Randy Hartless

The Republican Presidential “Preference” election is over and my first thought was what a waste of time and money.

That is until I saw the election results. There were no less than 23 candidates on the ballot, including the usual suspects like Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Even the crazed Texan Rick Perry was on the ballot, despite dropping out of the presidential race some time ago. Apparently 10 voters in La Paz County either don’t know he dropped out or they still support him anyway, because 10 people voted for him. Their loyalty is noted, although their decision-making remains suspect.

But what I really found intriguing about the election was the 18 other people who were on the ballot. Who are these unknown candidates vying for our votes? I wasn’t sure so I did some research:

Donald Benjamin- this guy actually received one vote in La Paz County but I’m almost certain the person who voted for him had no idea who he was. However, if I had voted, I may very well have cast my vote for Donald Benjamin, who swears he will only take $73, 423.16 in annual salary. Where he came up with that figure isn’t real clear, but I like the oddness of it.

Benjamin, who is a college professor, also states that he will require all government forms to be no more than one page in length. The more I read, the more I like this guy. Benjamin says that after the forms are reduced to one page, “English instructors from throughout the nation will be invited to critique each document, reviewing them for awkwardness, usage, legalese, moronic repetitiveness, hyperbole, ambiguity, paradox, contradiction, inconsistency, and toxicity.”

He concludes his platform by apologizing to Congress for suggesting they go home for two years while sixth graders run the legislative branch of our government, although he adds that it “still seems like a good idea since the sixth graders would do a much better job.”
Done deal, sir—you have my vote, assuming you run in the general election in November.

Sara Gonzales- she also received two votes in La Paz County, although in this case I’m certain the two people who voted for Sara Gonzales have absolutely no clue who she is. In fact, Sara Gonzales shouldn’t even be on a ballot that says the word “Republican” because she is the furthest thing from a Republican.

Gonzales’ platform includes ending all war, tearing down the border wall between Mexico and the United States, vetoing the Keystone Oil Pipeline project, ending the death penalty and closing Guantanamo Bay. She adds that, “I get most of my news from the Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, Democracy Now and posts my Facebook friends share. And now I can say I once ran for President of the United States. Booyah!”

She goes on to admit that much of the government process is confusing, but still thinks she’d be a great choice because, “I’m pretty.” Well, okay, she is pretty. That also gives her a leg up on Hillary Clinton.

Michael Levinson- this guy wears the goofiest pair of glasses I’ve ever seen, but he has several interesting ideas. He proposes a “National Car Lottery” to give everyone a shot at new car ownership as well as to jumpstart the auto industry and his “Loose Pennies Program” calls for all of us to send our pocket change to the federal government to pay for healthcare. Personally, I’d love to send my loose change to pay for healthcare if it meant I could actually hang on to the rest of my money.

Levinson’s 96 year-old mother designed his political website and refers to herself as “the oldest webmaster in cyberspace!” She got the “oldest” part right, but she’s reaching on the “master” part, based on the website design. Levinson’s mom says, “My son is a poet prophet with a world class program to change the course of human history on our Good Ship Mother Earth.” Sounds more like the Good Ship Lollipop, mom.

Jim Terr- my favorite candidate on the Republican Presidential Preference ballot was undoubtedly Jim Terr, whose campaign slogans are “A Chicken In Every Garage!” and “Give Jim Terr a Chance To Steal From You!” There’s nothing more refreshing than an honest politician.

# # #

Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.

Oh, Turkey Leg

I love the holiday season (which for me starts with Halloween), but I’ve just about had it with the Christmas music and it’s only November 28th. Radio stations all over the country started playing Christmas music on Thanksgiving Day.

I’m listening to a classic rock station on Thanksgiving Day and they played “Highway to Hell” and “American Pie” followed by “Have A Very Merry Christmas.” I found this odd, to say the least.

