As of tomorrow my job will be shifting into extremely high gear, as those subterranean buggers are beginning to reemerge after a long, but mild winter. If anyone needs to contact me, they will need to try e-mail first, and the cell phone second. The land line won’t do it. So you know.

Also, as things overheat at work, this internet gibberish will be relegated to the back burner, so not only will I be posting less, there may be a significant lag time between when you e-mail me and when I respond. That’s where I’m at.

Remember, some of us internet crazies actually have jobs.

I‘ve been following this growing “Channel 61” brouhaha up Scranton way, only because it may or may not provide us with a glimpse of Wilkes-Barre’s future.

I don’t live in Scranton, so the names of the players mean nothing to me, but let’s just suffice it to say that the city council meetings up in that neck of the mine-scarred woods have been televised donnybrooks for quite some time now. The politicos have long blamed the activists for making those meetings far less than civil or productive, but it seems to me that the politicos are supposed to retain order, not the citizens. Summer Bachman’s approach to controlling drunken customers comes to mind: Do you want a quiet bar, or a rowdy bar? Pick one.

Judging by the most recent goings-on, it seems the politicos up north like it good and rowdy.

Now some councilwoman has upped and cancelled a scheduled council meeting after disclosing that she was the recipient of “implied threats” posted at Doherty Deceit.com. She also ordered the immediate removal of Channel 61’s television cameras from council’s chambers. I explored the message boards at that site, as well as listened to three solid hours of Scranton residents railing against that city’s administration on Radio Free Corbett yesterday afternoon, and the outrage is universal. Scranton residents are beside themselves angry, and promising to turn the next council meeting into possibly the biggest dustup to date.

I found nothing resembling a threat at Doherty Deceit, but I have seen some fairly ugly stuff posted on that site in the past. Not criticisms, not accusations, more like open calls to stalk the elected officials in Scranton. Not cool.

Lately, it seems as if the activists in this city have adopted much more hostile tactics as to how they approach their elected leaders. Where once the activists would rail against excessive spending, high outstanding debts or inordinately high salaries, now they resort to incendiary name-calling and no one is spared being labeled as corrupt. No one. To listen to them tell it, the purchasing of paper clips at city hall smacks of corruption and nepotism.

Our city council meetings used to be civil, but no more. Now our meetings seem to be following Scranton’s disturbing model, and the activists who purposely dispensed with courtesy and civility as part of their self-serving politicking decry the lack of civility when the politicos grow weary of the constant barrages of inflammatory accusations. Imagine that. They pick a fight and then contemn those who gave them exactly what they wanted.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that our council meetings should be televised. Although, I seriously doubt that very many residents would actually watch them. When there is nothing of any great importance on the agenda, nobody bothers to attend them. So am I to believe that televising our city council meetings would appreciatively increase the involvement of the city’s electorate? I’m not buying into that.

The politicos from Scranton claim that once the cameras were installed at city hall, the meetings started to slip out of their control as the usual activists started playing for the cameras. Gone were the decorum and the protocol, as vitriolic grandstanding for the television audience quickly began. That’s what they’re telling us.

Of course, the activists are saying the removal of the cameras is proof that their city government is trying to squash dissent, silence the people and all sorts of things generally accepted as reasonable ways of conducting government business as prescribed by the former KGB. And with of those lines drawn, can anyone actually step forward and return some civility to any future meetings? And can those meetings be remotely productive at all given that everyone involved is just itching for a bigger, better and more highly publicized fight?

Is this what the future has in store for governing in Wilkes-Barre?

If you ask me, it seems like it.

Can Wilkes-Barre’s most recognizable bomb throwers and name-callers restrain themselves with a television audience to play to, when they can barely control their regrettably hateful invective without one? If you think the unwarranted accusations are flying now, what can we expect when the activists don makeup and get to posing for the cameras with their good sides only? It sounds to me as if the cameras will only serve to further devolve our council meetings into becoming completely unproductive bouts of near pandemonium.

And to disagree with me is to state your belief that our current crop of activists are not often given to launching into incendiary tirades for the sole purpose of self-promotion. Seriously, these people are to restrained what Andrew Dice Clay is to being gentlemanly. These people document their bombastic charges about as often as flying monkeys come to Wilkes-Barre in search of red slippers. Admit it, Ambrose Meletsky they aren’t!

