Got a great little Halloween tale for you. Little Southern gothic fare from the dim, distant days of my childhood. Best thing about this little tale, what makes it so creepy … it’s a true story, swear t’goodness.

This all took place in a little town down in Georgia called Chamblee where I grew up, just outside Atlanta, out on the northern end of Peachtree Street where it used to dead end before the Atlanta sprawl engulfed everything around it. I was six, maybe seven years old and they were building I-285, the perimeter highway that runs around Atlanta. The route had been excavated and the highway department had the whole thing graded and ready to pour the concrete. In fact, they were scheduled to surface that area near Chamblee the next day.

There was a local fellow lived in our town at the time, I don’t remember his name. He was a grubby little appliance repairman, always complaining about his nagging wife. Whenever he was on a job, if there was anybody to listen, he’d tell all about how she’d nag and nag and always had to have the last word in every argument. He had even been out to our house once or twice to work on our stove. I was as close to him as I am to this keyboard I’m typing on. Guy smelled like oil and cigarettes and his fingernails were dirty.

Well, the night before they were scheduled to surface I-285, the appliance guy evidently had enough of his nagging wife and strangled her to death in their kitchen. I don’t know if he had been planning it or not, but when it happened he sure came up with a foolproof way to hide his murderous act. He carried her body up to I-285 and buried it up on the roadway … dug her grave in the graded, hard-packed dirt under a sky hidden behind clouds: no moon, no stars, no witnesses. He knew that next morning the highway crew would come with their trucks and steamrollers, cover her with an asphalt comforter and she’d sleep forever beneath the speeding wheels of countless travelers. The quote, unquote perfect crime.

But what happened, after the guy was done with his foul deed and safely back home, the clouds thickened and there came a downpour that lasted for days. Because of the weather, they didn’t surface the highway the next morning like they had intended. It rained steadily for the next several days and the hammering downpour worked on the graded, hard-packed earth with a fury, loosening it up, forming rivulets across the muddy roadway. Can’t you just imagine him, the greasy little appliance guy with his dirty fingernails, standing fixed at the window, chain smoking, watching the hard rain fall, cursing the rain, cursing his luck  …

Well, it took a few days, but finally, under the steady barrage of pounding water, the graded earth began to melt away and the man’s nagging dead wife … came up out of the ground! I swear to you now and forevermore, the poor dead woman rose up out of the road. Grim and unbreathing, regurgitated like a piece of undigested cheese, squeezed from her fell grave like a ripe pimple, she arose from the mud, rested and ready.

And when the rain finally stopped, that’s how they found her: half up out of the ground, one pallid hand pointing a bony, accusing finger back in the direction of the sad little house she had shared for so many years with her faithless and treacherous mate.

When they came for the appliance guy, he wasn’t even surprised and went without a struggle, no doubt resigned to fact that not even the grave could stop his nagging wife from getting the last word.

This story is true and attested to by myself lo these many years after the fact. Let them who still have life heed it.

By Kenneth Balog

According to Corker’s own words at his recent Cleveland meeting, he wants to keep Olin Corporation’s Charleston chemical plant in operation, allowing it to spew more mercury contamination into our environment.

I find that so objectionable that I must write about it.  Hasn’t Corker yet figured out that the Olin plant on the banks of the Hiwassee River is responsible for the well-known mercury pollution in the river?  Why else are fishermen warned about the mercury content in the fish caught near the plant?  Why else have environmentalists been complaining for years and years about mercury pollution?

I am of the opinion that Corker is exceedingly ignorant or is just another political hack.  Why else is he asking the public to allow the Olin Plant to continue to pollute the environment while Olin figures out what to do about the mercury pollution problem?  Right there, I can identify Corker as a hack.

First, because Olin has been aware of the mercury pollution problem for years and years and has not yet resolved the matter.  Second, Olin intends to keep right on manufacturing its products using the mercury system because it will be the main plant providing chlorine products to the coming Wacker polysilicon plant that will be constructed next door.  So Wacker will give Olin new life — in fact, will have a direct pipeline between the two plants.  Corker had to know all about the Wacker/Olin deal and that is probably why he is against anyone closing down the Olin mercury process.  I would suspect that Corker, as well as some other local political hacks, stand to gain something from Wacker or Olin.

