Bowl games

What do Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Northern Illinois and Ohio have in common? They are Mid-American Conference members going to bowl games. That's the most since the MAC sent five schools to bowls in 2004.

If I remember correctly, Marshall spent about $2 million of Joan C. Edwards' money a few years ago to buy its way out of the MAC and into Conference USA so it would have more opportunities to go to a bowl. We see how that turned out.

By the way, I'm an Ohio grad. What's a bowl game? (Explanation: Ohio hasn't been to a bowl since 1969).

Lots of things today

The Associated Press wire had several stories this afternoon that got me thinking.

>> The person expected to become the next speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is drafting a bill to legalize poker, blackjack, roulette and other table games at that state's gambling places. But there is not that much support for gambling expansion in Pennsylvania. The state is still opening its first slots casinos. West Virginia gambling interests have already said they plan to make a push in this state for table games in the next session of the Legislature. You can be sure they will use this as another reason for local option elections in the four counties with racetrack casinos.

>> Gasoline taxes in West Virginia will go up 4.5 cents a gallon to nearly 50 cents at the first of the year. That's the increase in the excise tax on the wholesale price of gasoline from July 1 to Oct. 31 last year. A similar increase would have taken effect this year, but Gov. Joe Manchin suspended it. He couldn't do that two years in a row, not with the Division of Highways wanting the extra $63 million the excise tax increase will bring, and not with highway contractors wanting a piece of it. The new tax will make West Virginia taxes slightly higher than Ohio's again and make West Virginia's tax about 12 cents a gallon higher than Kentucky's. That could hurt some convenience stores in Ceredo, Kenova, Fort Gay, Williamson and other border towns with or close to bridges. Typically, stores in Ceredo and one in Huntington across from Camden Park sell gasoline at Kentucky market prices so they can stay competitive. Will they be able to do that after the first of the year? We'll see.

>> I like this one. The San Diego City Council thinks it can tell consumers where they can buy groceries. The council voted Tuesday to ban stores of more than 90,000 square feet that use 10 percent of their space to sell groceries and other merchandise that is not subject to sales tax. In other words, the city council wants to keep out Wal-Mart Supercenter stores. The San Diego ban is modeled after a ban in Turlock, a city of 70,000 people about 85 miles southeast of San Francisco. Wal-Mart fought the Turlock ordinance, lost and decided to not appeal. But it's only time before voters will want their Supercenters -- and get them.

Those are the big stories I will lose sleep over tonight.

No I won't.

Felinton vs. council

I wasn't at last night's Huntington City Council meeting, but from what I've read and heard, it appears the council and the mayor still have some conflict resolution issues to solve.

As for the requirement that all new city employees live in town. . .

If the city wants the best workers available, the residency requirement may hinder its ability to attract them. And if the mayor enforced that law today, how many vacancies would the police and fire departments have tomorrow? I have no idea, really. Just asking.

On the other hand, the law is the law. It's what the council ordered. New employees, especially managers, knew what they were in for when they accepted employment.

This is one issue that it's hard to come down strongly on right now one way or the other.

Winter weather forecast

This is not exactly a "hot" topic, but . . .

Mild winter, anyone?

About two weeks ago, meteorologists at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center predicted a mild, dry winter for this part of the country. This area should experience above-average temperatures, although this coming winter will not be as warm as last winter. And precipitation levels should be below normal, too.

"The prediction for a warmer than normal winter season does not mean we won't have winter weather," said Mike Halpert, lead seasonal forecaster at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. "What it does mean is that on average this will be a milder than average winter across much of the North, with fewer arctic air outbreaks," he added.

For more information, click here.

I don't know about you folks, but I've had enough arctic air masses for one lifetime. I don't like the temperature falling below 15 degrees. When it gets to 15 below, I really want to complain to someone.

The last 15-below night I can remember was 1996, but we may have had one or two since then. I well remember the winter of 1982 and having to change the water in my car radiator in a 60-below wind chill because I had to get to work and my radiator water had frozen.

No more of that for me.

