We’re talking COLA today. Hint: It’s not the kind you drink, which you might have suspected due to the capital letters.

COLA is shorthand for Cost Of Living Adjustment, which is a way to index things such as Social Security and federal retirement benefits to inflation.

Despite the best efforts of the powers-that-be to brand rising price inflation as “transitory,” it is becoming more and more evident that, if anything, we may be in the early days of what will turn into even higher inflation.

The federal government has admitted that in part by announcing a 5.9-percent COLA for 2022.

A story by Associated Press said this means the average Social Security recipient will get $92 more a month in benefits. The average couple will see an increase of $154 a month.

It sounds good, until you look at the reason for this most recent COLA, which is the largest in 39 years – almost four decades!

But look closer and you will discover that you are only being compensated – partially – for the fact that almost everything you need in terms of goods and services costs much more now.

The Feds are sure to claw back some of that COLA by hiking the cost of the Medicare Part B premium most retirees pay. Expect that increase to be more than 5.9 percent.

But it goes beyond that. Gasoline prices have soared. I’m currently insulated from that a bit due to a gas war. One area location has gas priced at $3.09.9 a gallon, while others have it at $3.45.9. I asked a cashier about this the other day and she said it was in response to an area convenience story re-opening a location and offering gas cheap.

I checked on the way to mow my mother’s lawn and that re-opened outlet is priced at $2.99.9 per gallon. I’m not sure how long it will last. I do know it’s a temporary phenomenon.

Increasing prices for luxuries such as food, shelter, transportation, healthcare, energy, are not as temporary.

That 5.9-percent COLA increase will help, but it will not come close to erasing the pain of the higher prices almost across-the-board.

Understand that this COLA is not a benevolent act by the Feds, but merely an acknowledgment that things are costing more as measured by their indexes, and those government measurement tools are known to err on the low side.

If the Feds are admitting to an inflation rate near 6 percent, you can be certain it is much higher. Some independent sources put the actual inflation rate at closer to 10 percent.

Unsolicited advice: If you want and/or need something, buy it now. It is unlikely to be available for less down the line except in the event of some incredible one-time sale event. But, in general, expect to pay more for almost anything you consume going forward.

This might cause you to reach for a drink, something stronger than cola, or COLA.

I went to my bank today to cash a check and it was closed for Columbus Day. I’m outraged.

Haven’t we heard ad nauseam that celebrating Columbus and his “discovery” of America in effect honors genocide, slavery of indigenous people and just about any other outrageous claim of wrongdoing the leftist critics care to put forth to be disseminated by their lapdogs in the LameStream media?

After all we’ve been told about this being an invalid holiday, after all the Columbus statues that have been taken down or boxed (more on boxings later) how can banks ignore this and close for the day, giving their employees the day off? Why is there no mail service today? Why are all manner of public offices and schools vacant today?

The cynic in me thinks that, when faced with a day off work or school, the work component coming without missing any pay, well, even the ideologues can put their professed outrage on the shelf in the interest of what’s good for them at the time.

Think of this in the category of flaming liberals who insist decaying, ineffective public schools are good enough for your kids, but their kids are going to exclusive private schools, thank you for noticing.

Can’t let your zealous causes interfere with a day off, or your children’s education.

Confused Joe Biden, looking to straddle the fence with the attendant risk to private parts (presuming he still has any) thinks we ought to celebrate Italian heritage with Columbus Day, but we also should give a nod to the competing holiday that has been chucked onto the calendar on the very same date, that being Indigenous Peoples Day.

Please note that for all the verbiage, it is Columbus Day that is the federal holiday. Indigenous Peoples Day is more like those feel-good examples of virtue-signaling that crowd the calendar.

Every day is national something day, often more than one national somethings day. We have weeks and months selected to honor causes and, again, often there are different causes for the same weeks and months.

It all gets pretty confusing, and relatively meaningless. Think of it as holiday inflation in which, just like monetary inflation makes every dollar worth that much less, every artificial holiday devalues the ones meriting the celebration.

