How The Pigs Stole Christmas

Sheriff David Groves, of Cherokee County, Kansas, decided to help Missouri out with a bench warrant for some guy named Doug Alexius. Alexius had missed court for a misdemeanor charge, and getting him back to wherever he was supposed to be was a matter of top priority. The pigs in Kansas have stated over and over again that Alexius was wanted for a felony, but upon closer scrutiny, it has become clear that this was only a bench warrant for missing court. To fast forward to December 16 of 2015, Groves decided that since a woman named Nita Lane had once dated Mr. Alexius, he must have hidden in her home. So he sent a nice fat pig to knock on her Galena, Kansas door. She put a clothespin on her nose (not really, but she should have) and told the pig that Mr. Alexius did not live at her home, was no longer a friend or acquaintance, and was not inside the home at the time. The pig came back with an outdated infrared camera, and without stopping to read the directions for use, snapped some shots of the house. As it happened, there were sources of heat inside! Imagine that, in the middle of December! Mr. Piggie knocked on the door again, and informed Ms. Lane and her children that they had to evacuate the premises while he and his SWAT team goons "negotiated" with the "fugitive from justice".

                          This is where Kansas cops and the FBI tore into the upstairs of
                                 Nita Lane's house. The broke a bunch of windows, too.

Ms. Lane gathered up her children and vacated, while repeatedly telling the pigs that their quarry was not on the premises. The pigs responded by spending nineteen hours calling out epithets and threats to an empty house. Finally, after an entire night, followed by the next day, of threatening to "rotate his officers out", Sheriff Groves and the FBI decided it was time to give up and go have doughnuts and coffee. While searching, they poked holes in the side of the house, used a wrecker to smash the upstairs, threw the childrens' toys and personal belongings everywhere, tore apart the Christmas tree and stomped on all the ornaments, and threw the Christmas tree out the window.

The FBI decided that all the windows, the siding, the walls, and the structure of the house, itself, could be fixed with $8,000.00, which they graciously offered to the now homeless Ms. Lane and her children. To be completely real here, $8,000.00 probably wouldn't even get the family a new roof, let alone fix all the other damage done by the police in Kansas. No mention was made of reimbursing the family for the furniture, or for the childrens' toys. A gofundme page has been set up to help.

We now hold fundraisers for the victims of police violence. Is there anyone out there, still, who does not understand why policemen are known colloquially as "pigs''? It might also be worth a mention that despite the status of Doug Alexius as a fugitive, The FBI and Kansas law enforcement do not appear terribly interested in media coverage to assist in his capture.

Thank You For Helping With The Trees

One of my Northeast Kansas neighbors wrote something rather special to me today, and here it is!

Sensing that this is not really about being thanked for hauling off trees, and I believe the person was actually thanked, I decided to write a response to the comment and include the post it followed, which is actually about Governor Sam Brownback and his contribution to education in Kansas. Had I known the names of all my neighbors, as I generally have in other places I have lived, my daughter and I would have baked some bread or cupcakes for the helpful soul who took the branches away and written a note. Seriously. I would have loved to do that, I just don't know many of my neighbors, at this point. Most of them are not terribly friendly, and when some of them favor such actions as following me home from the store to let me know they will burn my house down if I don't move away, going out of my way to meet more of them is a challenge. I know that does not represent every one of them, but experiences like that tend to stand out. It also illustrates more reasons to bring the "unified school districts" under state and federal control, rather than allowing local control by people who really just want to curse and threaten murder.

Here's what I told this person, in return:

So nice of you to respond in language that was, no doubt, taught and encouraged by USD 380! Jesus and your mother must be very proud!