I chuckle when  I read the thing Corker said about allowing Olin some time to correct the mercury problem — what we are trying to do is figure out a way to give them an appropriate time frame to change.  We’re not talking 2020, but in the next several years, but to do so in a way that, while we’re making this change, we don’t jeopardize the livelihood of the people here in Bradley County.

Now that is a real forked tongue statement, because Olin has been well aware of the mercury spill problem for more years than I can count on both hands. The plant should have been closed down years ago when the world learned just how deadly mercury poisoning is and just how much mercury got into the environment at the Charleston plant.  From what I remember in newspaper articles, it ran in the tons.

Corker and managers of the Olin operation seem to be concerned about the number of people who would lose their jobs should the plant close.  Well, that is not likely to happen, what with Wacker needing chlorine at its new plant.  Olin just doesn’t want to clean up its act because it would put a dent in their annual profits for a while.  In reality, if Olin quit using mercury in its operations it could construct a new plant in time to service Wacker and its environment threatening operation. And during that construction, hundreds of local people could be employed.

I am surprised that no one asked Corker if he had any figures on how many people in Bradley county have sustained injuries or birth defects as a result of exposure to mercury in our local environment.

Another question that ought to have been asked should have been, has Olin or Wacker ever contributed to his political campaigns? I would have asked that question first. The second one I would have asked would have been, is Corker aware of the threat posed by the silicon tetrachloride that will be a by-product of the Wacker operation?

Instead of one big pollution problem, Corker wants us to put up with two of them.  Thanks a lot — hack!

Originally run July 14, 2009

Word in the bush is that some of our local law enforcement types – not to mention any names, but their initials are Wes Snyder, Barry Brakebill & Steve Bebb – do not want the George Poe incident to die. They are determined to make an example out of him, just in case any other law-abiding Bradley County citizen might attempt to defend themselves or their property against thievery, as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Of course, we must remember, just a few short months ago when one of the District Attorney’s rogue 10th Judicial Drug Task Force agents (again, who will not be identified, but his name begins with Bobby Queen) held his family hostage at gunpoint, trashed his own home, shot up the neighborhood with his state-owned automatic machine gun, held a day-long stand-off with 3 separate SWAT teams while threatening a “blood bath” and, just to show he was serious, tazered the neighbor’s cat. But we cannot really hold the unnamed Queen, or the Coach, or the Music Minister accountable because it wasn’t the rouge agent’s fault, since he was known to be a sufferer of depression and drug abuse. The Coach called all the media together for a big press hoopdeedoo to say he would have no comment about the incident, except to say that the unnamed Queen was a “HERO!”

If we were going to nitpick with our local unnamed law enforcement types, we would probably point out:

1. That a local physician was supplying city police officers with bogus drug prescriptions
2. That said police officers were inhaling said drugs and alcohol while on-duty
3. That said police officers were engaging in drunken rounds of Russian roulette while on-duty
4. That said police officers were selling said drugs from their police cruisers
5. That said police officers were contributing to the delinquency of minors
6. That said police officers were indulging in the occasional statutory rape
7. That said officers lied about the whole sorry business for over four years without the knowledge of our sainted Police Chief

But, since we are not nitpickers, we won’t even bring all that up, because we need to remember: Councilman George Poe is the real pubic enemy here!

The above comment, and all “Ear To The Ground” articles are submitted by our readers and in no way reflect the views, opinions or flavor preferences of HTC.

It grieves me to tell you that Soupy Sales left us this week. Man, Soupy. He was up in his eighties, rest his soul. I was a big fan of the Soup’s back when I was a kid. I could even do the Soupy Shuffle. In fact, I once won a prize at a school dance for doing the Soupy Shuffle. Well, it wasn’t a prize really, the teacher came over and hit me with a crucifix. And it wasn’t a school dance so much as it was Sunday School. But I miss ol Soupy.

