Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

There is a longstanding tradition of blaming the messenger when the news is unpleasant.

To avoid that, there is a faction among the messengers who would put a positive spin on even the worst news. Think of the apocryphal man asking Abraham Lincoln’s wife “Besides that (your husband being shot during a performance at Ford’s Theatre) how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?”

Political mouthpieces in this country have elevated to an art form such verbal misdirection away from unpleasant news. But some unlikely sources, such as media members, are gaining on them.

Think of that widely lampooned CNN report on “mostly peaceful” protests, which was given against a background of video showing burning cars and buildings.

It makes me wonder exactly what sort of world these positive spin people inhabit. And that prompted a thought experiment, to attempt to find something positive about news — locally, nationally or internationally — from recent days.

Another Johnstown resident has been shot and killed by an out-of-towner . . .

. . . but at least the alleged shooter has been caught.

Our local Mill Rats baseball team has lost 13 of its past 14 games . . .

. . . but they scored a run in the Sunday loss.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have descended to fourth place in the NL Central after masquerading as division contenders earlier this season . . .

. . . but there was a win Sunday to warm the cockles of fans’ hearts during the All-Star break.

Even the leftist New York Times has called out Joe Biden for excluding Hunter’s illegitimate child as one of Joe’s seven (not six) grandchildren . . .

. . . but at least Joe ostensibly remembers the other six without a written cheat sheet.

Bud Light’s Woke embrace has seen the beer brand fall from ninth to 15^th on a list of most popular beers in the United States . . .

. . . dare we dream this is an early indicator that U.S. consumers are sick of having Woke propaganda shoved down their throats in the form of advertisements?

The New York Post and Business Insider separately have reported a rise in dumpster diving by consumers trying to cope with mounting food bills, even as Google reported searches for “pawn shop near me” at a record high . . .

. . . but the unemployment rates, inexplicably, continue to be reported as at or near record lows.

Paris, and France in general, continue to simmer with riots and violence, even as President Emmanuel Macron calls for bans on public demonstrations and social media shutdowns . . .

. . . but the French still make some fine wine.

Back in the days when I wrote for a living (this blog is just for fun) I had a column format Answer Man, in which I invented questions prompting answers that I also provided to make my points.

Today, no answers, just 20 questions, not to be mistaken with the deductive reasoning game in which a player has 20 yes or no questions to identify correctly a person, place or thing.

Here goes:

