The final report to the Public Service Commission, “State Analysis and Survey on Restructuring and Reregulation (Task 2) and Analysis of Options for Maryland’s Energy Future (Task 3)” has been made. My committee, Economic Matters, has just received a briefing on it.

After listening to two hours of testimony by the Public Service Commission, I am still in full support of reregulation of the Maryland utility industry. The report showed that reregulation would be a good thing, starting three years after reregulation. This is supported by all the charts and statistics that were presented to us. In spite of this, unfortunately, the Commission feels that there are risks in reregulating.

One thing for sure, there has definitely been extreme risk in deregulation. The most recent risk is the devaluing of BGE and Constellation stock, which is proposed to be bought out by Warren Buffet at a fire sale price of $26 per share. Present stockholders would not be able to hold onto their stock until the value goes back up, which will happen immediately after the Buffet deal goes through. I feel it is in the best interests of BGE stockholders to reject the Buffet deal, if it is their intention to stick with a long-proven stock that will come back in value in the near future.

Under regulation, the management of Constellation Energy would not have been allowed to gamble with company assets in the commodities market, which caused the downfall in the stock values. Constellation’s value has not fallen due to a lack of customer base or an inability to produce a product. It has fallen strictly through the mismanagement of a deregulated management team — at the helm, Mayo Shattuck.

During the briefing, I asked three questions. First, if nuclear energy had been shown on the charts (which only showed gas, oil, and coal-fired energy), how would that change the outlook for energy reliability at a reasonable cost to Maryland consumers? The answer was, “Dramatically, it would increase the reliability of our future energy supply and provide a stable and predictable cost per kilowatt-hour, meaning lower cost.”

Second question: if the companies were reregulated, would the stockholders be forced to sell their stock? The answer to that was “No”, unlike the present deal which Warren Buffet is offering. Under regulation, a stockholder would be guaranteed a reasonable and fair return on their investment with little risk of losses.

Third, would jobs be more secure under a regulated or deregulated market, and which market would provide more jobs? I am waiting for an answer to that question from the Public Service Commission. It is obvious to me that BGE employees had more job security when the company was regulated than they have had since 1999, when deregulation took place.

On renewable energies such as wind and solar, the Commission did determine that wind offshore was not a productive means of energy and that wind on land is a break-even investment at best, while providing a very minor portion, less than 1% (one percent), of our energy needs. Solar costs more than it produces - in other words, it costs more to produce energy from solar than a company could charge for its product to make the business viable.

This study cost $3 million, and that cost will be passed on to the ratepayers in the State of Maryland. Having sat on the Economic Matters Committee and having been a member of the Public Utilities Subcommittee for six years, I can honestly tell you that I could have come up with the same conclusions for the cost of a notebook and a pen (and since my spelling is bad, an eraser) for a grand total of less tha $5.00.

There has been a major change in the ability to reregulate. As the cost of energy and the economy continue to plummet, so have the values of the power plants. A year ago the risk of purchasing these plants would have been like stepping off a cliff and hoping for a good result. Now at the devalued prices, the risk is more like stepping off a curb. If there was ever a time to take back control of these power companies and return them to the safe and valued companies they once were, now is the time. Taking control of these companies would protect the stockholders’ investment and prevent the irresponsible gambling with company funds that we have seen over the past nine years. Those funds could have beenused for better service, reinvestment in infrastructure and building new facilities with the goal of making Maryland an energy exporter rather than what we have become, an energy importer. That would be the best result for everyone involved, except for the few high-powered CEO’s
who have destroyed these once-great companies.

Delegate Rick Impallaria

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pvt. Charles Yi Barnett, 19, of Bel Air, Maryland, died on Nov. 20 of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident in Tallil, Iraq.

He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

The incident is under investigation.

In it’s latest casualty update, the Department of Defense indicates there have been more than 4,800 deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom combined.