WV's biggest high schools

So I spent part of today collecting enrollments of public school enrollments in West Virginia so I could ask myself the burning question, "What are the largest high schools in West Virginia?"

Here are the 10 largest high schools in the state, followed by some of the other high schools in our part of West Virginia. (I might get ambitious and do the same kind of list for Ohio and/or Kentucky some time).

SCHOOL (COUNTY) ENROLLMENT (9-12 only)
Jefferson (Jefferson) 2,342
Cabell Midland (Cabell) 1,833
Wheeling Park (Ohio) 1,803
Morgantown (Monongalia)1,733
Martinsburg (Berkeley)1,645
Huntington (Cabell) 1,633
Hedgesville (Berkeley) 1,565
Musselman (Berkeley) 1,444
John Marshall (Marshall) 1,399
Preston (Preston) 1,337

Spring Valley (Wayne) 1,136 (18th)
Wayne (Wayne) 655 (55th)
Tolsia (Wayne) 539 (66th)

Lincoln County (Lincoln) 904 (28th)

Hurricane (Putnam) 1,078 (20th)
Winfield (Putnam) 836 (33rd)
Buffalo (Putnam) 305 (42nd)

Point Pleasant (Mason) 775 (42nd)
Hannan (Mason) 192 (107th)


As usual, the smallest high school in West Virginia belongs to Paw Paw in Morgan County, with 65 students in 9-12.


One reason this interests me more now is that my daughter is a freshman at Huntington High. It took her a day or so to get used to being in such a huge building, but she's adapted pretty well. She did have some trouble when the bus schedule changed a bit a few weeks ago, but she's over that now. She does have to walk a long way between some classes, however.

At one time I thought Huntington High was too big. I still do, but I'm not as adamant about it now that my daughter is doing okay in high school. In fact, she's doing academically better now than she did in middle school. Part of that may be maturity and part may be the lure of a Promise scholarship. That's why the scholarships should not be tightened so much. They're making a difference in one girl's life. Who knows how many kids are studying better now that the promise of four years of free tuition is out there.

But I still would prefer her to go to a smaller school. Sixteen hundred kids is still too many to be in one place at one time.

Naming bridges, Part 2

One other thing about naming bridges and other public facilities after politicians who are in office:

Every such naming deal is a campaign contribution. Whenever you drive into the Pullman Square parking garage, there is Nick Joe Rahall's name staring at you in big letters. When you drive across the 6th Street bridge or pass the new biotech building at Marshall or go past one of the new structures at Cabell Huntington Hospital, there is Robert C. Byrd's name.

Politicians in office, especially in Congress, use campaign spending limits to restrict the amount of money their opponents can raise and spend. At the same time, using taxpayer money to purchase naming rights to public facilities amounts to a campaign donation that challengers cannot hope to match.

It's past time for the names of all politicians in office to have their names removed from public facilities. Put the names back up when the pols leave office, but no politician in office now should have any public facility with his or her name on it.

NFL Network

People in some places are upset that their cable systems do not carry the NFL Network, meaning they won't get to see eight games played on Thursdays and Saturdays the remainder of this season.

Pardon me if I don't share their outrage.

The ability to watch regular season NFL games is far down my list of household priorities right now.

On top that that, cable TV doesn't want to come anywhere near where I live, so I have a dish, and my carrier carries NFL Network. But that doesn't mean I plan to spend three hours Thursday night watching the Broncos and the Chiefs go at it. I'm going to bed.

Sunlight on the pink bridge

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: I was not in favor of painting the bridge, and I didn't like the idea of painting it pink. If I had to choose a color, it would have been white or gray so it would have blended in better with the park surroundings.

Having said that, I was over by there today at 1:30 p.m. This time of year, the sunlight hit the balustrades at just the right angle. I wish I had a camera with me to get the parallel lines of bright pink and shadowed pink.

It's like the old Huntington High School building. In early fall and spring, light from the setting sun hits it at just the right angle, and the colors of the old brick pop out at you in ways you never noticed before.