1. Has anyone heard official attendance/economic impact numbers from this year’s Thunder in the Valley?
2. If not, why not?
3. Who is responsible for the booming real estate market in the Greater Johnstown area in view of the area’s general economic malaise, 30-year mortgage rates in excess of 7 percent, and the area demographics of an aged population, traditionally downsizing rather than home-buying years?
4. Does anyone who is not totally in the tank for the leftists accept the lack of a explanation for how cocaine can just show up in the White House, arguably one of the most secure places in these United States?
5. And are we expected to swallow the talking point, already floated by left-wing house organ Politico, that in all likelihood the person who brought the drug in never will be identified, sort of like that Supreme Court leaker of the abortion decision just couldn’t be identified?
6. If cocaine had been discovered in the White House during Donald Trump’s presidency, how long would it have taken for him to be charged, tried and convicted, just for living there?
7. Will the stock market investors who had the incredible foresight or good luck to ride outsized first-half gains, let it ride in the second half, or begin cashing out?
8. Along that line, can we trust that market history will be rewritten and jacked up interest rates by the Federal Reserve, a long-running inversion of the yield curve, and other classic indicators of approaching economic problems will prove to be invalid?
9. Why do Clueless Joe Biden, Veep Kamala Harris and Biden’s press secretary hack all resort to laughing when asked tough questions instead of, say, trying to provide answers?
10. Is there a more representative example of the modern day Democratic Party than former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tried to turn his mediocre performance in that post into a presidential run, and now has gone public to note that he and his former (and perhaps soon to be again) lesbian wife are separating to date others, but will continue to live together?
11. Does anyone else reading about de Blasio and his wife hear a background of the Statler Brothers singing “You Can’t Have Your Kate And Edith, Too”?
12. Should we be concerned that our inept PR types of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet tweeted out a July 4 tribute to the forces with a solider saluting a surface ship and five planes in flight, odd in view of the fact that the ship and planes were Russian?
13. Is it wise to think that the more the Democrats take pot shots at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and demean his presidential campaign, the more attention we should pay to the guy?
14. While that rumored cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg seems to have been typical social media blather, can we agree that watching the two exchange barbs is probably as entertaining as the match would have been?
15. Did you ever witness a sporting competition in which you wished both sides could lose?
16. Can we really expect Mother Hubbard (Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen) to make any headway in relations during her trip to China?
17. Will the Greenies who point to Formula One and its hybrid racers (internal combustion and electric propulsion) as proof of the viability of electric cars everywhere, concede that Formula One cars also are finicky, high-strung thoroughbreds that require pit crews of 20 to 25 members, not to mention copious amounts of other support personnel to make it through a race with a minimum length of 190 miles?
18. Do you understand that if the inflation rate is 10 percent in Year A and 5 percent in Year B, yes, the inflation rate has slowed, but prices still are going up and are 15.5-percent higher after Year B? (NOTE: It’s 15.5 percent higher because the 5 percent rise in Year B is calculated on a 110 base – 100 percent plus the 10 percent increase in Year A)
19. Is it possible the Republicans could just wait for the cell door to slam shut on the Democratic scofflaw of the moment before crowing that they got him or her or it?
20. Are things soggy enough now that the area’s We Need Rain! people can take a break?

Holy Jonathan Swift, humanity hasn’t changed a lot in the just under 300 years since Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal.”

Perhaps anticipating the hoi polloi might not get the satirical point he was making, Swift had his essay published anonymously in 1729.

That turned out to be a bit unnecessary. While perhaps the very people Swift was supporting took it all too literally, this biting satire was understood all too well by the upper class types Swift was lampooning with it.

Swift wrote that the impoverished Irish might climb out of their economic despair by selling their children to the rich, who could then eat them. The point he was making, with hyperbolic absurdity, was not about selling children, but rather that the British generally treated the poor, and specifically the Irish poor, with unnecessary disdain. Their treatment, in Swift’s opinion, was no less ridiculous than his modest proposal.

We offer this history lesson because I enjoying writing satirically and/or with sarcasm, but I am told when my stuff gets cross-posted on social media, some people don’t get it. I’m trusting the handful of regular readers who come here by habit, not due to social media prompts, understand satire and sarcasm when they see it.

But, I will elaborate hoping to educate the rest of the readership.

Example: I recently wrote about NASCAR having a street race in Johnstown since we are Chicago’s smaller sister city in terms of crime and tourism. Good God, people, give me a little credit. I don’t really expect NASCAR to show up here to stage a race.

The point was that the Chicago event was not all the NASCAR spin masters made it out to be — in reality was more like spats on a pig — and that Johnstown is not the low-crime, tourism Mecca that our propagandists imagine it to be.

I’ve done a bit of internet research and see that people on Twitter help those who move their lips while reading to recognize sarcasm by including a hashtag-sarcasm. Other hints on social media in general apparently are (SARC) or an upside down smiling face emoji.

Again, if you read something here you can’t understand, please find a literate adult to translate for you. We’re not into emojis or hashtags.

And, while you are at it, look up the meaning of drama queen. There seems to be a big dose of psychological projection at work here, with one notable drama queen unable to self-recognize and instead accusing others of the behavior.

By the way, the above paragraph was not sarcasm.

Finally, to quote Joe Biden, “God save the Queen!”

If you recognized that last sentence as sarcasm, welcome to the enlightened club.