Apparently there’s no such thing as Thanksgiving music, or they might have waited until the day after Thanksgiving to start the Christmas music. Maybe I should write some Thanksgiving songs:

(Sung to the tune of “Oh, Christmas Tree”)

Oh, Turkey leg, oh, turkey leg
How I love your dark meat
Oh, Turkey leg, oh, turkey leg
Where are your turkey feet?
Turkey leg I have you
Grasped within my fist
You’re the one part of the turkey
That everyone can resist
Dark meat turkey leg, dark meat turkey leg
You’re fate has yet to be sealed
Perhaps one day, oh, turkey leg
You’re greatness will be revealed

(Sung to the tune of “The Little Drummer Boy”)

I got the turkey leg
Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
A deep-fried turkey leg
Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
That turkey had small legs
Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
Rum-pum-pum-pum

Not good? Not bad compared to some of those beloved songs we hear 327 times between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

I’m not an Anti-Christmasite by any means, but the music leaves a lot to be desired. I’m pretty sure there are only about twelve Christmas songs, but they just keep playing them over and over again. Every year some singer puts out a Christmas album but it’s just those same twelve songs we’ve been hearing all these years.

Silent Night? Really? Apparently the guy who wrote “Silent Night” didn’t have a wife or children, or he moved out on December 23rd, because there’s no such thing as a silent night the night before Christmas, especially if Christmas carolers are walking around your neighborhood singing “Silent Night.”

Oh, Christmas Tree? We’re singing songs about a tree? This is undoubtedly the only song ever written about a tree.

The worst song of all is “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer,” which basically describes a senile old woman in the wrong place at the wrong time. The first time you hear it, it’s amusing. The 327th time you hear it, it’s nauseating.

New Year’s is the only other holiday that has a song and it only has one, “Auld Lang Syne.”

Nobody knows what an Auld Lang Syne is or even exactly how the lyrics are sung, but by midnight on New Year’s Eve, nobody notices anyway.

# # #

Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.

Prize Patrol

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been busy planning my imminent retirement. I’m just waiting for that Publisher’s Clearing House van full of balloons to arrive at my house.

I’ve never been involved with Publisher’s Clearing House other than watching the television commercials where the Publisher’s Clearing House Prize Patrol van rolls up on someone’s house to present them with $5000 a week for life.

The PCH Prize Patrol crew leaps out with balloons in hand to “surprise” the winner. The funny thing is, the winners always look surprised but they rarely look unprepared for visitors. If you come to my house unannounced, you’re most likely going to see a fat, baldheaded guy in a dirty Washington Redskins t-shirt and boxer shorts. Why the Redskins? Well, I’m a Dallas Cowboy fan so I will often wear my dirty, grease-stained, moth-eaten Redskins shirt just to irritate my wife, who is a Redskins fan.

Anyway, I digress.

So this year I received an e-mail from Publisher’s Clearing House and I decided I could live right nicely on $5000 a week. This PCH gig pays far and above my struggling writer pay as well as my current employment. About $4400 above, in fact.

I figured what the heck, football season is getting underway so I’ll order a subscription to Sports Illustrated and get ready to live the good life on my Publisher’s Clearing House winnings. About a week later, I get another e-mail with this ominous subject line: “Randy-waiver will be activated unless you respond!”

Waiver? That can’t be good. So I follow the link and they want me to order something else, but this time there’s more than just magazines. Vertical blind cleaners. Mickey Mouse alarm clock. Dallas Cowboy Christmas tree decorations. Okay, I’ll order the Sponge Bob Square Pants activity books for my grandson, thereby scoring points with my wife when she sees I’ve ordered something else and simultaneously making my grandson happy.

Then a week later I get this e-mail message: “Randy Hartless—Fair Warning Issued!”

Fair warning? That can’t be good. Sure enough, the message warns that there is an imminent “Risk of Forfeiture” unless I act quickly. I’m sure there’s a place on these messages that tells me I do not have to actually order something to prevent said forfeiture, but I cannot find it, so I start browsing through the products I should buy to stay in the hunt for that $5000 a week.