But there are spoilsports who are infringing on the canceling of Columbus Day. A Pennsylvania judge has ordered Philadelphia to take down the box the city administrators erected around a Columbus statute, this box being designed to shield hypersensitive souls from having to view this tribute to a man they rank about on par with Adolf Hitler.

Yet many of these confused souls inexplicably wear Che Guevara T-shirts, honoring the memory of a man who was a murderer, a racist, notably anti-gay and someone who set up a concentration camp in Cuba for political opponents, but now has been whitewashed as a “revolutionary.”

And, again, the cynic in me wonders aloud if all these bleeding hearts so opposed to Columbus Day were willing to bypass the day off work today, or sent their spawn to vacant schools as a protest of closing those learning centers to honor a pariah like Columbus.

I think I know the answer, and so do you.

This blog promises a dash of sports commentary and today we deliver by expounding on the topic of sports Christmas in October.

Here’s hoping the social justice warriors and the virtue signaling they extort from the game providers don’t ruin the enjoyment.

If you like sports of all sorts, this is a good time of the year for you. We have postseason baseball. We have college football. We have pro football. We have the so-called “playoff” portion of NASCAR.

Preseason hockey means the start of the NHL regular season is nigh. The NBA season also is soon to begin.

And these are just the most popular sporting events of the moment. Truly, there is an abundance.

But if you don’t want your sports leavened with a measure of left-wing pandering, you have to have a plan.

First, avoid pregame shows. Second, if the game broadcasts show pregame activities, try to skip them and show up in front of the television just in time for play to commence.

For those attending in-person, you have no choice but to endure. Or just stay home.

Now that sports betting is legal in Pennsylvania, I spice up the occasion by wagering a dollar here or there. Think of it as the gambling equivalent of quaffing some eggnog around Christmas,.

Let me stress, when I say a dollar or so, I’m not exaggerating. I’m simply small time, making my gambling profits by trying to slog through promotions on games such as blackjack, roulette or baccarat at or near even money and then making money with the accompanying free credits or free bets.

A curious fallout from the legalization of sports betting is that I’ve found I’m terrible at it, despite a career spent covering and analyzing sports. This is why I need the promos, but I still can’t help myself from occasionally wagering on sports.

I’m writing this today while taking a break from watching multiple bets come unraveled.

I took Iowa and the under (combined total points scored) in the college football game with Penn State and am well on my way to losing that. Part of it was a free bet offered by my online sports site. Part of it was my own hard-earned $2.

Things also are beginning to look dicey regarding my bet on Georgia to beat Auburn and the combined point total to remain on the under side of the bookies’ line.

I do have Atlanta and the Los Angeles Dodgers parlayed to be winners in Major League Baseball, counting on either side avoiding falling in a 2-0 playoff series hole. So far, Atlanta is on top 2-0 in the fourth inning of the game with Milwaukee. At least the Braves were ahead when I stepped away from the television.

Ordinarily I’d have watched NASCAR races today and tomorrow, but I’m swearing off because I’m sure those broadcasts were and will be drowning in virtue signaling orgies of self-congratulation since Bubba Wallace won last week in a rain-shortened crashfest.

I will watch a few NFL games tomorrow, if only to monitor bets I will have open (a couple of $15 freebies in the same-game parlay category), one of which I already have made (go Green Bay!) and one yet to be specified.

But, if the weather is nice, I might just forget about the NFL during the day and take the two Mustangs out for rides.

There still will be the night NFL game and postseason baseball to be viewed after dark. There will be bets to be made – and lost.

I laugh so I don’t cry as each passing day presents further proof of the ineptitude of Joe Biden and his handlers.

And where is the LameStream media to lament our diminishing image globally? If Trump was making a fool of himself, they would be all over it, like BLM protesters on innocent diners.

But Biden is Teflon among the LameStream media.

This means John Kerry can go on French TV and say Biden was unaware the French were in a snit over the U.S. submarine deal with Australia and there is no outrage back home.

This is not to suggest Kerry was fudging. Instead, it was an inadvertent look into the true nature of the Biden Regime, in which the guy allegedly in charge is just taking orders from unknown, or unseen puppeteers and largely remains blissfully ignorant of reality.