In October, the setting sun provides a similar color display on the changing leaves near my home. And in early November, the rising sun does the same thing on some dull red leaves that are about to fall.

So while I may not be a fan of the pink bridge, there are some times when it provides a pleasing sight. Just not many.

Radio talk shows

I sort of like talk radio. As long as the talk is intelligent, that is.

I tell folks in the office that good talk radio hosts are entertainer first and intellectuals second. There are three talk show hosts I will listen to in the car: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Ed Schultz, in order of when they are on the air during the day. I don't get to listen to them much, as they're usually on when I'm working. Like them or hate them, these guys know how to entertain old coots like me.

I try to listen to Schultz when I leave work of an evening, but at this time of year I can barely pick up the station I know he's on. I probably need to look at the station listing on his Web site to see if there's a better station available.

There's one conservative commentator I refuse to listen to. If the radio is tuned to his station when I get in the car, I switch over to NPR immediately. Likewise, I tried listening to Al Franken about a dozen times. I never lasted more than two minutes. His show is so awful.

I'm not going to talk abou the local talk show hosts, whether current or recent. Not now, at least.

Mine fatalities

We received a news release today from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics about workplace fatalities in West Virginia for 2005. The report goes back 14 years. Here are the raw numbers of fatalities:

2005: 46
2004: 58
2003: 51
2002: 40
2001: 63
2000: 46
1999: 57
1998: 57
1997: 53
1996: 66
1995: 56
1994: 61
1993: 66
1992: 77

Acording to BLS, most workplace fatalities are the result of traffic accidents.

I called someone at the Philadelphia regional office, which issued this news release, to ask about 2006 numbers. They refused to share any.

We can expect some change next year simply because of the number of mine fatalities West Virginia has had this year. According to MSHA, 22 mine fatalities have been recorded in West Virginia so far this year compared with 3 for all of 2005. That was as of Nov. 13.

Kentucky has had 17, up from 11. Ohio has had none, vs. 3 last year.

Of course, the accident at Sago and several other large accidents around that time contribute to the large numbers this year.

WV smoking regulations

The West Virginia Legislature has seen fit to not enact any statewide regulations or laws pertaining to indoor smoking in public places. Neither has the Ohio General Assembly. However, Ohio allows residents to vote on some types of legislation. Because of that, voters approved strict smoking regulations that take effect next month.

Regulating smoking in West Virginia is done by the 55 county boards of health. That has led to differing regulations in different counties. For the sake of fairness and just being able to keep up with things, it might be easier for the Legislature to settle the issue itself.

There’s a danger in this, however. Legislators are well known for slipping poison pills into legislation so the new law accomplishes the exact opposite of what the public is lead to believe is happening. So people will have to watch very carefully as the Legislature acts, lest lawmakers deliberately or inadvertently repeal all existing local bans.

Remember Sunday hunting, for example?

Maybe it's just as well the Legislature is letting this slide by.

Go away, OJ (updated)

How many folks out there think O.J. Simpson is innocent of murder? Raise your hands. One, two, three. . .

That many? Impressive.

So who would plunk down $15 to buy his new book "If I Did It"? And how many plan to watch more than 30 seconds of the two-part interview on Fox television scheduled for next week?

The Simpson interview provides no journalistic or entertainment purpose other than to keep Simpson in the limelight and to replenish his supply of blood money. So far, at least two companies have directed their stations to pre-empt the Simpson interview with other programming, and some station managers are making that decision on their own.

As the manager of the Fox station in Louisville said, “I would rather explain why I didn’t carry it than why I did.”

It's embarrassing to see news footage of people running up to Simpson on the golf course, asking for his autograph. This guy should stay in the shadows forever. If Fox had any shame, it wouldn't think about airing this show. But these are the guys who gave us "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?"

UPDATE: This afternoon, Fox announced the book and the show have been canceled. That's one right decision by Fox.

Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes wedding

Pardon me if I don't get all excited about the upcoming nuptials of Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

At times like these, I really miss my mother, who died 13 years ago. If she were to listen to news accounts about tomorrow's wedding, she would say, "The only thing that's new is the dress."