Whenever we can, we ride north to the trio of dogs at Will’s near Berkley. Isaac, Jake and Brooke romp and stomp with Frisco till the oldest of the quartet, Brooke, a 12 year old golden retriever, quits and heads inside the house. Isaac is next to drop out, no one will toss the ball, and he is sick and tired of Frisco’s persistence. Jake is stuck with Frisco who won’t stop dancing and the band has gone home.

Will’s fire warms chilled feet as we shoot the breeze inside while Jake and Frisco continue their rhapsody outside the garage. Jake is a mutt, just like Frisco. Funny how two purebreds are out of the game and the two from Heinz are hanging tough. Sorta canine bonding. Both are fixed so nothing bad can come of this reunion.

Jake tells Frisco of his misadventures with Will a month or so ago. Will rambled north to Airville on the premise of helping a friend harvest corn. Or was it for firewood? I’m not really sure but he had taken his three dogs and along the way Jake jumped ship and headed for parts unknown.

Ads were put in the Delta Star and posters were posted from there to here, with a reward offered. $100!! No doubt Will’s wife and in-laws weren’t really that happy with the outcome. Jake had a similar experience a couple of years ago and I found him huddled amongst school buses at Lowell Garrett’s garage on Route l next door to the big Harley-Davidson store his brother used to own.

Jake was in bad shape then, and surely Will’s family was worried that he could come back the same way again, or worse, not come back at all.

Well, Jake came back on his own this time, on the ankle express, also known as shank’s ferry. His paws were bloody but he was in good shape when he ambled into the little chapel on Smith road ten days later. This was the first time I’d seen him since the adventure and he looked great. That’s the trouble. Frisco is a traveler too, and they probably had a lot in common.

Some dogs stick around forever, even when you go inside and fall asleep forgetting they even exist. Other dogs are so antsy they have to find more things to do, once the owner’s show is over. Whatever. Frisco has followed a few cars out the lane. Folks in Hampton Ridge have called me to come fetch her. I thank them, don’t beat the dog, and just take her home with a few admonishments on the way.

It will run it’s course and hopefully she won’t get hit or cause an accident. When I can I offer companionship with my son’s dog, Koda, or by keeping Dave Hanson’s new golden retriever. Neither one can outlast Frisco. Least of all Koda who is about four years old. Hanson’s pup is younger by a couple of months than Frisco. But she’s a golden and laid back is the name of the gene pool where she swims.

Puppies are puppies and they gotta lot of energy to burn. Two hours of dogs running and playing is worth the watch. Their behavior is fascinating. Not everyone has more than one dog and most probably keeps the dog pretty much isolated. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Dogs are man’s best friends, for true, but you can’t tell me they don’t enjoy a little communion with other dogs every now and then.

Of course they gotta be cool dogs to begin with. Not dogs that would rather kill another dog than sniff it’s butt and make nice. These dogs of a fighting nature I have no use for, never will. Most dogs I run into offer a sniff of my hand when it’s extended and choose whether or not they like me or my dog.

You know who these dogs are, and so do your children, and so do the dogs. When you’ve got the combination of dogs, kids, happy folks and a good day, you have the best of it for however long you can take it.

It’s chilly, the wood stove crackles less belligerently as Will tosses on more wood. The dogs come closer as we sit and down a last Bud. The end of the day with the sun going down and dusk air crisping up the back of your shirt.

Back home, just like two tired kids that I used to haul around to place’s like Will’s, and Sammy’s and Larry’s, the two pups are ready to go again. I’m not. I build a little fire in the firepit outside the tool shed. Sitting there, daydreaming as night falls flat on the Ponderosa, the dogs close in near the chair. Trying to stay warm on the cold ground in front of the fire, the first fire Dave’s golden has ever seen or heard or smelled. She’s curious, cold, getting warmer and resting comfortably. Shortly after, Frisco is down and warming my feet with her tummy and shoulders.

It’s restful, sitting here with two buddies and a fire. These are the times to forget a boxwood that was nearly uprooted by a late night archeology dig in the side yard by this pair or the rocking chair getting it’s leg chewed or the two bantams that were mauled. It’s all about what was here when the puppy came and what is here now with another presence here. It takes time to sort all of this out, quietly. That is the lesson I’m learning.

