Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

The widespread and idiotic lack of understanding regarding the principle of free speech is on display in the wake of the Hamas terrorist operation in Israel.

There has been a rush among the usual leftist suspects, from Black Lives Matter to no fewer than 31 student organizations at Harvard, to back the terrorists and blame Israel. It’s akin to blaming a shooting victim for getting in the way of the bullet.

The Black Lives Matter stance is predictable from an organization that is largely discredited after some people took the time to see what they were doing with all the money being raised to fight racism. Hint: It wasn’t going to fighting racism, but instead to make sure the BLM hierarchy lived like royalty in houses few of us could afford.

You might expect better from the ostensibly well-off, privileged students at Harvard. And this would indicate that you’ve been ignoring what has been going on at elite campuses, and some not-so-elite campuses, in terms of hard-left teachings and suppression of conservative thought. Freedom of speech on college campuses only applies if you are somewhere to the left of Chairman Mao on the political spectrum.

So it is with social media, which has taken it upon itself to protect the sheep from such heresy as suggesting COVID vaccinations were not all they were purported to be, or that Hunter Biden’s laptop was, indeed, Hunter Biden’s laptop, not some Russian disinformation.

But these same self-righteous censors at Facebook and its ilk have no problem providing a platform for Hamas supporters in the wake of the attack on Israel, terrorism that included beheading babies, raping and killing women, and even shooting dogs just for sport.

On a Middle East Eye page on Facebook, reports of Israel committing “genocide” on Palestinians go unchallenged. We are ordered to empathize with Palestinians suffering at the hands of Israeli “Nazis.”

Palestinians are suffering, even being killed and this is bad. Yet one poster proudly proclaims Muslims welcome death for the cause.

Which is it? Can’t have it both ways.

We have a similar problem in our neighborhood, under the guise of freedom of speech, with an individual who mistakes the First Amendment protections for carte blanche to be a cancer on society.

It is humorous that some are wanting Harvard to provide a list of names for the students belonging to these 31 organizations supporting Hamas vs. Israel, that they might know them and, perhaps, avoid offering them well-paying jobs.

This already has happened to one twit, the head of another university’s school of law bar association, who rushed to email fellow students regarding support of Hamas and to hammer Israel, calling the terrorism committed against Israelis “necessary.”

The Chicago law firm that had offered this transgender it a job, has withdrawn the offer.

Let the whining begin.

Here is what too many free-speech crazies miss. There are limits on what you can say, to whom you can say it, and when you can say it.

Moreover, while you have general freedom of speech, you do not have freedom from consequences of what you say.

The leftists love it when some right-wing type gets pilloried for an insensitive public remark, perhaps losing the current job and hopes of future employment. But when the roles are reversed, they scream like children with wet diapers.

Hypocrite and liberal are synonymous.

There is in this country, in this world, an attempt to blur the lines between right and wrong, or, even worse, to reverse the roles.

If you can view evidence of what was done in Israel by terrorists and choose to make a public spectacle of yourself advocating for the terrorists, you are a sick, demented person.

You have lost your moral compass. You are a waste of air. It is that simple and, eventually, it’s going to come down on a worldwide basis to a battle for supremacy between those on the right side of history, and those who would pander to evil.

Answer Man returned from a hike with the wife and grandkids Sunday afternoon to discover that the Steelers had lived up to his faith in them by winning vs. Baltimore.

To quote from a post of last week, ahead of the game, “I would not be surprised to see a competitive game, and even a surprise Steelers win . . . “

How does Answer Man do this? Easy. In sports, investments, elections and pop culture, it is wise to lean against the prevailing sentiment.

After the Steelers were humbled in week one by still-unbeaten San Francisco, there was despair across the Black and Gold Kingdom. Answer Man suggested then that it was too early to give up on the season, based on a marshmallow soft remaining schedule and the Steelers penchant for hanging tough. Nine or ten wins seemed to be within reach. They still are.

