough money by not smoking to get a door with a deadbolt on it, or to have my teeth fixed (I have a pesky wisdom tooth that’s making an untimely arrival – sideways), but it seems that all we can do is pay our bills and hope to get by until the next payday. Oh well.

DeLay that Indictment!

It seems that Mr. Tom DeLay, a republican Representative from Texas and former House Majority Leader, had reason to smile when his now-infamous mug shot was snapped. Mr. DeLay has successfully lobbied to have the judge in his case removed source. It seems that Mr. DeLay didn’t like the fact that State District Judge Bob Perkins has, in the past five years, donated money to democratic candidates. So, Mr. DeLay went to Mr. Perkins’ boss (a republican, appointed by a republican) and had Mr. Perkins replaced.

It seems odd to me for several reasons. The first is simple: judges are supposed to be impartial. There shouldn’t be any difference between a judge who votes democrat and a judge who votes republican.

The second reason this seems odd to me takes a little reverse engineering of the facts. Doesn’t it seem strange that a man who has not only been arrested for money laundering, but also has had numerous ethical charges and is well known for abusing his power source, can virtually hand-pick the judge who sits on his trial? Does that seem right?

A few facts about Mr. DeLay before I move on… Did you know that Mr. DeLay’s fellow republicans once signed a petition asking that DeLay be removed from office? He has lied to the FBI, he has lied on depositions, and led a power grab in Texas to gain more republican seats via redistricting – which caused Texas to waste millions of dollars in legislation whilst healthcare and education needs were being unmet source.

In general, not a man I’d trust with MY last candy bar.

Local Elections

I was poking about the Internet trying to find out what I could about our local candidates for next Tuesday’s elections. It seems that the Sioux City Journal ran a series of articles about the candidates, but there’s really nothing else of substance out there.

I did learn a few interesting things about the candidates from the Journal, though… It seems that there was a debate recently, but of the six candidates for City Council, only three managed to attend. Brent Hoffman, businessman, barber Donna Jensen and Jim Haigh, engineer, did not show up for the debate. Mr. Hoffman had a prior commitment, but the other two simply declined to attend source.

The three that DID make it to the debate were Mayor Karen Van De Steeg, Jim Rixner – executive director of Siouxland Mental Health, and Councilman Dave Ferris. From what I heard and read of the debate (I wasn’t actually there – I learned of it after the fact), Mr. Rixner would like to help individual citizens of Sioux City by increasing police protection in the neighborhoods, putting street lights up in dark corners, making sure people have enough to eat, and generally making the city a nice place again. Ms. Van De Steeg thought the city needed a better water supply. Mr. Ferris felt that the city should encourage new housing growth for the wealthy.

From what I’ve heard, Mr. Rixner is the only one who seems to understand the city’s true problems (as I see them) and could articulate them. He gets my vote.

If you’ve read this blog before, you know that my neighborhood needs help. Graffiti and vandalism is rampant, there’s a very high number of homeless people wandering the streets, and I think my neighbors are shady. In one night last summer (for example) we had our door knocker stolen, a truck drove through my front yard, and a drunk passed out in the street – all in the space of ten minutes. Something needs to be done; I’ve informed the local police, but nothing much seems to change. The only way to get police presence in my neighborhood is to start calling the gunshots in to 911, but that just seems to irritate the dispatchers these days. (The last time it was just a neighbor shooting at another neighbor’s dog.)

I don’t wanna be a cow!

Yep, yesterday was Halloween. Dagmar and I threw caution to the wind and went to watch small children. You’d think we’d know better by now than to go try to see kids when they’re all jazzed up on sugar and chocolate, but for some reason we thought it was a good idea. So, off to LeMars we went.

We made it to the first intersection. “Oh,” said my beloved bride, “Ve have to go to de drugstore before we go to LeMars. You’re out of tummy pills.” So, we took a right instead of a left and went to said drugstore for the above-mentioned tummy pills. “Okay,” I said, pills in hand. “Off we go!” We fought our way through the ten-to-five traffic and eventually found ourselves in Hinton, some ten or twelve miles north of Sioux City. “Oh,” I said. “We need gas.” That earned me a fairly dirty look from my beloved. “Vell, hurry up, then,” she said. “I vant to see the kidlets while dey still have their scary costumes on.”

I pulled into the first gas station on the left. You know the one… It took about four and a half seconds to get fifteen dollars worth of gas in my car, another two minutes to run inside and pay, and about half an hour to get back on the highway. (Trains, grain trucks, and what passes for rush-hour traffic in Iowa all conspired against us.)

So, eventually, about an hour later than expected, we got to LeMars. We were giddy with glee! We get to see the nephew and nieces, including our beloved Goddaughter, Maddie! Wheee!

We caught up with my brother, Cory, and his family at their friend’s house. Out of the car bolted the hippie and the Austrian. We were immediately attacked by Batman Hunter and Princess Peyton, and what appeared to be a dustmop, minus the handle. After taking the appropriate pictures of the two kids, and figuring out that the dustmop was really a Shih Tzu puppy (“It’s supposed to give the kids a sense of responsibility,” explained my brother, nodding wisely) we started looking around for Maddie, our Goddaughter. About that time a very small black and white cow wandered down the sidewalk, wailing in misery, little tail waddling.

Evidently, Maddie doesn’t like being a cow for Halloween.

The poor child planted herself in one spot and wailed, cried, sniffed, snuffled, and generally made her unhappiness known throughout the neighborhood the whole time we were there. Meanwhile Hunter and Peyton were having a ball chasing each other and the dustmop doggy around the yard, deftly avoiding and ignoring the unhappy sister. It was quite the sight…

After a bit, things calmed down a little. We figured out that the dustmop puppy’s name was really Maizie, and that she is a very nice doggy indeed. (I had to fight the urge to call her “Corndog” all night. You know… “You call her Maizie, I call her Corndog.” I’m sure a few of you out there are old enough to understand that.) Oddly enough, not only did Cory and Dawn get a Shih Tzu Sunday, but fellow Clam Tim and his wife Janet also got a Shih Tzu on Sunday. I think I missed the memo.

Oh well.