Patience was always an elusive virtue for me, shorter with humans than dogs thanks be to God. The puppy settles down after a long ride, after romping with other dogs ready for a nice, quiet ride back home to the warm fires waiting; she’s a good companion and a friend. For years and years, ever since Homer choked back a sob in his account of old Argus’s wagging his aged tail and dropping dead at Odysseus’s return, poets and orators have found the dog’s devotion a moving theme.

Now that I got that offa my chest I can get to the interview about the potato gun, which readers have reminded me is long overdue.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Todd Holden writes from his home, Rustica, and never misses a chance to get out on the grass and mix it up with his dogs, and any other critters that happen to be hanging out that day.

Over the past year the price of gold has hit historic highs, although it is down to $849 per ounce today. Investors have been selling diminishing stock values for increasing gold values.

Speculation drove the market up, and now it’s driving the market down. GM says that it will not declare bankruptcy, but stock is down to $4.68 a share, down from $46.64 a year ago.

Dagger readers should remember to buy low and sell high. Gold is now high, and stocks are low: do the opposite of what everyone else is doing to make your fortune. Since neither the Dagger nor myself are financial experts or have any interest in giving you financial advice, remember that investments are risky because they have risks! Determining when things are low for the buying and high for the selling is the trick and the risk; if you’re taking the risk, be willing to accept the consequences.

Since The Dagger can’t give financial advice, let’s let the readers make the decision. Dagger readers, when will the market hit its low? If you’re right and collective predictions find the low, you can all make enough of a fortune buying low and selling high to donate to your favorite online news medium.

The market is at 8,451 as of this writing, down about 2,000 points from two weeks ago and down 6,500 from 364 days ago. Time for some Market Prognostication, and the winner is the one who ends up making a profit through this crisis… or maybe the winner is anyone who just manages to survive: what number will be the Dow Jones low for the year?

Of course, the government is doing the negotiating, so instead of using leverage to buy anything worthwhile, such as the senior preferred stock that Warren Buffet gets when he takes over a company (senior preferred stock gets paid first when dividends are awarded) the feds are getting non-voting stock. There is also no mandate that the stock be bought back, which means that a portion of the $700 billion will go to lobbyists maneuvering to have the stock perpetually “floating” so that it’s never actually repaid.

The extent of the global crisis, and the effect American markets have on the world, can be seen by the half-point interest rate cut instituted today by the Federal Reserve and five other central banks, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the central banks of Canada, Switzerland, and Sweden, in a coordinated move to stimulate economic market.

The U.S. plan can now be compared to today’s announcement that the U.K. will offer the country’s major banks a rescue plan in exchange for preferential shares that will be benefit the taxpayer. The terms of the plan are still unclear: Fox News reports that the U.K. plan totals $87 billion, while BBC News reports that the plan could total 880 billion in U.S. dollars. Despite that the plan was announced today, the BBC News article contains highlights of the plan and a chart for how the plan could work. The article provides a clearer picture of the U.K. bill than most U.S. citizens have seen for the bill that took Congress two weeks to pass. The British policy demonstrates a clearer philosophy and more orchestrated plan than the bill that is now U.S. law.

I’m not an economist, but a plan that rewards bad behavior doesn’t sound like good government. The CEOs made risky investments. Some of those risky investments were government mandated, as the Clinton administration, and later Obama and the people’s friend Barney Frank, mandated that companies provide “affordable housing” by giving a percentage of their loans to people with credit scores, credit history, and paychecks that said they were unlikely to be able to make good payments. Since the government is a culprit, the government does need to be part of the solution, and the government does have to interfere with the economy to fix a mess it helped to create.

But the government didn’t mandate all of the risky investments. The Board of Directors’ made many supposedly “risky” decisions. But the decisions weren’t really risky. During the economic boom, they profited as the investments panned out. Now that the economy has slowed, the investments aren’t panning out. That doesn’t mean the investment was risky: under this plan, the CEOs get bailed out and still keep their profits. If they’re fired they get parachutes and are still rich. If they are kept on, their salary is limited to $500,000 per year. The average American sure would think they were in a risky situation with those prospects.