Things seemed to be looking up for a few weeks, until another blowout loss the previous weekend, this to the Houston Texans, currently 2-3.

Again, faithful Steelers fans were looking for high objects from which to jump. They wanted to take offensive coordinator Matt Canada with them.

There was a touching scene from an early part of the game Sunday that I did watch, with the network cutting away to commercial, but first showing a fan clad in Steelers garb shouting at the camera and, presumably, Canada or quarterback Kenny Pickett, what lip readers would recognize as “You suck!”

Perhaps both do. But, what Steelers fans seem to miss is that the entire NFL has a lot of teams that suck on various levels. Even the mighty unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles have been extended numerous times.

Kansas City already has one loss and easily could have suffered another in that Taylor Swift special on a recent Monday.

The Buffalo Bills? Not too impressive and already suffering from many key injuries. The list goes on, in both conferences. How ’bout them Cowboys! There are maybe three teams in the NFL hierarchy – San Francisco, Philadelphia and Kansas City – and a lot of members of the hoi polloi.

Specifically, as mentioned here many times, Baltimore is not a particularly good team, depleted as the Ravens are by injuries and hamstrung by a quarterback who has a tendency to come up small in big moments. Witness his play just this past Sunday.

Even when they win, the Ravens’ style tends to keep the losers close, where they are one big play away from threatening to win.

The Steelers obviously are a troubled team. They have been outscored by 31 points over five games, the same points deficit as the last place Cincinnati Bengals. Don’t bother to book Super Bowl trips, but the Steelers could slip into the playoffs as either a wild-card team, or the winner of a weak AFC North Division.

Now a quick dip into the mailbag, the one filled with questions Answer Man would ask himself.

Q: Did Major League Baseball make a mistake expanding the playoffs further and thereby cheapening the meaning of the longest regular season, by far, in sports? Sign me, Abner Doubleday from Dummer, New Hampshire.

A: Yo, Abner, yes, yes and yes. As of this writing (early afternoon Monday) all three teams that won 100 or more games this season trail in their ongoing series. The Baltimore Orioles (101-61 in the regular season) are down 2-0 (losing twice at home!) to the Texas Rangers (90-72). Atlanta (104-58) is down 1-0 to Philadelphia (90-72) and the LA Dodgers (100-62) are down 1-0 to Arizona (84-78). If you’re going to play a 162-game regular season, don’t crowd the playoff field with second-chance teams. A solution would be to cancel the regular season and just have every team make the playoffs. Pirates fans would rejoice.

Q: Now that Notre Dame has gotten on with its annual rite of proving it no longer deserves the lofty rankings it is gifted as a once-elite college program, how do you rate the college scene? Sign me, Knute Saban from Rockne, Texas.

A: Well, Knute, after seeing what Louisville did to Notre Dame Saturday, you’ve got to wonder if Ohio State coach Ryan Day is still so proud of his team’s narrow escape vs. the Fighting Irish a week earlier.

My take on college football: A wise man would expect the SEC once again to crown a national champion. The top Pac-12 teams continue to be questionable, as evidenced by USC needing multiple overtimes to subdue a subpar Arizona team. The Big Ten will be represented in the playoffs, but fail to close the deal, as usual. The ACC top dogs don’t have what it takes to dominate the college football kennel. As for the Big 12, Oklahoma benefitted from Texas choking yet again. But, come playoff time, there’s a reason the Sooners are known as Choke-la-homa.

Q: Can Penn State win the Big Ten this year? Sign me, Jo P. Turno, from Brooklyn, New York.

A: So, Jo, the simple answer is things don’t look good for Penn State prevailing. After an official bye last weekend, and the upcoming bye equivalent of playing UMass, Penn State must prove itself by beating Ohio State (Oct. 21) and Michigan (Nov. 11), either of which has proven elusive to say the least for the current coach. Throw in that the week before that Michigan game Penn State will need to avoid overlooking a game vs. Maryland. A betting man goes against Penn State to win the conference.

