The guy driving emerged from deep thought.
”
It’s good to know we’ve won the war on terror,
”
he said.
”
When was that,
”
I asked. Apparently, reading the newspaper and checking the
Internet wasn’t giving me all the news that was fit to print or
read.
The guy driving emerged from deep thought. “It’s good to know we’ve won the war on terror,” he said.
“When was that,” I asked. Apparently, reading the newspaper and checking the Internet wasn’t giving me all the news that was fit to print or read.
“Well,” he said, “we ran Cat Stevens out of the country.”
Cat Stevens was a popular singer a generation ago. Peace Train, Wild World and Morning Has Broken were some of his bigger hits. Then in l977 he changed his name to Yousuf Islam, took up the Islamic faith and his career went into the porcelain wishing well.
Last week, Stevens, under his new name, tried to enter the U.S. But the Homeland Security Department, running at full speed and on the lookout for lyric sheets of destruction, denied Stevens entry to this country and sent him back to England.
But the government, able to stop a singer who has changed his name and doesn’t have a record contract, hasn’t had the same kind of luck tracking down Osama bin Laden even while using the military and spy satellites and paid informers. About all the government knows about Osama bin Laden is that he is somewhere. After that, it gets kind of murky.
Murky is also the apt description for the effort to recall the DA. The organizers of the recall seem to be down to their last wistful thought. So it looks like the DA may get a pass on having to face the voters before the end of his term. This would the result of the organizers inability to get organized enough to rally public opinion and signatures to their side. The moment has passed and that sound you hear is a sigh of relief coming out of the DA’s office.
Not having to fight a recall attempt will obviously leave the DA more time to consult with the lawyers being paid by the county to defend him against the lawsuit filed by two of his employees. The DA’s legal bills are part of a six-figure bill the county is paying to outside lawyers. Apparently, the county counsel is too busy signing invoices to do very much legal work for the county. Sort of Catch-22 for the county counsel: If I had more lawyers I wouldn’t have to hire so many outside lawyers but I’m too busy signing off on the invoices of the outside lawyers to do a lot of lawyering and while we can afford to hire outside lawyers we can’t afford to hire any inside lawyers. And I just won the prize for writing the longest run-on sentence ever to appear in a column in this newspaper. Who knew?
Catch-22 was a phrase invented by the late Joe Heller in his famous post-World War II novel. Catch-22 was what a bombardier named Yossarian found himself in as the war rolled on. Every time Yossarian had flown enough bombing missions to qualify to be sent home out of harm’s way, the army air corps raised the number of missions that had to be flown. Yossarian concluded that the government was simply trying to get him killed.
The same kind of thing is happening, as readers know, to the registrar. The supes, those makers of sound decisions, want to keep the registrar on the job but relieve him of any responsibility for running elections. Perhaps the motivation behind the supes thinking, if that’s what it can be called, is that if they annoy and humiliate the registrar enough, he will just quit and go away.
But the corner on the quitting and going away market has been cornered by the crowd of people that have served in the county’s top staff position over the last year. Three to be exact, just one short of enough people to play doubles in tennis or best ball in golf.
I suggested last week that it was the water that was influencing decisions. Now I’m not so sure. Is it the water or just plain old iron-headed decisions? It is difficult to know for sure.
Clyde Beatty, the old circus guy, hasn’t been with us for a while. Which is too bad. But maybe somebody can find a look-a-like, a body double of sorts. Of course, the body double would have to be able to handle a whip and a chair in order to keep the beasts at bay.
But then cracking a whip and waving a chair at the supes during their meetings might be even more distracting for the group than it is to simply try and make a good decision.
