Better Than NORAD?

"There are three stages of man: He believes in Santa Claus; he doesn't believe in Santa Claus; he is Santa Claus."

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) did a great job tracking Santa again this year; but it didn't compare with the early Christmas Eve reports of reindeer poop on the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State building that circumvented modern technology and allowed kids to track where Santa and his reindeer really had been. These sightings are based on help desk reports from the North Pole. As you know, reindeer poop was in demand during the past few years for those folks, who were put on Santa’s naughty list. Entrepreneurs even packaged the stuff with poems like this one:

Santa saved a precious gift
and it's especially for you.
Just a little something extra
and it comes from Rudolph, too!

He knows that you've been naughty
instead of being nice.
Once again you're on the bad list
and he's checked it over twice.

Santa hopes this little poem
doesn’t throw you for a loop.
All you’re getting this year
is a bunch of reindeer poop!

The Elves

Recycled reindeer droppings can be used for mulch, potting soil, pranks, fertilizer, and fiberboard. You can contact the North Pole directly for Reindeer Poop® franchise information. Proceeds from the franchise initiative support Santa's workshop.

While 10 million people from 212 countries had a good time tracking Santa Claus via NORAD, Google Maps and Google Earth, and the Twitter microblogging service, including 24 "Santa cams" around the world that were later put up on Youtube; some small folks were still having fun learning where Rudolph and friends really made pit stops.

I went online to see if there were any web sites dedicated to reindeer poop sightings, as Santa was feeling a bit guilty about some of the splatters, especially the one dropped in mid-town Manhattan at about 11:00 pm EST, flattening the roof of a taxi, plus, the hoof and Claus marks on the forehead of an old lady in Skidmore, Texas; but there were none to be found.

By the time the sleigh reached the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Santa and the reindeer were feeling the side-effects of all those chocolate chip cookies. In an act of desperation, Santa began dropping notes asking kids for nachos and beer, instead of milk and cookies.

You always wondered why the Washington Monument faded in two-tone, right?

Volunteers at the North Pole help desk fielded nearly 195,000 phone calls reporting a need for WINDEX®; over 940,000 e-mail complaints demanding that a pooper scooper be installed on the sleigh; and one from irate House Speaker, John Boehner, who is still tanning himself while it hits the fan.

The root cause analysis?

The 24-hour marathon of "A Christmas Story," interference by Randolph, and Christmas!

Hey Buddy! Can You Spare a PS4?

by Rose A. Valenta It was a dark and stormy night, a bit of purple prose, I know; but in this case it is highly accurate. My five-foot frame almost blew across the parking lot when the predicted "small gust" caught the hood of my jacket. At this point, the color of my parachute turned light ashen, just like my face. I groped around in between cars like Helen Keller hoping for a real car door handle, instead of those little slits automobile engineers have brilliantly put just under the side windows, to keep me grounded. Humph! I thought, they do the same thing with headlight assemblies so what do you expect, it's a conspiracy; they use three different types of screws to install them and make you use three different tools to remove them. I know, because I broke one once and tried to play stealth mechanic in the back of my driveway, so my husband wouldn't find out. It took both a flathead and phillips head screwdriver, plus a hex wrench to remove the screws. He caught me dropping the F-bomb at the hex wrench. Slowly, I inched my way towards the store. I could see the bright lights, it wasn't a mirage, I told myself. I'll get there. I started to rise off the ground like an old Life Buoy commercial, then an old parked Chevy attacked me from the rear and I had to use leverage at the bumper. I felt like Harry Potter's Aunt Marge. I swear, this is the last time I wait until Thanksgiving to go Christmas shopping, I lied to myself. My husband had a good excuse for not coming with me bringing the rope and mountain climbing equipment; he was home watching the Washington Redskins finish up a record-breaking losing streak, just like me in this parking lot. Finally, I arrived at the door of Best Buy. All the employees looked as if this was a wake; no one was in the store. All the other customers used common sense and stayed home. Some of the stock boys were in the back of the store entertaining themselves slinging paper clips with rubber bands. Two guys in the front looked at me as if they wanted to ask if I knew the deceased. I went over to the customer service counter and asked the $64,000 question [drum roll]: "Do you have a PS4 console in stock?" I asked confidently. "Hahahahahahhahaha" The manager responded. "Listen, lady, the line starts at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, be here." I stood there looking out the window at my car, which was being pelted with empty battery boxes and flying receipts. It wasn't that far, I lied to myself, and besides none of these guys would really want to put me in one of those renegade shopping carts and wheel me over to my car for $5, would they? I think I'll stay here a while till the wind shifts and sail over there. All I want for Christmas is to kick Sony's ass.