When word reached me yesterday of the atrocities in Israel, I’d just finished watching Texas blow another big college football game, this with Oklahoma.

The fact that my regular programming had not been interrupted by breathless reporting on the Israel terrorism, as the networks love to do with any update on the persecution of Donald Trump, speaks volumes about where media sentiments sit on such things.

This appeared to be an act committed by their beloved Hamas terrorists, so nothing to see here. Just aggrieved people venting. I think of the classic CNN live shot labeled “mostly peaceful protests” in these United States against a background of burning vehicles and buildings

Shortly after reading the Israel news online, I responded to an email from a cousin on another matter. In that reply, I wondered rhetorically how many leftists in Israel pushing peace and compassion for terrorists would have found themselves harmed by this.

It’s a growing trend here, leftists of all stripes being killed by the sort of criminals they love to put back into public circulation. From the woman tech executive murdered in Baltimore, allegedly by a convicted sex offender also being sought on other felony charges even before this murder, to the “citizen journalist” in Philadelphia alleged to have been shot and killed by some societal outlier he was “helping,” it all should be getting a little too real for the soft-on-crime crowd.

There used to be quip, during a previous heyday of street violence in New York City, that a conservative was a liberal who had been mugged on the subway. These days, the survivors of expended liberals insist the victims of these crimes would not want their deaths to be used as motivation to crack down on street crime.

It’s easy for the survivors to say this. The people they claim to speak for no longer have a voice.

An update today regarding Israel suggested the attack got started when terrorists, using motorized hang gliders, drifted over and landed amidst a bunch of attendees at a “rave,” a concert being held near the Gaza border pushing peace.

Unfortunately, some of these ravers, including what is reported to be some Americans, got a first-hand look at the actions of the cold-blooded murders they support.

No doubt those who would presume to speak for the dead in this will assure us it all would not have changed their minds regarding pandering to criminals and terrorists.

I call BS on that.

What should interest us, aside from the brutal assault on other humans by those to whom life is cheap, is that it could happen here.

Clueless Joe Biden’s open-border policies, and the hasty dispersion of illegals throughout the U.S., leaves us vulnerable to terrorism.

While the FBI plans to harass so-called “MAGA extremists” ahead of the 2024 elections, the agency no doubt is asleep at the switch when it comes to identifying the terrorists entering this country amid the invasion of illegals.

When these terrorists act – and it will happen – there will be rush to deny culpability from Biden and his regime. Our intelligence agencies –the ultimate oxymoron – will ask plaintively, How could we have been expected to know? We were too busy busting grannies who once flew a Trump flag in their front yard.

There have been governmental pledges to support Israel, which ring hollow considering how much money and weaponry already have been expended to prop up Zelenskyy’s scandalized Ukraine regime.

Let us hope that Israel goes scorched earth on the terrorists, killing any and all with a connection to Hamas.

If that should extend to sanctioning some within our borders, well, stuff happens. The borders have been declared wide-open, so why should that not extend to some Mossad operatives?

It is Friday, a good time to stop and reflect on the week that was in sports.

The Steelers began the week laying an egg vs. the Houston Texans and getting quarterback Kenny Pickett injured in the process. Next up are the Baltimore Ravens, AFC North Division leaders and hated rivals.

Pickett insists he will play in this game. But Matt Canada still will be the Steelers’ offensive coordinator, at least at the point of this writing.

The notoriously bipolar Steelers fans are in a lather, about where they were after the season opener, a blowout loss to San Francisco, when we counseled them to hang in there for a bit. The Steelers winning two of their next three games followed.

Now, with most conceding another loss Sunday, it’s time to consider the Ravens have injury problems, are led by a mistake-prone quarterback and tend to play close, low-scoring games with the Steelers.

I would not be stunned to see a competitive game, and even a surprise Steelers win vs. Baltimore. Recall, I told you the Steelers are the sporting world’s Rasputins. You need to beat them, poison them, drown them, shoot them and maybe hang them before they go away.