How often do we hear Biden say he’s been ordered not to take questions, or told only to call on certain reporters when he does so?

How many times do his handlers rush reporters out of the room to shield bumbling Biden, as they did recently during a Boris Johnson photo op in which the British prime minister was willing to take inquiries from the media?

Imagine that!

Just the other day Biden referred to he and his ChiCom buddies adhering to the “Taiwan Agreement.”

Confusion reigned because no one seemed to be sure exactly what Biden meant by the phrase because there is no such agreement.

I’m about to buy some of the signs I see springing up, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Trump.”

For you Biden voters, you must love it every time you put gasoline in your car; gasoline is about $1 higher per gallon over a year ago thanks in large part to Biden’s lame policy to hamstring U.S. production and exploration.

But it’s not just gasoline. The Biden inflation is evident across the board as he and his cronies distort the economy, producing shortages mixed with artificially high demand brought on by governmental handout policies.

It’s a mess and you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Meanwhile, the Biden Regime is readying the IRS to spy on those who do not buy his bull spit. It will corrupt further an already corrupted FBI to spy on parents attending school board meetings to express displeasure at mask mandates, leftist curriculum and other absurdities.

But the population has many vocal critics. Chants break out at football games “F . . . Joe Biden” using an F word that rhymes with luck.

After a recent auto race, a flustered on-track interviewer tried to insist fans were yelling “Let’s go Brandon” to celebrate first-time winner Brandon Brown.

Ample audio evidence confirms it was, instead, “F . . . Joe Biden.”

Anger is palpable among many in the populace. The Biden Regime is only adding fuel to that fire.

Dish Network is looking out for me again, which means I should put one hand firmly over my wallet.

One of the realities of having Dish Network as one’s television provider is the never-ending struggles between channel providers and Dish over how much money will change hands.

Dish paints itself as the good guy, holding the line against money-grubbing local stations, traditional networks, or cable channels/networks. Dish just says no and the channel guide has a notation that (fill in the blank) is withholding programming.

Meanwhile, before the channels disappear, the soon-to-vanish providers have ads urging all viewers to contact Dish and tell those cheap whatevers to pay up so you can continue to watch.

I have seen this transpire with various cable networks and local NBC and CBS providers. Usually, one side blinks and the programming stays.

Currently Dish is on the outs with AT&T regional sports networks. This means people who worship the Pittsburgh Pirates (and why would they?) or Pittsburgh Penguins, have seen their access to broadcasts of live games cut off, except for the odd network appearances.

I am invited to go to dishpromise.com to understand this. Simply put, Dish doesn’t want to pay AT&T’s asking price. Instead, Dish wants AT&T to become a premium channel where only the customers who want to view it are required to pay for it. Think of it like HBO, Showtime, etc.

Dish calls this the ala carte option.

Sounds good to me. Even though I spent more than 35 years in journalism, mostly as a sportswriter, I can take or leave Pirates and Penguins broadcasts, especially with the hometown shills at the microphones.

I do not and likely will not miss that regional sports channel.

But I have become increasingly aware that my Dish package, with its 200-plus channels costing more than $130 a month, includes an awful lot of stuff I don’t watch.

Dish wants to make regional sports channels ala carte. Fine, but keep going.

I sat down moments ago and went through the entire channel guide. I found no fewer than 35 shopping or infomercial channels. Yes, some were duplications, but that doesn’t change the fact that the very same programming was on multiple channels and was counted as different offerings. And all these channels are asking me to buy something.

No, thanks. Put those 35 channels on an ala carte basis and I gladly will pass.

Also, I don’t speak Spanish despite two years of high school classes (I can, however recite the pledge of allegiance in Latin as a carryover from two years of studying that language). So, all five Spanish-language channels are of no interest to me. Ala carte, anyone?

I’m not black, so I don’t need Black Entertainment Television or the Black News Channel.

I’m not into organized religions, so the nine channels I identified as religious in nature are not interesting to me.