Who owns the letter W?

If Wayne High School hasn’t yet received a letter from the University of Wisconsin, it probably will.

Wisconsin is going to war against high schools that use a version, however faint, of its “Action W” logo on their football helmets or other parts of athletic uniforms.

It started several weeks ago, when a lawyer for College Licensing Co., which monitors and protects college athletic logos, wrote a letter to Waukee High School in Iowa demanding the school cease using the Wisconsin W on their helmets and other equipment. Now you can make the argument that no one can copyright a “W.” And you can argue that the Waukee W is not identical to the Wisconsin version. And you can argue that the lawyer was only performing a formality to show an attempt had been made to protect his client should a far more serious violation ever occur.

I choose Door Number 3.

Oh, Westside and Weir high schools in West Virginia have received the letters from Wisconsin, along with 19 others nationwide. If Wisconsin decides to sue, Attorney General Darrell McGraw said he will defend the schools.

Speaking of which, Marshall University made a big deal a few years ago of creating its own distinctive M. Several seasons have passed, and the same M used by Marshall, Michigan, Maryland and Missouri still adorns the Marshall football helmets.

A sad day for a beautiful bridge

The East Huntington Bridge is one of the prettiest bridges along the Ohio River. I have to say "one of" because I haven't seen them all. Many, but not all. The inverted Y with the support cables provides a beautiful scene, day or night.

Too bad the bridge is about to fall victim to the fate of many publicly owned facilities around here. As of tomorrow, the bridge will be renamed the Frank "Gunner" Gatski Memorial Bridge in honor of the former Marshall football player and NFL Hall of Famer.

This is too much. Meaning no disprespect to Mr. Gatski, who died last year, but what in the world did he have to do with the bridge? With Ohio River history, commerce or natural studies?

This mania for naming everything that's nailed down and half of what isn't for people plugged in to the local power structure has gone too far.

Unless I am specifically directed to do otherwise, I will always refer to the bridge as the East End bridge. Just as I refer to the Gallipolis Locks and Dam, not the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam. In the future, I might even refer to the West 17th Street bridge instead of the Nick J. Rahall II Bridge.

Let stadiums and playing fields and athletic buildings bear the names of athletes. The river should belong to the people who live along it or contribute to its science, art and culture.

Or perhaps a war hero. There are Medal of Honor recipients from this area, and their names go on dinky little bridges over dinky little rivers.

Again, no disrespect to Gunner Gatski, but there are probably a dozen people whose names should have gone on that bridge before his.

Actually, I was expecting either Jay Rockefeller or Arch Moore to get his name on that bridge someday. But now neither will.

There's nothing wrong with a generic name that tells people where something is. The East Huntington Bridge served that purpose. Now the East End bridge or the 31st Street bridge or the Proctorville bridge will.

Still scary

What will happen to this guy as he ages?

Too soon, too soon

So here's part of an e-mail that arrived this morning...

American People For Hillary
We are building the national network of grassroots activists that are ready and willing to support and to elect Hillary Clinton when she declares her candidacy. We will work online and on the ground to spread our winning message to American voters. When Hillary Clinton is ready to run for president, we will be ready for her. Because after all this is Hillary's history making movement! It's time for the Democratic Party to put up a candidate we can be proud of again.


If it's all the same to you Hillary Clinton fans out there, I really don't want to think about 2008 until most of 2007 is gone. She and other Democrats have plenty of time between now and the Iowa caucuses to show if they are an improvement over the Congressional leadership the GOP provided. And it's just too soon anyway.

Now I know where I rate

My boss, Executive Editor Ed Dawson, says he received one of those invitations to a Christmas party at the governor's mansion next month. I didn't get one. I'm so heartbroken. No need to check my mail every day now, unless someone plans to send me a photo of O.J. Mayo standing on a pink bridge and holding a "We Are Marshall" poster.

I couldn't have gone to the party anyway. I'd have to go out and buy a decent tie. I hate ties. I've written about that before, but I'll say it again. I hate ties. Useless pieces of fabric good only for covering your shirt buttons.