On the other end of the spectrum are the Pirates, who more often just go quietly into the night. But it is Pirates management that this week boasted about yet another losing season, and having closed the gap on playoff teams.

If you believe this, you also believe the check is in the mail and someone will respect you in the morning.

But, let’s say the Pirates somehow slip into the 2024 MLB playoffs as a wild-card team or weak division winner.

Based on what happened this year, that won’t mean much.

The wild-card round of baseball’s playoffs were a tale of uncompetitive, boring baseball.

All four of the best-of-3 series were won 2-0. The winning teams in game ones of the respective series outscored the losers, 17-5. In game twos it was worse, 21-4.

Your 2023 playoff field included the Miami Marlins. No team in the history of MLB playoffs had entered the postseason with a worse negative run differential – having surrendered more runs than the team scored. And Miami was done in two games. Yay!

What about Pitt football? It speaks volumes that the former starting quarterback, who was upset at fans booing his ineptitude, has switched positions — to tight end!

On the lighter side, the Swimming World Cup, currently being held in Berlin, created a third category, Open, to deal with trans men dominating women. So, they have men’s, women’s, and open competition.

The number of entries in the Open class? ZERO!

This tells you much about the motives of transgender former men in sports. Along that line, how come we do not see transgender former women wanting to go out and compete with men?

Exactly.

Yesterday, we noted the need to sacrifice credibility and accountability that is necessary to maintaining membership in good standing with the Democratic Party.

Today, we turn our gaze to the travails of identifying as a Republican. No, this was not spurred by Kevin McCarthy’s ousting as Speaker of the House Tuesday.

But, make no mistake, McCarthy deserved it. Like too many two-faced members of Republican leadership, McCarthy made a promise to his membership, then reneged the first chance he got to hop into bed with the Democrats.

This is a common failing of prominent Republicans, the urge to pander to the Democrats, ostensibly to present a softer image that might attract the independents and late-deciders thought to be so crucial to winning national elections.

George W. Bush was a major factor in kickstarting this movement with his compassionate conservative crap. Never, do Democrat leaders attempt to soften their far-left drift in order to appeal to those outside their party. When Dems offer the olive branch, it’s as they attempt to hit you over the head with it.

Democrats figure their unholy alliance of lamestream news media, big tech, social media censorship and general attack dog tactics used to silence opposing opinions, will be enough to keep the Republicans in a position of eternal minority status.

Somehow, Republicans have been brainwashed into thinking that to change this they must alienate their base to attract fringe support. If that’s what it takes to win, I’d rather lose.

Apparently, I am not alone in this sentiment, which explains why McCarthy lost his gavel today. He won’t run again. Good.

I also find it instructive that the only Republican presidential winner in the past four elections was Donald Trump, the man the Republicans fought so hard to prevent from obtaining their nomination. Even after that, Republicans were late to support him. He was crass, blunt, offensive. That’s not a winning way.

And yet, Trump won, doing exactly what Republican elites said would not work. Trump did not pander to the left. He did not a present a soft persona, speaking in mealy-mouthed platitudes that he might never offend some gender-confused individual living in their parents’ basement while posting religiously on social media.

Trump delivered as best he could on his election promises, despite efforts of the bureaucracy, Congress and intelligence agencies to prevent him from doing so.

Now, Trump is being harassed in the courts because Democrats at all levels fear they cannot again beat him at the ballot box, no matter how many phantom votes they might drum up through their so-called “vote enhancement” methods.

One Congressman was on social media already today nominating Trump for the speaker post.

That isn’t going to happen. But what we do need to happen is for Republicans in leadership to put on their big boy pants. Stop pandering to the opposition and present a distinct, superior option to the voting populace.

A coalition of disaffected Democrats, tired of their party’s leftward lurch, and a similar contingent of Republicans, sick of their party’s gutless posture, just might be enough to win the next presidential election. Now, all we need is the right candidate.