Dish uses four of its channels to spout its propaganda. Pass on those.

I don’t watch rock videos or other programming on the four combined MTV or VH1 channels. Please delete them and lower my bill.

I don’t need four channels that replay old TV game shows. I’ll just say no to them.

I figure Dish should be able to cut my monthly bill by one-third if they just move these channels to ala carte pricing.

One more item before we finish with Dish. Having this satellite TV provider is kind of like having an early warning weather system. Minutes before heavy storms arrive, the signal goes out. It stays out a long time!

This makes it particularly amusing to see a Dish commercial in which some male dog owner is awakened by his canine who is disturbed by an overnight thunderstorm. The owner takes the dog downstairs to the couch and watches some of his Dish channels to calm the mutt.

Sounds good in theory. In practice, both the owner and the pet would be agitated by finding the blue screen of signal loss instead of programming.

If only we could make such service interruptions available only on an ala carte basis.

The lead story on CNBC’s Fast Money Show Wednesday was about Dollar Tree.

That chain of low-cost stores, where you never had to ask the price – everything was $1 — is being forced to up prices to $1.25, $1.50 or more per item. The reason is inflation.

It’s a seminal moment for the inflation story, which has been under-reported and understated for several years, but now is gaining widespread visibility and acceptance

Our economic masters have been open about their pursuit of price inflation. This is despite the fact that there have been sustained periods throughout history with minimal to no inflation, as measured by rising prices and declining currency values, yet most were happy.

But the economic setup in 2021, with monumental debt loads both public and private, requires inflation to work out things in the long run. With inflation, those borrowed dollars get paid back with less valuable currency units. Debtors, the largest of which is the U.S. government, get bailed out by inflation and live to borrow even more.

The incentive to pursue inflation is great.

In an extreme case, the inflation graduates to hyperinflation, defined as price rises of 50 percent or more per month over a sustained time. Then debts literally are paid back at the rate of partial cents on the dollar.

But hyperinflation, as witnessed in post-World War I Germany, destroys a nation and its economy. Imagine the entire world beset by hyperinflation, which could happen since the U.S. dollar still is the world’s reserve currency and if we debase it to the point of hyperinflation, the world can’t remain immune to the problem.

This is the kind of pandemic no vaccine can halt.

It’s not like we haven’t seen sustained inflation since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 to manage our nation’s monetary policy. You would need about $27.63 today to buy what a single dollar bought in 1913.

I’ve seen it happen. As a child of eight or so in 1963, I could buy a typical candy bar, Three Musketeers or Milky Way, for five cents. Almond Joy and Mounds were the high-priced stuff at 10 cents each.

These days, you are likely to play $1 for the candy bar. You shell out more in sales tax now than the bar used to cost.

Corvettes when I was in junior high school in the mid-1960s, right next to a Chevrolet dealership, were priced in the mid-$4,000 range. That isn’t even the down payment these days.

I could go to the Dale Theater as a young man for 35 cents (adults paid 50 cents).

The local newspaper was less than a dime a copy. Now it’s $1.50 on weekdays, $2.50 for the weekend edition.

People argue that while prices have increased, so have wages. This is true, but our tax system charges a higher percentage the more money you earn, so inflation is eating away at your lifestyle even if you are making more money.

For a time, families were able to combat this by having both the husband and wife work. Now that this is almost universally the case, should we put the kids out to work to make ends meet in the face of rising costs?

The Fed mouthpieces speak of “transitory” inflation, but that has no real meaning. As an English counterpart to our Fed members said today on social media “Transitory doesn’t have a fixed time point.”

The government admits to 5- or 6-percent inflation, and is expected to gift Social Security recipients approximately that amount in cost-of-living increase for 2022. But real-world inflation is much higher and, if economic policy continues on the current path of Biden insanity, 5-6 percent inflation fast will become the good old days.

It’s like Biden is Jimmy Carter II. The original Carter was a moral person, but a boob when it came to instituting policy as president.

Carter presided over double-digit unemployment and inflation, which meant he was swept out of office in the 1980 election by Ronald Reagan, before Democrats learned how to subvert the will of the people at the ballot box on a massive scale.

