Jose Castañeda Doesn’t Bother Me

Reprinted from The Carmel Pine Cone, April 5, 2013

In certain circles, it is fashionable to work up a frothy head of jaundice when speaking of Jose Castañeda.

Jose Castañeda is a kook. Jose Castañeda is dangerous.

The accepted opinion among the high and the mighty in Monterey County is that Jose Castañeda makes a mockery of democracy, that he’s turned the Salinas City Council into a three-ring circus. He’s a wacko with a cause. He glorifies a notorious and long-dead bandit (horrors!) and his mere presence disrupts the social order.

Get over it, people.

Throughout Monterey County’s long and proud history, kooks and wackos have enjoyed glorious ascendancies in local politics without destroying the social fabric of the region. The woods are full of them. If Monterey County enacted an ordinance forbidding weird gadflies from public office, we’d never be able to fill the average school board.

The most casual political observer wouldn’t have to dig far to find a Jose Castañeda on their own city council. And a handful of local oddballs actually move along to higher office. Witness Jeff Denham, who now babbles tea party drivel in Washington D.C.

If we survived Peter Frusetta, the erstwhile Cowboy in the Capitol, we’ll certainly survive a Jose Castañeda in our midst.

But here’s the thing: Everyone seemed to be okay with a guy like Frusetta and his nutty way of doing things as a state Assemblyman during the 1990s. He was sort of loveable and he wasn’t rude to the local media and—well, you know—he wasn’t one of those La Raza de la Gente troublemakers.

A troublemaker. That’s the word. Jose Castañeda is a troublemaker. And somehow he got elected.

For the uninitiated, Castañeda is an Alisal School District board member who got himself elected to the Salinas City Council in November. Citing conflict-of-interest precedence, the rest of the council believes Castañeda should resign one of his elected positions.

Castañeda refuses, so now everyone has their panties in a wad, as though Castaneda is the first political animal they’ve ever encountered who is encumbered by conflict.

Castañeda hasn’t helped himself in the public-relations department. He’s the sort of guy who actually runs from the television cameras. His dumb-ass supporters are circulating a petition to recall the new mayor. He celebrated his swearing-in ceremony at the card room down the street from City Hall. He runs his school board meetings as if he’s presiding over a street riot.

If he has an agenda—or even a point of view—he doesn’t seem anxious to share it with anyone.

The movers and shakers in Monterey County have expended so much energy denouncing Castañeda that they haven’t spent any time trying to figure out what Castañeda is symptomatic of in the district he represents.

Castañeda appeared out of nowhere from one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Monterey County. He represents a district with a population density that rivals Manhattan, but where only 3,415 citizens bothered to vote in November.

The Alisal in East Salinas has long been represented by a succession of activist Latino politicians with lofty ideals who quickly got co-opted or gutted by the powers that be in Monterey County. They got along to get along.

They were told that the system would work for them if they worked within the system, if they stopped being troublemakers. So they abandoned their ideals. They compromised and nothing changed, except their own lives got considerably more comfortable.

Supervisor Fernando Armenta is incapable of making one of his harmlessly inane public statements anymore without prefacing it with a litany of apologies to those he might offend. Supervisor Simon Salinas will be a featured speaker at an upcoming Panetta Institute Lecture Series event. That doesn’t happen if you’ve built a career out of challenging the political and social order.

So a guy like Jose Castañeda fills the vacuum.

It’s hard to know what Castañeda thinks he represents or what he hopes to accomplish. He seems too distracted by his status as a martyred angel to tell anyone.

Or maybe no one has asked.

The Purpose of Your Trip

The guy in the uniform at U.S. Customs in Houston must tire of asking the same question of everyone he encounters at his kiosk.“What was the purpose of your trip?”

People who work at Customs probably build their careers around that question. But I paused a beat, trying to frame an answer.

The people who have cared for my father in Mexico.

Did he really want to know why I had been in Mexico? Did he have the time? Would the hundreds of fellow travelers in line behind me forgive me if I delay their progress by telling him the full story?

Would he even care that I had encountered saints and angels in Mexico?

What was the purpose of my trip?

I could have told him that I had been filled with dread when I arrived in Mexico five days earlier. My difficult and long-lost father, who has been living in Mexico for almost three decades, was in need of convalescent care. Lucy, the woman who cared for him in his old age, couldn’t handle him anymore.