Future Palenstinian leader has local connection

So a guy who graduated from Marshall's biomedical sciences program is a leading candidate for prime minister in a new Palestinian unity government.

He spends three or four years in a town where people still argue about things that happened years or decades ago, and he goes home and could be about to lead the government in a region where grudges go back hundreds if not thousands of years.

Did he pick the right town to go to school in or what?

Bill Gates and public schools

Bill Gates of Microsoft fame has three children, all of whom attend private schools. I can understand that. If I had his money, I would probably do the same for a variety of reasons.

But that doesn't stop Gates from wondering about the quality of American schools. According to The Associated Press, gates says U.S. higher education is the envy of the world, but primary and secondary schools fail in their mission to adequately prepare students for college.

No argument here.

Gates told the AP that the U.S. public education system needs higher standards, clear accountability, flexibile personnel practices and innovation.

The following paragraphs are taken directly from the AP article:

“Real accountability means more than having goals; it also means having clear consequences for not meeting the goals,” he said in a speech earlier Monday to Washington state educators who came to hear the results of an education task force.
Gates said schools should also be able to pay the best teachers better and offer incentives to attract people with rare abilities.

“It’s astonishing to me to have a system that doesn’t allow us to pay more for someone with scarce abilities, that doesn’t allow us to pay more to reward strong performance,” he said. “That is tantamount to saying teacher talent and performance don’t matter and that’s basically saying students don’t matter.”

..."This nation has to do something very challenging, which is to provide a strong education to almost every student," he said.

(END AP)

There can be no accountability until schools are run with the benefits of students first. Not teachers, not admininstrators, not the job-seeking relative of the local school board member. As I've said before, my kids have had some great teachers in Cabrell County schools, and they've had some real duds. If I had my way, half the teachers in public schools would be terminated, with the money they receive now going to the great teachers who remain. The great teachers would have to do more work, but a good teacher in a room of 30 kids should be able to do better than a bad teacher in a room with 15.

We just can't clear the deadwood out fast enough.

We also would fund science, math and the arts a lot better than we are now. Soon, people will travel to Huntington to watch some kids play basketball. If only we could get them to come here so their kids could learn science and math.

Also ideally, schools would be set up to focus on a speciality and kids from neighboring counties could come here for maybe half a day to study. Why shouldn't Cabell Midland High School have such a great science program that the bright kids from Lincoln, Mason and Putnam counties find their way to Ona to study?

These are brainstorming ideas I've had in the past. I just wish the existing education system wasn't so rooted in interest-group politics and run by people clinging to doing things the way they were done 100 years ago.

My mind didn't take off until I got to college. I often wonder what would have happened if the elementary and high schools I went to had been prepared to handle unusual minds rather than force everyone into a one-size-fits-all system.

Sorry for the outage

We've been having some frustrating problems posting new entries. The IT guys say it's all fixed now.

Why the uproar?

Can we do something a little different?

First, may I ask why there is such an uproar about Huntington's pink bridge. Then I'll give my latest thoughts.

Okay, I can't hold them back. The bridge looked better the way it was -- unpainted, weathered concrete. The pink just stands out too much.

Second, I'm not sure how long the paint will last.

Third, I wouldn't want to live near the bridge and see it every day. It just does not fit in the environment. That may have been the intent, but it can be pretty unsettling to look at.

Fourth, I have no idea where pink bridge supporters get their statement that one woman in eight will be diagnosed with breast cancer. I went back through my family history as well as I know it. I come from a big family, and I can't think of any woman who has told anyone she was ever diagnosed with breast cancer.

Fifth, I don't want anyone taking a roller and some pink paint to any bridge or guardrail within sight of my front or back door.

Sixth, I'll be quiet now and let you all have your say, if you have one.

Gray Sundays

For some reason, this blog is not allowing me to upload my newest entries. It hasn't for three or four days. Work, home, nothing works.

On top of that, today is Sunday and the weather outside is chill, gray, wet and windy. The kind of day half my family likes and the kind the other half can't stand.