Aha! A personal trimmer! This thing looks like a miniature weed whacker and I am in desperate need of one. As I get older the hair on my head apparently begins to grow backwards through my brain and out of my ears, nose and eyebrows. If I don’t get a personal trimmer soon I’ll be walking around like Andy Rooney (minus the brilliant prose) or worse, Albert Einstein (minus the brilliant scientific theories). As it is I’m trying to use my head shaver to trim my crazy brows and oh so carefully attempting to maneuver it into my nostrils to take care of business in there.

So I order the personal trimmer for 4 easy payments of only $3.99. A pittance of my $5000 a week to be sure and I might be able to stave off the dreaded ear, nose and crazy brow hairs for a few more years.

After I ordered the personal trimmer, I received another message from PCH thanking me for my order and teasing me by saying, “Somebody with the initials R.H. will be awarded $100!” This is great news for me. It’s also good for Rudy Hernandez, Robert Holman, Rene Hopkins and Raymond Hartman. In fact, it’s good news for all 17,908,621 people with the initials R.H.

So you’ll probably be seeing me on one of those Publisher’s Clearing House commercials any day now. I might be wearing a dirty, grease-stained, moth-eaten Washington Redskins t-shirt and boxer shorts, but no hair will be growing out of any of my visible orifices.

# # #

Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.

Class Action

I’m not what you would call a frugal person, although I will certainly take something that is offered for free. However, unlike my wife, I will not stop dead in my tracks when I see a penny on the ground nor will I pull to the side of the road to grab an aluminum can.

My wife can spot pennies from upwards of 30 yards away and she will pick one up from the 140 degree asphalt without hesitation. In her mind, a third degree burn caused by a hot penny is well worth the addition of that one cent to her coffers.

This fiscal behavior has us on opposite sides of a debate concerning class action lawsuits, which I think are damn near criminal. She thinks they’re wonderful because she can get something for free, although the cost is certainly greater for all of us in the long run.
Class action lawsuits are supposed to cover large groups of people, such as the 600 residents of the small town that were being slowly poisoned by Pacific Gas & Electric as portrayed in the film Erin Brockovich. This is a good thing.

Plus, Julia Roberts is a hottie. Having her represent you is worth the legal fees and everything else associated with class action lawsuits.

But when a group of lawyers gets together and decides to file a class action lawsuit against several of the world’s top banana producers for price fixing and other schemes to drive up the price of bananas, it is not good. The settlement in this case includes tons of bananas donated to food banks and “all legal fees and expenses to be paid to the attorneys.”

This, my friends, is the real fuel that drives class action lawsuits. Donating bananas to food banks is nice, but it does nothing for those of us that actually purchased the price-fixed bananas. Even if they offered us free bananas, it wouldn’t matter, because the company donating all those free bananas will simply raise prices to cover those free bananas.

Lawnmower companies were sued because they claimed their lawnmowers had 30 horsepower and they were actually only 28 horsepower. Millions were no doubt affected by this heinous act of horsepower misconduct, although they had no idea until a group of lawyers pointed it out to them. In fact, the suit demanded $5 million on behalf of the 6 million lawnmowers sold. You do the math.

This is the other ludicrous part of these lawsuits. The companies are more than willing to simply settle the cases to get the lawyers off their backs and all the costs are passed on to the consumers (i.e., you and I) in the form of higher prices.

A more recent example is a class action lawsuit settlement by Verizon Wireless. The settlement includes 25 free minutes and all legal fees and expenses. I’m not even sure what the lawsuit is about and frankly, I don’t care. While a team of lawyers get paid on my behalf (I am a Verizon Wireless customer), I get 25 free minutes. Big freakin’ deal. I have a plan that includes 1000 minutes a month and I use about 600 minutes at a cost of $150 per month. For you math wizards, the settlement equates to about $2.33 worth of minutes to me, and $6 million to the Cincinnati law firm that so graciously filed this lawsuit on my behalf.