The cliché is that stuff doesn’t work in Mexico, that every little thing can turn to chaos, that everything is more difficult than it should be. Combine that with what I already know about the impossible bureaucracy and the expense of the gloomy human warehouses that too many seniors are consigned to in the United States, and I expected an extended temple-throbbing nightmare in a foreign country.

My brother Vince and I arrived in Leon, Guanajuato, on Friday evening. We prepared for the worst.

But within thirty hours we had my father checked in at the sweetest little convalescent joint in the Western Hemisphere, a place that costs roughly one-thirteenth the cost of a similar care facility in the United States.

The house manager was there to greet him when he showed up. So was the owner. It was eight-thirty on a Saturday night.

Think about that: Management showed up on a Saturday night to meet a new client, to get him checked in and comfortable. The managers spent the next three hours introducing themselves, cooing over him. And kissing him. There seems to be a lot of kissing in this place.

I’ve never tried getting a 90-year-old who isn’t an emergency case into a convalescent care facility in the United States on a Saturday night, but I can imagine the reaction of management would be much different than what we encountered in Mexico.

I can also imagine the Human Resources nightmare an employee would face if he or she dared to kiss an aging patient.

What was the purpose of my trip?

My father turned 90 on Monday, so we threw a party for him in his new room. A random musician even showed up, and we all sang Las Mañanitas before the guitarist serenaded my father with appropriately ironic American rock standards. “Tears in Heaven” and “Dust in the Wind.”

I’m not real sure my father always knew what was going on around him. We could sense a smile or two from his old lips, now and then, and he even struggled to clap his hands after I made some maudlin speech to thank the saints and angels who had shown so much love for the guy over the years.

I’m still not sure why these people in Mexico sacrificed so much of their lives to care for my father for so long. But their devotion to him is genuine. Lucy calls him “grandfather.”

Lucy is devastated by all this. She has devoted the last five years to my father’s care, but she simply can’t do it any longer. She is heartbroken that the bedroom she and her husband built for him will now be empty. Lucy is not family, but she’s all loving care.

So the guy in the uniform at Customs asked me the purpose of my trip.

I hesitated. Did he really care, or was the question merely an official formality?

“Visiting friends,” I said.

Improvements Abound for Annual Family Letter

Reprinted from the Carmel Pine Cone, Dec. 7, 2012 …

Dear (pick one) Friends, Colleagues, People We Vaguely Remember Knowing Many Years Ago:

Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Mele Kalikimaka.

We hope you had a bountiful 2012 and we trust that you are looking forward to a profitable 2013.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve likely noticed that The Livernois Family Annual Christmas Letter has undergone substantial restructuring this year. We know how difficult this must be for you. Change is difficult, but we are confident that your enjoyment of the annual Christmas letter will not be diminished once you are accustomed to the changes.

In fact, we believe the innovative redesign we’ve implemented will result in an improved reading experience. With hip and trendy new content, our annual letter remains as relevant as ever.

As the editor of The Livernois Family Annual Christmas Letter (LFACL), please allow me a moment to explain the changes we have made.

First, you’ll see that this year’s letter was sent to you via (pick one) email, Twitter, Facebook, RSS feed and/or Instagram. Due to diminishing profit margins and the escalating cost of colored printer ink and postage, the management team at LFACL recently decided to move all its print operations to digital.

Our digital presentation greatly enhances the LFACL experience. As an example, I urge you to check out the unedited YouTube video of Heather’s recent field hockey match (click here). Be sure to watch Heather’s heroics at the 43-minute mark. We’re very proud of our Heather.

Also, we know you will enjoy our 134-photo Shutterfly album of Johnson, our new kitty cat (click here).Be sure to purchase a few of the photographs.  

As you know, The Livernois Family is a family-oriented family and we value each member of our family team. Many of them are like family to us, especially the ones who don’t complain about family management.

So it pains us to announce that we have been forced to eliminate two grandchildren, three cousins, a son and a nephew from our family. (Editor’s note: Heather survived the cut!)

Despite the family-force reduction, we are pleased that the operations of LFACL enjoyed a smooth transition after we transferxed LFACL’s copyeditting dooties to a fool-service coppyediting ferm located in Bangalore. Similarly, all of LFACL’s art-department operations have been shipped overseas because (have Bangalore insert justification here).

Meanwhile, you may have heard the vicious rumor that The Livernois Family recently cancelled family-provided health benefits to all family members. While the rumor is true, we are confident that the savings we gain will help make the LFACL better than ever.