Mighty Barack has sure been cracking on Fox News hard and heavy. He don’t seem to think Fox is a very important news outlet. But then, he don’t seem to think the First Amendment is a very important amendment either, so, we’ll see how that plays out. But some people believe the U.S. Constitution is an “evolving” document. I just hope if the Constitution is evolving, it don’t evolve the same way monkeys did. Cause they evolved into us and look at the shape we’re in.

And I Quote: “To (Obama), the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the U.S. Constitution.” ~ Gerald Warner, from an editorial in England’s Telegraph, April 09

And I Quote: “Stop reading those London tabloids. ” ~ White House press secretary Robert Gibbs

There’s a guy in California, a dentist, Dr. Roger P. Freeman, president of Infectious Awareables. What he does is market a line of neckties that feature designs of deadly diseases. The designs on the ties are based on how pathogens look under an electron microscope. You got your Ebola virus tie, your malaria tie, you got cholera, chlamydia, herpes, gonorrhea and various other bacterial scourges. Okay, I get it. But you ask me, the guy’s a dentist, where’s the gum disease? I know it’s not as sexy as HIV or the Bubonic Plague, but where are the cavities, the plaque build-up? Where’s the halitosis? I’m no dentist, but I’ll bet halitosis would look nice on a tie.

Did you know Michelangelo’s full name in Italian was Michaelangelo di Lodovico di Lionardo di Bunoarroto Simoni. Yeah, but he later shortened it to Michaelangelo di Lodovico di Lionardo di Bunoarroto Sim.

See. Got rid of that oni at the end. Made his name too long.

Barack did that big media blitz a couple weeks ago, where he was on five Sunday shows in a row and one guy asked him, isn’t forcing people to buy health care the same thing as another tax? Barack told him no, and then said, quote, “We’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you.” Man said that without a trace of guile, he’s not gonna have other people carrying somebody else’s burdens for em. Not gonna have other people carrying somebody else’s load for em, paying their way, feeding their face. Uh-uh, not gonna be having none of that.

George Wallace once said that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans. Ol’ George may have been a smelly little cigar-eating bigot for most of his life, but in that, at least, he was right. The two parties are like two giant monsters in a Japanese movie going at each other in the middle of Tokyo. The two giant monsters, they don’t know from Tokyo, they have no awareness of their surroundings and wouldn’t care if they did. They’re so focused on killing each other, they don’t even know or care that they’re destroying an entire city. And by entire city, I mean America. So, I wish they’d stop that, but I doubt they will.

Couple months ago, an al Qaeda suicide bomber sneaked into the palace of a Saudi prince and blew himself up. They said the guy slipped the bomb through palace security by hiding it in his rectum. No, I didn’t sneeze, I said rectum. A pound of high explosives and the detonator to go along with it. Not just that, but he hung around the palace for something like 20 hours before he blew himself up, walking around, hanging out, a pound of explosives in his rear end. Made him a butt bomb then lit the fart. Those guys, man. That is some weird kind of determination, that’s what that is. You know, I’m starting to understand why women over their cover their faces … they’re embarrassed by the men.

(cue singing school children …)

Barack Hussein Obama … mmm, mmm, mmm …

He be black but he be white …

He be wrong and he be wronger …mmm, mmm, mmm …

Barack Hussein Obama … mmm, mmm, mmm …

He don’t like what Rushbo say …

Wanna jam that fat man up … mmm, mmm, mmm

Barack Hussein Obama … mmm, mmm, mmm …

Man be like a black Robin Hood …

Give you some money if you stand in line … mmm, mmm, mmm …

You all probably know of the Rush-Limbaugh-as-racist controversy; that is, Rush was part of a consortium to buy the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, but a concerted effort by Al Sharpton and abetted by the mainstreammedia derailed the deal after portraying Rush as a racist (and thereby unworthy to own, or even co-own, a football team). They did this by exploiting totally untrue racist statements Rush was supposed to have made and exaggerating other statements he did make.