What I did, or didn’t do on this July 4^th holiday:

I did have family over for a cookout and enjoyed the company, while all feasted on the wife’s typically lavish spread.

I did not try to hit up Sheetz for their cheap gas promotion, despite passing two Sheetz outlets on the way to pick up and take home my brother. Just not worth the bother for me.

I did watch the broadcast of the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest, which of all things had a weather/lightning delay.

I didn’t bother to stick around for post-gorge interviews.

I did – as did my brother – correctly take the under pre-event regarding whether Joey Chestnut could put down more than his record 76 hot dogs in the allotted 10-minute time frame. Chestnut won easily, despite eating JUST 62 hot dogs (and buns!)

I didn’t, and will not, send fireworks streaking into the sky to land randomly on the homes and property of others.

I did wonder, if 16-time winner Chestnut begins to slow down as he ages, whether he can decide to identify as a woman and move to that category in order to dominate more easily. Miki Sudo won her ninth consecutive crown, with a relatively paltry total of 39 ½ dogs and buns.

I did not find it all that surprising that the suspect arrested in regard to the Philadelphia mass-shooting Monday that killed five, has been identified as a male supporter of Black Lives Matter, and in a picture appears to be black and wearing a bra, earrings and bracelets. Get that pronoun right on the charging papers!

I did ponder the waning greatness of this country, from political types on the left being demonstrably above the law, to transgender and climate change being the prime emphasis in our military, above, say, being in position to win an eventual war with Russia and/or China that chickenhawks are pushing so hard to have transpire.

I did not make plans to see any commercial-level fireworks displays, since there seem to be none nearby.

I did make sure my American Flag was flying, as it is on most days.

I did not bother to check how few others on my street display the Flag. Too depressing.

I did take a moment to ponder how disgusted our Founding Fathers would be with the selfish, often gutless, mostly weak-minded populace of the moment.

Enjoy your independence while you still can.

NASCAR raced through the streets of Chicago over the weekend, which NBC turned into a multi-day lovefest for Chicago and NASCAR, not necessarily in that order.

Perhaps you have heard that Chicago has a reputation for shooting violence? Obviously not from watching the broadcasts. But, I wondered if the magic of NASCAR had cured that violence problem, at least for one weekend. The early answer is a resounding no.

The New York Post reported, in an online story last updated at 6:13 p.m. Sunday, three killed and 27 wounded in shootings already in Chicago this past weekend.

But didn’t those race cars look impressive spraying water on the wet streets as they raced along Lake Michigan?

Meanwhile, in other parts of town, it was lead being sprayed.

I’ve been to Chicago numerous times in the past to cover sporting events. The Big Ten used to hold its preseason football media days there, too, so I’m a bit familiar with the city layout.

But, in reality, all one needs is some Jim Croce song references about avoiding the South Side, “the baddest part of town.”

NASCAR took a cue from that and stayed against the lake and well north of the worst areas of Chicago.

The fact that rain wiped out more than one-half of the Xfinity race, and forced the Cup race to be delayed and then shortened due to darkness, was not considered to be a downer.

This was NASCAR’s first attempt at racing in city streets, something long familiar to fans of Formula One (Monaco) and IndyCar (Long Beach, Detroit, Nashville and St. Petersburg, among others).

The history aspect was played up large. As was the fact that a New Zealand driver, making his first NASCAR start, won.

It got me thinking about how we could lure NASCAR here, since we are a leading tourist destination with our trails and rivers. We also have the crime and rain associated with Chicago, at least this past weekend.

Alas, the James Mayer Walking Trail, while only slightly more narrow than some parts of the Chicago track, borders the baddest part of our town, Moxham. Our race would need to be staged in Richland or Geistown for safety reasons.

But this would be a great opportunity for the tourist types to oil up their economic impact estimate machines. The Chicago counterparts are mere pikers by comparison.

