COME ON, COME ON AND TOUCH ME BABE

I am a big fan of almost every sport.  One of my favorites is baseball and since the SF Giants have won the World Series, we can put that sport to bed for the winter.

I was reading the paper today and it hit me why Wonder Woman is so into male sports.

In baseball,  when a manager takes a pitcher out of a game , the whole infield is around the mound and the first thing that 6 guy’s do is pat the pitcher on the ass before he is sent to the showers.  Sometimes the shortstop will even give a hint to the catcher to call for a certain pitch; he will adjust his jock strap and call for a screw ball.

In the Saratogian sports section there was an article about a local rugby team.  Have you ever been to a rugby game?  A bunch of guys try to pick up a ball to kick it and once in a while they will all circle around the ball looking up each others shorts until one guy decides to get the ball out of the pile and get on with the game.

Take basketball.  When the players get tired and winded during the game they will bend over and try to yank their pants down.  Wonder Woman loves this one.

Football, now that is my second favorite sport.  The players are wearing even tighter fitting uniforms this year and the linemen are complaining that they make them look terrible, I agree, if you do not have a muscular, well chiseled body and weigh over 320 pounds it can look terrible.  I was watching one game where a lineman passed gas and his pants blew up like a balloon, why you can even tell when the center passed a big one as the quarterback will move back to take the snap from the shotgun stance, and what’s with the quarterback warming his hands under the center’s privates?

 She can’t figure out soccer or hockey yet but I’m sure she’ll also find an angle there.

MESSAGE FROM THE SARATOGIAN 20 YEARS AND STILL NO GO!

Monday, October 22, 2012

MESSAGE FROM THE SARATOGIAN 20 YEARS AND STILL NO GO!

I have been bombarded by posters and facebook friends that have posted it for their friends and have been getting messages from Saratoga Citizen to print an editorial from the 90's that the Saratogian wrote regarding changing the form of government.  So here it is.

 The Saratogian, November 1991 Editorial "Time to Trade In Antique Form of Government"

"The faces may change from election to election, but the City Council will remain an unwieldy, five-headed monster until the form of government is changed.
Saratoga Springs is a city rich in history, but the commission form of government is a tradition whose time has come and gone.
The form has all but disappeared from city governments. Yet Saratoga Springs hangs on to the commission form, the same one in place when the city was chartered in 1915. It’s like hanging on to a Model T – and still trying to drive it.
It’s time for a trade-in.
The problem with the commission government is not its age, but its set-up.
 The City Council comprises five council members, each of whom is in charge of one of the city’s five departments. A council member cannot simply be a legislator. A council member must also be responsible for a specific department; finance, accounts, public safety or public works. The only lone ranger is the mayor, although the engineering department is under the auspices of the mayor’s office.
 The four council members who are responsible for a department get to hire their own deputy commissioner, which is a full-time administrator, to run the office. The deputy commissioner therefore serves at the whim of the one council member responsible for that department.
 No one is in charge. "Mayor" sounds important, but don’t be fooled. The Mayor of Saratoga Springs has no more power than any of the other four heads of the council monster. One head, one vote. That sounds fair, but it makes for ineffective government.
Think of your workplace with no one in charge. The supervisors are left to work things out with one another. As the "Dilbert" cartoon character has pointed out, if one department needs the cooperation of another on some matter, but the matter is not one of the other’s top 1,000 priorities, it won’t get done. At least not right away.
The only hint of accountability comes every two years at election time, when council members can take credit for what got done and blame colleagues for what got stymied.
Over the years, the volunteers and the private sector in Saratoga Springs have done more to enhance the city than has the City Council. The form of government is in part to blame.
Instead of a city run by five disparate departments, one person – be it a manager, administrator, or mayor – should be overseeing the government.
Changing the form of government should be a priority in the coming term. Mayor A.C. Dake – who is unopposed this term – has said she would pursue charter revision. She should hold fast to that commitment to bring Saratoga Springs into the 20th century, before the 21st rolls around."

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KEN & JANE BITE THE DUST

Well Charter fans, the debates are over, about 80 public informational nights by Saratoga Citizen and 5 nights by SUCCESS.

One good things that Saratoga Citizen did was have 4 or 5 City Manager’s there before and after the debate meeting people and answering any questions citizens had and they were quite busy answering questions before the beginning of the debate.  By the way the Managers were in town as the NYS City Managers Association is holding their annual conference here.

The moderator of the debate Thursday night at the Saratoga Springs High School did a sound job keeping the 4 debaters in check time wise although he let Ken Klotz drift on a little too long sometimes, hoping there was going to be a point made.  Those in attendance should have made up their minds one way or another by now. 

Sadly, one thing that stood out to me and my friends was that SUCCESS had no facts to back up their claims, which they had a perfect forum in which to do so.  Ms. Weihe often gave her opinion of something in the Proposed Charter that was completely explained and proved what she had said was entirely based on her spreading false information, which is a hallmark of SUCCESS.  Time after time she made a comment regarding an issue ‘in the Charter’ and when it was answered by the other side with the reading of that particular question, she still told people that the meaning was wrong.  Through the evening the moderator had to tell her to keep quiet and at one point saved her from complete embarrassment when he quietly to her he read the Charter and she was wrong.  He had to silence her 3 times on just that time alone.

One important piece of information we found out last night is that our Commissioners will pick the transition team, and that operating with a full time professional City Manager with the proper educational background is a hard act to beat.  Our elected Mayor and Council have contact with department heads and can even gather information from employees but cannot tell an employee what work to do or where to do it.  That comes from the Department head who answers to the City manager, this is known as a chain of command, another thing we don’t have under our current form of government.

Before the end of the night the moderator asked the Saratoga Citizen duo if there was any place on the internet that one could find out information on how the manager form of government works.  Between both of them they came up with 5 websites to get information and an offer to speak directly to a City Manager.  When the same question was asked of SUCCESS, all they could say was check with the State Comptroller as they perform a full audit of the City.  What in the heck will they tell a caller about a Charter form of government?  Only, in Saratoga Springs.  I like Ken but he must have been coached by that beauty Karen Klotz, yes the same one that looks like she has a pain in her a**.

All in all it was a good night for the Manager form of government and a pie in the face for SUCCESS.  There will be more to follow.

HI DE HO EVERYONE

Well friends we have moved.  Our new blog address is
captainamerica195.blogspot.com

Keep following us and you'll get an idea of what is going on here in Saratoga.

We have for sale 4 - dented and rusted shields
                            2 - Wonder Woman outfits (I may keep those myself)
                            1 pair of the Hulks ripped David banner pants.

Until the next post.