Why should the government save the failing companies? The argument is that the economy will fail if the market loses essential services, and that those services are fundamentally important to the economy. These companies aren’t the only one’s capable of rendering the services, however. By rescuing the companies, the government is preserving both the good, necessary services and the bad ones that got us into this mess: and even if the company has to sell off assets and subsidiaries to pay back stock, the bad practices continue.

Instead, the government could allow the companies to fail. When they fail, the essential services can be identified. The government can then give assistance to a new company, which agrees to adopt to liabilities and obligations of the defunct company that are deemed to be essential to the economy in exchange for the government purchasing stock to get the company started. Since the government has no business owning company stock, the stock could be tendered to the taxpayer as a tax rebate.

The taxpayer could then buy more stock, sell the stock for cash, or discover that they finally have an opportunity to enter the stock market. The government has spent comparatively little money to the current $700 billion plan, the CEOs have learned that risky investments do still exist, the essential economic practices continue, the taxpayer has a rebate to put into the economy, a new company is born, and the government is back out of the way.

I’m no economist, but it sounds like good policy if the economists could work out the details with Washington. Until economists have more input on the plans, and philosophy comes back to our government, we’ll continue towards becoming the S.U.S.A.: the Socialist United States of America

He told me ‘some guys never get over it…the Vietnam thing…they never scored a touchdown, never hit a home run…all they did was survive a war like me and lots of others…and lots more who didn’t score the touchdown and didn’t live to get the Silver Star, the Bronze Star or the Purple Heart…He did but you’d never know it.

“This doesn’t apply to the parents and families who lost a son or daughter in the war. For them the pain sometimes never goes away. When I speak of the war there are many aspects of unsung and ‘overblown’…that’s what I’m referring to…the ones who want to brag about heroics…the ones who never felt the ‘rush’…I’m not interested in those stories,” he notes as elbow grease polishes a cherry drop-leaf table in his shop.

Sitting still is hard for Sam to do…just sitting is hard because of his combat wounds. Only you can tell how you would feel when someone who’s been through the world of shit he has…speaks so blandly of it…to those who know, they do not speak…and often those who speak, do not know….the truth that is…truth and bravery have been instilled in Sam since early childhood and growing up in Harford County.

Sam came home and put his medals upstairs in his son’s bedroom and no one ever sees them in the fine shadowbox his wife, Carolann made for them. She is boldly proud of her husband of 35 years. Working as a secretary for Havre de Grace High School she knows the values of hard work and perseverance. Ten years ago Sam left his job with WHITEFORD Construction Company and started his dream, Grassy Creek Antiques. Today it is a burgeoning business in Churchville occupying four buildings and an assortment of 5 huge trailers.

Mondays he repairs and restores antiques he searches for up and down the East coast…Tuesdays he loads his truck and trailer with stuff that didn’t make the ‘cut’…Wednesdays he hauls out of his home in Aldino and by 5 a.m. is in Crumpton on the Eastern Shore. On the way home he may drop a line or two in Chester Creek, a rare break for a guy who never sits down and never dwells on heroics, let alone his own.

Thursday’s he is working again in his quaint shop behind his home. Fridays he has to pull ‘shop duty’ and is confined from 11 in the morning till close at 5…then it’s time for a Coor’s Light and a few friends over for food he enjoys cooking on the grill.

The weekends are jam packed with antique auctions, sometimes two or three a Saturday…and the occasional Sunday ‘public auction’ at a rented hall.

On Sundays he works more in the shop along Churchville road, rearranging and answering questions from folks who expect to see him there. Today he’s been asked to find a spool bed, old and in good shape, cheap, he says with a smile.

“Yep, find it clean, not broke and cheap….right!”

Loading and unloading delicate antiques…bringing them to a sheen with rubbing and stroking…and it all begins again on Monday.