Imagine, Chicago hosted a national event, over a holiday weekend, with several races and accompanying big-time concerts on the slate, national television coverage, not to forget huge crowds of visitors with inflated hotel prices, yet predictions were for a relatively modest $113 million impact.

We bring some bikers to town for a few days and our economic impact estimate predictably comes out at $20 million give or take.

Obviously, Chicago is doing something wrong. Besides tolerating the shooting violence, that is.

Confrontations, from neighborhood squabbles all the way up through international wars, often become battles of economic attrition.

Let’s look at history. Our American War of Independence with Great Britain, whose success we are in the midst of celebrating, was decided in part because of the long supply lines the British faced and the fact that European countries, most notably France, as well as rich European individuals, fed money to the U.S. effort because they hated Great Britain. The French navy made those long supply lines even more tenuous and costly.

In a case of history repeating itself, we have a modern day equivalent with the proxy war the U.S. and NATO are fighting with Russia by sending money and arms to Ukraine.

Our American Civil War began with the South, possessor of superior generals and fighting forces, winning early battles. But the industrial and economic might of the North eventually turned the tide.

Both World Wars I and II were decided in large part because of the U.S. industrial production capacity, which escaped war damage and was a ready supplier of fresh war material to our side in each conflict.

Even the so-called cold war between the U.S. and western allies vs. the USSR-led communist bloc countries, ended for economic reasons, that being the superiority of the U.S. economy and our government’s willingness to dedicate virtually limitless dollars to defense spending.

With neighborhood squabbles, the scofflaws also tend, eventually, to cry Uncle! economically.

This concept has been captured through the years in popular song lyrics, from the Bobby Fuller Four’s “I fought the law and the law won,” through John Mellencamp’s “I fight authority, authority always wins.”

Continue to violate zoning ordinances, court decisions and the like, and the cost can be extreme. Fines can mount quickly and, should that not make an impression, incarceration, some would say the ultimate cost, can follow.

To be sure, idle threats still can be made, as can rebel-without-a-cause stands. Eventually, economic reality prevails.

Authority, as defined by the police, the laws and the courts, have unlimited resources once they identify a problem as worthy of addressing. In an ironic twist, they could, in effect, use fines paid by scofflaws to prosecute those same individuals.

The issue of dollars and cents has a way of bringing sense back into the picture.

It’s easy, and fair, to criticize Pirates management for being cheap and dooming the franchise to futility.

But, in the sense of fair play, this current three-game series with the San Diego Padres is in-your-face evidence that simply spending more money doesn’t guarantee success in baseball.

Consider that the Padres already have lost two games to the Pirates, by a cumulative score of 16-5, as they try to salvage one win in a Thursday afternoon series finale. Now, factor in that, according to USA Today’s opening-day figures, the Padres had a payroll of just a tick under $249 million to begin the season, third highest in Major League Baseball.

Meanwhile, the Pirates’ opening day payroll was a mere $73.3 million, 27^th among 30 MLB teams.

A look at the season picture makes it even worse for the Padres, who with that Wednesday night loss had a record of 37-43. The Pirates were a tick better at 37-42.

Imagine ownership and management of the Padres, not to mention the fans, wondering where all the money went. In that way, they are not that much different than the average inquiring citizen marveling at how their state and federal governments can spend vast sums of tax money unwisely.

But, let’s get back to baseball. The Padres are not alone in having huge salaries producing relatively tiny results.

The highest team salary to begin the 2023 season belonged to the New York Mets, at a whopping $353.5 million. As of Thursday morning, that money had bought a 36-44 record and fourth place in the NL East Division standings.

The New York Yankees, who have been in the top three of team salaries every season but one since 2013, were second to begin 2023 at a payroll of nearly $277 million. The Yankees begin play Thursday with a 44-36 record, third best in the AL East.

On the flip side, the runaway leaders in getting big results with a modest payroll are the Tampa Bay Rays. They have the most wins in MLB with 55, are tied for the best winning percentage with Atlanta at .663, and lead the AL East by five full games over Baltimore. More on the Orioles later.

