Snyder City Council - Okla. Legislature - Sheesh!

Goodness gracious, just when you think it can't get any crazier!
The city council of Snyder put up the wrong fire truck for bids!!! The fire dept. had stripped equipment from and abandoned a 1968 Chevy and the council was to put it up as surplus property for bids. Instead, they declared a 1963 C700 Ford truck which was still being used as surplus property and the bids were to be opened at last Monday's council meeting. On top of that, the legal notice for the bids did not contain the disclaimer about the right to reject bids, so legally the bid should have to be accepted!
The newspaper reported "The opening of bids was tabled until City Attorney Shane McLaury could search for a possible solution."
I'm just shaking my head. Now if this is not an indication that the whole city government needs an overhaul, I don't know what is!
If that is not enough, in the same story, same meeting, under public participation, the paper stated "Mike Adler, Water Superintendent, 'I just wanted you to know I quit.'" No details or letter of resignation. I'm going to have to investigate to see what happened to cause the city's most valuable employee to give it up. When you have a dedicated worker like Mike,who has stuck with the city through a lot of craziness, you need to work to keep him.
Add to all that citizen complaints about harassment by the police dept. and the fact that in our little town of under 1500 population the police dept. shows eight employees drawing a total of over $8800 in the month of March. Other city hall employees drew $6500 and the water plant and public works payroll for the same pay period was a little over $7200.
Now to me that balance indicates that we require more police protection than we do people running the city's business and keeping our streets, water and sewer in order. Have we had a recent crime wave I'm unaware of? I know we still have potholes in the streets, issues at the water plant, and various other physical problems in town.
On one hand we have a group trying to form a chamber of commerce to bring in shoppers and business and industry and on the other we have reports that out-of-town people avoid driving through our town because of fear of getting a traffic fine. I haven't noticed a bunch of out-of-control speeding wreckless drivers around Snyder, have you?
People, we need to get our priorities straight here! There's an election coming up - everyone needs to pay close attention and exercise their votes!

I also have to share my opinion of the Oklahoma legislature this session. What a joke! Hardly any bills with impact have been addressed, but we have been made a laughing stock by several such as the stem cell research bill, with the Republicans wanting to make it a crime for a scientist to perform any form of embryonic stem cell research even tho the bill would do nothing to stop an abortion or save a single life, but does threaten life-saving research and unjustly criminalizes scientists who perform important work.
Scientists believe such research could yield new treatments or cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, blindness, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, spinal cord injuries and a variety of other ailments.
The research utilizes unused embryonic stem cells, or blastocysts, originally created to assist couples in their effort to have children. Because in vitro fertilization procedures often create multiple blastocysts for a single couple, many are unused and ultimately destroyed and discarded. HB 1326 criminalizes and punishes a scientist who, with the couple’s consent, elects to conduct stem cell research with an unused blastocyst before it is destroyed.
State business and research leaders also warned that by criminalizing legitimate scientific study, HB 1326 would have a chilling effect on Oklahoma’s research community, particularly on the scientists who perform the life-saving research. HB 1326 would also discourage research-based industries from continuing to locate in Oklahoma, dealing a major blow to long-running efforts to make the state a beacon of bioscience and high-technology research.
Thank goodness for Gov. Brad Henry's decision to stand up against all the Republican claptrap and veto the bill.
Gov. Henry's statement

Then the do-gooders had to turn around and try to pull another stupid stunt by voting a down a resolution that made the Flaming Lip’s “Do You Realize?” the state’s official rock song. In a statewide Internet vote held late last year, that song was the choice of 51 percent of more than 21,000 votes cast.
The song was selected to be on a list of songs by Oklahoma artists and the people voted. The time to object would have been before that list was released. Luckily the legislature's approval is not needed and Gov. Brad Henry will sign an executive order Tuesday, April 28, naming the Flaming Lips song, “Do You Realize??,” as the official rock song of Oklahoma.
For more info read this story on The Lost Ogle