What’s more, as much as we value our family team, it is no secret that many of our remaining members have not been holding up their end of the family contract, yet they continue to reap the benefits of privately subsidized medical care. In fact, many family members are nothing but an expensive drain on the family, and elimination of their benefits will certainly result in greater efficiencies within The Livernois Family.

As I’m sure you all know, family-place efficiencies can only improve the reading experience for our FLACL subscribers, who we also value.

In fact, we value our readers so much that, beginning immediately, we have increased subscription rates to our annual Christmas letter. (click PayPal link here)

All of these changes are necessary, of course, because that sumbitch Obama got reelected. He is sending us over the physical cliff (have Bangalore check spelling) and Mother says that I might need to see a doctor soon to have my throbbing eye-twitch checked. It’s been bothering me since Nov. 6.

As you can see, it’s been a busy and productive year for the staff and management of The Livernois Family. As chief executive officer, I am gratified to report that The Livernois Family board has rewarded my hard work with a one-year contract extension and a high-six-figure bonus.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

The Mistake That’s a Lake

That the Salton Sea stinks to high heaven shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has had the misfortune of standing at its shores.

That it recently stunk up the entire Inland Empire is proof that Old Testament mojo is alive and well in the Imperial Valley.

Not familiar with the Imperial Valley? Grab a map of California. Look down at the bottom. See that blotch of blue that looks like a cankered sphincter? That’s the Salton Sea. The area around it is the Imperial Valley.

Odd things happen down there: Biblical plagues of screeching insects. A summer sun capable of boiling tar. Ground that shakes like the old man’s DTs. Dust storms massive enough to spark lightning.

When the atmospheric conditions are just right, the feedlot cattle kick up excrement-laden dust that lingers over the Imperial Valley. The Los Angeles Basin might have its smog, but it isn’t half as bad as the Imperial Valley’s shust.

The Salton Sea was created in 1905, the result of an engineering foul-up that allowed water diverted from the Colorado River to settle into a big geologic depression at the north end of the Imperial Valley.

Left to nature, the water would have eventually evaporated.

But the geniuses in Congress decided that the Salton Sea could serve as handy end storage for agricultural wastewater and chemical-laced seepage from the Imperial Valley. At 376 square miles, it’s been California’s largest open sump pit ever since.

For many years, the Salton Sea was also the primary sewage disposal pond for the city of Mexicali.

If all that is not bad enough, Hollywood has used the Salton Sea as the setting for some of its greatest stinkers. Val Kilmer and Hans Conried come to mind.

The big lake has been there for 100 years, allowed to fester with benign neglect. Over the decades, it has become an important habitat for wintering birds and three-eyed fish; conservationists have been trying to keep the lake healthy.

Several weeks ago, the oxygen-starved, salt-encrusted lake killed off a great quantity of fish.

Last Sunday, a storm of Biblical proportions descended upon the Imperial Valley.  It churned the great lake, stirring the remains of three-eyed fish corpses.

The result, according to The Los Angeles Times, was an “epic stink” that could be felt 150 miles to the north of the Salton Sea.

It spread across the Southland like a rushing Limbaugh. They smelled it in Riverside. They smelled it in Burbank. It was a stench so foul that even the citizens of Los Angeles could tell the difference.

To be fair, it should be noted that the Imperial Valley is not alone in creating malodorous California distractions.

For instance, the city of Turlock, encircled in the sludge of industrial dairies, is capable of great reek in the damp of winter.

And there exists sections of the “island” in Moss Landing where fish offloading operators apparently hose off their equipment with leftover fish fluids.

But those fester odors are generally centralized, infecting the olfactory senses of only those living in the immediate vicinity.

As Monday’s incident proved, the Salton Sea is capable of infecting a huge populated region.

The swatch of area affected by the stench was so wide that skeptical air-quality officials refused to blame the open-air sump. They didn’t believe it was theoretically possible for a smell that bad to spread as far as it did.

Research proved them wrong.

The problem, apparently, is that the Salton Sea is losing elevation; water isn’t being replenished as quickly as it is now evaporating. Successful efforts to conserve water in the desert means that less agricultural wastewater flows to the lake.

But lower water levels mean that more fish will die and the smell is likely to become a matter of routine.

Everyone wants to Keep Tahoe Blue, according to the bumper stickers. Now that everyone in Southern California has now smelled “The Mistake That’s A Lake” for themselves, one can only hope that the movement to Keep Salton Sea Alive will take hold soon.

