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Show 1 ' A6 Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Vernal Express .,,.-.. , . . I, .in .nuiiriinmi """" O-P-HSH-0-N- ELECTION TIME AGAIN By Kevin Askby Express Publisher Folks, it's that time of the season again when brave and adventurous people who have signed up to run for a political office are expecting us to go to the voting booths. It is also a time for all Americans to indulge themselves in the freedom of open elections enjoyed in this country and vote. In case you haven't noticed, it is getting harder and harder to get honest, hard-working adults to run for any given office. We, the citizens, have made the political process so hard and uncomfortable for most good people to even consider and, therefore, the general interest in running for office is dwindling. If candidates are not beaten and bloodied during the campaign trail, it is not hard to imagine the grief that is dished out to politicians after they are elected and -have to make decisions they hope will benefit the masses as well as the individual. At times, the process is brutal and definitely not fun as the public voices their opinions, wants and demands, usually without saying please, and then reacting in extremes when the vote doesn't go their way. Now, I realize that I am talking about the extremes, but I have sat through quite a few council and commissioner meetings where you have to wonder why anybody would run for office and have to sit there and take that kind of abuse. There are ways to discuss things, even with great emotion, without belittling those elected to make judgment and then good decisions based on available information. in-formation. There is not doubt that elected officials have to make some hard decisions, and sometimes they have to approve things that are not favored by surrounding residents and land owners, but by law, the request has to be approved. And they still receive comments about their parentage and education. If you are running for office then having a thick skin will help. But so will a country of citizens who show a little more understanding of what it takes to govern rather than saying "not in my backyard" as an answer to every proposal. In any regard, the politicians are now listed, and they deserve a vote for whom we think is the best qualified. At this point in time, hitting the voting booths next Tuesday is the least that we can do to make sure the best is put into office. Please make arrangements to vote on next Tuesday. Web opinion poll Each week the Vernal Express offers an online poll to its readers. To participate in the poll, visit www.vernal.com and click on the opinion link. Polls are not scientific and represent the opinions of voluntary Internet users. New polls are posted weekly and printed results represent voting as of Tuesday morning. If you have an idea for an opinion poll, e-mail it to editorvernal.com. Results for this week Does Vernal need a new $15 million City Hall? a) Yes (18) b) No (82) This question will run for one more week. Yes i , ,i DELIGHT IN FRIGHT By Patrick Timothy Mulukin t .-wA Express Editor For the past month I have spent my Friday and Saturday Satur-day nights, religiously, skulking around in the darkness at Remember The Maine Park attempting to scare people. It's mean-spirited, I admit, but if people are willing to swap their hard-earned cash in exchange for a few minutes of getting spooked, I am happy to oblige. Several times each night I step out of the cold, damp woods in my priest vestments and lead victims to my exorcism tent, where I introduce them to Regan, star of the 1973 classic horror film, "The Exorcist." After a few incantations in ad-libbed "Latin" (E pluribus unum. Spiritus sanctus. Call for Phillip Morris. Veni. Vidi. Vici. Cogito ero sum. Ars gratia artis (courtesy of the Leo, MGM lion) and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (courtesy of Iron Butterfly), But-terfly), I drive the devil from my life-sized Linda Blair mannequin. I then splash these onlookers with "holy water" and send them on their way down a darkened path to be chased by a chainsaw-wielding lunatic. My acting skills fall somewhere between pathetic and a crack in the floor. "Are you Santa Claus?" one pumped-up male high-school student asked me. "Ha, ha, ha." His toadies laughed at his witticism. He got his though. I heard him scream a girly-man scream moments later when the chainsaw lunatic took off after him. Serves him right. On a different night, a group of female high-schoolers asked if I were "Emo." My black priest's robe and the black makeup smeared under my eyes must have pegged me as one. My clever comeback, which I have forgotten already, was met with a collectively mumbled "whatever," as they shambled through my tent passively pas-sively and without the slightest interest. They were a surly bunch and probably scared the chainsaw lunatic more than he did them. Bit actor that I am in the grand