I just finished the daily Cryptoquip in the newspaper. I never do one of them without thinking of my grandmother. I have to credit her with my initial love of words and reading and writing.
My grandmother lived in Okmulgee, Oklahoma when I was in grade school, and was probably the first person I wrote a letter to. (I know, proper grammar would be "to whom I wrote a letter," but that just sounds uppity.)
She also introduced me to cryptograms/cryptoquips, which are substitution ciphers in which one letter stands for another. By recognizing common letter patterns in words and trial and error the puzzle is solved. I came to love solving cryptograms and used to go through whole books of them at a time.
My grandmother and my mother encouraged me to read by their example, both being avid readers. My mother spent hours reading to me, first nursery rhymes from my (now lost) Mother Goose book, then classics such as Tom Sawyer, Heidi, and Little Women, and mysteries (which came to be my favorite genre) including the Happy Hollisters and Bobbsey Twins.
My grandmother took me to the huge (at least in my eyes) library in Okmulgee where I was amazed by the selection of books. At the time our Snyder library was in its early years with only four or five total shelving units occupying a corner of a room at City Hall, shared with the nightwatchman's desk. The children's section of the Okmulgee library was larger than that!
I spent a week or two every summer with my grandmother, and one of my clearest memories is the summer I discovered the Raggedy Ann and Andy books at the library and read all they had. Books were often birthday and Christmas presents from my grandmother.
I'm here to tell you that when you read or hear what a great gift reading to a child is, it is very true. I cannot imagine a world without books!

Of Super Bowls, ice storms and Girl Scout Cookies...

Saturday I had the pleasure of participating in free enterprise in action when Courtney Ford delivered my Girl Scout cookies. Her neighbors, Bruce and Nathan Glassco, were helping as they took advantage of the nice weather to make their deliveries.
I have many memories, mostly fond, of Girl Scout cookies. I recall knocking on doors over 40 years ago. I'm not sure how I managed, as shy as I was, but I seemed to sell my share of cookies. Then I took my turn driving my daughters around town as they participated in the annual sale. I also put in time a few years as "Cookie Chairman." The cookies have increased in price through the years and some varieties have come and gone, but they still taste great and the lessons learned are still as valuable.
Specific memories include a vivid memory of standing on the porch of Lee Richardson's house when I was selling cookies. Then there was the year I was cookie chairman and I had tonsillitis. I made the presentation to the troops while barely able to talk, then drove Lu around to sell her cookies while burning up with fever.

Tonight was Super Bowl night. I always look forward to the commercials. This year they were not as cutting edge as in years past. Several were cute, like the GE wind energy one where a little boy captures a jarful of wind and brings it to his grandfather to help blow out the birthday candles. Budweiser, as usual, had several good ones this year featuring the clydesdales. I especially enjoyed the one with the clydesdale going after his girlfriend at the circus, and the clydesdale playing fetch. I also liked the Pepsi refresh anthem, and the promotion of the new film "Up." I do believe the slow economy took its toll on the quality and quantity of the ads.
The halftime show was nothing spectacular. I think the halftime shows have regressed. We used to look forward to something special in the way of a light show, or something, instead of old rock stars performing with mediocre audio.
I was disappointed with the officiating of the game, and the outcome was not what I had hoped. When we were in Scotsdale, Arizona, recently the local newspaper was hyped up about the local team's chances to be in the bowl game, so I was rooting for the Cardinals.
It's interesting how the Super Bowl has become such an American icon, so popular it draws the biggest stars, highest advertising revenue and an interview with the president. I'm not a big follower of professional football, but there's something about the Super Bowl that draws me.

Last week the whole family was iced in for two days. That's the first time in years that everyone had had to stay home due to the weather. At least the power stayed on and everyone had their computers and movies and phones, so we survived.

A new week's beginning and hopefully things will be back to normal with everybody where they're supposed to be and no surprises for awhile. It's time for me to tackle the dreaded chore of getting my tax info gathered, so don't expect to hear from me until I surface from that. I hate it enough without having to listen to the nonstop TV ads and news shows peppering me with reminders. I hope to get it all behind me so I won't have to feel the pressure every time I turn around. Wish me luck!