Russia Developing a New Bomb

Everyone is speculating on what Russian strategy will convince Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, to turn over his chemical weapons in the name of peace. My good friend Natasha, who works in Moscow assures me that Vladimir Putin has a good plan. Instead of twisting Bashar’s arm, he will visit with the First Lady, Asma al-Assad, and demonstrate a different type of Russian bomb that has no chemicals or TNT, but is just as effective, hoping that she will offer to intervene.

President Obama was given a demonstration last week. Both he and Secretary of State, John Kerry, think that Asma will like it and surely convince Bashar to import the new bomb in lieu of chemicals:

La Tomatina Festival - Not for Wimps

La Tomatina is the name of a week-long food fight festival in Buñol, Spain, that coincides with our Labor Day holiday. It begins on the last Wednesday of August and thousands of participants travel from all over the world to toss over-ripe tomatinas at each other in the streets.

The townspeople of Buñol gather at around 10:00 am and truck loads of rotten tomatinas are hauled into the Plaza del Pueblo, then; it’s every man for himself.

The week-long festival also includes music, parades, dancing, and fireworks.

La Tomatina started back in 1944 as a local food fight among friends and extended to hammering local politicians. However, it was banned under Francisco Franco for not being a religious holiday. It was resurrected again during the 1970s, and dedicated as a festival in honor of the town's patron saints, San Luis Bertran and Mare de Déu dels Desemparats, which translates “Mother of God of the defenseless.”

This holiday appears to be much more fun than our ordinary Labor Day celebration. If we adopted the tradition in the U.S., we could call it the Rotten Tomato and Salsa Festival, throw tomatoes at politicians, or equivalent effigy, and award cash prizes for the best salsa recipes.

10,000 Californians Moon Amtrak

by Rose A. Valenta

Every year on the second Saturday of July, thousands of people gather in Laguna Niguel, California, to moon Amtrak.

The annual tradition has been celebrated for the past 35 years and is also known as "Orange County's Mardi Gras." Tailgating is encouraged.

An entire website is dedicated to the event, which is sponsored by a local tavern called Mugs Away Saloon.

Some of the year-round residents have complained of disorderly conduct by attendees, but city council has allowed the event to continue as long as folks don’t drink in public or pee on the fire hydrant outside.

This year, on July 12, 2013, over 10,000 people went loco along the chain link fence across from Mugs Away Saloon in front of an Amtrak locomotive.

The Governor and First Lady did not attend this year's event, so they sent Nancy Pelosi, who did her "Liar Liar Pants on Fire" routine out in front of the 6:24 pm South.

The next event is planned on July 15, 2014 Night Mooning starts promptly at 8:00 pm, bring a flashlight.

Rush Jealous of Elena Kagan?

by Rose A. Valenta

Photo Credit: NY Daily News. Is Rush a Kagan Wannabe?


This was the topic of conversation with my Uncle Harry today, other than the NSA, IRS and the economy - Rush is jealous of Elena Kagan. Rush nearly went ballistic over her nomination in 2010 and has been bashing the establishment ever since. If I were to guess, I'd estimate conservatively that he has earned over $50 million bashing President Obama alone - no other skills or talent.

My Uncle Harry came over for dinner tonight and we spent a delightful time bashing Limbaugh.

“Think about it,” Uncle Harry said. “Why else would a Southeast Missouri State University dropout criticize a former Dean of Harvard Law School, with such a complete lack of respect? He’s jealous. He has an issue with women, been married four times - he's jealous!”

“Okay,” I answered, “But, you do know that respect has never been one of his virtues.”

“He wants to have a sex change operation to run for office.” Harry said.

“Harry, he doesn’t need a sex change operation to run for political office.”