Tampa Bay has accomplished all this with a payroll of roughly $73.2 million, a bit less than that of the Pirates and 28^th overall in MLB.

In that same AL East, Baltimore has a record of 48-31, good for second place, with a payroll figure of $60.7 million, 29th in MLB.

To recap, the Rays and Orioles have combined to spend about one-half of what the Yankees have spent, and have produced more than twice as many wins.

Now, can either of these payroll overachievers turn it into a World Series win? That would be historic by recent standards.

There have been five times in the past 10 seasons, including the past two running, that the eventual winner of the World Series had a payroll outside baseball’s Top 10. The lowest was Houston in 2017, with a payroll rated 18^th in MLB.

The Astros also won it all last year with a payroll rated 11^th and the Atlanta Braves won the World Series in 2021 with a payroll 13^th among MLB.

The Tampa Bay Rays with a payroll ranking of No. 28, are proving yet again that they can be successful on an even more modest budget. That, combined with the failure of the big spenders in this and other recent years, is evidence that the Pirates could and should be doing better, even without spending the big money.

The other day we ended a week-long hiatus by writing of delusion and denial holding sway locally, using Thunder in the Valley as an example.

Today, we spread the focus to the national and international.

Arguably the largest source of delusion, denial and a third D – distortion — is our own federal government. Not only elected officials, but often career bureaucrats also do their best to spew disinformation and gaslight the populace.

Their purpose would be to keep the population confused and consumed with infighting, thereby keeping them from questioning the pap they’re being fed by these self-proclaimed masters.

Also, there is a bit of inadvertent distortion to government actions as the matter of unintended consequences looms large.

Consider the whole COVID-19 example. It was a magnificent opportunity for elites to see just how far they could infringe on individual liberties of the population (sheep) before the people pushed back. I dare to say it went even better than they could have hoped. But, eventually, the masses tired of the hypocrisy and rebelled, thereby ending things such as stay-at-home dictates and maskhole mandates.

Shutting down the economy as part of this grand experiment required stimulus money be handed out freely along the way, the financial equivalent of a defibrillator’s shock that restarts a stopped heart.

Even those concerned about federal deficits gladly took the money and spent it rapidly. But that created a bulge in demand at a time when supply was constrained, producing the large unintended consequence of rising price inflation.

This has forced the Federal Reserve to act to rein in that inflation, by raising interest rates precipitously. The largest borrower on Earth is the U.S. government, which saw its interest costs to finance that mammoth debt skyrocket and bring us to the debt ceiling more quickly than anticipated.

Now the economy teeters, while stock markets skyrocket upwards, a strange contradiction, especially when the inverted yield curve is factored into the calculus. Traditionally, short-term interest rates are lower than long-term rates. That condition is reversed, historically an indication of bad times on the horizon.

By most measures, debt has ballooned in this country, despite all the free money. Credit card balances are at or near all-time highs, and delinquencies on such things as car loans and credit card payments are high.

Student loan borrowers will have their three-year freedom from the responsibility of having to pay on those loans end in September. I’ve seen reports that the average repayment amount is $300 to $500 monthly and, predictably, borrowers are screaming for relief.

As an aside, someone going to college who didn’t realize that a loan, by definition, meant the money must be repaid, probably wasn’t legitimate college material in the first place.

But I digress.

More intended consequences from the distortion, denial and delusion. People got used to not needing to report to a work place. I have several continuing examples on my street.

This has caused office buildings in major cities to sit partly, to mostly unoccupied. But the rents or mortgages still must be paid, often at higher costs as debts are rolled over at higher interest rates.

Already in cities such as San Francisco, there is a commercial property crisis as jingle mail – the practice of debtors simply mailing in the keys to the property to the lien holders due to their inability to pay – has become a common practice.