Reprinted from The Carmel Pine Cone, the official fanzine for Clint Eastwood and empty chairs.

Join My Fact-Free Campaign Now

Reprinted from The Carmel Pine Cone, Sept. 6, 2012

Welcome to my campaign. Climb aboard.

You will find my campaign a liberating experience now that I have abandoned all pretention of facts. I will never allow the so-called “fact-checkers” to ruin my campaign.

Our research indicates that facts tend to confuse voters. And our respect for voters is so great that we refuse to baffle them.

My campaign to shrug off facts has become a national movement. I hope you will join.

If you are among the first million people to “like” me on Facebook, I’ll send you one of my “I Don’t Believe the Factual Media” bumper stickers.

My promise to you is that I will never allow truth to get in the way of my commitment to the American people.

In fact, my name is not Joe Livernois. It is Adlai Goldwater. My friends refer to me as “Reagan.” You can call me Reagan, if you’d like.

My personal narrative is rather amazing: I was born to a loving family in the poverty neighborhood of Pebble Beach. I grew up under hard-scrabble conditions, lacking in garage space. My uncle owned a tavern in Seaside; he hired me to sweep up the peanut shells. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps. I once ran the Big Sur Marathon in under two hours. I once hit for the cycle for the Baltimore Orioles. I’ve been creating jobs ever since.

Contrast my personal narrative with that of my opponent. He was born in a foreign country and is probably illegitimate. His Secret Service code name is “Adolph.” His children’s names are code for “Wicca Love.”

My opponent has been quoted as saying that government is more important than you are. He also said capitalism is a fairy tale. His top priorities are the abolishment of Medicare and the National Anthem.

Your grandmother will be left outside to die if my opponent is elected. She will be devoured by wolves.

If he could get away with it, my opponent’s pastor would burn churches where white people congregate.

My opponent wishes to manipulate society. Some people might call him a socialist. I would not call him that. But you can, if you’d like. It’s a free country. But it won’t be if my opponent is elected.

Remember the jack-booted thugs depicted in World War II newsreels? My opponent sees utopia when he watches those newsreels.

If elected, my opponent will take away your semi-automatic weapons so that you will be unable to defend yourself in a crowded theater.

My opponent claims he killed Osama bin Laden. Don’t you find it suspicious that he refuses to show us bin Laden’s death certificate?

It is suspicious, and I’ll tell you why: He didn’t actually kill bin Laden. I did. With my bare hands.

My opponent also claims that he saved the American auto industry. He is wrong. Again. I saved the auto industry. With my bare hands.

My opponent will destroy your marriage because he will force you to marry a person of your own gender. If there aren’t enough people to go around, you will be required to marry a billy goat.

Your pastor will be placed in a gulag if he refuses to perform your mandatory goat wedding.

My opponent doesn’t want you to know that he is personally responsible for the housing crisis and the economic collapse. I would explain exactly why he is responsible for those messes, but it’s very complicated. As I’ve mentioned, I have too much respect for American voters than to confuse them with complicated explanations.

But I will tell you this: I can fix those problems and we will all have jobs and homes again, as long as you don’t mind living in Bangalore.

Bangalore is located in Maine.

You’ll love it there.

 

Nixon’s Man in Miami Beach

Reprinted from The Carmel Pine Cone, Aug. 30, 2012

Spiro T, the seminal Republican intellectual, points out that he is not a crook

Shake the hand that shook the hand of Spiro T. Agnew.

Spiro T! Loved that guy. Governor of Maryland. Vice president. “Nattering nabobs of negativism.” Hung around with Billy Graham and Frank Sinatra. Brought down by the liberal media’s trumped-up bribery charge, or something like that.

I was there, man. The Republican National Convention, 1972. Just a kid with wild notions of the political righteousness of the day. Hanging out at The Fontainebleau, right there in Miami Beach with the heavy hitters: Haldeman and Ehrlichman (always in that order). Spiro T. The president himself.

I was a kid, a brash kid, a Young Republican kid. The sort of kid you’d want to take home to your mom.

They embraced me, showcased me. They flew me to Florida to show the Moral Majority that honest-to-Pete American kids still existed in those crazy times. Not like the hippies and yippies and anarchists and commies who were setting the world on fire.