It must be exhausting to be a democrat, awakening each day to the challenge of defending the indefensible.

To be a democrat in good standing, you must be willing to present the public face of having forgotten morality, legality and common sense.

On a daily basis, you find yourself rationalizing more videos of The Big Guy Biden, your party’s kahuna, freezing mid-sentence, falling down, offering to shake hands with someone who isn’t there, needing a guide to lead him off a stage, or playing loose with the facts by misstating his record.

If someone put a truth needle in your arm, you’d have to admit that you wouldn’t trust this guy to make it to the market and come back with a gallon of milk. But you must go on the record that he’s capable of leading this country.

Being a democrat means you have to pretend to believe the excuse of Jamaal Bowman, one of your Congressmen from New York, that he pulled a fire alarm just trying to open a door so he could get to a key vote on raising the debt limit.

Here’s where it gets tricky. As a loyal democrat, you had to scream “insurrection” and “obstruction of Congress” when Jan. 6 protesters were involved, even if they were egged on by feds that had infiltrated their masses.

Now, Brown seems to have been trying to obstruct Congress for political gain, but, as a Democrat, you have to be OK with the idiot defense, as in this guy thought that was how he could get the door to open.

As one panelist on a cable news show Monday night posited, if he’s that stupid, what’s he doing in Congress?

Speaking of which, being a democrat means backing twits like AOC, who spoke of the guy’s panic and fear in trying to “escape a vestibule.” If this guy panics because a door doesn’t open, is he really Congressional material?

Come to think of it, is someone whose qualifications mainly include the ability to mix a mean sloe gin fizz Congressional material, either?

If you’re a democrat, you have to say an unequivocal yes to both inquiries.

Being a democrat means you have to applaud wildly when California Gov. Gavin Newsom appoints a gay, black, woman from Maryland to replace dead California Senator Dianne Feinstein, because Newsom was unable to find a black transgender woman from New Mexico in an attempt to tick more virtue signaling boxes.

As a democrat, you have to deny overwhelming evidence that our southern border is porous to the extreme, to the detriment of the nation.

You must believe Hunter Biden is just a victim and is guilty of nothing, but Donald Trump is not the victim of outrageous prosecutorial over-reach.

Also as a democrat, you have to deny inflation, rising interest rates, videos of shoplifting raids on retail outlets in major cities, and the decline of those major cities (almost all run by Democrats) into literal hell holes.

As a democrat, you can only admit a problem exists if you quickly add that it’s all the fault of Trump, a guy who’s been out of office going on three years. Yeah, it can’t be the fault of your guy, the stumbling, bumbling cadaver Biden.

Your modern democratic voter is the equivalent of the kid who used to claim the dog ate his homework. When I was in school, teachers and even the fellow classmates, laughed at these pathetic liars.

Now, these types are the backbone of a major political party. This should scare you. It should scare them, too.

Perhaps you’ve heard Democrats are saving democracy.

If not, better check your hearing and/or pulse. The Dems scream this anytime they get in front of a microphone. It is they, and only they, who can keep our form of government alive. Just vote early and often for them. Don’t rely on the usual vote enhancement to get the Dems through.

And how are the Democrats attempting to save democracy? Let us count the ways.

They are saving democracy by trying to put the top Republican challenger to Clueless Joe Biden in jail. This pursuit of Donald Trump began while he was in office and included the justice department and various agencies such as the FBI, suspending the rule of law toward that end.

They are saving democracy by declaring incumbent nincompoop Biden unchallengeable in primaries or debates and, if word today is to be believed, by forcing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into a third-party run for president.

They are saving democracy by denying RFK Jr. secret service protection. Assassination anyone? Or maybe they’ll save democracy by fabricating charges that eliminate him from the election field.

They are saving democracy by having New Jersey senator Bob Menendez facing trial yet again on charges of influence peddling. It is reported that the senator’s wife was unemployed until meeting him, but since then business has been beating a path to the door of her international consulting business. Tales of alleged gold bars and allegations of money stuffed in clothes, a luxury car, make for the most salacious reading this side of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

They are saving democracy by making sure the “Big Guy” gets his cut from selling the brand.