Walgreens, a national drugstore chain, reported bad earnings Tuesday due to the end of yet more government distortion, delusion and denial. The government has backed off on its maniacal demand that all accept the jab and so not nearly as many COVID vaccines or booster shots are being administered by Walgreens, leading to a massive drop in revenue.

Generally speaking, distortion, delusion and denial are being applied to the consumer, generally calculated as being 70 percent of the economy. On one hand, we have maxxed out borrowers and goods sellers to people in the lower socio-economic strata such as Dollar General reporting that their clientele is downgrading from buying at Dollar General, to looking for free stuff from food pantries and other charitable outlets.

Yet Delta Airlines on Tuesday reported mammoth demand and predicted the highest second quarter earnings in company history.

People are spending all they have plus some, in part trapped in the delusion that all is well and will be even better tomorrow.

Reality argues against that. But living in the real world is such a drag when it’s so easy to join the crowd living in delusion.

Denial and delusion, in any order, pretty much explain much of what is happening in Greater Johnstown, around the USA, and even around the world.

To focus on a local example, lets us ponder Thunder in the Valley, which the Daily Bugle seemed to be proclaiming a success Monday with its front-page spread. Buried deep in one story, though, was a paragraph noting neither attendance, nor economic impact figures were available.

Let me anticipate, neither will be good on an historical basis, at least they won’t be good unless denial and delusion are factored into the calculations to buff up the report.

In the sports world, there is something known as the eye test. Yes, sports these days are neck-deep in analytics and the deification of statistics, but if you have a little bit of background you can make some pertinent observations without crunching numbers.

Here’s an example: A few years back, on opening night of the AAABA Tournament, the team playing Johnstown had a pitcher whose mechanics were, in a word, “terrible.” I told my son this guy was an arm injury waiting to happen and it was hard to believe he’d made it through an entire season in whatever league he played in, without ending up hurt.

Within a few innings, said pitcher was out of the game, having hurt his arm. Does this make me a genius? Far from it.

But, to cite a broader example, what the COVID hysteria, among other recent events has proven, is that experts often are wrong, statistics often are massaged to provide the desired message, and people such as me who relied on reality and common sense, came out fine without multiple vaccines or living in a hermetically sealed bubble.

This is the long way of getting around to my take on this year’s Thunder, which I saw as a pale shadow of the event in its heyday. Thursday, the wife and I took two granddaughters, ages 4 and 5, to Central Park to catch Krazy Kat Daddies.

Kudos to the band, which played its entire two-hour window without a break. The girls, despite their age, like to dance to oldies music. They had a great time.

After the band was done, we strolled around downtown, to the Bikers’ Mall and beyond. My take was vendor count was down, motorcycle count was low and spectator attendance was limited, admittedly early in the going.

Weather was a problem, with rain, or the threat of same, dampening things, literally and figuratively, all weekend.

I got a report from a trusted source that the lighted motorcycles parade, which last year ran about an hour, with many extravagantly illuminated vehicles crossing the Napoleon Street bridge near the War Memorial Arena, lasted less than 10 minutes this year and some bikes merely had their four-way flashers going.

I have no first-hand observations or anecdotal reports from Saturday, a day with lots of rain, but I did break out my convertible during a weather break Sunday and drove through downtown. Same thing: Few bikes, or spectators, compared with past years.

And then there is the noise indicator. Bikers fall into a couple of divisions – those whose first priority is to make the exhaust as jarring as possible, and those who ride the full-dress bikes, keeping exhaust notes low but blaring away their stereos on kill volume. Either way, you can hear them from the next municipality.

In past years, the days and nights were punctuated with virtually nonstop motorcycle noise, from both near and far. This year, it was more like an average weekend.

But I’m sure the organizers will be able to put a shine on all this.

My wife spent all of $1.50 for two cookies downtown Thursday for the girls. The kids wanted to eat, but even they didn’t find $5 hot dogs all that attractive.