Get over it

We can’t seem to have a discussion of any serious issue — or non-serious issue — in Huntington without someone bringing up one of two things that happened decades ago.

It happened again last week when the City Council discussed a resolution asking the mayor to not allow a rural Cabell County resident to paint the 8th Street bridge over Fourpole Creek pink. During the public comment session, a woman stood and said something to the effect that this kind thinking is why the Huntington Mall was built in Barboursville.

She didn’t say anything about Interstate 64 being built south of town instead of through it. But she might as well have.

It’s time to drop these two arguments. They don’t add anything to any discussion of issues now facing the city, and they serve only to muddy things up. It’s a lazy way to make a point, and not a good one.

Let’s look at both of them.

First, the mall. Even if a shopping mall had been built in downtown Huntington or where KineticPark now sits, does anyone think a shopping area would not have been built where either the mall or where Merritts Creek Farm now are? And that those two shopping centers would have put a downtown mall or a mall at W.Va. 10 out of business?

Other cities have malls that are empty or dying because new malls are built close by. The Huntington Mall is built at the best possible site in this area for the development of retail business. Neither the Superblock nor KineticPark had room for what has developed at Exit 20 of I-64.

Speaking of I-64. Suppose the state of West Virginia or the federal government say $1 billion has become available to re-route I-64 through the city of Huntington. What neighborhood would you want removed to make way for the road? Would you want a wide swath of the West End destroyed? Fairfield West? Highlawn?

One or more of those neighborhoods would have to go to make way for a new I-64 loop through town. Which one?

Do we route the interstate across the Ohio River at the West End, crossing again in the downtown and taking out part of the South Side?

Can we for once stop fighting battles from the 1950s and try to concentrate on the needs of the 21st century? Do we advance our area today by reliving these fights whenever someone wants to paint a bridge pink or do something else that has nothing to do with where the mall or the interstate were built?

Give it a rest. Please.

"Exceptional"

Tell me where I'm wrong here. Someone, explain the terminology.

In today's mail came something from the West Virginia Advisory Council for the Education of Exceptional Children.

Great, I thought. Earlier today, I wrote an editorial for Monday's paper calling for more resources and time be spent on kids with special academic talents.

But I read this, and what topics were discussed? Children with disabilities. Kids likely to drop out. Kids with discipline problems.

I know we don't want to put "bad" labels on kids, but the word "exceptional" should be reserved for the pianist who plays Chopin at age 6, the math whiz or the kid who has an amazing grasp of social studies.

If I'm wrong, please explain.

The pink, blue, white and gold bridge

WRITTEN FRIDAY MORNING: As I went past Huntington's pink bridge on Thursday, I noticed some specks of black among the pink paint. I told myself I would have to stop on the way to work on Friday and see if those specks were dirt or if they were holes the bridge painter didn't fill with paint.

This morning, I drove past the bridge and got a big surprise. Vandals hit it overnight. It looks like someone threw a bucket of white paint on it and poured some blue paint on it, too. I stopped to get a closer look. The new paint smelled fresh. And there was some gold spray paint on the bridge, too. Not graffiti style, just some spraying intended to mar the pink paint job. Some of the white paint and maybe some of the blue spilled onto the sidewalk, and small amount was on the bridge roadway.

I have no idea who did this. The person or persons who did it are at the least guilty of vandalism and defacing public property. Jason Sansom, who painted part of the bridge pink, at least received permission from Mayor David Felinton before painting the bridge. If you disagree with Felinton's decision, that's one thing. But Sansom worked through channels this time.

My first reaction on seeing the vandalism was that this is what happens when we start painting bridges and underpasses. It invites graffiti people to do likewise. But this was not the work of graffiti people. It apparently was the work of an angry person who took matters into his own hands. Although I was not wild about seeing the bridge pink, a pink bridge looks better than what we have now.

By the way, the black spots in the pink were places where the paint roller or paint brush missed. That tells me the job of painting a bridge pink and making it look good is harder than some people might think.