When a man loves his work it doesn’t seem like work…and someone once said, “To do something you like and to be paid to do it….is the best of all situations to be in.”

In all the years since that terrible war he never speaks of it, never listens to others speak of it. He shrugs at guys who hang around the local 7-Eleven and boast of heroics while second generation ears hang on every word. And there are those who lie about their heroics…men like Sam Sheetz are likely to allow them short-shrift.

Dale Swanson, of Minnesota, a survivor from Sam’s Platoon, who readily admits he “owes his life to Sam” contacted Carolann Sheetz and said a fellow comrade was writing a book about Sam’s courage under fire.

The book deals with the events of May 7,8,9,10 and 11 of 1968…”when the LRRP (long range recon patrol) Team got into real trouble on the ridge south of Camp Evans.”, according to potential author, Randy Kimes. “Your (Sheetz’s) platoon was RRF (rapid reaction force), and inserted to ‘assist’ us getting out. Alpha Company was inserted on 09 May to ‘assist’ your platoon.”

Whatever the logistical confusion, the fighting was intense and the realities of war were unforgiving…only six out of the 40 men in Sergeant Sheetz’s platoon survived the ambush. The truth is the man in charge of Sheetz’s platoon ‘froze’ and Sam took over, calling in artillery…and ended up saving Kimes’ platoon as well.

Serving as squad leader with the second platoon of Company B, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 196th Infantry Brigade Sam Sheetz’s squad was taken under fire, and quickly laid down his own base of fire. He then had the wounded moved to the rear of the platoon, while he moved forward to locate Kimes LRRP team.

Once that was done, Sheetz had three of his men evacuate the wounded, while he checked for more survivors. Next he called in ‘accurate artillery fire’ for the remainder of the night.

“The morning after was foggy, not good, but our guys held and we got back down the mountain after a company relieved us…and they went right into the same mess we were in. I think the North Vietnamese Regulars were using the LLRP as bait to get our platoon. “We were all over that country and within two weeks of getting there I knew with a map and compass exactly where I was, and it paid off calling in artillery accurately.”

While putting together the first draft of the book, Kimes contacted Swanson, looking for the man who had saved them. It was Swanson who vividly recalls the face of that football star from Aldino.
“Sam Sheetz is a hero and I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for him,” Swanson declares with honest and open appreciation. “His personal heroism and devotion to duty saved what was left after a horrific ambush.

Today, Sam Sheetz admits he never thought he’d speak to anyone who was on that hill ever again. A Silver Star was awarded Sheetz for that act of bravery and single mindedness, as well as a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

His wife said the call was a voice from the past and it gave her man reason to pause…after he hung the phone up he uttered those words again…

“They never hit a home run…never scored a touchdown, all they have is the war and they need to get over it. There are a lot of guys who died there and their families will never ‘get over it’…and there’s nothing that can be done about that.”

From one who’s been through a tough defense and firefights at night Sam Sheetz can say whatever is on his mind, without fear of contradiction. But mostly he doesn’t say a word…he doesn’t have to.

===========================================================================
Todd Holden writes from his home, Rustica, near Forest Hill, and doesn’t tolerate trespassers easily.

I find myself on the eve of my 20 year high school reunion, staring at a beautifully composed and formatted invitation and memory book questionnaire, looking back and wondering, “Where did the time go?”

More importantly, I guess, where did that 18-year-old kid in all these pictures run off to? The kid with all the hair (many follicular scholars have opined that I was sporting a mullet in 1988. While I admit that I had some locally based commerce occurring in the front, and an informal gathering of acquaintances in the back, it was by no stretch of the imagination a mullet as defined, but I digress), the “devil may care” attitude, and the 32 inch waist. Where’d he go?

