# 290, Sept. 19, 2003

COLUMBUS: Gen. Wesley Clark announced this week he is running for President. That’s another candidate no one’s heard of, except for those of you that watched CNN during the war. They say he’s fine man, brilliant, really intelligent. But it makes you wonder, if he’s that smart, why would he want to campaign for President.

That brings the total candidates up to around ten. Senator Edwards has been running for a year, but he went home to North Carolina to make the official announcement. The next day, in a move blamed on the Republicans, Hurricane Isabel took dead aim for the state.

Senator Graham of Florida and a couple of others may drop out. They are postponing their withdrawal as long as they can. Mr. Graham said it’s kind of like the sound of a tree falling in the woods. If nobody knows you’re running, will they even hear that you dropped out.

These Presidential candidates were looking forward to October and the end of the California recall election. But some Federal judges want to delay the election till March, I guess because two months is too short a time to inflict the required pain and suffering on a state’s voters. They figure Californians need an extra five months to learn how to spell Bustamante or Swartzenegger.

Speaking of that hurricane, we knew for a week Isabel was coming. Officials told the folks on the barrier islands and the shore to get away from the hurricane, to leave immediately. Did you notice that most of us heard this news from TV reporters who had gone TOWARD the hurricane? What were they thinking? It made any sane man wonder if they had all adopted the Fox theme, “We report; you decide if we’re stupid.”

I have come to the conclusion that every house built along there should have a room attached to the garage filled with plywood, precut to fit all windows and doors. It’s more needed than storm cellars in the middle west.

Not everyone believes in the Bible, but that verse about not building your house on sand is hard to argue with. Naturally, we’ll all pitch in to help those that got blown away or flooded out, but maybe like drunk drivers that get caught, they should have to complete a course. This one would be on “Common Sense Construction and Home Buying”.

Weather has been good in Ohio, best two weeks of the whole summer. Farmers are in high spirits. Crops are fine, not ideal but good enough.

We lost two fine men in the entertainment business. Tex Ritter’s boy, John, was a fine comedian and actor still in his prime. And the legend, Johnny Cash. His heart and mind were still young, his voice one of a kind. He just missed June too much to go on living.

Johnny’s son-in-law, Rodney Crowell, paid “me” a nice compliment. He said, “Johnny Cash will, like Will Rogers, stand forever as a symbol of intelligence, creativity, compassion and common sense.” Well, I sure appreciate the comparison. And you’ll notice Rodney has a lot of common sense and intelligence himself, because he didn’t include anything about my singing and guitar playing.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“Every time we have an election we get in worse men, and the country keeps right on going. Times have only proven one thing, and that is that you can’t ruin this country even with politics.” WA 306, Nov. 4, 1928