Calhouns Can(n)ons

Call Homeland Security, There’s A Comedian Running Amok In The County

“Sheriff, Sheriff, come quick!”

“What is it a bank robbery? Murder? Huge gangland slaying? Sick people smoking medical marijuana?"

“No, no, one of your deputies is making fun of you.”

“Better git mah gun. Notify the SWAT team.”

Both the New Times and the Tribune are now reporting that the various civil case filings in the Hedges bugging case now indicate that not only were regular procedures for investigating a criminal case ignored, it’s now alleged that what was going on wasn't crime, it was comedy.

According to the Tribune, “ . . . interview with human resources employee Dori Duke . . .” “paint a picture of turmoil in the narcotics until triggered when Hoving promoted Donovan to lead the unit, against Hedges’ opinion that he was unqualified. Hoving later removed Donovan.

“Donovan told the sheriff that Hoving makes fun of the sheriff and takes credit for anything that goes right and blames him for anything that goes wrong,” the lawsuit complaint stated in its account of Duke’s deposition.”

Happily, over at New Times, the Shredder asks the key question at this point: “What I’d like to know is how much this inferiority complex-driven drama has cost taxpayers. Thanks to Hedges’ taping, we’ve already had to foot the bill for a county investigation, an Attorney General investigation – they decided against prosecuting Hedges – and defending the county against a multi-million-dollar lawsuit that’s pending, not to mention whatever it cost t have Hoving retire before he was ready.”

I think our own Barney Fife has a whole lotta ‘splainin’ to do.

Talk About Comedy

Is John McCain joking? Does he really believe that a young woman who’s served a couple of years as governor of a lightly populated state, (a state whose residents get nice oil royalty checks in the mail to make living with caribou a bit easier) is ready to be a heartbeat away from being President of the most powerful country in the world at a turning point in our history, a tipping point in the global balance of power, a country beset with nearly overwhelming problems caused by a reckless corporatocracy, lethal Neo-Con policies, grotesque incompetence and cronyism, (policies McCaine supported overwhelmingly, despite his pretending to Mavrickhood) and a heedless, sleep-walking citizenry? Or is this just a cynical political ploy to garner the anti-abortion, NRA, Revenge-for-Hillary vote?

On the other hand, it may be a great fit. McCain likes to shoot from the hip and Palin likes to shoot mooses. It’s a fun pairing, but the question remains: Is McCain serious?

Your Saturday Poem

This from “Sure Signs," new and selected poems by Ted Kooser (Poet Laureate of the U.S.)

Sleeping Cat

My cat is asleep on his haunches
like a sphinx. He has gone down cautiously
into an earlier life, holding a thread
of the old world’s noises, and feeling his way
through the bones. The scratch of my pen
keeps the thread taut. When I finish
the poem, and the sound in the room goes slack,
the cat will come scampering back
into the blinding, bright rooms of his eyes.