Wading In

The assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is sad but not surprising. I know some speculate that Musharraf was behind it but one has to remember that radical Islamists have tried to kill Musharraf 9 times. Now, I don't doubt that Musharraf is probably pleased at this news but I doubt he had a direct hand in it. It's more likely the military intelligence had a hand in it. Perhaps had a hand in providing shoddy security. We're in bed with smarmy dictators. We always have been. Aligning ourselves with the Saudi royal family and the unpopular Mubarak in Egypt as well as Musharraf in Pakistan have ticked off a lot of people. Of course, our lockstep with Israel has won us no favors in the Middle East. A lot of the terrible people we're in bed with are just less terrible than the alternatives. I've always thought we should draw a line in red paint around the globe and tell the Islamo-Fascists that you guys stay on THAT side of the line and live in ...

What a horrific Christmas story. A tiger escapes from its confines and kills a 17 year old boy and injures his two friends at the San Francisco Zoo before police shoot the big cat to death. Now there is a report that the three friends may have been taunting the tiger since blood and a shoe was found between the fence and moat. This has led some people to have sympathy for the Tiger. Others don't think animals should be in zoos anyway. Hey spoilsports, where are we supposed to see tigers then? Monty Cox, a tiger trainer and animal wrangler, discounts the taunting theory because Tigers in a zoo or taunted every day. He says the distance was too far anyway for a cat to go after someone for teasing it. But I think this is a silly road to go down. Animal lovers will say, "See, those boys got what they deserved for taunting that animal." But who's to say what's taunting to a tiger? Eating a damn hot dog might taunt a hungry tiger. Fumbling with a camera taking its pictu...

Gag gifts and all, the holidays are fun By Kelvin Wade | | December 26, 2007 16:14 I love the holiday season as much as the next guy, but I'm glad Christmas is over. There's only so much holiday cheer one can take. It can be hectic and exhausting. I'll give you some examples. My girlfriend's grandson Kawika got a Hasbro Power Tour rock guitar for Christmas. It allows a kid to play loud rock guitar with no previous musical experience. It was hysterical to see this almost 3-year-old metamorphize into a rock god before our eyes. You had to be there to see the Eddie Van Halen-like fretwork, the Jimmy Page poses, the Chuck Berry-like struts and the clichŽd rock grimaces from Vika that had us in stitches. Of course, after his third encore, I was tempted to show him an old Who video so maybe he'd emulate Pete Townsend and smash his noise-making guitar on the coffee table. Another example, one of the gag gifts I received was a 14-inch long barbecue lighter ...

Pinch penny papa wasn't a Scrooge By Kelvin Wade | | December 19, 2007 20:51 Now I'm not a Scrooge, but as I get older, I see myself becoming a lot more like my late dad during the holiday season. It's not just me. I can see it in my brothers, too. For one, these brothers of mine hold onto a dollar so tight around Christmas, George Washington is screaming like a girl from the grip. I got an e-mail from my brother Orvis asking if we could just exchange ornaments of no more than $10 this year. Really? Why not doilies, balloon animals or recipes? I suspect his wife, Patty, sent this e-mail. While the cheapness sounds like Orvis, ornaments really don't. Cheapness was a hallmark of our dad and my brothers have followed suit. Forget Black Friday, the mall and incredible deals. My brothers usually finish their Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. By then they've scoured every yard sale, flea market and dollar store they can find selecting gifts that reflect just how li...

Not voting makes a difference | | December 12, 2007 15:15 By Kelvin Wade This week Vallejo swore in its second mayor in a week's time, Osby Davis. His opponent, Gary Cloutier, had been certified the winner by four votes just days earlier. A manual recount found Davis winning by two votes. Cloutier filed for an emergency injunction against the county's certification of Davis' victory and his swearing in but it was refused by a judge. So now Cloutier, who alleges fraud during the recount, is going to court to seek relief. Come on. Vallejo's been a city for 140 years and can't hold a mayoral election? Why is voting and counting votes so difficult? We elect members of student government in schools. We elect people in clubs and social organizations. We elect union representatives. Why is it so difficult to run a municipal, state or federal election? Perhaps it's because most of us don't care. Solano County saw a 36 percent voter turnout this pas...

