The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Day Three: the boomerang effect

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This is the fourth part of a serial travelogue entitled How I Spent My Summer Vacation, starring Artificially Sweetened (AS), Cupcake, and me, The Nittany Turkey.

This would be the day when I returned to my homeland, Western Pennsylvania, like a boomerang coming back to its hurler. I seem to never tire of visiting the land of my nativity and my formative years. Although brief, today’s tour would hit enough high points to satisfy my desire for repatriation and give Artificially Sweetened and Cupcake a good feel for where I grew up.

Da Burgh

We had agreed upon a sleep-in for Monday morning, as I did not want to be fighting rush hour traffic in dahntahn Pittsburgh. (For those of you who are not familiar with Pittsburghese, “dahntahn” means downtown.) There really isn’t much traffic in da Burgh these days, but what little of it there is I wanted to avoid. So, we agreed to leave the hotel shortly after 9 AM. We had a pretty busy day ahead, visiting old haunts in three different Western and Central Pennsylvania cities, so we couldn’t dawdle.

Pre-Artificially Sweetened Coffee
Pre-Artificially Sweetened Coffee

Cupcake was sleepy. Having enjoyed the privacy of her own room without AS to tell her when to go to sleep, she undoubtedly spent most of the night conversing with godknowswhom on her surgically attached cell phone. She needed coffee. So did AS. Earlier, I wrote about the crankiness of a hungry AS; a coffeeless AS in the morning is an order of magnitude worse. It has to be made a certain way, too, with two packets of the eponymous substance from whence cometh her name and a dollop of half and half. With the GPS in hand, I searched for the nearest Starbuck’s and navigated the van to it. Using the drive through lane, we coffeed up. There was bound to be some calamity, but in this case it wasn’t one of us. It was the drive-through barista. As she leaned forward toward the open window, it closed and smacked her in the nose. I guess it is designed to thwart robberies, but the effect on this morning was to wake up a barista. “That thing closes too fast,” she said stoically, handing me the recycled cardboard carrier that held the three recycled paper cups. I noticed that she was quick about it this time.

As we drove away, AS complained. “I forgot that at Starbucks, ‘tall’ means small.”

“Yeah, you have to order a ‘grande’ if you want big,” I mumbled, hoping that she would make do with her small tall and I wouldn’t have to go back to Starbuck’s for a refill.

“I hate that bullshit! Oh, well,” she responded, “I guess I’ll make do.”

Whew!

In a very short while, we were on West Carson Street down by the Ohio River. That was quick. As we pulled into the parking lot for the Duquesne Incline, I noticed that the former Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad tracks had been removed and the rail bed was now serving as a jogging trail. [Read more…]

A New D.A. for Centre County

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Many of you Penn State alumni and fans who are scatteredfar and wide might have missed seeing the outcome of a little county election in Pennsylvania.

Fear not! From our friend Todd over at The Lion’s Den, comes this tidbit.

From the Daily Collegian:

Democratic district attorney candidate Stacy Parks Miller won the municipal election Tuesday over Republican incumbent Michael Madeira, taking 64.7 percent of the votes in Centre County. ??? ???? ????? ?? ???????? ??????

Todd writes:

The margin of victory is clear evidence as to how the voters felt Madeira was “doing his job.” Hopefully [Miller] will do her job and not waste taxpayer money by trumping up charges against Penn State football players to [keep] her name in the papers.

This Turkey says “amen!”

I realize that the vagaries of politics sometimes create the need for coloring outside the lines. However, one sure way not to be reelected — as Madeira so graphically illustrated (albeit ineptly and unwittingly self-sacrificially) — is to pick on the only game in town!

Voters of Pennsylvania, Hear Me Out

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People of Pennsylvania, here are 10 reasons why voting for Senator Obama will be a mistake:

  1. “Change” is not a viable platform. Change to what?
  2. You’re kidding yourself if you think this junior senator can change the way Washington works. For him to suggest he can do so affirms either his cluelessness or his mendacity. (Probably, the latter.)
  3. You say you’re voting for him because he’ll end the war? More cluelessness on his part. There are no easy answers. Colin Powell recently stated that whoever inherits the war will be stuck with a slow withdrawal, as we can neither sustain the current troop levels there nor can we withdraw abruptly. Anyone who hands the enemy a schedule for our withdrawal is handing them the keys to Iraq and the ability to exert significant control over the Middle East and the world. Don’t let this sweet talker con you into believing that there’s an easy or quick way out of Iraq and Afghanistan. There isn’t. Yeah, it’s partially about oil. So what? You drive to work don’t you? So shut up already about protecting our oil interests. You can’t have it both ways!
  4. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Expansive social programs cost money. That money eventually comes out of your pocket. Don’t be fooled into thinking that it will all come from “rich people.” It comes from taxpayers. We all pay taxes.
  5. Speaking of rich people, poor folks can not afford to run for President of the United States. Not many of us earn more than $4 million per year, as Obama does.
  6. However, he’ll make more money by playing populist games, like asking Congress to selectively increase capital gains taxes on “the wealthy”, which may or may not be defined by him as anyone making more than $200,000 per year. In other words, those members of society whose investments create jobs will be given a disincentive to invest. People will be punished for the industriousness that yielded the reward of a high income.
  7. Meanwhile, Obama doesn’t really relate to the masses. He says they “cling to” religion and guns and disdain people who aren’t like them. In other words, he knows what is best for them but they don’t.
  8. So, he would propose to confiscate wealth and redistribute it according to need established by “the government.” This didn’t work out very well for the Soviet Union, and it sure as hell won’t work here.
  9. This is a guy who whines about reporters and debate moderators asking him tough questions. Is that very Presidential? He who sits in the Oval Office will bear the brunt of the Fourth Estate—there are no exemptions. Obama won’t change Washington, and this is an endemic part of Washington.
  10. Obama will be a one-term president—not unlike Jimmy Carter, who also thought he could change things in Washington—which will guarantee Republican rule for at least the following twelve years, just like it did when Carter disgraced the Oval Office. If you long for good, solid Democrats—not these modern liberal, heads-up-the-ass weenies who sit in their lofty perches and tell us all what we should be doing—you’ll put the Clinton machine back in charge of things. It’s your only chance to take serious, long-term control of Washington. Mark my words: if Obama is elected, not only will he be a one-termer, but also the Democrats will lose both houses of congress due to popular dissatisfaction with his Communist approach to government.

Really, folks. You’re Pennsylvanians, not liberal New Yorkers and sure as hell not San Franciscans. Do you really want this crap? THINK about what I’ve written above and do your own research. If you find flaws in my logic, then fine. I’ll stand corrected. If you don’t and if you wind up electing Obama president just because you want “change,” don’t say I didn’t warn you!