scheme of things at the haunted trail, I have quite a bit of down time between performances. I spend my time wisely, sitting around the campfire thinking of ways to improve my act and acting. More often I look up at the sky hoping to see a shooting star or a UFO. This is my first professional acting gig. Granted it's a small one, without pay, one that will most likely be forgotten after Oct. 31, our last night at the park. The real stars of the show, the seasoned performers, are the rubber knife-carrying, masked volunteers who get to jump from behind trees and rocks. These are the Di Neros and Nicholsons who make the little kids cry and cause the loudmouthed loud-mouthed husbands and boyfriends to hide behind their womenfolk. women-folk. I long to join their ranks, to rid myself of my confining robe and silly incantations and go straight for the jugular. I've given the priesthood priest-hood my best shot, and it's time to move on to the big time. Veni. Vidi. Vici. pmullikin(n vernal, com Editor On-paper or On-line... YOUR OPINION COUNTS! Submit your letters to the editor at: Vern.il Express 60 East 1 00 North Vernal, Utah 8-1073 Or online at: vernal.com BERTHA BUTTERBEAH BMW or Batmobile? Dana Colovich Guest Writer I used to drive a enormous, enor-mous, low-slung low-slung 1969 Pontiac. Just so you know, I didn't drive it in 1969, nor in 1970. In fact, we didn't own it until about 1985, and I was still driving it in 1990. To be fair about it, underneath the hood was a well-muscled machine with an engine-size of 428 somethings, some-things, which is impressive I think. I also think that my boys raced it more than once and usually won. Whether they won any money or not, I don't know, but it would not have been hard to hustle up some unsus-pectingcompetition, unsus-pectingcompetition, because judging the car by the part outside the hood, you would think that it could do no more than limp. One Halloween, even my shiny, clean, brand-new red 1990 BMW convertible (with only 300- and-something under the hood) went out in costume. It was disguised as a paint-chipped, erunch-fend-ered, khaki-colored 1969 Pontiac Pon-tiac Grand Prix. We called it the Batmobile not because it was smart enough to catch penguins, but because it was so scary. And sound effects! The Batmobile could furnish backgrounds for the House of Usher. The passenger door sounded like the most Gothic of iron gates when it swung on its hinges. The mufflers thumped like Sasquatch running through the swamp. When the speedometer speed-ometer cable squealed and the hood-liner flapped, we had giant man-eating bats fleeing some underground cavern. In more ways than one, bats have become an important im-portant part of the spoken and written lore of the But-terbean But-terbean family. And I'm not referring to bats in the belfry this time. Most of the bat incidents involve the person in the family fam-ily who lives in mortal fear of bats. Some people probably go through life and never see one. Not this family member. Of course bats are nocturnal animals, and so is she, which accounts for her running into them more often than the rest of us. When she worked as a maid, cleaning cabins at a mountain resort, hers was always the cabin with bats in it. When she went out to meditate under the stars, bats flew around her head. I told the following story already, but I should have saved it for Halloween. In case you missed it, here it is again. If you didn't miss it, skip down a couple of paragraphs. One summer night our phobic daughter wrapped up in a blanket and went outside to take a breath of fresh air (check on the movements of the neighborhood). While sitting on the front porch, she chanced to look upward. There among the rafters, a few feet above her head and hanging upside down, was a good-sized bat blinking at her. She jumped up with a prolonged shriek, ran for the door, wrenched it open and immediately went into a skid on the waxed parquet flooring. floor-ing. Running in a blanket is a bit clumsy at best. With her racing slicks on, she lost traction, trac-tion, and her body rapidly got ahead of her feet. She didn't quit body surfing until she hit carpet. I am happy to say that she was called "safe" at home plate. My daughter had one other fear besides bats. That was of the Batmobile. It had nothing to do with its name. That part was coincidental, but the thought of driving it horrified her. I don't think she would have driven herself to the hospital in it. That would have been a little too much like being caught dead in it. (She didn't believe that it was a Beamer in disguise like I did.) For one last Halloween (this one), the Batmobile is still sitting in the backyard. It still has a crumpled fender. Its paint is far beyond chipped and is more like crumbled. Its hood-liner is dragging down onto the seats. Every square inch of its interior has become a mouse metropolis. It's like something out of Frankenstein Franken-stein the Car. I suspect that under its