The nostalgic, melancholy side of me wants to follow Bruce Springsteen’s suggestion from back in 1984:

Now I think I’m going down to the well tonight
and I’m going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of,
well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister
but boring stories of-
Glory days, well, they’ll pass you by
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days

But the practical, realist side of me says, “Hey, dummy! You’re doing pretty good. Carpe Diem!”
Sure, I could stand to lose a few (30) pounds. Sure, I have to wear a hat outside when it’s sunny so my dangerously exposed epidermis doesn’t get horribly sunburned. Sure, I never got to do ninety percent of the stuff we used to sit around homeroom fantasizing about.

But, the realist is right (he usually is, the smarmy bastard).

I’ve made it to 38 years old and I’m still on my first wife, and my first mortgage. My first born son is now a full three inches taller than I ever was thanks to my wife’s good Viking genes, and, I’m only one organ short of what I came into this world carrying around (No, it’s not the liver. In spite of my best efforts in my late teens and early twenties, it’s still working as advertised). We get away when we can, and not as often as we’d like. We like NASCAR, and going “down the ocean.”

I enjoy my job, and I’m pretty good at what I do. I’ve tried to stand for something (that’s the idealist in me. He doesn’t come around here too often. If you see him, give him a hug.). I’ve seen good people do bad things, and bad people do worse.

I’ve been to a third-world shantytown, and seen the work of terrorists firsthand. I stood a post behind the leader of the free world.

Like Frankie said (Sinatra, not “Goes to Hollywood”):

Regrets, I’ve had a few,
But then again,
Too few to mention.

Where’d that 18-year-old kid go? He’s the guy looking at me in the mirror. He’s a little older, kinda paunchy, and losing his hair. But he’s smiling at me, so I’d say he’s doing pretty good (of course, that 18 year old kid is telling me to lie my ass off when I fill out this questionnaire. “Tell ‘em you’re delivering bottled water to the International Space Station!!”).

NHHS Class of 1988, I’ll see you in October unless I’m on a Shuttle mission (Be QUIET 18-year-old ME!!)!

First of all, I do not watch television in the morning or before noon or after noon…unless it’s the U.S. Open or weather. That’s a fact Jack.

Secondly, sure I listen to the speeches of the two candidates…but here’s where the road forks for me….I do not need a ‘talking head’ to interpret what the candidate said or meant or implied…or whether or not he or she lied, misrepresented or slung mud. I do not need to be told what to do, or how to think or decide whether I’m right or wrong, and why.

I listen to the speech, and immediately turn off the television set…I do not need ‘the other side’s point of view’ or some make-up packed face asking asinine questions about the content and reaction of the American people regarding the speech….heck, I AM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE….as American as you can get from this Scotch-Irish working class man.

Here’s an example of the problem…

“With soft rebukes of his opponent and his own party — and harsh words for the culture of Washington — Sen. John McCain claimed the Republican presidential nomination last night and promised that ’change is coming‘ after eight years of the Bush Administration.”

O.K….I don’t need the press to tell me something was ‘harsh’…I can make up my own mind on that and more.

Enough of television telling us what to think, how to think and when to question…are we not the very ones who invented television, the assembly line. Why now do I bring this up? Simple, really….this is one major election for sure, that cannot be denied. In the past year I changed my voter registration three times…and I’m not ashamed of it…For years I registered as an Independent…then a former sheriff urged me to change my voter registration to Republican…and since I was dating a ‘staunch Republican’…I changed over to the Elephant Party….and you know what, the next morning I didn’t feel or act a bit differently than the day before.

Then I got fed up with the Bush administration and some of the high-level shenanigans they were pulling and in a fit of disgust, went to the Election Board and changed over to Democrat. There, that took care of that anxiety attack once and for all.

Along came the fleet of Democratic candidates and the endless debates and it did more harm than good in my book….totally disgusted another trip to the Election Board was in order. They now knew me by my first name, which isn’t Todd…“Hello Stockton, how may we help you?”…Very fine folks at the Election Board…very courteous and competent totally.

They kind of make it a secret when they hand you the paperwork to fill out, I guess that’s because we can have a few secrets left in this America we live in…but not too many…as you well know.