In a remarkable display of maturity, they first wanted to go to McDonalds, but as I headed for the Rt. 56 bypass to hit the Richland location (bad reports abound on Westwood and downtown), the girls opted instead for Hoss’s.

Perhaps our money spent at Hoss’s will be factored into the Thunder success calculus, with the typical multiplier applied to such things, but should it count? We would have taken the girls out for lunch, Thunder or not, just as I’m sure many citizens who avoided Thunder like the plague, still patronized area gas stations, bars and restaurants during Thunder’s run.

This begs the question, one I’ve asked before, of exactly how these people calculate those economic impact figures, which often seem to be $20 million?

If they try running $20 million up the flagpole this year to see who salutes it/them, I’m going to issue a large Bronx cheer.

While the appeal meeting got the ax Monday, the Dahlia Street junkyard discussion took center stage in the regular Southmont Borough Council meeting that was held.

I arrived early with my son, who tagged along because he thought it all might be entertaining. He wasn’t disappointed, nor was I.

Charlie Brown arrived early, too. Offered the chance by me to say all the harsh things in person that he’d promised in a since-deleted Facebook post that he would say/do if only I would ignore his no trespassing signs and pound on his door, Charlie passed. He did compliment me on my writing ability. What a guy.

Charlie was videoing the whole thing. I hope he posts his profane tirade that had the council member running the meeting at that point pounding her gavel like Buddy Rich’s snare drum. The attending police at one point urged Charlie to tone it down and First Amendment rights were cited, plus Charlie offering up both wrists as to be handcuffed.

Familiar?

Another council member noted that there is a certain decorum that must be maintained in public meetings. Charlie disagreed.

It was a nice turnout and those who came only to have their individual concerns addressed, left wide-eyed.

The guy next to me, who attended in search of a handicapped parking spot, and to lament neighbors constantly having “bonfires,” at one point during a Charlie Brown rant rolled his eyes. Maybe his neighborhood is not so bad after all.

Those familiar with the story can skip this paragraph. Journalists used to be trained to recap background just to get first-timers up to speed. Along that line, a “paper alley” was being claimed as a driveway by one property owner. Another property owner wanted access using it. The dispute moved to court and it was ruled that no one can annex one of these alleys that exist on road plans, but have not been finished. And the alley must be opened. This led to a derelict car (more on this later) and a growing number of trailers being parked on Dahlia Street in protest.

There was plenty of testimony on both sides of the issue during open-comment sessions, which deteriorated into back-and-forth instances of charge and countercharge.

A man who was identified as the husband, then the ex-husband by Charlie’s mother, proposed all could be fine again if the paper alley was just given to his family. So, just give me everything I want and I will be happy.

Join the crowd.

I’d like a million dollars or so, if anyone wants to make me happy. No takers? Oh, well. Doesn’t hurt to ask.

At one point, there was an argument about whether or not that decrepit Corvette moored on Dahlia could start and be driven around the block. My son offered Charlie $50 if it could.

Charlie responded with a couple of single-finger salutes, punctuated with an offer to have sex with my son.

Maybe that will be on the video? The offer. Charlie’s not my son’s type.

At one point of a heated harangue, a guy (Charlie’s dad?) tried to tug him back to his seat from behind, with Charlie swatting away the guy’s hand.

A member of council demanded that the police begin an investigation of an e-mail he alleged that Charlie Brown had sent to numerous borough officials, invoking the name of Marvin Heemeyer.

It was Heemeyer, unhappy with city health ordinances in Granby, Colo., who armored a bulldozer and destroyed several buildings in 2004. Heemeyer committed suicide when his bulldozer became stuck in a hardware store he was attempting to raze.

The council member saw this email as a threat and demanded it be on the record and be investigated.

Eventually, regular business was addressed and then the audience was invited to leave so that an executive session could be held.

Bottom line: Southmont Borough council did nothing regarding the matter that had brought so many people to the room. Maybe next month?