SUNDAY EVENING: One side of the bridge was painted today, but only the part facing 8th Street. It looks okay when you approach the bridge from the South Side, but if you're coming down the hill you can see where part was painted and part was not. I for one hope this was not the end of the effort. Especially since there are so many small pits on the surface that were not painted that part of it looks pink with large dots.

Cassini

The Cassini spacecraft has sent back beautiful images of the planet Saturn, like this one:




This is Saturn as viewed from behind, looking toward the sun. Great, eh? For more images, click here.

Cassini's vogage is to end in 2012. That's the schedule for the end of its current mission around Saturn. NASA folks and others are debating what to do with Cassini after that time. Whatever they do, I hope Cassini continues to send back beautiful images of the solar system until her nuclear batteries give out.

To vote or not vote

We have the voter turnout numbers from yesterday's election. People will moan that not enough people are voting. Actually, I know some people who don't vote and I'm glad of it. They don't pay attention to what's going on. They take what comes their way. They have no desire to have a voice. So really, they shouldn't bother.

One thing you won't hear the moaners say is that some people don't vote because they see no reason. They want a reason to take the time and trouble to vote, but they don't see a dime's worth of difference between the two parties.

That might change now that the Democrats are in control of Congress and some Republicans are making noises about reviving 1994's Contract With America.

I have to write couple of election analysis pieces this week. Overall, I'm glad the election is over. Now let's see if the Democrats can do any better than the Republicans.

Actually, this election is over, but I'm afraid the 2008 election has just begun.

Some jokes aren't funny

Humor is such a hard thing to understand at times, especially when people who are trying to be funny don't have a clue as to what humor really is.

There was John Kerry's "botched joke." Kerry's reaction revealed more about the man than his "botched joke" did. Others have opined this to death, so that's all I have to say about that.

Then came the Faith Hill "joke" in which she reacted with disbelief that someone else won some sort of country music award. Her reaction shows she has Kerry's problem with understanding the public perception of how some "jokes" are interpreted. All she succeeded in doing was take the spotlight away from the young award winner and focus it on herself. It worked, eh?

HS football players follow-up

As a followup to a post from a few weeks ago, the Kenton High School football season ended Oct. 27. The two football players who took part in a prank that led to a traffic accident that seriously injured two other teens have begun serving their sentences in a juvenile detention center.

Altogether, five teens were charged. The last of the five pleaded no contest on Monday. All five have pleaded no contest to the charges, according to an article carried by the AP.

As background, two of the teens who pleaded no contest were on the football team in the football-crazy town in northwest Ohio. A visiting judge allowed them to defer their sentence until after their season ended.

A lot of people (including most who write or read this blog) thought the football players were getting special treatment.

School buses and seat belts, part 1

Before the end of today, I hope to post on a wire story on the number of injuries related to school bus accidents.

In case I don't get to that, here's a photo of my youngest in heaven. Actually, he has just toured the new Thomas Built Buses factory in High Point, N.C., where the new C2 models like the one in the background are assembled.

UPDATE: I hope to post something tomorrow. I'm scanning the 'Net for whatever I can find on this study. I've accessed the abstract but not the original article itself.

All I can say so far is that I have found nothing requiring me to change my opinion that seat belts are not necessarily a good idea in school buses. Too many problems, especially as they relate to how boys would act if they had belts to use as weapons.

Cable median barriers

Remember a few years ago when Interstate 64 in this area was plagued with crossover accidents? A driver would lose control, cross the median and collide head-on with traffic moving in the opposite direction. Too many times, the results were deadly. But now most of I-64 here has cable barriers to prevent crossovers. We took our cue from North Carolina, which had installed them before we did. Cable barriers are less expensive than concrete dividing walls, and they can be installed much more quickly.

An AP story that moved for today’s papers say a number of states are investing in cable barriers. Ohio has spent $5.5 million since 2003 to install 83 miles of cable barriers and is working on 30 more miles at a cost of $2.2 million. Ohio had 18 fatal median crossover crashes in both 2004 and 2005, but none in areas where there were cables.