Let me show you this photograph from the day, there at the Republican Convention in Miami Beach, Fla. There’s John Wayne sitting next to Sammy Davis Jr. And sitting behind Mr. Wayne? Yep, that’s me.

The Repubicans can really throw a party, let me tell you. Not like these days, of course, when naked Republican operatives go nutty in the Sea of Galilee, but the good times were just getting started back in 1972.

Guys like me — underage guys like me — we were righteous for the cause, so there was no reason we shouldn’t be served. The stewardesses on the flight to Miami knew it; the bartender at The Fontainebleau knew it.

Wink, nudge, who are we to judge!

And there at the Fontainebleau, the ultimate A-ticket event: A garden party with the vice president, the chance to schmooze and talk politics. That’s me there, at poolside with the rakish grin, trying not to spill the unspecified cocktail in my left hand while shaking hands with Spiro T himself!

But we weren’t in Miami Beach to party with the GOP’s heavy hitters. No sir. We had work to do. We were there for an education.

The yippies and commies might show up at any moment in front of random beachfront resorts, all guerilla style, to throw bottles and rocks at righteous convention delegates, newly arrived. We were summoned to counteract the troublemakers. They handed us signs — “Four More Years” and “Nixon’s the One” — and we took our positions in front of the resort doors.

We were fresh faces, scrubbed and happy to serve.

Wherever a network camera might surface, we were there.

But education was our mission, and we were Young Republicans, willing pupils at the knees of the greatest political thinkers of our times. Supply-side economics. Our moral obligation to the Vietnamese. The ever-tightening noose of the Great Society.

Unfortunately, there was one Young Republican seminar I was unable to attend (side effect, if I recall, from one particular raging hotel-suite party).

I’m told it was the best seminar of the week. It was entitled “Good Government” and it featured John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman.

Haldeman and Ehrlichman! On the same stage! Talking good government!

And I missed it.

I’m sorry I did, because I know now that so many of my fellow Young Republicans attended that seminar and grew up to become Old Republicans who are probably in Tampa Bay right now.

They are today’s heavy hitters. They are leading the charge. They might even be offering their own political, cultural and social perspectives to fresh-faced youngsters in Tampa Bay. They are providing inspiration to future generations.

But I missed out on the inspiration of Haldeman and Ehrlichman — and that’s a regret I’ll take to my grave.

That evening, still licking the wounds of a missed opportunity, I sat alone near the bar at The Fontainebleau.

A Republican delegate, likewise inebriated but much older, sat at the next table. I caught his eye and said hello. We were two like-minded fellows reflecting, as good Republicans are wont to do, on the shared experience of Republican history in Miami Beach that week.

“Bleepin’ hippie bleephole!” he responded to my innocent greeting. “What the bleep are you bleepin’ doing in here, bleepin’ longhair?”

I’m sorry I missed the Good Government seminar.

But at least I got to shake Spiro T’s hand.

Eat Right and Exercise (Yawn) to Preserve Healthy Heart

Reprinted from the Carmel Pine Cone, Aug. 23, 2012

The Answer Man is nothing if not a great purveyor of facts. Many of those facts have the credibility of “truthiness,” while others are the sort of half-cocked inventions that sustain at least one elephantine American political institution.

The Answer Man recently spent several days on a fact-finding mission in a local hospital’s cardiac care center to learn more about his failing arterial functions. He recently discussed his experience with Question Person.

Question Person. How do you know when you’re having a heart attack?

Answer Man. Let me put it this way: Have you ever lost control of your jackhammer and the damned thing pounds your foot? The symptoms of heart disease are very similar to that, except that your foot is your heart and the jackhammer is an ever-tightening robotic vise apparatus.

Also, your chest feels as though an anvil has fallen on your chest, except the anvil has developed iron-clad pincers that refuse to release your heart. Oh, and you will know the Grim Reaper is around the corner when you start barfing.

QP. What I’m feeling right now doesn’t seem that bad, so it must simply be angina and I shouldn’t worry, right?

AM. Sure. Don’t worry about it. Reserve a seat for me at your funeral.

QP. I’m a man and I’ve got more important things to worry about than how my “body” is “feeling.” Can’t I simply ignore the warning signs with confidence that the pain will eventually go away?

AM. Yes, you have already established you are stupid by admitting you are a male. Ignoring warning signs now solidifies your standing as an idiot. Fly your idiot banner high and be sure it’s etched on your gravestone.

QP. Assuming I survive the heart attack, what happens when I get hospitalized because I wasn’t paying attention?

