28 NOVEMBER 2014, Vol.1, No.81 > STUPIDITY: ANOTHER STORM, ANOTHER OUTAGE!
The
POCAHONTAS CRIER
‘When the Righteous
succeed the people rejoice,
But when the bad
govern, men groan!’ – Proverbs 29:2
[New Email address: pocahontascrier88@gmail.com]
STUPIDITY: ANOTHER STORM, ANOTHER OUTAGE!
They say that “Stupidity is doing the same thing over &
over and expecting a different result!” – well that definition fits
a lot of things WRONG in West Virginia, and
especially in Pocahontas
County! Within the last six-years or so every time
the wind blows stronger than 10 mph, or a heavy rain occurs, or any kind of ‘snow storm’ – WHAT HAPPENS?
There is some kind of POWER OUTAGE and it lasts
for hours or days – this time for close to forty (40+) hours and on
THANKSGIVING DAY! Just how many folks
& families were effected most likely will never be known, but the FACT THAT
IT OCCURRED – that is now well-known and could have
been avoided – IF ALL MAJOR POWER LINES WERE BURIED as the smart folks do
in Europe & elsewhere!
Now it’s a fact that burying power
lines costs about six-eight times as much as putting power lines on poles – but
NOT when you consider the total loss of power several times a year, year by
year, as is now occurring under the MONOPOLY of Alleghany Power /
Mon-Power! So why is the problem not
being addressed or corrected but just piecemealed together incident after
incident? IT’S CALLED CORPORATE STUPIDITY & GREED! If Mon-Power were a PUBLIC CORPORATION
instead of a private-for-profit corporation, then SOMEONE could and would be
held responsible and the ‘buck-would-stop-on’ the desk of some public
official who could easily be replaced! During the ‘Eisenhower-Era’
all utilities were Public Corporations and constantly held responsible to
service the public at all times – and when water & sewage,
electricity & (natural) gas, or other public services were disrupted, such
as buses & trains, etc. – those who worked for those services were on the
clock 24/7 until the problem was fixed – they didn’t take off to have their ‘Thanksgiving Turkey’ while their
neighbors were without service!
The same applied to BELL TELEPHONE, although a private-corporate-monopoly at
the time, Bell was REGULATED as if it were a public corporation and
if & when telephone lines went down for any reason, the men on the poles
never came down until the problems were fixed!
BUT NOT SO nowadays, now the monopoly services cut every corner they can
find, and let the public suffer the losses & inconveniences! IT’S PROFITS BEFORE PEOPLE! And since the breakup of Bell, the local Frontier Telecommunications
is perhaps the worse of them all!
But for those that are not
individually ‘stupid’, stop &
think for a moment: Doesn’t Alleghany Power rake in
MILLIONS & BILLIONS from all its customers? Hasn’t it ripped
us all off from its ‘ESTIMATED RATES’ month after month for who knows how many years,
let alone add insult to injury OUTAGE after OUTAGE? The Public Service Commission (PSC)
received so many continuous complaints that it now requires an ACTUAL MONTHLY READING of every electric
meter on every building – AND WHAT HAPPENED?
All electric billing fell 50% or more when
actual usage was read compared to the ESTIMATED-BILLING done by the power
company sitting in their offices! Then
WHAT HAPPENED? The private-electric
company simply went back to the PSC and asked for a RATE-INCREASE! So while the monthly billing under the
ESTIMATED-RATE-USAGE raised every monthly billing per/household to from $100 -
$160 per/month, and while the ACTUAL-RATE-USAGE cut
every monthly billing to $30 - $70 per/month, the NEW-RATE-INCREASE has again
brought every monthly billing back again to between $110 - $185 per/month – yet we are still getting the same lousy service every
time the wind blows, it rains or it snows!
And don’t you find it strange that
the ‘business-community’ along the
main roads seem to always have their electric power, or are the first to have
it restored after a ‘storm’ – while
the rest of the community sits in darkness?
What does it take to get on THAT TRUNK LINE? So why don’t we have
our power lines UNDERGROUND so they won’t ‘fall
down’ in any kind of storm and service everyone equally? Anyone ever watch the ‘Tour de France’ in July each year?