Now we have Biden, or his puppeteers, who are short on morality but long on the boob policy factor. You’re already being punished by Biden’s crazed energy policy. According to AAA, average retail prices for regular grade gasoline are at 7-year highs. That didn’t take long.

Biden and his gang of incompetents will continue to hamstring the economy, while ratcheting spending to the moon on all the various giveaway projects. It’s a recipe for rampant price inflation.

Dollar Tree held the line against price inflation much longer than reasonably could have been expected. But now the retailer has thrown in the towel, signaling that rising inflation is here to stay and you’d better get used to it.

Back in the day, the true-false test was a favorite of the under-prepared students.

Sure, some teachers were fiendishly good at wording their statements, almost turning true-false exams into always-sometimes-never examples. But you still had a 50-50 chance at guessing a correct answer. Gentlemen and ladies, reach for your quarters.

True-false beat multiple choice (guess) hands-down and don’t even mention essay tests.

It struck me, as I browsed headlines and caught a few sound bites today, that our current news environment deserves the true-false treatment, if only for the entertainment value of just how absurd the correct answers are.

True or false: Project Veritas has released undercover video of two Johnson & Johnson employees, one a business lead and the other a scientist, strongly advising anyone against getting jabbed with their or any other companies’ COVID-19 vaccines and especially not having kids vaccinated.

Answer: True, not that it will matter in the sea of pro-vaccine misinformation that is the approved narrative. But I put more stock in a couple of interested parties who were being honest in what they thought was an off-the-record conversation.

True or false: An Axios/Ipsos poll has found that the majority of Americans don’t trust the coronavirus information dispensed by Joe Biden.

Answer: True. It wasn’t clear whether the 55 percent who do not trust Biden have doubts due to them thinking he is knowingly fibbing, or whether they believe he’s just suffering another of his senior moments. Regardless, the headline should be that 45 percent are buying Biden’s virus pap despite ample evidence they should not.

True or false: The two members of the Federal Reserve Board who have resigned since their stock trading became public did nothing illegal.

Answer: True. This point was rammed home repeatedly by a former Fed member today on CNBC, but he also admitted there needed to be changes in the rules to avoid this recurring. The larger point is, just because something is legal, doesn’t make it ethical. And when you sit at the table of a group that controls interest rates and, indirectly, the success or failure of investments, playing those markets with your informational advantage looks to be short on ethics.

True or false: General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is being given a pass for two calls to his Chinese counterpart saying he would warn the ChiComs if Donald Trump launched an attack while Trump was president. But there are reports that a former Marine commander who went on social media to demand accountability from military brass for the botched Afghanistan pullout, currently is in military jail.

Answer: True. Incredibly, there is no right or wrong any longer, just make sure you spout the party line of those in charge.

True or false: Even though the photographer who took the photo has disputed the politicized accounts and various other news organizations have discredited the narrative, Clueless Joe Biden, through his mouthpiece Disin-Jenuous Psaki, refuses to admit border patrol agents did not use whips on Haitian immigrants, or even flail at them with horse reins.

Answer: Sadly, pathetically, this is true. How ironic that truth doesn’t intrude in political discourse these days, which makes this ridiculous answer all too true.

Mark Twain is credited with coining the phrase “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.

For his part, Twain cited one other guy for the authorship, although people who make it their life’s work to inquire into such things say Twain was wrong on that count. The phrase, in various wordings, is attributable to several different people.

What is not so tough to pinpoint is Twain’s intent to observe that often statistics can be used to misrepresent the situation.

For example, beware when percentages are invoked. You no doubt have witnessed an oft-used claim in advertising that a company is “the fastest growing in the nation.”

If said company had two customers and added a third, it would be growing at a 50-percent rate. Meanwhile, a company with 10 million customers could add 4 million and be “growing” at a slower rate of 40 percent.

The tiny, three-customer company can be said to be growing faster, but is that really significant?

Statistics of other sorts can be similarly tortured to provide propagandized messages.