O.K….sharing my secret, my voter registration card now states, “Independent”…just like it did at the start of 2008. I have no intention of changing it again…if anything perhaps I’ll never vote again. It’s disgusting what the right to vote has become in the land I love and cherish as my own. It’s a sham…a ‘gigantic spending machine’ to buy the right to run the country. Millions of dollars are raised to convince the working man trying to stretch a dollar that change is right around the corner. Right.

The idealism that was part of my youth, of voting for the right person, regardless of party affiliation was sacred and I looked forward to exercising my vote as much as getting my license or registering for the Draft. Not any more.

With that in mind, sure, listen to the speeches of the candidates, listen well, because you need to understand what they are saying, and how you feel deep inside your gut of how it affects you…You do not need to keep the TV on any longer after the speech…please, I’m begging you…switch over to the Animal Planet…or pick up a book…look up a word in the dictionary you don’t understand…anything but listening to some one-sided face with an agenda…fronting for an ad campaign that sells cars, beer, financial plans and air fare.

It’s all about fear and selling…yep…that’s television…even on cable or the dish…I pay $47.99 each month to DIRECTV…for what? To see a ton of commercials that bug me…I’m paying for television. And paying to see commercials…what’s wrong with this picture…no pun intended…

I’m fed up…and as Peter Finch’s character Howard Beale said in “Network” “’I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’…his stinging indictment of what newscasters are told to say to sell cars and beer…and that’s a great combo…drink and drive…oh, mercy me…the pain never ends.

For now though, in writing this little scribble, my feelings are eased that it’s out in the open…and a lot of you already know this…but for those who don’t, try it…just think for yourself…it’s good ‘brain candy’…mental exercise…and you might just make a difference when it comes to lots of things…like Presidential elections…or life among the living.

Nobody ever said a news commentator was smarter than you…they might be better looking with all the lighting and make-up…but keep in mind, ‘beauty is only skin deep’…and beneath that flesh of yours there’s a heart beating for the best of life and well meaning times ahead.

While the announcement by Senator John McCain introducing Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate puts to rest the speculation of the selection, it sure opens up a new battleground full of interesting scenarios. We are asking readers of The Dagger to share their opinions, in a civil manner of course, on the following questions, as well as on all the other issues facing the candidates.

Will McCain continue to attack Obama on his lack of experience after selecting a VP candidate who has only been governor for two years?

Will any boost that my have come from Senator Biden’s son going to Iraq be neutralized by Palin’s oldest son going first (or the same time)?

Will Palin be able to hold her own in debates on national issues since she is not a DC insider?

Will the party that has championed women’s rights be able to not sound hypocritical when attacking Palin’s credentials?

What other interesting scenarios can you see popping up as we head towards Novemeber?

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes too, but I can’t remember getting E-coli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), the term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE… and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked’s (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can’t recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

Flunking gym was not an option… even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot.

How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system. Speaking of school, we all said prayers and the pledge and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.

I can’t understand it. Schools didn’t offer 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn’t have known what either was anyway) but they did give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if we started getting the sniffles. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself. I just can’t recall how bored we were without computers, PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital cable stations.

I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some guy’s vacant 20, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot. He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.

Oh yeah… and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent bottle of Mercurochrome and then we got our butt spanked. Now it’s a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn’t act up at the neighbor’s house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked (physical abuse) here too …. and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks (remember why Tonka trucks were made tough… it wasn’t so that they could take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.

Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put
us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.

Summers were spent behind the push lawnmower and I didn’t even know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive.

How sick were my parents? Of course my parents weren’t the only psychos. I recall Ken Scotten from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes?

We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn’t even notice that the entire country wasn’t taking Prozac! I watched the Cooper boys ride by in their new 58 Chevy’s, and dreamed. Went to scouts, with George Miller. Tried chewing tobacco and got sick. No Doc Hunt, just get over it. How did we survive?

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Todd Holden writes from his home, amid 24 acres of soybeans and woods. He continues with his “Walden Experiment” which is living in harmony with nature, except now and then he has to shoot a rabid raccoon that tears into the feed shed.