AM. It depends on your condition when you arrive. Best case, the ER staff will send you home after finding the simple muscle strain in your chest. Worst case, they’ll advise your family to call a mortuary.

But there’s a lot of stuff between the best and worst scenarios, and many of them involve a lot of poking, prodding, defibrillation, oxygenation, bypasses and catheterization. Surgery that requires power saws might also be necessary. By the end of it, you’ll look like a junked-up voodoo doll.

QP. What is coronary artery disease?

AM.  Coronary artery disease is the most common form of heart disease, a condition that results when arteries are unable to pump oxygen-rich blood and nutrients to the heart muscle because the arteries are narrowed or blocked by a gradual build-up of “plaque.”

QP. What is plaque?

AM. A plaque is a useless engraved piece of wood that chambers of commerce distribute to indicate that their members are righteous business types. Under no circumstance should you allow a plaque to enter your bloodstream.

QP. What are the risk factors of coronary artery disease?

AM. Survival, mostly. If you are an older male or a menopausal female, you are considered at risk.

Other risk factors include family history, diabetes, high cholesterol levels, smoking, high blood pressure, stress, obesity, high fat diet and lack of exercise.

In other words, you’re at risk if you are alive in the United States during the 21^st Century.

QP. What can I do to avoid heart disease?

AM. Eat right. By eating right, I mean you should eat “heart healthy foods.” According to a Fox News report citing the U.S. Department of Obama is Telling Us What We Should Eat Now, you must avoid food with any semblance of taste.

To be on the safe side, avoid any food-like substance containing salt, gravy, spice, meats, lard, Doritos, flour, sugar, grease, dairy products, processed corn products and anything you might pick up near a freeway exit or at the county fair.

In fact, you should fill your pantries with dog food. Have you ever heard of a dog with chronic coronary issues?

QP. Should I exercise?

AM. Yes, research finds that exercise is vitally important to your health. And by exercise, I mean you must spend at least four hours each day engaged in heavy aerobic exertion. Or is it 20 minutes each day? I can’t remember. I’d go with four hours, to be on the safe side.

Anyway, acceptable physical exercises include running, walking, biking, treadmilling, gardening, yoga, jumping jacks and jumping around like Paul Ryan.

In other words, a “regimen” of what medical professionals call the “boring and painful exercises” is your only hope for survival.

Editor Recovers from Monkey Spores Disease

The Expectorator has learned that editor Joe Livernois was released today from Lechuga Community Memorial Health Care Center and Shooting Gallery after what his physicians refer to as a “miraculous” recovery from monkey spores.

“I’ve never seen such a complete recovery,” said Dr. Heather Bluster. “Monkey spores can send a patient to the brink of oblivion and it’s a rare day that we can celebrate a recovery like this.”

The patient was admitted to the hospital after complaining of “severe monkey rash” and was immediately rushed into the surgical center, where the invasive spores were extracted with a pair of plutonium tweezers.

Livernois said he expects to return work on Monday. Or maybe a week from Monday. Who knows?

Editor Suffers From Monkey Spores

The Expectorator has learned that editor Joe Livernois has been hospitalized and is in chronic condition after suffering from a wretched case of “monkey spores.”

However, the jackasses at Lechuga Community Memorial Health Care Center and Shooting Gallery refuse to acknowledge that Livernois is a patient, citing HIPPA as if HIPPA is the Apostles Creed of health law.

“Screw HIPPA,” Livernois said. “I’m here and I don’t give a rip who knows.”

Mayor Rube Furrow, still stinging from having his vice presidential  dreams dashed when Livernois exposed Furrow’s link to his manservant’s suspicious disappearance, said that, as far as he cares, “Livernois could rot In the place.”

Parade Honors Santa Lechuga’s Olympics Hero

A ticker tape parade is scheduled Monday to celebrate Stan Furrow, bronze medal winner in the Team Skeet Diving competition at this year’s Olympics in London.

Furrow was the anchor of this year’s American team, leading it to its first-ever Olympics medal finish with a score of 1.003.62. He is the second cousin of Santa Lechuga Mayor Rube Furrow and was a 2007 graduate of Lechuga Prep School. He earned a Skeet Diving scholarship to NCAA Skeet Diving powerhouse Barbizon College and represented the United States in the 2011 Skeet Diving World Cup championships.

“We’re so doggone proud of Stan for bringing home the bronze,” the mayor said.