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Out of political correctness, politeness and/or tact, we generally try to prevent small children from pointing out in a loud voice how fat someone is in a checkout line in a store or that someone is in a wheelchair or disabled in some way. If a man has one arm, most parents try to dissuade young Timmy from pointing out the obvious. But I think it’s time for the masters of the obvious to speak out about something going on in our world. This week a British teacher was pardoned and released from a Sudanese jail after being sentenced to fifteen days for allowing a teddy bear to be named Mohammad. She could’ve been sentenced to 40 lashes. Some extremists called for her to be put to death for blasphemy. This follows the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for author Salman Rushdie to be killed after publishing the novel, “The Satanic Verses” in the 80’s. It comes after the murder of Danish director Theo Van Gogh who directed a film about violence against...

Fairfield's ready for the new year By Kelvin Wade | | December 05, 2007 22:28 A nagging illness kept me from attending the festivities at City Hall Tuesday evening but thanks to Channel 26, I was able to watch the proceedings. First, it was great to see a standing room only crowd at a City Council meeting. I would normally deride anyone who attends such meetings as someone who usually gets their kicks hanging out at insurance seminars, grass-growing observations and paint-drying demonstrations. I understand there were enthusiastic supporters and well-wishers who wanted to cheer their candidates on. There seemed to be a lot of love in the room with Frank Kardos starting off the love fest with a tribute to outgoing council members Marilyn Farley and Jack Batson. Then Councilman John Mraz delivered a heartfelt thanks to City Manager Kevin O'Rourke. It was a very nice if not Alice in Wonderland moment. It was a far cry from a campaign that saw the political equivalent of drive-by s...

I was attacked by wild turkeys and lived to tell this tale By Tony Wade | | December 02, 2007 23:06 I would think that not too many things would be funnier than watching a 6-foot-4 man fighting off three wild turkeys with a stick early in the morning except for the fact that the man was me. Yes, they must've read my column last week about Thanksgiving turkey tryptophan robbing me of my creativity and decided to extract a measure of revenge for their fallen and delicious comrade (although that article wasn't printed in Turkish, as far as I know). Or maybe they read the one the week before about my bird phobia. By the way, my sister-in-law Patty was extremely compassionate when she learned of my condition. At Thanksgiving, her derisive, convulsive laughter only stopped when she started to choke. As I walked along Tolenas Road on Friday morning, I encountered the turkeys and could not believe how aggressive the Foster Farm refugees were. I actually landed sever...

Kelvin Wade:Crime has long-term effects | | November 28, 2007 23:06 I'd planned to write about the good news that apparently our Wal-Mart Supercenter could proceed without further delay. But I'm not feeling joyous right now. Tuesday night, my girlfriend's daughter Sheryl and granddaughter Lauryn were leaving a dance studio in Sacramento. They dance for a hula halau, performing at events all over Northern California including the Pacific Rim Festival. They and about three members of their troupe were robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot by two thugs. Sheryl originally thought it was a joke until one of the assailants put a silver revolver in her face. We talk about crime all the time in this community. We base elections on the topic. We come up with strategies to combat it. When it happens to someone you love, statistics and probabilities don't mean much. I told the story in a column years ago about some punks who were playing road rage games with m...

Originally published 11-22-07 Don't mess with tradition By Kelvin Wade | | November 22, 2007 00:40 Ian Thompson wrote an interesting story on vegetarians and Thanksgiving this week. Vegetarians are sparing turkeys and having alternative dishes this Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, my brothers and I will be dispatching no less than three of the 40 million turkeys that will be consumed this year. Turkey, resting on its back, all succulent and golden brown, is a tradition. The sacrifice of the turkey has been bringing families together for generations in this country. Who am I to mess with tradition? Some say the holiday is about family and not the carcass on the table. Wrong. It's about family surrounding a carcass on the table. I always hate when the vegans trot out the old, 'turkeys are abused' canard every year. I'll grant them that they're not the brightest animals on the planet, getting fattened up and not noticing as the flock gets smaller and smaller a...