So, would televising our council meetings only encourage more discourteousness, more tumult and more flaring nostrils? Or would that be a valuable tool by which Wilkes-Barre residents could more closely monitor the goings-on of city government? Methinks the former would quickly become the case. Me do.

The bigger question is, would anyone even bother to watch?

I doubt it.

Thanks for the videos. We’ve got one of those down here, too. He thinks he’s a “video justice” warrior of some sort. Basically, he’s some unemployed guy with way too much time on his hands, always rambling on and on about how his government is doing him wrong. Proof that having a satisfying career keeps you from getting all bitter about your predicament in life.

Hey, you guys sure do spell funny up Scranton way. I always spelled “deeze” with two Zs. Huh. Go figure.

I‘ll not post anymore e-mails about this spat between myself and the latest anonymous blogger to enter the fray.

I will say this. I’ve been called every name in the book by every which anonymous source, and I am yet to develop an ulcer, go bald, go gray, or stick my head in the oven. Trust me, even if I choose to respond to these prevarications from time to time, it’s really no sweat off of my jock. And while I do enjoy them, there’s no sense keeping on with it until it’s a Hatfield & McCoy thing destined to play itself out over generations.

The guy said his piece, I said mine and no cops were needed. I’m thinking these internet scrums are mostly victimless.

But if somebody thinks they are going to turn their computer on and tell me I am banned from discussing what goes on in my own neighborhood, they are probably inhaling too much of something or other. I’m thinking balsa sealer, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, enough with all of that.

As always, you are correct as far as keeping an open mind goes. But, is it not foolishness to endorse candidates, and then condemn others for doing the same? And is it not also outright foolishness to suggest that identifying with a candidate or a politician and his policies makes one’s opinion too biased and it should be summarily dismissed out of hand? If that’s the case, that I’m too biased, am I still allowed to vote?

As our new internet god says: Blessed are they who shut up.

You again?

In many instances, time does make a discernable difference. Then again, this is the area where conversations about race relations start exclusively with the following intro:

“Now, I’m not a racist, but…”

Hayna, or no?

We saw that report last night and wondered aloud about just where the heck Jenks Lane is at. Now we know.

I don’t know what to tell you about the cops being tight-lipped, but I’m sure they have their reasons. Although, I can see why you and yours would want to know as soon as humanly possible. It’s not everyday that a body shows up out back.

I am a huge proponent of bicycle patrols, only because, as an avid cyclist, I know how completely stealthy they can be when need be. What’s my latest tally, 16 arrests? If the city would deputize me and pay me something close to minimum wage, I’d be more than happy to patrol the streets on my bicycles after dark. Maybe I could start a new Crime Watch division, the mobile stealth patrols, or something. I dunno.

What needs to be seriously addressed is the out-of-control spread and use of illegal narcotics. In my neck of the woods, we’ve had two armed home invasions in the past couple of weeks, and the most recent one was in retaliation for the first. An 18-year-old white girl from Larksville running around with an AK-47? Man, something is very, very wrong.

That’s assuming these armed invasions weren’t in response to misplaced CDs, or stolen hair care products. Seriously, as drug use continues to escalate, in realistic terms, no one is safe. Who’s to say the little girl with the automatic weapon doesn’t make an unscheduled appearance at your house after being given the wrong address? The idiots who invaded the Darling Street residence hit the wrong house, so, am I next? Are you? The only thing I’m growing is a Venus Fly Trap, but I guess that could be confused with marijuana plants if somebody smokes enough crack.

And to think that both of my teenaged daughters used to constantly yap off about me supposedly drinking too much. I used to remind them that, as a society, we’ve got much bigger problems than the guys who sit home throwing empty beer bottles at the television every time Jeff Gordon spins somebody out. You know, I often fantasize about his car sliding upside down on it’s roof for about 2,000 yards while fully engulfed in flames. Does that make me a bad person?

Know what? With damn near every crime committed being tied to illegal drugs, it’s going to get to the point when crimes of passion, or crimes borne of greed will seem downright refreshing. What? He killed his trophy wife for the insurance money? Damn! That’s different.

I really wish the feds would get serious about drug interdiction by putting the big clampdown on our porous borders already. Talk about a clear dereliction of duty. Whew boy! Until they do that, our overstretched cops will be chasing after the druggies for the foreseeable future. And as the availability of narcotics increases, so will the occurrence of violent crimes. I hate to say it, but we’re probably lucky it hasn’t been worse.

See shall see.

Check that deadbolt before you slink off to bed, okay?

Later