They are saving democracy by making sure Zelenskyy gets his.

They are saving democracy by getting one final Senate vote out of Dianne Feinstein before she died, exiting life in a confused mental state similar to Biden’s.

They are saving democracy by insuring our southern border is no more than a free-spinning turnstile.

They are saving democracy by turning Democrat-controlled cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York City, Detroit, etc., etc., etc., into hell holes.

They are saving democracy by setting in motion plans to gin up another COVID-like “crisis,” locking down the nation, and guaranteeing those mail-in ballots fall like rain from the sky.

They are saving democracy by making sure criminals who are caught and/or convicted experience only minor inconvenience with bail or jail before being released back onto the streets to commit further misdeeds.

They are saving democracy by spending every waking moment trying to prop up, both figuratively and literally, the stumbling cadaver known as Joe Biden.

Please do us a favor, Democrats, stop trying to save your form of democracy.

News that the Steelers’ charter flight had an unscheduled stop in Kansas City early Monday morning, on the way home from Las Vegas, brought back memories of my days traveling with the team.

That was during my time covering the Steelers as a sports writer for the Tribune-Democrat, which was most of the 1980s. It was common back then for many media members, ranging from the big names of Pittsburgh television, to writers from podunk newspapers like Johnstown, to fly on the team charters.

Going on the charter flight with the players was convenient. You got on the plane at Pittsburgh’s airport, landed at the destination, and buses were waiting on the tarmac to whisk you to the team hotel.

After games, buses took you from the stadium to the airport, again often directly onto the tarmac. Remember, this was pre 9/11. Airport security was, shall we say, flexible.

I remember the players getting together small pots of money to tip the drivers, encouraging them to outrace the competition to the steps descending from the rear of the Boeing 727s the team often used. Think of skyjacker D.B. Cooper and his parachute jump from the rear stairway.

The reason for this haste was the team usually used four buses and there were no assigned seats on the planes, other than first class being for coaches and ownership. Getting to the steps quickly meant freedom to pick your favorite seat location. The media always sat at the rear.

Sometimes the flights didn’t go as smoothly as planned, with a notable example being the 1984 return trip from San Francisco. This one flight gave me new appreciation for what players can face.

The game itself was dramatic, with the Steelers coming from behind to hand the Joe Montana-led 49ers what would be their only loss in a Super Bowl championship season.

It was the final career game for veteran Steelers offensive tackle Larry Brown and rookie tight end Chris Kolodziejski, both of whom suffered catastrophic knee injuries.

Their injuries tempered the elation of the win. It got worse when weather conditions in the east forced the team’s flight to land in Cleveland. Buses had been lined up to make the drive to the Pittsburgh airport, where everyone’s cars were parked.

But the Buffalo Bills faced similar weather problems on their return flight, also landed in Cleveland, ahead of the Steelers, and commandeered the buses.

Eventually, more buses were procured. I was on the bus that held both Brown and Kolodziejski, each sitting up front to give them room to stretch their injured legs. As the bus went over a seemingly never-ending supply of train tracks leaving the airport, both moaned in pain, eliciting painkilling injections from the team doctor.

Imagine blowing out a knee and then having to endure a transcontinental flight back home, with a bonus layover in Cleveland and bus ride to the Pittsburgh airport.

There were many other notable flights, including the 1981 Seattle trip. The Steelers lost to the Seahawks, then emerged from the Kingdome to find a pea soup fog. The return trip was postponed and the team and media were checked back into the hotel we thought we’d exited for good hours earlier.

The next day dawned with more fog and a bit of news – backup quarterback Cliff Stoudt, who had become famous for qualifying for a pension without ever playing in a regular season game, had gone out on game night and broken his right arm attempting to smack a bar room punching bag arcade game.

