SWB & NEPA - Cheer Up! (York, Republic: fit in, theater, income)

[lookin'for"home"]

SWB- I think you're over-anxious. I'm still in the running. There's others as well that have moved. Let's see and follow the thread.
BTW- I'm on a 2 year plan.

[TheEmissary]

Originally Posted by SWB

By the way, Emissary, thanks for this thread. I don't know if it's the winter doldrums or what, but I'm noticing everyone around me just seems to be so miserable, pessimistic, and angry. It's an awful way to start out 2008 for sure. I myself have permitted others' sour moods to bring me down as well; unhappiness is just contagious. At the very least we can all rejoice that we are in our last year under the Bush regime! Unfortunately we can't look forward to anyone really overwhelmingly promising or visionary as his replacement. We have Huckabee who is riding the coat tails of "I'm religious. Vote for me." We have Hilary who is riding the coattails of her husband. We have Giuliani who is riding the coattails of NYC and 9/11. We have Obama who is riding the coattails of Oprah Winfrey. We have Biden who has just dropped out of the race and Thompson who is likely going to soon. We have Romney who doesn't stand a chance due to his religious beliefs. I have yet to see one of these folks make me jump up and down to say "Better years are ahead!"

Paul - It well may be the winter doldrums for many of us! Like you, after seeing the results of the Iowa Caucuses, I'm hardly going to be standing on a couch and break into "Happy Days are Here Again". The older you get, the more cynical you become. I just think of the old Rolling Stones song "Salt of the Earth".

"See the parading of gray-suited grafters
A choice of Cancer or Polio"

But think of it this way - You're now an adult in all of the legal definitions, so you've joined that great demographic of being "too old for Clearasil and too young for Viagra". I've now reached the one between "Crestor and Death".

Here's a suggestion that may benefit both you and NEPA. With your excellent writing skills, why not consider writing a couple of novels involving the area. It could be a murder mystery where you could incorporate many local hangouts and notable places. Or you could try the Stephen King approach with "something evil crawling out of those abandoned mines and devouring the local townfolks". I think Stephen King's house in Maine is now a tourist attraction or "state historic site", I'm not sure which. He is very generous with local Maine charities. Maybe some of those "new people" from NJ aren't really from NJ. The possibilities abound! Jerusalem's Lot or Brown's Mill may just be down the next road from Scranton.

Here's a few lines to get you through the short winter days. You'll never figure out who composed the lines - It's not me, I have no literary skills
A thousand bonus points to identify its author!


As sure as time, as sure as snow
As sure as moonlight and of stars
The Fallow time will fall away
The Sun will bring an April day
And I will yield to Summer's Way

[CHS89]

Originally Posted by Chefkey

The thread closed but he was getting hammered by CHS89 and Yac closed it

This is the thread

Is Anyone Actually Considering Relocating to NEPA?

It was becoming the January version of this thread. I expect we'll see another similarly themed thread from him near the end of February.

[lookin'for"home"]

Hmm....I thought it best to ignore the "Obama riding the coattails of Oprah".....
puhlease.....

[lookin'for"home"]

Paul- .... I'm reading this closer..... Huckabee riding the coattails of the religious...
He's was a Baptist pastor and then a governor for 10 years....

I'm not sure what you're expecting. A president out of a vacuum?

You are always so optimistic. hmm?

[Chefkey]

Originally Posted by lookin'for"home"

Paul- .... I'm reading this closer..... Huckabee riding the coattails of the religious...
He's was a Baptist pastor and then a governor for 10 years....

I'm not sure what you're expecting. A president out of a vacuum?

You are always so optimistic. hmm?

I would really like to avoid mixing religion with politics

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Chefkey

I would really like to avoid mixing religion with politics

I feel exactly the same way. It would be a bloody shame if Huckabee wins just because Evangelical conservatives in mainstream America don't want to see gays get civil unions or abortions occur. I myself am opposed to abortion as well, but social issues like those two should NOT be the primary factors in deciding a new president when you're currently embroiled in bitter wars, have a flunking economy, rising gas prices, and a currency that is now much weaker than the Euro and continues to tap-dance around the value of the Canadian Dollar---the currency of a nation with just 1/10 the population! I myself would vote for someone opposed to gay rights and supportive of abortion if I deemed them to have a clear vision on how to fix all of these problems that President Bush has done absolutely NOTHING thus far to mitigate besides thinking "tax breaks" will fix everything. Personally, I'd rather NOT get a tax break in order to help balance the budget so that my own future children won't be paying down OUR debt!