Lest you think the charges against Rush carry substance, as opposed to being the worst kind of exploitive hypocrisy, consider some of these quotes by Democrats and other enlightened liberal role models …

May as well start with the so-called “conscience of the Senate,” the venerable Democrat senator Robert Byrd. Not only was he a Keagle in the Ku Klux Klan (that is, a recruiter), he was also a Grand Wizard. In a retroactive attempt to downplay his frequent use of the N-word, he said, “I’ve seen a lot of white n—–s in my time.” (You know, if I spelled the N-word out, I would catch more grief for quoting him than he caught for actually saying it). But my favorite Byrd quote was something he wrote in a letter: “Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.” That, my peeps, is passion. As you know, Byrd enjoyed a long, prosperous career within the Democrat party.

Back when he was a senator, Joe Biden offered this bit of wisdom: “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” And in case you think he was joking, he added, “I’m not joking.” Joe’s also the one who described Obama, back when Obama first hit the scene, as “clean and articulate.” I thought he’d catch it from black people for the “clean” part, but incredibly they were offended by the word “articulate.”

Hillary Clinton got a pass for putting on a so-called African-American accent while criticizing San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. It wasn’t so much what she said as it was her doing the black impression. Look it up ~ I’m sure there are clips on the Internet. But the classic Hillary ethnic slur was when she was yelling at Democrat political operative Paul Fray and capped her tirade with, “You f—–g Jew bastard.”

Perpetuating the African-as-cannibal stereotype while speaking before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, long-time South Carolina Democrat senator Fritz Hollings said, “You’d find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.”

Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes said that African-Americans and Hispanics were “too busy eating watermelons and tacos” to read the fine print on their insurance policies. The mainstreammedia stayed way, way, way away from that story.

I mentioned Al Sharpton earlier … he slammed Rush for a parody song entitled “Barack the Magic Negro” (sung to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon”), but never expressed any outrage or even concern over another “parody” song played by leftist radio host Neil Rogers entitled “Condoleezza” (sung to the tune of Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa”). It went, in part: “Condoleezza, Condoleezza, what you be doin’? That neo-facist black-haired token schwarze dog. Is you there ’cause you a high-toned public Negro? Is you their black-haired answer-mammy who be smart? Does they like how you shine their shoes, Condoleezza? Or the way you wash and park the whitey’s cars?”

Nice, huh? “black-haired token schwarze dog”? O Brother Al, Where art thou?

By the way, you’ll never hear this in the mainstreammedia, either, but the whole magic Negro thing didn’t start with Rush Limbaugh. It was taken from an article that ran in the Los Angeles Times on March 19, 2007, entitled “Obama the Magic Negro.” The piece was written by David Ehrenstein, himself an African-American, and postulated that white people were voting for Barack Obama out of guilt.

But racial hatred doesn’t just come from white liberals … black liberals got skin in the game, too. Black Democrat Congresswoman Diane Watson from California referred to Ward Connerly, a prominent black businessman, thusly, “He’s married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn’t want to be black.” Yeah, shame on Connerly, wanting a “colorless society.” Let’s see, who else wanted that …? Oh yeah, now I remember ~ Dr. King wanted that.

Harry Belafonte described former Secretary of State Colin Powell as a house Negro because he worked for his “master” George W. Bush, warning that, “When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.”

Black movie director Spike Lee described black Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas as “a handkerchief-head, chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Tom.”

Black New York City councilman Charles Barron said at a “reparations rally” in 2002: “I want to go up to the closest white person and say, ‘You can’t understand this, it’s a black thing’ and then slap him, just for my mental health.”

Mary Frances Berry, black Chairwoman for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: “Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them.”

Joycelyn Elders, the black U.S. Surgeon General under Bubba Clinton: “The Medicaid system must have been developed by a white male slave owner. It pays for you to be pregnant and have a baby, but it won’t pay for much family planning.”

Black USA Today columnist Julianne Malveaux: “There’s no great, white bigot; there’s just about 200 million little white bigots out there.”

Zack Webb, University of Kentucky NAACP: “Reparations are a really good way for white people to admit they’re wrong.”