Traditionally, media rode in the fourth team bus and head coach Chuck Noll sat in the front of the first bus. Stoudt, wanting to avoid Noll, attempted to slip onto the fourth bus where he found – glaring at him from the first row of seats, one Charles Henry Noll.

The plane eventually took off with the airport still closed. Word was the Steelers said they’d pay the fine Pan Am got for this breach of procedure.

And then there was a return trip from San Diego, when the plane was rushing down the runway to take off and suddenly slammed on the brakes, returning to the terminal area. A flight attendant told us there had a been a warning light possibly suggesting an engine problem.

Because the city of San Diego had expanded to encompass the airport, there was a curfew for takeoffs due to noise. That curfew was near as technicians on a cherry picker used flashlights to examine the engines.

Quipped broadcaster Myron Cope: “They’re out there running a two-minute drill with my life and I don’t like it.”

Eventually, the plane was cleared to take off, the Steelers supposedly agreed to pay the fine, and the team successfully winged back to Pittsburgh.

There are other memorable flights, like a return from Cincinnati and attempting to land in brutal wind, causing the plane to pitch and yaw wildly. Linebacker Jack Lambert, a notorious white knuckle airline passenger, was moved to scream to a closeby passenger to shut up during a hairy moment.

Once, coming back from Buffalo, the team plane circled aimlessly, somewhere around New Castle we estimated, so that the players would have time to eat their meals on this short flight.

And then there was a flight to Seattle that took about seven hours due to intense headwinds necessitating a refueling stop in Milwaukee.

But all these flights, like this week’s example, ended safely. To quote Shakespeare, all’s well that ends well.

Dahlia Street is trailer-free as of Thursday afternoon, but what are we to make of this turn of events?

Perhaps the trailer fairies mentioned in a previous post returned and completed their task, removing the last eyesore trailer and leaving this street pristine for the first time in more than a year, save for the one derelict car that remains.

The urge is to indulge in a George W. Bush “Mission Accomplished” post. But that would be as premature as that previous example proved to be.

It is safe to presume that the trailer people even now are busily hatching their next attempt to irritate any and all who refuse them their divine right, that being to claim public property as their own.

But, for now, the absence of the trailers begs one overriding question: Where did they go?

The trailer spokespeople long had maintained there was no option. It had been insisted that these trailers, which multiplied over time (blessedly, not as quickly as rabbits or feral cats do), were plunked on the street because there was no other place to put them. This being offending and irritating to neighbors, which they were in spades, was but happy coincidence.

We recall some physics classes noting that matter is neither created, nor destroyed. So these trailers must be somewhere.

Could they now be employed to irritate law-biding citizens elsewhere? Let us hope not; or at least let us hope those aggrieved citizens have more proactive police and local representation than we in Southmont do.

More logical inquiries to the current state of Dahlia Street include will the trailers return in the future, like swallows to San Juan Capistrano, or buzzards to Hinckley, Ohio?

And what of the trailers’ ownership? Who exactly held title to said trailers and were they, as long had been claimed, all legally registered despite being from farflung locales such as California?

Just thinking out loud here, but it could be the true owners, facing fines and the like, tired of backing the petty protest and bowed to cost pressure. Think of it as a reverse of the old bromide about following the money.

There also is an element of a multi-front war, the sort of thing that has gotten others in overreach jeopardy throughout history.

‘Tis hard to concentrate on minding the trailers when there are social media jousts to be conducted and harassment to be dispensed elsewhere.

For now, it will need to be enough that the law and authority won yet again. But do not presume this will be the end of the quest to continue with the general offending of the populace.

For anyone checking to see if I am aware of recent neighborhood developments – and there seem to have been a few stopping by the blog already for that purpose – I know what’s happening.

I just choose not to write about it at this time; starving an attention whore and all that.

However, while you wait, some suggested listening: “I Fought The Law” (Bobby Fuller Four version) and “Authority Song” (John Mellencamp version).

As you were.