But why bother? These days, it’s become standard operating procedure to forget massaging statistics and instead merely fudge them entirely.

Just today Joe Biden rushed out to get another COVID-19 shot and took the occasion to throw math back a few centuries.

In this example, Clueless Joe was asked what percentage of the population needed to submit to the jab before we could get “back to normal.”

Biden put that figure at 97 or 98 percent, neatly ignoring THE SCIENCE.

That SCIENCE has some experts saying the COVID-19 virus is now an ingrained part of the human experience that we will need to deal with forever and a day.

Others, including notable flip-flopper Anthony Fauci, opined in May of this year that if 70 percent of the adult population had one shot (notably shots come in pairs and now are said to require boosters) we should be immune from surges of virus cases by July 4. That deadline was nearly three months back. How’s that prediction holding up?

And what of real-world experience? It just happens that Norway, with a relatively modest 67-percent vaccination rate among its populace, has lifted all restrictions and returned to normal way of life.

Whose statistics do you believe, Clueless Joe’s, Flip-Flop Fauci’s or Norway’s?

Speaking of statistics, two members of the Federal Reserve Board, the people who have their hands on the economic thermostat by controlling interest rates, have resigned after their prolific stock trading success had been outed publicly. That trading was addressed in this space last week.

One member cited health issues for his resignation. Another admitted the spotlight being shone on him and others was a distraction. Apologies were absent.

Could these guys have done as well statistically without their inside information? Again, you make the call.

And, finally, an online petition to the government calling for more handout money is nearing 3 million signatures. All these people want is $2,000 a month per adult and $1,000 a month per child indefinitely.

What amazes me is that it’s taken this long to approach 3 million when the promise is free money.

Obviously, a federal government on the brink of a shutdown due to debt doesn’t have enough money to pay those ridiculous handouts without taxing the populace into oblivion – not just the rich but anyone stupid enough to go to work on a regular basis and earn taxable income.

This is the ultimate in lies, damned lies and statistics. Explain to me how, if everyone decided to stay home and suck at the public teat, this nation could be sustained.

I’m waiting.

It is a wistful experience to attend our area car shows or cruise nights and note how much they resemble AARP meetings.

Almost by definition, most of the cars are old, with just a sprinkling of recent model year muscle such as Corvettes or Dodge Hemis, Mustangs or Camaros. But the drivers tend toward the antique classification, too.

This is not just a local phenomenon. I watch those national car auctions on television, or via computer livestream, every chance I get.

And often the shots of the buyers are jarring. There’s something incongruous about an elderly gent plopped atop a mobility scooter, bidding fervently for an early 1970’s hemi-powered unit from Mopar, or even one of Dodge’s more recent horsepower monsters that go by Hellcat or Demon.

One thinks to oneself it’s like the dog that chases a car. What’s he going to do with it when he catches it?

I’m thinking in the case of the old guy buying the Hemi there won’t be a scooter rack hung on the back of that fire-breathing rocketship, but instead the muscle car will be put in a plastic climate control bubble within one of those spectacular car-holding edifices known as Garage Mahals.

‘Tis an investment, don’t you know, with the added benefit of providing a chance to recall past glories.

The differing car climate of today was evident in the wake of watching the movie “Ford v Ferrari,” which I’d preserved on the DVR during one of those free movie previews on my satellite TV service, but never got around to viewing.

As a youthful fan of cars in the mid-1960s and an avowed Ford guy, particularly the Mustang, I recall the joy I felt when the Ford GT-40s (so named because they stood a mere 40inches tall at the roof line) stuck it to Ferrari at Le Mans, finishing 1-2-3 in 1966 and then winning the 24-hour race there the next three years, too.

This was chronicled by the movie, with the usual Hollywood massaging of the storyline.

Ford also was doing well in other forms of motorsport in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, ranging from drag racing to NASCAR. And in 1968 Ford Cosworth V8 engines began a run of 155 Formula One victories over the next 12 years.

Those Fix Or Repair Daily, or Found On Road Dead taunts could be answered with First On Race Day.