Former black Democrat Representative from Illinois, Gus Savage, after losing the election in 1992: “We have lost to the white racist press and to the racist reactionary Jewish misleaders.”

Louis Farrakhan, who founded the Nation of Islam (Islam, anyone?) remains a veritable font of racial hatred and intolerance. He especially hates Jews. In 1984, he confessed his admiration for Adolph Hitler: “The Jews don’t like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man.”

Campaigning for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2002 at City College in New York, Farrakhan said, “The white man is our mortal enemy and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years.”

When McKinney lost that election, her father (Democrat state representative Bill McKinney) explained why: “Jews ~ that’s J-E-W-S.”

Maybe Farrakhan is too easy a target ~ as are the reverends Al “Tawny Brawly” Sharpton and Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson ~ but their hateful actions and words are legion. During a speech at Kean College in New Jersey back in 1994, Sharpton said, “White folks was in caves while we was building empires … We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” Them Greek homos, Al?

And, of course, Jesse Jackson outdid himself when he said during this last presidential campaign, “I’d like to cut (Obama’s) nuts out.” I don’t know it that’s racist or just evil, but if a white person had said it, it would automatically be racist, so I’ll assume it’s racist. And evil.

By the way, when the Washington Post’s deputy managing editor Milton Coleman, a black man,  reported on Jackson referring to Jews as “hymies” and New York City as “hymietown,” Farrakhan called him a “traitor” and said, “We’re going to make an example of Milton Coleman … One day soon we will punish you with death.” Didn’t read that in the mainstreammedia either, did ya? Then again, that’s not really hate speech … that’s just Islamic doctrine.

The list of mean-spirited diatribes and racial slurs made by liberal public figures and politicians just goes on and on. And do you know what I say to that? I say let em buck. It’s not my place to tell anyone else what they can or cannot say, think or feel. And it ain’t your place either. That’s what this country is about: Freedom. Freedom to be stupid, freedom to harbor evil thoughts and even freedom to give voice to those evil thoughts. We’re also free to smoke carcinogens, eat saturated fat, drive SUVs, sit on our butts in front of big screen TVs and make as much money as the free market will allow. It’s called America, peeps, and it’s the … it used to be … the greatest nation on earth.

By Kenneth Balog

After reading an article posted in the People News by Dennis Powers, (“Like a Thief in the Night,” Oct issue), I realized that the author was “right on” about America being stolen by left leaning forces.  Too bad Mister Powers wrote his article based on what has been happening at the federal/national level and not upon what is happening at the street level in Cleveland, Tennessee.

As far as Cleveland is concerned, I wonder why someone with political savvy hasn’t already penned an article of similar substance, about the great theft of our Republic that is occurring at the local level.  Surely there is someone hereabouts who can put words to the way the Airport Authority, Cleveland City Council, Cleveland Utilities and TDEC have conspired to deprive landowners, taxpayers and rate payers of their rights.

In this respect, I claim that “rights” includes the expectation that tax and rate monies will be spent to improve the services for which the funds are collected, rather than for pet projects that will favor a few at the expense of the many.

Currently there are two such projects in Bradley County — one, the airport boondoggle and the other the Wacker whack-off.

The airport is being pushed down the throats of citizens by a few under the guise that such an airport will attract industry and industrial executives.  The kicker is that the federal and state governments will supposedly fund the project and local citizens will not be taxed one cent to support the entire venture.  Our elected officials are not telling the truth — local citizens are being taxed. In fact, one collection method is called a “sales tax” and is used to give the State of Tennessee the money to support such projects.  Right now that tax is right at 10 percent.

In addition to the sales tax, the City collects a property tax — and some of that tax money has already been donated to the airport authority in the form of a loan.  As near as I can determine, it was an open ended loan with no interest charged and no payback date.  To me that sounds like a gift — of tax money — a little dab of $500,000.

