Who Says We Don’t Make Anything In America Anymore?
So far as I can tell, this story is the real deal. This isn’t the fruit of the fertile imagination of some humorous writer from the Onion or another knockoff news satire site.
Some doohickey town in North Carolina had the opportunity to get a nice big solar farm that’d tie into the area’s electrical grid. A sweet move coming on the heels of the Paris climate talks and Prez O’s recent imprimatur of same, wherein he said the global pact is “the best chance we have to save the one planet we’ve all got” and that its implementation would be “a turning point for the world.”
‘Course, if that’s what our Imam-in-Chief sez, it must be as wrong as the sun rising in the west.
See, this little cow town had a big ol’ public meeting on the night its town council was to vote on a zoning ordinance for the land upon which the solar panels would be built. Now, normally, no one in her or his right mind would attend — much less pay attention to the blathering that goes on at such things — a meeting of a town council considering zoning matters.
The sane among us would prefer being impaled upon the tippy-top of Seattle’s Space Needle.
Oh, Yeah, If It’s A Zoning Meeting or This….
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But, apparently, the meeting in Q. was packed. The public got its chance to voice its displeasure over the plan, citing every drawback from loss of jobs (not explained) to the certain death of surrounding flora. Um, yeah, that’s what some retired science teacher (?!) said. Her name is Jane Mann and she testified that solar panel arrays suck up all the sunlight, preventing surrounding plants from getting their share of it. The plants’ photosynthesis processes, she said, shut down. She swore she’s seen brown and dead plants all around other solar farms. She also said she’s noticed a lot of cancer cases popping up around these facilities.
Bolstered by these clearly incontrovertible statements, the town council went ahead and denied the zoning request for the solar farm. It also instituted a moratorium on any other solar farm plans.
The story has reached across the mighty oceans, natch. Any story that illustrates just how unscientific we Murricans are — even our retired science teachers, fer chrissakes! — gets play in the foreign news media. And rightly so. Here, for instance, is a line from the Independent UK‘s story on the vote:
Members of the public in Woodland, North Carolina, expressed their fear and mistrust….
Yep. Fear and mistrust — two products of which we are inordinately proud in this holy land.
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Sanders: Man Without A Medium
Here are the main reasons why the TV nets are ignoring Bernie Sanders:
He’s old.
He’s a Jew with a northeast accent.
He’s not handsome or dignified in that vanilla TV way.
Square-Jawed, Greying At The Temples: Mitt Was A TV Hottie
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His hair’s a mess.
He talks policy.
He hasn’t got a hint of scandal around him.
He’s not palsy-walsy with media conglomerate big shots.
He’s not a woman or a black man.
He hasn’t led a devil-may-care, dashing life.
He flies coach.
He doesn’t worship wealth.
The poor bastard. About the only way he’ll get real TV coverage is if he appears before a packed arena without a stitch of clothing on. Then they’ll talk about him.
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A Little Love For Indiana
Dig: Doug Wissing, our town’s intrepid war correspondent, has a new book coming out on January 4, 2016, so save your pennies.
Wissing’s new tome, IN Writing: Uncovering the Unexpected Hoosier State, published by Indiana University Press, is a love letter to the Hoosier State.
Before I moved here, I had Indiana pegged as this holy land’s least remarkable state. Hell, after living here six-plus years, I still feel that way. But if anyone’s got the chops to sway that opinion, it’s Wissing. His new book has earned kudos from the likes of bestselling mystery writer Michael Koryta, historian and biographer Michael Shelden, novelist Dan Wakefield, and even former Congressbeing and current Indiana University SPEA big shot Lee Hamilton.
Wissing himself says:
Given my essays cover subjects naughty and nice, the publishers are touting it as alternative Indiana history, one that includes Indiana’s often counter-intuitive links to the wide, wide world.
Wissing In Afghanistan
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Okay, I’m game. I’m saving my pennies too.
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Hoosier Hilarity
Here’s a quote from red-hot funnyman Jim Gaffigan, who — I had no idea — is a Hoosier:
I’m from Indiana. I know what you’re thinking — Indiana… Mafia. But in Indiana it’s not like New York where everyone’s like, “We’re from New York and we’re the best,” or “We’re from Texas and we like things big.” It’s more like, “We’re from Indiana and we’re gonna move.”
Gaffigan
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M*U*S*H
I take my life into my hands by uttering this but it needs to be said: M*A*S*H was a pretty good TV show until Harry Morgan replaced MacLean Stevenson as the colonel.
Harry Morgan, Emoting
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Good god, Harry Morgan was wooden. He boasted an acting range that spanned from A to B. He brought that stiff, stilted stage manner over from Dragnet and added nothing to what could have been a brilliant show. It wasn’t, although millions of people think it was.
But, as I always say, what do people know?
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