Originally Published 11-16-07 Making the Web Even Better by Kelvin Wade I love the internet. I once had my home service go down for over a week and life as I knew it came to a standstill. I couldn’t dress in the mornings because I didn’t know what the weather would be like. I had to look at my cell phone to see what time it was, actually watch CNN instead of read the website and text people instead of email. I know. Some people have real problems. I belong to a political email discussion group. We discuss national and international political issues, threaten the President and then send carefully worded emails disassociating ourselves from our intemperate colleagues. And because so many of the members are Canadians, I’m the conservative of the group. And now for some shameless promotion: The Daily Republic website has underwent quite the metamorphosis recently with easy to find stories, better updates and our active blogging community. I’ll dare to say things there that I co...

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Printed on Thursday, November 8, 2007 Garcia's Unlikely Ascension By Kelvin Wade How can you not be happy that 21 year old Matt Garcia laid the smackdown to both newcomers and veteran politicians alike on Tuesday to capture a City Council seat? In Garcia, Fairfield has the youngest elected official in the state of California. Kudos also to Chuck Timm, who ran a solid campaign. From the moment he announced, with his resume’, his fundraising ability, the support of the Police Officers Association, I knew he’d take a seat on the Council. When he came under attack for raising large sums of money I knew it wouldn’t stop him because it came down to a question of integrity and charges of impropriety were never going to stick to Chuck Timm. It was a nail biter of a night when the election returns started coming in. When the absentee ballots came in strong for Garcia, you could feel the winds of change in the air. Absentee voters usually skew older so that was a very...

Kelvin Wade: Do mailers really work in races? By Kelvin Wade | | October 31, 2007 16:48 With the furor over local political mailers and hit pieces, the thing that keeps going through my mind is who is reading political mailers? Political mailers are like the original spam. It's the eight-track of spam and it's amazing we still have to deal with it in 2007. I'm thinking about hooking up a crosscut shredder underneath my mailbox so the mailman can just feed them right in there. Have you been to the post office this time of year? The waste cans inside are usually overflowing with political mailers as people fish the offending colorful leaflets from their P.O. boxes and circular file them en masse. So why would anyone get their information from a mailer? My girlfriend and I went on a lovely five-day cruise to Mexico last week. Before I booked it, do you think I just took the cruise line's word on what it would be like? Do you think I received an adverti...

A jury ruled against the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas and ordered them to pay nearly $11 million to the family of a soldier killed in Iraq for protesting his funeral. These sick bastards at this church have made headlines for years picketing the funerals of homosexuals holding up signs saying "God Hates Fags" and telling family members that their loved one is burning in hell. In recent years, they started protesting the funerals of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan because, in their twisted minds, these soldiers shouldn't be fighting for this gay nation. The Rev. Fred Phelps who heads this "church" says God is punishing this nation for our sins. What kind of sickos could protest someone's funeral? Who could do something like that? At a time when a family is hurting and grieving, these cretins show up with the most disgusting signs and pour salt in their wounds. Phelps says this is a free speech issue. Give me a break. If you...

Parents who care are tough By Kelvin Wade | | October 24, 2007 16:57 Bill Cosby has a new book co-written with Dr. Alvin Poussaint, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School called 'Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors.' Cosby has been an outspoken advocate of better parenting, especially in the black community. On a recent episode of NBC's Meet the Press, Cosby mentioned a minister friend of his who'd done time in prison. The minister said from time to time the guard would shake down the cells searching for weapons and contraband. He said that parents need to do the same with their children's rooms to find out what they're up to. My mother implemented just such a policy. When I was a teen in one of my drawers, hidden beneath disheveled clothing sat two bottles of wine, a few cans of beer and packs of cigarettes. Imagine my horror when I went to retrieve my secret stash one day and found empty bottles of wine, empty beer...