hood, though, is an engine that has withstood the ravages rav-ages of time and can still take on the competition if not scare it, at least worry it a bit. After this Halloween, I have to say goodbye to the Beamer in disguise. Someone is buying it. At least part of it. "Ofcourse,"youarethink-ing. "Ofcourse,"youarethink-ing. "some speed-freak wants to put that 420-something engine into a drag racer." Wrong. I'm not kidding; someone wants the body. I ' Trick Trie, I ( ( KID , V . W1 'lis! t: "Wfy '"h """"""N fj tJ&iSif ' .... ., 'rZ55 1 . .... i Public Forum - Letters to the Editor What is your opinion? The Vernal Express welcomes letters from its readers concerning any subject pertinent to the Uintah Basin. There are no restrictions on contents, if in good taste and not libelous or vindictive. Letters may be edited for grammar and style, length and content. All letters must be submitted exclusively to the Vernal Express and bear the full name, signature, phone number and address of the writer or writers. Letters for the sole purpose of expressing thanks to individuals or groups will not be printed in this forum. Submissions may be mailed to 54 N. Vernal Ave., Vernal, UT 84078; faxed to 435-789-8690 or sent by e-mail to editorvernal.com The name or names of the persons submitting letters must appear on all published letters. Letters express the opinion of the writer or writers and are not necessarily the opinion of the Vernal Express. Airport neglect Dear Editor, Once again our airport is being neglected and is rundown. run-down. There is grass blocking the landing lights making it very hard sometimes to land. Our human resource personnel should be reprimanded repri-manded for ever letting the only person that had ever worked hard every day out in the sun trying to catch up on years of neglected upkeep at our airport resign. Poor management should have resulted in firing higher up, not moving the problem onto someone else's hand. Winter is on its way, and it would be unfortunate if another airplane crashes because the runways haven't been plowed. Jamie Lynn Johnson Vernal Editorial ad response Dear Editor This is a response to "Ad belongs on editorial page." Sandy Hansen is an obvious ob-vious left-wing conspiracy theorist gone mad. She equates negative ads about liberal politicians with their demise and impendingassas-sination. impendingassas-sination. This is the typical foolish, fool-ish, overly emotional liberal response. What happened to the Illinois State Senator "Barry" Obamu? Why did he change his name to one that sounds Muslim? Huh? You seem to thinkyou have all the answers, so please enlighten en-lighten me, as elitist liberals such as yourself consider it your duty. Oh, by the way, I thought free speech was st ill protected in this country, but according to Sandy Hansen il only applies to leftists and Marxists such us herself. Alice L. Hall Vernal You got one thing right Dear Sandy, Well, you got one thing right; I am suggesting that Barack Hussein Obama had a lot to do with the economic eco-nomic crash. He and Senator Dodd, Congressman Barney Frank and the Democratic majority in the House and Senate stopped five efforts by the Republican minority minor-ity to oversight and control the purchase of sub prime mortgages, which were being be-ing forced upon Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which ultimately doomed those organizations to financial failure. To assert as you do that the advertisement in The Dallas Morning News incited someone to kill President Kennedy is ridiculous; we still do not know who killed the president. It's more likely to be a jealous husband or a dru g deal gone bad than some wacko who read the Morning News. I agree with you that we should consider the candidates' candi-dates' stand on important issues: If you want to kill the babies, vote for Obama. If you want to give access and influence to unrepentant terrorist to the White House, vote for Obama. If you approve of America haters and racists like Pastor Wright and Father Pfleger and want to give them more influence, vote for Obama. If you want socialism for this country and want to see your hard-earned money taken from you and spread around to people who won't work, vote for Obama. If you want to see left-wing organizations like Acorn given giv-en millions of your tax dollars to organize fraudulent voter registrations where there are more people registered, to vote Democrat than there are people in the country, then vote for Obama. In the meantime, we at Uintah Auto & Homes, Inc., will continue to do our thing, sell cars and trucks, run our ads using our own money, not taxpayer money, and finance auto purchases, being mindful mind-ful that we are blessed by God to be born in a great country where a kid born dirt poor can achieve success through hard work without any help from the government or anybody else. Sincerely, Les Inabnit. owner Uintah Auto & Homes, Inc. 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