Burton Quick Shots:

Dr. Peter Franklin:  I see where Sandy Franklin - my late doctor's wife - has been indicted for murder and will appear in front of Judge Fury this spring. This killing is such a shame... I really liked Dr. Franklin and we spent lots of time in conversations about horses, endurance riding and the West. What is also a shame is the fact that there was NOT a memorial service for him in which all of his friends could get together and properly mourn and celebrate his life. I found out from friends of the former couple that Sandy put the brakes on that particular get-together and that makes me plenty furious! I still think we should have one and so do many of the hunt folks they rode with. I'm not concerned with Sandy's feelings - I'm concerned with honoring a person I admired and getting together with his friends and family in his honor. It's the right thing to do...  PHOTO ABOVE:  Dr. Peter Franklin on the right and Sandy on the left during a hunt. 

75 Cent Fish Wrappers For Sale:  As we've said repeatedly in this blog over the years, you can see the gradual decline of the one daily and the weekly "shopper rags" that pass for newspapers in this county... And so I'm right - both the superficial News-Herald and Maple Leaf are now 75 CENTS PER ISSUE! Absurd. I have not purchased either paper since that increase - and I'm not alone on this move. I KNOW that price hike will hurt their distribution because the boxes are full every day in Burton and Middlefield and I monitor about four of them or so in my daily travels. They're cutting their own throats doing this because the advertisers will very quickly realize their store traffic will not pick-up with their ads. Unbelievable... The newspapers are getting thinner with less and less articles and the writers are "$25 Wonders" - housewives who rush out and do a story all the while having no idea of the "Big Picture". A very poor business decision, but then newspapers are fast becoming dinosaurs... Hell, the Maple Leaf and Courier don't even write editorials! In my book that's called a "shopper" rag... Such a pity...

Cogan's Restaurant:   The death of former Cogan's Restaurant owner Tom Cogan on December 29 has now prompted a two-week and counting close-down of the restaurant. Sources close to the restaurant's management say that Heather Cogan - Tom's wife and fellow worker at the restaurant - is quote "done" with it and that she is actively talking to at least two potential buyers with restaurant experience who wish to start another operation. Another source says that the entire inside of the restaurant will be stripped shortly - today I saw a panel truck parked out front, so this may be true... We will miss that humorous theme. It's very, very tough to run a restaurant in Burton. Now with the Obama economics dragging down everything, people are eating out less and less. We wish them the best no matter how it turns out.

Park Deer Hunts:  I see where that nutcase bunny-hugging Sophia Horvath is on the "warpath" again with scorn for deer hunters in the Geauga County Parks. She was soooo very against that move to let taxpaying hunters finally thin out the park deer. These deer were over-grazing the habitat and driving out other creatures who existed on the same browse. Deer around here are over 200 lbs. and EAT LIKE STEAM ENGINES. And the big deer KNOW they're safe in the parks when the shooting starts. No more. Now we taxpayers - who paid for this goddamn park land anyway - are now allowed to hunt it. And there has only been one problem so far in the three years it's been hunted - the one bowhunter killed a hunting dog while in his stand. That was a bizarre incident that is not yet settled with the dog's owner. Anyway, this Sophie broad has a shitty "column" (I use that term loosely, but then that's the quality of the average rag writer in the puppy-training papers we are forced to read around here these days...) she writes every week and she really sounded off an issue or two ago about how it's so goddamn "unsafe" when the hunters are in the woods bowhunting for these over-populated whitetails (never mind that they're in tree stands and shooting right into the ground - this is lost on this dense bitch). So she has forced the park rangers to go around and "warn" adjoining landowners that hunting is going on. When will this anti-hunting garbage stop? I don't even recall seeing this fat-ass broad at any Whitetail Unlimited banquets spending any big bucks for whitetail deer habitat. Have you? If she's concerned about deer, she'd be at this event SPENDING SOME REAL MONEY FOR CONSERVATION - JUST LIKE THE HUNTERS DO EVERY YEAR. Instead she's just sitting around throwing a bunch of hot air around.