But it doesn’t end there. These class action lawsuits are litigated in courthouses paid by tax dollars. They take up the time of judges, court clerks and numerous other public servants that are required to facilitate these cases in our judicial system. So that 40 free minutes from the Verizon class action suit ends up costing me much more than $2.33.

Although my wife revels in the thought of free bananas and 25 free cell phone minutes that she will not use, I would like to make a motion that we start a petition to pass a law that any class action suit involving bananas, zucchini, Cabbage Patch Dolls, lawn mower horsepower claims, wireless phone minutes or any other stupid stuff that only makes lawyers rich and clogs up our court system should be only litigated under the following circumstances:

• Any settlement offer should include all court costs so the taxpayers don’t have to subsidize this “support your local attorney” class action lawsuit program
• Only lawyers directly affected by or contacted by a consumer can file a class action lawsuit
• The lawyers that file the class action lawsuit should only receive what the consumer receives in the settlement
• Cases that don’t involve death, dismemberment, disease or debilitating injuries should be tossed out of court along with the lawyers who file them.

And I mean literally.

# # #

Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.

My World

Now that the Casey Anthony trial is over, I can comment on it without unduly influencing the jury. Like the rest of the media in this country, I’ve avoided the subject up until now.

Obviously, I’m kidding.

There were so many things wrong with this entire Casey Anthony story, the worst of which is that a little girl was murdered and nobody has to answer for it. I watched with amusement as hundreds of people lined up every day to get into the courthouse to watch the trial. People acted like complete morons as they pushed, shoved and generally ran over one another to get a seat. Don’t these people have jobs? I doubt very much if they were all independently wealthy, so how are they able to spend their mornings standing in lines and their days in a courthouse gallery?

I also watched with amusement as crowds of people gathered around public areas with televisions and their collective jaws dropped when the verdict was announced. It was very much like the scenes I saw when the O.J. Simpson verdict was read, except in that case, people cheered, while in this case people were none too pleased.

The only difference I can discern between these two cases is that one had racial overtones while the other had a cute girl as a defendant. But in both cases, someone got away with murder, in my opinion.

I barely had time to watch the coverage on the nightly news. But I saw enough to realize that nearly everyone connected to this case (with the possible exception of the judge), from the spectators to the witnesses to the jury to Casey Anthony, are all crazy. I realize that “crazy” is an oversimplified, overused and somewhat generic term, but what I really mean to say is that in my world, they are all crazy.

In my world, a parent doesn’t lose their child and not report it for 30 days, then weave a web of lies intended to distract, mislead and confuse the people who actually care that my child is missing and are willing to help me find her.

In my world, a grandparent spends as much time as possible with their grandchildren, and if that grandchild’s mother avoids me, I’m going to track her down and choke some answers out of her concerning the whereabouts of my grandchild. Then I’m calling the cops.

In my world, people spend their days working or doing things productive to their family, community or world. If my goal for the day is to outrun a few hundred people so I can watch a train wreck and get all the gory details, I need to reexamine my life, because it has very little meaning and I’m of very little use to my family, community or world. The same applies to anybody that proposes marriage to someone they’ve never met just because they watched them on television.

In my world, people who murder their three year-old daughter and then get a free pass from the justice system are, at the very least, doomed to oblivion and are never heard from or seen again unless it’s to re-arrest, retry or revile them. Sadly, this will not be the case with Casey Anthony. In all likelihood, she will be a rich person one day soon, whether it’s from a book publisher, a movie producer or Playboy magazine.

In my world, unattractive people who kill their children are represented by a public defender and promptly convicted while attractive people are given a free legal defense team that realizes the potential of representing an attractive client on their future earnings potential.

Oh wait, that’s your world, too. Like it or not, that’s the world we live in.

# # #

Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.