Missouri has cable barriers on more than 200 miles on interstate highway.

The work here is not done. The last I checked, we did not have cable barriers all the way to the Kentucky state line. We need them along every mile of I-64 where there is not a concrete dividing wall. I-64 may have been engineered to the standards that existed in the 1950s (although I have my doubts about that), but the road is not that well engineered for today’s driving. All four-lane roads need cable barriers, but the interstate system definitely needs them.

GOP to retain hold on Congress

So here's my prediction for tomorrow's national elections:

The Republican Party will maintain control of both houses of Congress by a slim 1 or 2 seat majority.

How do I know that?

A) I don't.

B) The national media are all saying the Democrats will take control of one or both houses. That means the opposite must be true.

C) If I want to make a national name for myself as a political prognosticator, I need to go against the convention wisdom.

Predicting the Democratic sweep tomorrow is like predicting the Yankees will win the World Series. Hmmm, that's what all the sports media were doing six weeks ago, and look how that turned out. As I said earlier, if media types were really good at prophecy, we'd be in Vegas right now or picking our own numbers on Powerball tickets.

So you heard it hear first, second, third or whatever.

The boss will not like me doing this

Sometime today someone dropped off a long letter about next week's election.

Even though the deadline for election letters was a week ago today, and we gave people at least 10 days' notice in the paper of the deadline, and we've been running notices daily that we were not taking any more election letters.

Maybe the writer doesn't read the paper, but he wants his letter published.

Maybe he forgot.

Maybe he thinks the rules don't apply to him.

If it's the last, he could be one of those people who gets in the express lane at the grocery story will a shopping cart full of small items. So what if the sign says "10 items or less"? And if people with only one or two items are stuck in line behind the person with the full cart.

I'd better let it drop. The letter writer's motives aren't what bother me. The jerks in the checkout line do.

The price of Don Blankenship's support

Kelli Sobonya has learned that having Don Blankenship's support can be expensive.

Sobonya, a Republican who represents the 16th District in the House of Delegates, was at The Herald-Dispatch earlier today buying some more ad space. While she was here, she talked with me about her re-election campaign. She's gotten grief for taking $1,000 from Blankenship. I told her I was jealous that Executive Editor Ed Dawson had received a Democratic Party mailer at home showing a photo of fellow Republican Delegate Greg Howard as a puppet being controlled by Blankenship, and I hadn't.

"We have spent more money defending our position of taking a legal donation than we got from the donation," Sobonya said.

Sobonya said she and Howard have discussed whether accepting Blankenships' money was worth it and whether they would do it again. Sobonya said she would take it. She said she won't let the Democratic Party tell her whose legal donations she could accept and whose she couldn't, even if it costs her the election. And that's true even if her opponents receive more donations from Blankenship's opponents than she received from Blankenship, she said.

Little posting of late

I'm sorry to have not posted much here lately. I'll do better next week.

Here in my office (I call it the Skeptic Tank), I've spent the past two weeks reading the dozens if not hundreds of letters people write supporting or condemning a candidate or an issue. But I'm almost done, and maybe tomorrow things can get more back to normal.

In the evenings, I go home and help my first-grade son read his third-grade level reading books. And I talk with my seventh-grade son about what he's learning in science class (right now they're talking about viscosity). And my ninth-grade daughter and I talk about what might keep her from making straight A's this six weeks. Before she goes to bed, she practices her guitar. Sometimes my daughter helps her youngest brother with his reading. She has this knack for working with little kids. It's the 12-year-old brother types that really annoy her.

All of that is much more interesting than reading another letter about a given candidate, you know? If I thought every letter was written by the person signing the letter, that would be one thing. But we all know that candidates provide talking points or even entire letters for their supporters to sign and send in.

Thankfully, it will all be over soon.

On Nov. 8, we can talk about something else. Like the 2008 presidential primary.

By the way, not every letter is getting in the paper. We just plain don't have the space. This morning, we've put all the letters and guest columns that aren't getting in and putting them on the Web site.