A GANDER AT WHAT’S GOING ON

The National Scene

Now that you’ve heard the announcement of Gaddafi’s demise for the 999th time, are you any more impressed than the first time you heard it? Yeah, me neither.

At least this time we didn’t fly off into the wild blue yonder with F-15’s blazing and ready to ship thousands of our troops over there to “clean up” yet another mid-eastern country which is anything but devoutly loyal to us. And speaking of Iraq—there is good news regarding that sand squalor, so says President Obama with the new date of our withdrawal of all our troops by this year’s Christmas. Thankfully. Next on the agenda? It certainly should be, and hopefully will be, a withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan. If our government wants to leave a passel of drone bombers, fine by me. I think I speak for at least half the citizens in the United States when I say “Just get every last member of our armed forces the heck out of there!” And now would not be too soon.

Then there’s the “super committee,” aka the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. These fine intellectuals have gathered to find ways to lower the amount of our national debt, and one of the methods to do this is by ignoring the very large elephant in the room and just continuing to let our debt grow or… to finally dig in and begin to solve the financial crisis looming over us. The Super Committee believes it has found a way to reduce $1.2 million by reforming three major issues for every American alive and yet to be born, by reforming the tax code, Social Security, and Medicare. And their first step in actually taking an action toward this lofty goal would be for Congress to repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate before January, 2012. If Congress does not do this, all seniors relying on Medicare, military families in need of VA help, and anyone in charge of a person with a medical disability who is now being seen by the few physicians who are actually willing to take on Medicare patients may very well find themselves out on the street, as the saying goes, because without the SGR repealed by Congress, all physicians now treating Medicare patients will be expected to take about a 30 percent cut in their payments.

A toll-free call to each Congressional member in Washington from every citizen with even a shadow of a conscience regarding their fellow human beings is the request being made, and very possibly the only chance the American public has in promoting changes, such as repealing the SGR, that only can be passed or pooped on by Congress. The number is: 888-434-6200. This will get you into a national call center for patient advocacy, with help from the other end to find your specific Congressional representative. You can call this number any time, day or night. If the office for your Congressperson is not open, no problem, leave a message asking the Congressperson to vote on REPEALING THE SGR. See? Not real complicated. So, if you want to do something aside from complain—here’s your chance. And tell ‘em Soo sent you!

And What Are The Locals Doing?

Apparently, preparing for the Fighting Sioux Special Session. Other than that, it doesn’t appear North Dakota’s representatives are too fired up to do much of anything. While I can appreciate wanting to be cautious and even lean a bit on the conservative side of not spending money out of the state coffers too quickly, jeez Louise, people! Have you no shame regarding the shambles some of your larger cities are facing in Bismarck, Minot, Dickinson and Williston?

Minot is a total disaster, with more people looking to leave than remain. Bismarck and Dickinson have to have some of the worst and possibly most dangerous streets I have ever had to drive on. Williston? All I know about Williston is what I hear, like everyone else, from talk radio guests and callers who most definitely want and expect the state and their city councils to let loose with some of the money to replace, repair and regenerate their cities’ infrastructure and hopefully hire new people to help administrate and enforce codes and laws – something that certainly is not being done now. In a city of 20,000 and growing daily with transient and permanent residents coming in, one would hope to have more than only three full- time law enforcement personnel on duty during a shift! Especially when the shifts are twelve hours long! Think about that for a moment. Consider how you feel at the end of a regular eight-hour day at your job. Now add four more hours to that. How do you think you might be functioning toward the end of your day at, oh, say, hour ten? Then times the number of duties you perform and questions you need to answer in a day by –oh, say potentially 14,000 people who at any given time, regardless of what you are doing, can and do call with complaints, accidents, domestic disturbances, animal retrievals, assaults, DUI drivers, speeders, and in general “the usual pain in public” types. And while you are doing your job by responding to all these calls in as expedient a manner as possibly safe, you have to take an extra minute to try and remember which four-foot hole to avoid because you are driving an expensive taxpayer-provided vehicle on streets so badly in need of repair that hitting one at just the right speed might prove to be calamitous to you and the department vehicle. Do you think you could handle your job every day under the same circumstances? Maybe. But why would you want to? It sure wouldn’t be for the pay! No one working in law enforcement in the state of North Dakota will ever get rich off their salary. That much I can guarantee.

So what’s the problem with the city fathers and mothers of these towns playing the role of Scrooge with their budget purses brimming with green? I have no idea, except that they should all be happy I am not living in any of them, because I would be on a soap box every week, raging until the city commissions and council representatives finally did something to correct the problems.

So, citizens of Bismarck, Minot, Dickinson and Williston – are you simply going to sit back and wait complacently, or do you think it’s time you stood up for what you believe, move in the right direction, and finally put the fire to the feet of the people you elected to get things done? It is YOUR money, North Dakota! Voicing your opinions and needs won’t get you killed. Bad streets and roads, especially during winter, very well could.

Hear the call! MOORHEAD GRADUATES OF 1954: if anyone owns or has any idea where I can find a 1954 Moorhead High School annual, I would really like to hear from you! It’s for a special project and I’m trying to help the folks who would like to copy it for a special reunion. We’ve tried the Clay County Historical Association and both the Moorhead High School and Moorhead Public Libraries. None of them has a copy from 1954. Please call me if you have any leads on where to find a 1954 Moorhead High annual at 218-233-8604 or 701-799-0992.

*** HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARRIET SMITH of Augusta, Ga., wherever you are today!

Got an opinion of your own? Email Soo at sooasheim@aol.com or write a letter to the editor and send it to: fmextra@ncppub.com