Besides the sneaky way the City Council gifted the Airport Authority with $500K, the Cleveland Utilities, which is another Authority created by the city/county, has been giving money to the Airport Authority in the form of donations and services.  Since the Utility gets its money from rate-payers, doesn’t that say right up front that if the Utility has money to donate to anything, it is overcharging customers in the first place?  Is the Utility in the business of providing and maintaining utilities or is it in the business of siphoning rate-payer money to outside entities selected by the City Council?

In addition to sideways support of the Airport, which is not supposed to be supported with tax money, the Utility is planning to also support Wacker with a ton of free things.  More rate-payer money will be used.

On the subject of Wacker:  Why is that company locating here, rather than in Germany, its home base?  Could it be that the Germans don’t want that type industry?  Is there a pollution problem or the possibility of an environmental accident?  Why must our county/city spend millions to entice such an industry to set up shop here?  Could it be because Wacker needs tons of by-products which are readily available at the nearby Olin Plant?

Remember the Olin Plant?  The one that still uses Mercury in its manufacturing process of Chlorine products?  The one that has lost tons of mercury over the years.  The one that is located in the center of mercury-contaminated land and water?  The one that has been allowed, by local officials and TDEC to continue the use of Mercury despite outcries from environmentalists?

Back to the point about America being stolen by those who trample on the rights of the citizens.  It is not happening somewhere else.  It is happening right here in Bradley County, Tennessee.  Especially in the city of Cleveland where public officials seem to be bent upon an agenda that suits them and not the people.

Is there someone out there who can adequately describe what is happening?

I dunno. Maybe I’m just getting old. I know I don’t have the stamina I once had. Can’t run like I used to, lithe and fast as a gazelle. Don’t have my girlish figure no more. Can’t climb a tree without I got a ladder against the trunk. ‘Course I can’t imagine a situation I’d climb a tree anymore. Cat gets up there, it can get down on its own or stay, I don’t care. Kid’s frisbee gets caught in the tree, that kid might as well go on to the store and get him another frisbee. What was I talking about?

Oh yeah. I was saying I don’t know if I’m getting old or what, but things that used to be second nature don’t come all that easy for me no more, like running and climbing trees. But even worse, it’s sometimes hard to be funny when I write this column. With the state of politics in the country and around the world, I’m less a humorous pundit and more a crotchety old man yelling at the neighborhood kids to stay outta his yard. Which, of course, just makes em more determined to come into the yard in the first place, but I’m just saying, sometimes when I sit down to write something funny all I do is end up cracking on the Kenyan, cracking on Congress, pissin and moanin about political correctness and stuff. Can’t get down to the funny.

Not that there ain’t plenty of stuff happening out there to get a joke from. Just this week, a woman in Lincoln, Nebraska threw her dog, Flash, at a cop when he answered a call to her house for domestic violence. That’s a good start, ain’t it? Plenty there to milk a laugh or two from, throwing  the dog at a cop? When I was younger I might would of said the only reason she threw the dog is the cat wasn’t handy, bada BING! But that was then. These days I just can’t seem to make domestic violence seem funny. Not even when I got a dog named Flash in the mix.

Then there’s the Japanese airline ~ the All Nippon Airways ~ that wants passengers to go to the bathroom before boarding the plane to reduce carbon emissions. Like carbon emissions are the devil these days or something. I thought we were basically made of carbon, why is it our enemy all of a sudden? Also, the airline says if passengers empty their bowels and bladders, the plane will be lighter and that saves fuel. You ever seen a fat guy empty his bowels? The Japanese need to understand that polite society don’t even like thinking of that, let alone writing it into company policy. But I got no joke. How could I not get a joke out of a fat guy emptying his bowels? It’s bush league, it’s amateur night, but I can’t do it.

Or how about Obama’s “Safe and Drug Free” czar, Kevin Jennings? Guy’s catching flak because he brags about past drug use, expresses contempt for religion and promotes homosexuality and transgenderosity in schools. And I can’t milk a punch line outta that? Are you kidding me? Guy sounds like an NEA dream-come-true, but all I can think of is it’s just another example that public schools have outlived their usefulness.