“He does now,” Harry responded. “He is so obviously jealous of Kagan. Either that, or the pilonidal abscess that earned him his 4F has gone to his brain.”

“Listen, Harry, I really think he’s afraid that she’ll have his radical radio show canceled.” I said. “Remember the article she published back in 1991 about hate speeches? She wrote that while he was playing around with his ‘DittoCam.’

"What color shirt was he wearing?"

"His soul color, black, with the top two buttons open trying to look cool."

“She wrote ‘Regulation of Hate Speech and Pornography After R.A.V.’ He mused. “I forgot about that. She even won awards for her law reviews."

“Right, when did Rush ever do anything scholarly?”

“He played the part of ‘Scarecrow’ in The Wizard of Oz once?” He asked.

“Not even ‘Tin Man,” I laughed.

“What’s R. A. V. anyways?” He asked.

“It’s the way the teenager in ‘R.A.V. vs City of St. Paul’ was identified in the court system. They didn’t divulge the kid’s real name because he committed a hate crime.”

“Rush always uses his big mouth to burn bridges. He's a radical with a mic.”

"Maybe he wants to be on the 2016 ticket with The Donald. Both of them claim they know how to save the country. Quick, Harry, take look at the pot calling the kettle "fat” on YouTube:

Challenging Donald J. Trump

by Rose A. Valenta

I was fortunate enough to attend the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) “Rebound in Motown” Conference in Detroit, during the summer of 2011 (Columnists.com) . I witnessed the devastation there - empty office buildings, poverty, and iron bars on shop windows just around the corner from our Hotel. I ventured out on my own one day to hunt down a pharmacy and was shocked at what I saw. I gave some poor guy a dollar at the drug store, so he could check out. The clerk was doing his job behind a bullet-proof plexiglass window with a mechanical drawer. I saw a five-story office building for sale for only $200,000.00. I asked around and was told that the situation is much worse.

As a group, we saw the Heidelberg Project and attended TechTown. There, we noted that some progress is being made - but not enough. The city is in bankruptcy. Those beautiful frescoes at the DIA are in jeopardy of being sold and dismantled. It breaks my heart.

Just the other day, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of racketeering and embezzlement. Shame on him! He got what he deserves. However, that doesn't undo the damage that was done, nor does it help the poor people of Detroit. Click here for details .

We live in a great country. We have many billionaires and multi-millionaires, who could successfully pool their work experiences and resources to offer short- and long-range solutions. I'm referring to folks like Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump. Trump claims that he can cut our $17 trillion National deficit. As far as I'm concerned, he should be challenged to put his money where his mouth is and save Detroit first, as a proving ground. We've seen enough wasteful spending on Presidential campaigns. Negative ad campaigns are non-productive and wasteful. How about starting with proactive solutions to save Detroit and just give us quarterly status reports in lieu of a billion dollar smear campaign (spare us) against the competition?

I am urging all of my readers, friends, family and co-workers, who are on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook; to post something at least once-a-week using hashtags (#) such as ‪#‎berkshirehathaway‬ ‪#‎billgates‬ ‪#‎warrenbuffet ‬‪#‎gatesfoundation‬ ‪#‎2030now‬ ‪#‎donaldtrump‬, etc. with a link to a column from the Detroit News or other Detroit news outlet, to get them all focused on finding a solution.

I am also challenging Donald J. Trump: If you think you can cut our $17 trillion deficit – prove it by starting with Detroit. If you are successful, I will vote for you. You don’t need to raise millions of dollars for a silly campaign. Do something constructive! You don’t need to shake hands and kiss babies. Give Detroit’s babies and ours some hope for the future.

Hitting the links with House Speaker John Boehner for more political fund-raising isn't a solution.

If you conjugate the verb "bullshit," it accurately describes every political campaign I've ever witnessed. It is time to actually DO SOMETHING!

This is my Tweet for today:
Projects worth supporting http://www.mlive.com/business/detroit/index.ssf/2013/08/owners_of_detroits_downtown_ca.html @gatesfoundation @WarrenBuffett #berkshirehathaway #billgates @gatespoverty #2030NOW

The link suggests supporting TechTown and other projects that have a positive impact on the community. It is the least we can do with our voices to contribute to a worthy cause. Yes?

Thank you!