‘In Other Words’ Archives
In Other Words
Oscars Are OK! Fair Needs Some Help From A Sluggish Economy HEAR WE ARE, BACK FROM A SPECTACULAR OSCAR NIGHT. Alice and me like to watch the whole affair from Red Carpet interviews an hour before to the Barbara Walters Special an hour afterward. Whew! You take about a marathon! But we put in a good stock of chips and soft drinks, as well as a couple of sub sandwiches to eat at the halfway point. This year’s affair marked a return to formality. Elegant dress as opposed to outrageous, mind bending get-ups. Steve Martin, one of my all-time favorite comedians, and Alec Baldwin made a [...]
In Other Words
Nuked By The Border Patrol; Two Supes Start Races NO NUKES IS GOOD NUKES, when it comes to war. But when it comes to your own ticker a little check up using some isotopes to look for clogging is a pretty good thing. I’ve been having annual heart checkups since encountering a few bumps in the road several years ago. Newspaper work can do that to you. My annual checkup fell this year just before Valentine’s Day, appropriately enough. I proved once again that I really do have a heart, despite what some people think. One of the drawbacks to the isotopes is that they leave a residue [...]
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Carrot Festival Times Are Changing; Plenty To Do This Weekend Too THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’ - The Holtville Carrot Festival enters its second weekend following what everybody said were big crowds for the first weekend. That’s good. It brings a lot of people to town that normally wouldn’t come here. And it calls attention to our businesses - sort of. Improvements can always be made as long as the people find the event popular and a good place to go, then you can only look to positives. There were big crowds, for the Rib Cook-Off which returned to the Carrot Festival this [...]
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A Look back At Some Columns From a Year Ago And Events Now WE TAKE A LOOK AT some of our columns from the beginning of 2009 and where we are now with those issue. January 15, 2009 - HOLTVILLE IS BACK TO TRYING TO GET THE SHERIFF to take over its police department. The majority of voters said they wanted their own police department, but not enough of them said it in a vote to get a two-thirds majority. As a result, the city may be looking at County police protection. The plan I saw in ideal form would put five deputies in Holtville, who would work out of this city’s public safety [...]
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Ho, Ho, Ho! The Curmudgeon Speaks! HO, HO, HO! HAVE YOU GOT THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT? I guess you’d say I have, but those doggone crowds still get me antsy. They make the merchants happy ‘cause they know they are making money. But, I for one, would prefer a little less crowded space. I went into a couple of stores last week where the clerks were so incredibly nice that I had to stop and think where I was. This is definitely wasn’t used to, especially at Christmas Shopping time. But there they were, all smile and ready to help me with my purchase. One of them bagged them up and another [...]
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Strange Doings In Holtville Again; Saying Goodbye to Some Good Guys In Brawley WE’RE NOT SURE WHY HOLTVILLE HAS such a difficult time accepting new ideas and people. But it does. You’d think a city would want to encourage people to come there, work there and spend money there. But it is still very difficult for anyone to get established in this little community and even more difficult to run a successful business out of it. As a business owner in that community for the last 19 years, I’ve seen it time and again where someone has a good idea for a business, but gets little or no [...]
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Slow Times Reflected At The Auto Show THESE ARE HARD TIMES FOR AUTO MANUFACTURERS. And hard times for auto dealers too. Thus, our annual visit to the Auto Show was less than it has been in recent years. Gone were the concept cars that promised future automotive wonders. Also gone were new designs, with only a couple of exceptions. And worse still, gone were several lines of cars that used to dot the showroom floor. As car shows go, this one came up a little weak. Chrysler didn’t put in an appearance this year. Nor did Volkswagen or BMW. Pontiac has bitten the dust and Saturn is off the [...]
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It’s A Fantastic Week In The Sun! IF YOU MISSED THIS YEAR’S BRAWLEY CATTLE CALL, then you missed out on one of the Valley’s premiere events. Where else can you get 10 big days of food, music, western culture and rodeo too? Cattle Call gives the Northend of the Imperial Valley the opportunity to show off and it gives would-be cowboys from everywhere a chance to put on their western duds and get down. STARTING WITH THE CHILI COOK-OFF where Pioneers’ Memorial Hospital has become the perennial favorite for the People’s Choice Award, you can see folks loosen up and kick back [...]
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It’s Time To Get Back To Some Good ol’ Peace In This World VETERANS DAY HAS COME AND GONE AND there were plenty of memorable ceremonies held around the Valley to tell the Vets how much their service was and is appreciated. I think it would be appreciated more, however, if the U.S. would bring the current hostilities to an end and let peace reign supreme once again. The U.S. has been in a hot war since 2001 with no sign of an end to hostilities. The military, in fact, wants to increase our troop strength in Afghanistan. How long do we go on policing the world? The U.S. involvement [...]
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Playing the game well in Calexico; Another El Centro first?; Skateboards and Councils WE HAVE TO HAND IT TO LOUIS FUENTES for his knowledge of how to get ahead in political circles and his use of that knowledge when the opportunity came up. As Calexico Mayor he attended several conferences where he was able to get close enough to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for him to remember his name. At the time I thought it was brazen egotism, but he proved that in politics its who you know that counts. Schwarzenegger appointed Fuentes as the new County Supervisor of the district which takes [...]