Even a ready?made punch line like Barack Obama being awarded the Noble Peace Prize … that’s a joke walking, that one should write itself, but I got nothing. Even when he said he was donating the money to charity, the best I can do is: ACORN sent him their heartfelt thanks and said the money would be used to pay their legal bills. Yes? No? See what I mean? It just ain’t working for me this time. You think I’m kidding? Okay, let’s go at it again: Hey, can you believe Obama won the Noble Peace Prize? At first I thought it was a joke, but then I remembered, oh yeah, it’s the Noble Peace Prize ~ AlGore and Jimmy Carter won one, too, so it’s not like it carries any prestige. In fact, the Noble Committee has even worked a deal with Wal-Mart so now you can go there and buy one for yourself as a gag gift …

See? That’s not funny, that’s empty schlock. “… won one, too”? What is that? Say it out loud: one one two. Huh? Is that an area code? It’s like the language itself ain’t even working for me this week. It ain’t writer’s block, it’s more like malaise or something. I can’t seem to dig out those little nuggets of humor from current events. You’d think a gag would jump off the page when I read that Homeland Security maven Janet Napolitano ordered Sheriff Joe Arpaio to stop arresting illegal aliens in Arizona, then she turns around and warns us that al Qaeda terrorists are sneaking into the country on a regular basis. Or that in Phoenix they’re putting illegals up in motels instead of sending them to jail. Instead of finding humor in these things, it’s like I wanna stock the basement with canned food so I’ll have something to eat when society collapses and I’m sitting around waiting for a crazed mob to come along and kill me.

Bad guys bucking all over the world and all Obama’s thinking about is getting re-elected already. Barack, dude, what’s the good of getting re-elected if there’s no country no more? I’ll tell you this … when the bad guys invade another country the first thing they do is drag the leader out in the street and shoot him. Think about that the next time you’re kissing some Saudi’s ring.

‘Course the bad guys all say they’re harmless. Just last week the Taliban said they have no intention of bringing harm to any nation. That’s like a fart saying it has no intention of stinking up the room. You feel me? There’s something like1.57 billion Muslims in the world. Where’s the gag? Twenty years, fifty years, we’re still around, still alive, still got a country, maybe I’ll see the humor and can be funny again. But right now? Malaise, baby. Deep, painful, bruise-yellow malaise.

As a matter of fact, that’s the reason I refuse to include a warranty with this column. I can’t be liable if you don’t get a chuckle. I’ll tell you what else … I ain’t even gonna write the column this week, that’s how bad it is. Forget I was even here.

Since World War II, Japan has been given to intense monster infestation. For decades, skyscraper-sized creatures have been stomping all up and down Nippon, tearing up cities, knocking out power, shooting radiation out their mouths and generally wreaking havoc wherever they go ~ strange mutated creatures born of nuclear waste, industrial pollution, and/or alien encounters, tearing hellbent through a nation of smallish yellow people …

… In a putrid bog of chemicals and industrial pollution, the Snot Monster blinks into being:

Blink! “Hello? What did are I? When am here?” It tromps away, confused and unsteady on its feet.

Elsewhere, in a devastated area of radioactivity caused by atomic testing, Godzilla is relaxing at home. He removes his sunglasses and says, “Man, I am bored. Rodan don’t come around no more, haven’t seen Mothra in months. Just catching rays and getting fat here in the ol’ sullied salt flats. Think I’ll mosey into the city and stretch my legs.”

Meanwhile, toxic synapses flash across the Snot Monster’s primitive cortex, creating something approximating thought. It grunts, “Leaf hopper?  Pizza boy?” From the next valley over, Godzilla catches a whiff of the Snot Monster’s foul body odor. “Good Lord,” he gasps. “What is that stink I smell?”

Then, the Snot Monster stomps over the hill and descends upon a nearby Zen temple, crushing ancient pagodas and prayer bells underfoot. Priests scramble for safety, bursting into flame. Godzilla rushes over and engages the Snot Monster in hand-to-hand combat. “Oh, jeez,” grimaces Godzilla. “This dude smells like a burning stinklog.”

