Friday, November 9, 2007

Friday random thoughts ...

Keep your hands off my words. Some folks, like this letter-writer, seem scared to death that "under God" might be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance or "In God we trust" off our currency. I'd say if such things threaten your faith, you probably have more important things to worry about than words on money.

And then, let's beat up the disabled people. Speaking of the above-mentioned letter, who else thinks we should "show minorities ... who's boss"? Sounds like pre-Civil War Southerner talk to me.

Tracy rewards rampant disloyalty! Acting City Manager Maria Hurtado was originally hired by the city about 18 months ago as Parks and Recreation manager with a salary of about $128,000. She left for the city of Santa Cruz in June, but quit that post after seven weeks and returned to Tracy's payroll, where she now earns about $163,000.

• Save money to avoid being blown up. A Japanese company has invented a piggy bank that "blows up" if you don't keep feeding it. I'm not making this up.

• Nah, higher commuter rates don't affect voting. Mountain House became a separate entity with only about 24 percent of the town's registered voters casting ballots. Out of that meager total, about 70 percent voted absentee.

• Calvin and Hobbes quote of the week: "A philistine on the sidewalk." "Genius is never understood in its own time."

1 comment:

Erdos56 said...

Your first two bullets brought up several thoughts: (1) Why is there always a suggestion of conspiratorial forces at work in these matters? (2) Why do the letter writers and their defenders seem so incoherent? Hmmm, I think that is mostly rhetorical. (3) Is TP over-representing extreme viewpoints in Voice because the quantity of traffic to the web site is increased when extreme letters are published? Cynical, I know, but no more cynical than many of the major news outlets competing in the modern mediaspace.