Benefiting from a heavy dose of Carroll Shelby spice, the Shelby Mustangs began to dominate SCCA road racing. Shelby’s Cobra sports cars, also Ford powered, were big winners, too, on road courses and the dragstrip.

Eventually, Mustangs ruled the TransAm Series, which became serious factory racing as U.S. auto manufacturers tried to apply the win-on-Sunday, sell-on-Monday mantra to their pony car offerings.

Hell, if you turned on the AM radio in your car in the 1960s or 1970s you were likely to hear musical odes to vehicular transportation. Songs were sung about Hot Rod Lincolns, Little Deuce Coupes, GTOs, Cobras, Mustangs (Sally) and Chevy 409’s.

I’ve yet to hear a tune about the magic of a Tesla, or SUV of any manufacture. Vehicles these days fall more into the appliance category than lifestyle statement.

This means that the car culture, like so many traditional aspects of our heritage, is dying a slow death.

As the elderly hobby car owners such as me die off, so will the interest in the cars that we recall fondly, treat reverently if we own one or two, or more, and smile in appreciation of any time we see one pass on the street.

Every day seems to be Fight Club Day at my old alma mater, Greater Johnstown High School, a notable development in itself.

But it all rises to another, Marie Antoinette level when, on the very same day that two students were taken away by police for allegedly possessing a knife, and videos streamed across social media of a substantial brawl at good, old GJHS, the official school district Facebook page posted a picture of an office celebration.

The district superintendent finally had obtained her doctorate and people posed around a cake to celebrate the occasion.

There was no knife evident in the posted photo with which to cut the cake. I guess they could borrow one from a student.

This school district has many social media trolls; often correct in their criticism. One notably claimed to have emailed the superintendent some of the fight videos, requesting she take a break from eating cake to act to quell the violence in her schools.

If social media posts are to be believed, the large brawls happen more days than not at this high school. This particular melee couldn’t be swept under the rug because of police involvement and both the local television station newspaper decided to report on it.

Perhaps there will be follow-up reports in coming days, with the superintendent either explaining these are isolated incidents and it’s all been blown out of proportion, or that steps are being taken that make the administration confident the problem soon will be under control.

Either way, I wouldn’t bet on it.

The situation at Johnstown High School is a microcosm of how far this nation has fallen in the past few decades.

Greater Johnstown High School wasn’t out of control when I attended way back when, but that wasn’t due to having a student body full of choir boys and sweet, innocent girls.

I once got into a fight in gym class – a dispute that broke out in a free-for-all activity known as four-court volleyball. Not that much further down the line, my fight partner was killed by the police while trying to escape in a river channel after having robbed a nearby auto dealer.

My brother and I had friends who were both fellow students and, eventually, murderers. We knew and mixed with dealers in stolen merchandise and/or illegal drugs.

We were familiar with many thieves, liars and general miscreants that we lumped into the category of “neighborhood hoods.” Most of them attended school with us.

Yet fights at the school were rare. I can’t recall witnessing a single massive brawl.

It was simple how order was kept. Administration demanded and received respect and obedience to the rules. If the rules were violated, often physical pain was inflicted on the offending student.

Those who could not, or would not get the message, found themselves receiving instruction elsewhere, perhaps in rooms complete with barred entrances and windows.

Such harsh measures worked. That’s why the progressive morons who have taken over our public schools have stripped away means with which out-of-control students can be reined into compliance.

It serves the purposes of liberals, progressives, socialists, anti-Americans, whatever you want to label them, to neuter the public schools and thereby produce an increasingly stupid, unproductive populace dependent on the leftists in government to provide them handouts.

In turn, this underclass is a reliable voting base. Mix in confused, otherwise intelligent people who buy into the liberal cult while attending college, and you have a recipe for election victories.

If that fails, manipulate the count.

Soon, the left won’t even have to cheat to win elections, their voter ranks having been swelled with each successive graduation class populated by functional illiterates.

Until you cure this leftist cancer that has invaded our government and public-sector groups at all levels, from the Oval Office to the local school board meeting room, there is no way to deal with our declining educational system and downward spiraling society overall.