They grapple and feint, destroying villages, squashing people under their huge feet. The Snot Monster attempts to flee, crying, “Toothpicks, turkey dew lap,” but Godzilla brings it down with a diving tackle that shakes the ground for miles around and causes an earthquake in Osaka.

Holding his nose, Godzilla says, “Why don’t you take a bath, you nasty thing.”

They execute flawless kicks, knocking one another for miles through the air, Godzilla breathing radioactive fire, Snot Monster slimly and gooey one minute, solid and rubbery the next. For days, they tussle in strange syncopation, partners in a slathering dance of chaos, the world their cotillion, carnage their orchestra, the demolished landscape their dance floor. They stop only occasionally to rest and eat a few people before continuing in battle.

At last, their gambols and swirls bring them into Tokyo.

Godzilla gets the Snot Monster in a full-Nelson. “Cheese rings,” squeals the Snot Monster, “antidisestablishmentarianism!” They roll through downtown Tokyo like bowling balls through plate glass.

The Japanese police, military, top scientist and the top scientist’s beautiful young assistant chase the creatures in jeeps, tanks and jet fighters, trying to formulate a plan to stop the rampage.

Finally, Godzilla backs the Snot Monster up against Mt. Fuji, working on its midsection. With each punch, more and more of the ancient mountain crumbles to dust. Suddenly, the glaring beams of a dozen halogen spotlights turn the night into blinding day, freezing the creatures in the light, making them perfect targets for a military assault.

Under the bright halogen light, however, Godzilla gets a good, close look at the Snot Monster for the first time. Pleasantly surprised, he says, “Say … you’re kinda cute for a putrid slop-wad of pollution.” And realizing that the Snot Monster was basically female, they immediately stomped over to Las Vegas in the USA and got married. Today, they make their home among the Ryukyu Islands, somewhere in the East China Sea.

Cut to three years later …

… Mr. and Mrs. Godzilla are at the dinner table, chiding little Godzilla Jr. to finish his supper. “Now Junior,” Godzilla says. “If you want to grow up to be big and strong like your mother, you better eat your people.”

The … End?

By Kenneth Balog

I sure learned some new things right after my wife passed away.  First, there are fewer Good People left in this world than there are Bad People or Indifferent People.  Fortunately, I am old and mean enough to handle them all.

The Good People were the ones who came rushing to my side, offering assistance in any way I desired.  Some were complete strangers, or nearly so, and I was surprised to find that they cared about their neighbors as much as they did. I am going to stay in touch with them and I intend to extend them a helping hand whenever they have the need.  They are few in numbers but they are the strength of the community and I like the odds.

The Bad People are the ones who came running as soon as they heard the news that there had been a death in the household — wanting to know if I was going to have a garage sale of my wife’s belongings.  Or could they have first opportunity to help me settle the estate, especially of material things.  The house was attractive to one real estate firm and they offered to handle the sale as soon as I got things in order — so they could show the place.  A car dealer wanted to trade me out of the SUV that I would no longer need to haul medical equipment — a smaller, snazzy car would suit me better in my new life.  Ladies from a local association came by to offer household services — cleaning, cooking and personal services which were too personal. A tombstone company from Chattanooga called to remind me that my wife would have appreciated a certain style stone.  I found them particularly vulgar inasmuch as they had never known me or my wife. There are too many of these people in our county — they rank right up there with the politicians.

The Indifferent People are those who have no one on their minds other than themselves — not even spouses and children. They are part of the great herd that has taken over the pastures of this nation — feeding off the largess and goodness of others, filling their guts with whatever they can ingest to make them happy.  I think they were the ones who put that ass Obama in office and mean to keep him there because he fits their idea of what an ideal president should be.  I learned for certain that they care not a whit for another person’s grief, problems or needs.  I do believe that, should I keep writing, that I shall mention them more often — using words that will barely pass a censor.

In any case, I have too much time on my hands to think of things like this — what with the long reaches of the night getting longer in the shank of the year, and winter coming on, and 57 years of memories to ponder.  Maybe I ought to take lessons on how to work a mouth harp — someone told me that most anyone can do that.  I dare not identify the sample they put before me.