George rebane

– Bob Crabb’s new book
– Republican Women’s luncheon – Sheriff Royal
– WSJ Lieberaman article – war on terror
– The old guys celebrate the young

Nevada County’s own socio-political cartoonist extraordinaire and author, RL ‘Bob’ Crabb is coming out with a brand new book of his cartoons.  An example of gentle persuasion in an horticultural format is shown above as it appears in the printed edition of the 15jun10 Union.  These graphic commentaries have entertained and piqued thousands over the years, and now you can own your very own copy of his latest.  Go and order the book (here), Bob can always use a few extra bucks.

Sheriff Keith Royal was the featured program at today’s NC Republican Women Federated’s (what a name!) luncheon.  Sheriff Keith is one the county’s positive exemplars of how properly run government should work.  He gave an overview of the county’s crime stats and trends  – good – and recounted how he runs “the largest B&B” in these parts.  The county jail is at 80% of ‘local capacity’ which allows us to rent the rest of the facility out to the feds for housing prisoners at a tidy profit to the county.  The federal prisoners are comprised mostly of women awaiting trial in Sacramento.  The sheriff reported that we could use a bigger jail, but that expansion program would cost upwards of $25 million and is on a prudent hold until our economy can get some wind in its sails.  Russ Steele and I were there as guests of our wives and busy scribbling notes.  Good talk.

Another of the cascading examples of this dysfunctional and incompetent presidency was highlighted today in Joe Lieberman’s WSJ piece ‘Who’s the Enemy in the War on Terror?’  Pursuant to recent presidential blather about not pissing off the ragheads by referring to our enemy in this war as ‘militant Islam’ or ‘Muslim extremists’, the country is turning itself into pretzels in trying to figure out who we are really fighting.  And more importantly, how should the non-militant Muslims deport themselves as they watch us waffle.  Will they then militate their non-militancy, or will they keep waiting for some more resolution before placing their bets?

Old Joe attempts to put his arms around this tricky problem, but his mighty effort falls a bit short because it’s hard to talk a good line of sense when you still have one politically correct foot stuck in the corner of your mouth.  RR readers are familiar with my position on the tragedy of labeling this struggle as a “war on terror”.

Yesterday was a day when events separated by more than a half century came together in a delightful and memorable occasion in the Boys’ Gym of Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, California.  I got up before the crack of dawn yesterday to fly down to Burbank.  Was picked up by a couple of old (hold the cracks) teammates from our 1958 league champion basketball team, and, after collecting a couple more guys who hadn’t seen each other in 50 years, we wound up at the old high school.  The reason for the planned ceremony was to celebrate the current VHHS basketball team that had won the LA high school basketball championship.  Given the size of and competition in that megalopolis, this was quite an achievement.

The old guys were invited back to give the team and students who filled the stands a perspective on the history of their school.  What made it special was that Si Korach, our coach now about 90, was also in attendance.  Coach Korach was our John Wooden and, as his friend Wooden, also taught us character on and off the court.  Almost the whole ten man team was in attendance, and remarkably we were all in good health (discounting the inevitable aches and pains), and everyone had had successful lives.  The coach outdid us all by looking indecently young, spry, and in full possession of all his faculties.  It was he who MCd the old guys’ part of the celebration, and called each of us out to mumble some appropriate words into the mike.

My impression of old VHHS was heightened by the visit; no, actually I was heartened by what I saw and experienced.  In the interval, Sunland-Tujunga (in the northern-most part LA) has become a very mixed race community, and noticeably poorer than during its almost lily-white days when my family lived there in the late 1950s.  The campus now sports massive 12 foot chain link fences with locked gates that are opened/closed to channel student traffic during different parts of the school day.  Sadly, that is the norm for big city high schools these days.

But the students we saw, at the ceremony and in groups on campus as the school day was ending, were no different in their behavior, (currently fashionable) dress, deportment, and mood.  They were all neat kids going about their end of day business, joking with one another, making plans for the evening, etc.  In the gym many students came up to us old folks to offer their congratulations for long gone glories, thank us for coming, and just chat.  The question begged was, ‘why all the fences?’  But then today one has to think of security and the lawyers.

After the ceremony, reception, and puu-puus, we agreed that this day which brought us together again is a memory milestone for the rest of our lives.  Also, we now have each other’s contact information and have discovered that we like each other as much or more than we did when we were kids.  On the way back to the airport a group of us stopped at a favorite watering hole to continue the glow.  I am blessed.