Ever see any ‘wires-on-poles’ as
we see everywhere here in America? Nope, and you won’t since most European
countries BURY THEIR WIRES for safety, convenience, aesthetic, and other common
sense reasons! Perhaps that’s one of the
reasons most Europeans believe Americans are ‘stupid’ – along with a host of
other economic, social, political, domestic and foreign-policy reasons! And perhaps that’s also why many states, like
California (by
leading the way), has taken back control of public utilities and made them
again Public Corporations, always accountable to the Citizens! California also BURIES its main electric
power lines – but then again, like the Europeans, California uses renewable WIND TURBINES for
electric power instead of toxic-coal-fired power plants that spread asthma
& cancer to ‘stupid people’ who
tolerate it – or just don’t know any better!
BUT THE
PROBLEM DOESN’T JUST STOP THERE!
Take the WV Department of Highways
(WVDOH) and its ‘stupid’
idea of placing stone/gravel along all our roadways INSTEAD OF FULL PAVEMENT or
BLACKTOP from side to side as is done in the more intelligent states! Other than the ‘stupid’ excuse that the placing
of stone/gravel along all our roadways causes traffic jams & delays in the
Spring & Fall, and KEEPS NEPOTISM in place whereby one person actually uses
a shovel while nine others lean on their shovel and watch the one working – what real purpose
does having six-twelve-to-eighteen inches of stone serve along our roadways?
WOULDN’T
IT MAKE A LOT MORE SENSE TO PAVE THE ROADWAY COMPLETELY FROM SIDE TO SIDE AND PROVIDE A BIKE PATH ON EACH SIDE OF THE ROAD – INSTEAD OF THE NONSENSE SIGNS SAYING ‘SHARE THE ROAD’ WITH A SINGLE OR
GROUP OF CYCLISTS COMING AROUND A CURVE IN THE ACTUAL ROADWAY ITSELF?
And then we wonder just why the
foreign media, the domestic corporate media, Hollywood
comic celebrities, late night talk shows & such all say, ‘AMERICANS ARE
STUPID’! It isn’t getting any
better as now 4 of 10 (40% or more) Americans CANNOT tell you the names of the
50 States or where they are located, and over 1/3 of all Americans CANNOT tell
you the three-branches of government! In
this county, asking that question would require you to tell the listener what
species of TREE the three-branches are on!
If you don’t believe us, consider that in this election year, in both
the primary & general elections –
THE
VOTERS OF THIS COUNTY ELECTED THE LEAST EDUCATED COUNTY
COMMISSION IN THE HISTORY OF POCAHONTAS COUNTY –
set to
take office 01 January 2015 !
Of the nine candidates that ran
for county commission – and lost – all but three were college educated with
COLLEGE DEGREES – and two of the three without
College Degrees won over those that were college educated! WHAT DOES THAT SAY FOR THE CITIZENS OF THIS
COUNTY! Well it could mean that they are
‘too stupid’ to know the
difference! That ‘stupid does as stupid is’! That
the Voters are ‘too stupid’ to know
the difference between living under their current FEUDAL-SYSTEM compared to
living in a DEMOCRACY! That the majority
of those that voted are afraid of CHANGE & PROGRESS since they favor their
current Poverty & Pauperism because they know they lack the education or
willpower to improve themselves! There
are probably lots of other reasons as well, such as the ‘Priests of Baal’ & ‘Daughters of Isis’
usually vote as a block for ‘one of their
own’ election after election. But
suffice it to say – “Stupidity is doing the same thing over & over and expecting a
different result!” – so sooner or later…
WE WILL REAP WHAT WE HAVE SOWN
… & then some!
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
The Pocahontas Crier is an independent, free, non-subscription, Internet News Service
providing in depth reporting on important issues directly affecting the
Citizens
of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, and meant for entertainment in
the true ‘muckraking’ & ‘iconoclast’
tradition of questioning authority, challenging corruption, exposing
impropriety and the appearance of impropriety, and offering Common Sense
Alternatives for
THE
GREATER COMMON GOOD BEFORE SELF…
or any
Special Interests!
We fight for Social
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Rolling Thunder in association with
Echoes from
the Holl’r.
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