This man wore the full cowboy regale.  He had long hair, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and cowboy shirt and coats.  Normally I wouldn’t think too much about that.  It’s not common in my neighborhood but it happens sometimes.

Then I saw the sheriff’s badge.  No, not a real one.  One you would see in the old west.  It also looked like his coat was covering up a gun belt.  At least, something was tied by a leather strap around his leg.

That’s a bit further than I’d ever seen someone take the cowboy clothes in this neck of the woods.  After all, Orlando is far from the Old West.

I mentioned him to someone who lives a couple of minutes from me.  She told me she’d seen him a few times walking his dogs.  Whenever she’s seen him he has been in his cowboy attire.

Today I saw him again.  This time I was driving down the road starting off to work.  He wasn’t wearing the Wyatt Earp gear this time, though.  No, today he was dressed like a Confederate officer in the Civil War.

I wonder what he’ll be wearing next time I see him.

Technorati Tags: odd neighbors

Technorati Tags: McCain, Palin

One of the people I work with at my school is a gossip whore.  Unfortunately, she works in the office next to mine.

Our enrollment numbers are lower than expected.  This has forced my school to cut several teacher and support staff positions.  This was on top of the cut that had to be made last year and the likelihood of more cuts for next year.

Today was a bad, bad day because this was the day that people would be notified if they were being cut.

We’ve known since Monday that this was happening today, but the principal has been very tight lipped about who would be cut.  I’m still not sure what I think of this new principal but I applaud how he didn’t leak any information about the people being cut and told them in person in private.

Since Wednesday, though, one person that I work with has been telling people that she’s been told that they or someone they work with was being cut.  The people being cut would change slightly depending on who she was talking to.

Out of the ugliness of her heart, she managed to increase the drama and stress of an already bad situation.

Last night I got a call from a person in my office because of what this gossip whore had told someone else.  This bitch person told people that a particular list of people were being cut and the person who called me was on the list.

Besides the fact that this bitch person didn’t know a damn thing, the people she named read like a wish list of people the gossip whore didn’t like.  It took some time for me to convince my friend that this bitch person didn’t know what she was saying and that she was not as likely to be cut as she was told.

This bitch person spent the vast majority of this day going around and around shoving her nose into the business of others trying to find out who had been cut.

I was hoping that this particular bitch person would get cut . . . no such luck.

Technorati Tags: gossip

Organizing a response to the GOP

By Rex W. Huppke
September 7, 2008

During the Republican Party Convention, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani made light of community organizers. The comments were not-so-veiled swipes at Sen. Barack Obama’s early experience on the South Side of Chicago, where he helped residents with work and housing problems.

For a response, we spoke with Tio Hardiman, a longtime community organizer with a master’s degree in inner-city studies, who has finally grown up and gotten a real job as director of mediation services for CeaseFire, a Chicago anti-violence group:

Q: Sarah Palin, who used to be the mayor of a small city in Alaska, let Americans know that community organizers have no actual responsibilities. What was it like back when you were a community organizer and had no responsibilities?

A: We had plenty of responsibilities. When I was working for the Chicago Alliance for Community Safety, I once had to get 50 residents from the most violent communities to attend a training session to deal with conflict resolution. I had six weeks to round up 50 people and persuade them to do this. You get into the community, you become the voice of the people that don’t have a voice. You have to be a strong thinker, you have to be able to strategize.

Q: Rudolph Giuliani expressed confusion as to what a community organizer actually is. Could you explain?

A: The role of a community organizer is to organize residents around issues that impact their everyday lives. Issues such as housing, violence, elder abuse, the list goes on and on. Issues of substance abuse, issues of a failing economy.

Q: Did you know Giuliani was the mayor of New York when the terrorists attacked on 9/11?

A: Yeah.

Q: OK, good. Because it’s not something he talks about too much.

A: When 9/11 hit, Giuliani had to hit the ground running. He had to work with community organizers to get people in New York City to keep the faith, to believe they were going to get through the whole thing.

Q: Why do you think community organizers are looked down on so much by former mayors?

A: I think many community organizers are looked down on because in the past some have organized against particular candidates.

Q: What’s the most important thing you think you’ve done as a community organizer?

A: I’ve brought attention to the issue of violence being an epidemic across these United States. I’ve brought this issue up on a national platform. Now we’re bringing more attention to it and therefore more resources are trickling down to address the issue.

Q: That’s sounds great. But have you ever shot a moose?

A: No, no, no.

Q: ‘Cause they’re really quite big and intimidating. You know?

A: What the hell do I know? I’m just a community organizer.

Rex W. Huppke is a Tribune reporter.

It seems that even Giuliani has been a community organizer in the past.

Technorati Tags: Comminity Organizers