If Iowa is any indicator of the rest of our nation we are in DEEP trouble, as a high percentage of those who participated in the Caucuses cited religious concerns as being their primary motivating factor. Many said they wouldn't vote for Romney because he was a Mormon. Many also said it was "very important" that the candidate they chose shared their religious beliefs. WHY??? If a Jew, Muslim, Atheist, Hindu, Agnostic, Pagan, etc. jumped into the race and seemed to offer visionary ways on how to repair this nation's broken civic pride, I'd be 100% behind him (or her). If most people in this nation are as dumb as the folks in Iowa who can't distinguish between the Holy Bible and legislation, then forget Scranton---I might be joining a few of my friends who are vowing to move to Canada!

I have yet to hear any good, concrete solutions to our nation's ills from Huckabee; he's just, as I said, "riding the coattails" of knowing that such a long tenure as a religious figure will garner him so many automatic anti-gay/anti-abortion votes, regardless of the other issues. I myself am a devout Protestant who does NOT think issues like those even matter at all in this race when our nation is falling apart around us. There are NO "rose-colored glasses" thick enough for me to realize that I qualify to be drafted into a potential future war with a THIRD nation because our current president can't keep his nose out of the affairs of others. By the time I'm ready for retirement I'll be receiving a big fat "I.O.U." from the government for social security. Pennsyltucky will inevitably be the ONLY Northeastern state to ban same-sex civil unions. I'm sorry to start sounding like Dan here, but while I myself see good things happening on a local level, President Bush has severely polarized our nation and has created problems that his successor will have a doozy of a time attempting to rectify.

[NYRangers 2008]

I'm a registered Republican and I can't stand Huckabee. To me, he's unelectable. He doesn't know enough to keep church separate from government. I like Gulliani, not just because he held NYC together during 9/11, but because he's a leader. He gets things down. He turned Times Square into a haven of porno shops and drug dealers into a premier tourist spot in the US. I also like John Edwards on the Democratic side. If it was between him and Huckabee, I vote for Edwards hands down. I don't think we're quite ready for Obama or Mrs. Clinton just yet.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by NYRangers 2008

I'm a registered Republican and I can't stand Huckabee. To me, he's unelectable. He doesn't know enough to keep church separate from government. I like Gulliani, not just because he held NYC together during 9/11, but because he's a leader. He gets things down. He turned Times Square into a haven of porno shops and drug dealers into a premier tourist spot in the US. I also like John Edwards on the Democratic side. If it was between him and Huckabee, I vote for Edwards hands down. I don't think we're quite ready for Obama or Mrs. Clinton just yet.

I myself like Edwards, but you and I both know he doesn't stand a chance in hell with Obama and Clinton being so dominant. Giuliani, on the other hand, does have quite a bit of potential to give Huckabee a run for his money. I concur that Giuliani has a proven track record. In the early-1990s NYC was the United States' murder capital. Under his tenure it is now amongst the safest large cities in the nation, and according to the crime statistics on this site it even has a lower per capita crime index than Scranton! Yes, he focused much of his attention on Manhattan, but now that he's made that borough so desirable that the cost-of-living has skyrocketed, the positive effects are spilling over into Brooklyn, which is likewise starting to become heavily-gentrified. Staten Island always seemed to be more like a NJ suburb to me than a true part of the city (sorry Coartist88). The Bronx and Queens still have many rough areas that will also eventually clean up their acts. Harlem, a long-troubled North Manhattan neighborhood, is even starting to be gentrified. If one mayor could lay the groundwork to rebuild a dangerous city into a stable one of 8,200,000, then just imagine what he could do on a larger scale. I myself though won't give him any credit for 9/11; what he did in terms of "bringing the city together" is something ANY mayor would do. Even if Scranton were to be attacked, the Doomers and Kool-Aid Drinkers would put aside their differences to look to him for guidance.

[Chefkey]

Guiliani, Edwards or Clinton are the only three that I would feel safe having. The others all look like potential loose cannons or are too inexperienced.