I was not present when the tree was removed; if it was you, thank you. Seriously. That's still not a reason to write to me, using profanity. I don't think I know anyone like you, anywhere else but here. No one has ever thanked me for potty training an eight year old who had not been taught to use the bathroom by her frankfurter momma, or for teaching two six year olds how to talk; when I married their dad, their frankfurter mom had not taught them a darned thing. Within six months, they were proficient with the language, at a fifth grade level. My "lazy ass" may have cardiac problems brought on by thallesemia, (look it up; my hemoglobin was around 6 when it was diagnosed) but I bothered to teach my children and stepchildren how to use the language in this country. No small task in an isolated community where children are deliberately under socialized. All anyone ever wants to say to me, or to my husband about the fact that his children now achieve, rather than fail, are nasty things. Once again, people like you do not exist elsewhere on the planet, and that's a good thing.

I am so glad you know how to count. Yes, USD 380 does, indeed, have one school board. But learn to analyze numbers more efficiently, please. Marshall County has about 10,000 people within it's borders, and it really only needs one school board. It could probably use three or four small elementary schools, and either two middle schools or one junior high, depending on how the state would decide to manage the system, and one high school. That's all we need. We could offer all the students a better curriculum and better education, and we would save a lot of money. The state could see to it that no one who is unqualified even ran for a position on the school board, and we would all be following the same laws as the rest of the state and the nation. Pretty soon, Marshall County children might even be able to compete, academically, with children from other countries! None of you can now. You know why? Almost all of you, except the "illegals" you keep crying about, are MONOLINGUAL!

To bring geography, as well as mathematics, into this, allow me to also point out that USD 380 has one inefficient institution in Marshall County, and one inefficient institution in Nemaha County. It's much better for the students if all the schools within a school district are in the same county, following the same laws. That way, fewer of your children get away with taking guns and drugs to school.

Once again, if you were the one who helped with the tree, thank you. I do appreciate it. I don't know who people are yet, because no one has reached out to me in gestures of friendship yet, since I moved here in 2007, and when everyone looks so similar to everyone else (I mean that in the nicest way possible; I am used to more diversity) and no one even extends his or her hand in a handshake and says, "Glad to meet you, my name is______", it is hard to track down who is involved in what, in order to say thank you. Believe me, that has bothered me a lot. But there's no need to cuss anyone out over it.  

Through The Lens Of Siriunsun's Camera

Police In Kansas Respond To Imperial Storm Trooper

The irony. On July 1, the very day the clarified version of the law defining open carry of firearms takes effect in Kansas, police in Salina were called because an Imperial Storm Trooper exercised his second amendment rights. It turned out that the guy in the costume was making a video. A business was locked down for awhile....all because someone walked around in a costume.

Yellow Headed Blackbirds

These are some very noisy yellow headed blackbirds. Usually, their migration pattern does not bring them this far east in Kansas, but extends from Mexico in the the winter to the northwestern United States and  Canada during the summer. Sometimes a storm or extreme winds will force them off of their established routes north and south. Mature males have yellow heads and chests, and females and very young males are a very dark brown or black. They have loud, hoarse calls and can empty a bird feeder in a matter of minutes. Before moving to Kansas, I had never seen this type of blackbird. 

Message From Obama

To everyone on the East Coast, this is very important. Please pay attention to this and be safe.

 

Obama Does His Job While Romney Runs For Cover

 
A big storm threatens the East Coast. Obama headed straight for Washington D.C. Romney, on the other hand, ran away, getting as far inland as he could without running into another storm. If Mitt Romney cannot stand up to a storm, how on earth would he stand up to an enemy? He'd be the first in retreat. Every time.

 

But then, Mitt does not keep his money in America, either.

 

Update: "And while both Republicans and Democrats were tiptoeing around politicizing the storm, some progressive news sites pointed out Sunday that Romney called federal disaster relief funding "immoral" in a primary season debate last year.".....Yahoo News

Tornados In Oklahoma

At least six are dead now, because of the storm damage in Oklahoma as I type this, and many more are missing. Several tornadoes just ripped through several eastern counties there. Here's a link:   I am sure there will be more information tommorrow.

This is what the sky looked like as the storm moved in:

It's enough to give one a whole new respect for Mother Nature.