I was leaving Target today just about to get into my vehicle when a dark colored SUV cruised up alongside me. The guy behind the wheel said, "Hey man, you want to buy a home theater system? It's an 800 watt, $1900 system from Magnolia. I had two of them. I hooked up one for myself and I'm selling the other. Make me an offer!" Now what about me identifies me as a potential customer for this guy? I mean, do I look like a thug? I was wearing my "BIG BOSS MAN" shirt and an Oakland Raider hat. Were those the signs that I'd be game for a parking lot electronics sale? This could have easily been that familiar scam where someone is selling a box full of bricks, looking to rip off unwitting marks. But come on, who'd pick ME as a mark? If you haven't met me, then maybe you don't know where I'm coming from. This guy certainly wouldn't have risked a beat down to sell me a box of rocks. So I have to believe he had a legit (well...legitimately stol...

Printed on: Thu, Oct 18, 2007 A dim view of the future By Kelvin Wade I'm old. I'm not Jurassic and not quite as old as dirt but I've been around. This week I turned 41. The thing that rubbed my nose in the fact that I'm no spring chicken has been my failing vision. I needed to renew my driver's license and since I'd done it twice by mail, I had to go into the DMV and take an eye exam. I'd been dreading it. The photo on my driver's license is so dated, I might as well be sporting a dashiki and big ol' Angela Davis afro in it. Plus, I don't even think the weight was accurate at the time I first put that lowball number on there. My vision had gone south since my last renewal and I had doubts about passing the eye exam. But like Seinfeld's George Costanza, I believed I could squint down to at least 20/30 vision. Like it or not, I decided to first visit an optometrist for glasses before the DMV eye chart showdown. I knew I w...

Forty one years old today. Who knew I would live this long? It's like a friggin' miracle. Thank God. I can't complain. I can't complain. I got it good.

Printed on: Thu, Oct 11, 2007 Donations are part of politics By Kelvin Wade "If you can't drink a lobbyist's whiskey, take his money, sleep with his women and still vote against him in the morning, you don't belong in politics." -Jesse Unruh The late and former California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh knew what it took to be a successful politician. I'm reminded of the above aphorism when I think about the hubbub over Fairfield City Council candidate Chuck Timm's fundraising prowess. Timm has raised more than $100,000. Two of his opponents, Councilman Jack Batson and businessman Steve Kays, and an apparent letter-writing campaign have called into question the large donations Timm has received from MV Transportation and the police union, both having business before the city next year. The question is fair enough. Large sums of money traditionally buy access. Phone calls from a large donor are going to be returned faster than a call from...

Printed on: Thu, Oct 04, 2007 Dumbing down of America By Kelvin Wade We love idiots in America. Whether it's watching "My Name Is Earl" on NBC, a South Carolina beauty pageant contestant explaining America's map problem, young celebrities self-destructing, a moron crying about Britney Spears on YouTube or the president of the United States, we get a kick out of feeling superior to idiots. Yes, the president who once asked, "Is our children learning?" answered it last week in front of New York schoolchildren proclaiming that "childrens do learn." See what I mean? We love it. The problem is we may be at the dawn of the Idiocracy. In case you missed it, "Idiocracy" was a Luke Wilson comedy last year about a future dumbed-down America. What's not so funny is that award-winning director Ken Burns has said he was prompted to make his excellent World War II documentary "The War" because he'd heard that many...

UPDATED June 14, 2011 . My apologies. Mrs. Moy responded via Facebook that she was invited to the White House because her charity donated over 1,000 tons of care packages to our brave men and women in harm's way. A highly commendable and wonderful thing. Catherine has done great work with Move America Forward. She further stated that only fear of arrest by Secret Service prevented her from flinging her undergarments. LOL I want you to read this column by Vacaville Reporter columnist Catherine Moy. This broad evidently contributed a bunch of moolah to the GOP and was invited to the White House. Just look how she gushes over Bush. It's unreal that anyone living in the real world could write the crap she writes. I don't even care if you like the President. Nobody in their right mind would gush like this. You won't believe it. You'll think I'm making it up, but this actually ran in a newspaper. I'm surprised she didn't throw her panties at the man. Face to f...