School Levies:   I guess the school boards of Chardon and Middlefield did not pay attention to the HUGE Geauga County Tea Party that was held here this summer... Oh my... I see where Chardon and Middlefield are going to PUT BIG OPERATING LEVIES/INCOME TAX ON THE BALLOT THIS SPRING. Are they nuts? Have they lost sight of the fact that MANY big factories and businesses around here have let go workers? Have they lost sight that Geauga County had a record year of home foreclosures and bankruptcies? WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING? This is criminal. No other word for it. I had a Chardon teacher in my store the other day and this idiot doesn't get it either. He was crybabying for more money and shoving in my face that his entire staff is on "work to rule" (work stoppage) because they didn't get a pay increase. HELLO REAL WORLD! He said, "I used to bleed for that school district, but now I'm out of there at 2:45." I said, "I got news for you, voters will remember that you wouldn't help the kids after school. You can't call yourself a true teacher if you won't help a kid. That's awful." He said the school board "has the money" and that they spent it recklessly like purchasing a $400,000 house (I still don't know what that is about...). I said, "The party's over, pal. The voters don't have the money any longer and they know if a levy passes that the money will go to the teachers anyway." I really let this guy have it. It's amazing how spoiled these teachers are and how they don't care about reality - typical liberals. Me, me, me, me. They go all to pieces if THEY don't get the money they think they ought to get, but they could care less about the taxpayers who are barely making it and can't afford a new operating levy. I gave this guy hell and he stomped out of my store. These boards are damn FOOLS to let their districts go into $2 million deficits. In the business world that is called MISMANAGEMENT any way you cut it. You pay too much in benefits, retirement and salary and you strangle. The party's over!

Burton Village Budget:   Well, I guess the "scare" about the Burton Village Council having to "cut back" on its budget must be over because I see where they passed the authorization to have a firm come in and pick-up on May 8 for a "Burton Clean-Up" for the residents. As I've said, that luxury should be the first to go. Let the citizens pay for their mess much like the hauling of weekly garbage or snow removal on their own properties. Right?  And here's another BIG money waste:  Remember how VITAL it wa for the "Hideous Blue Lights of Blue X-Mas" be POLITICALLY CORRECT and we "energy efficient?  WEll, I guess that little budget minded thought went out the window because they were STILL BURING AROUND TOWN nearly a MONTH after X-Mas...  Tell me it ain't so, Virginia...   Oh my...  Again, things SHOULD run as a business or all hell breaks loose. While on the subject of WEIRD council moves, a man trying to set-up a Burton Main Street business came to me this week and said he'd rented a space and that he wanted to start his business there. The catch was that there is an ordinance in place here in that requires a FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR deposit for a new sign! What the hell is this? The man said he talked to Mayor Blair about it and even he was not believing this. What is the purpose behind a $500 deposit? It doesn't make any sense to me... Oh boy... Again: The Council always discourages new business and tries to hog-tie those in business. Oh my...

Cold, Cold, Cold:  I've said it for years and I'll say it again: Global whining is bullshit. As I type this, my temperature gauge outside my river property is saying six below zero. NOW WHERE IS THE GODDAMN GLOBAL WARMING? That goofy 2001 Berkshire grad (I don't know where he went to college, but his diploma should be unceremoniously yanked) who wrote in last week about global whining was BOMBARDED with people who wanted to toss him in the Artic drink with the polar bears and killer whales. I suppose he saw Al Gore's lyin' ass "movie" about the subject and swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Doesn't college make you look at FACTS and then make determinations? Sure did when I went through... And what's more: The young lady who works with me and goes to Lake Erie College said that the freshmen are REQUIRED to watch Gore's horseshit movie in the science class of all places! What a liberal bent! If I were a thinking student, I'd get right up and walk out during that flick and would walk out if ANY professor brought up anything pro-Gore bullshit or even spoke of Obama's "hopes" (that's all the fool has...).

Dashed "HOPE" Turns to "NOPE":   Well, it's been a year since the self-professed "Mess-iah" took the reins and we're no closer to the end of the Mid-East war, a better economy, the "stimulus" working, a lowering of the unemployment rate or anything that would indicate that his plundering of the treasury has succeeded. Total failure. Of course this was predicted: After all Obama had never held a job, never been a good professor, voted 136 times "present" as a senator and is, after all, just a talking dummy. He's just TALK. He came to Ohio last week - Elyria - and just talked. That didn't give anyone a long-term job. His speech was hot air... What good is that? He's truly a failure. He has accomplished NOTHING. Nada. We warned all of you sheep. I have yet to hear ANYONE admit they voted for him. NO ONE.

98th Ohio House Seat:   Our good friend and pro-gun senator Tim Grendell has made it official: He WILL run for Dolan's soon to be vacated position. That really changes things as Grendell OWNS any office he wishes in Geauga County. Man, I love that guy! Mark my words: He will be the governor of Ohio in the near future. And he'll make a good one! I recently advised Mary Briggs to NOT run against him - it would be a waste of time and money. Others will bow out as well if they're smart... Why get bested by a landslide? This is a shoe-in.