Bent Corner

Fujicolor Processing has announced that they will be closing their Williamsport, Maryland plant on March 12. The Williamsport facility processes film for Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and other retail stores that operate in the Northeast. The facility currently has around 125 employees who will now be out a job.

I used to work at the Williamsport facility. In fact, it’s the reason I am living here in Maryland. I was hired as a repair technician shortly after leaving the Air Force. I didn’t know anything about photofinishing equipment. They were looking for ex-military people with an electronics background. When operators had a problem with their photofinishing equipment, they would call for a service tech. One of us would show up with our tools and try to get the problem fixed as soon as possible.

It could get very hectic at times. It was very much a high-production environment. It wasn’t the greatest job I ever had, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. The photofinishing equipment broke down constantly. Most of the problems were mechanical in nature. Very rarely did a piece of photofinishing equipment have something wrong with it that had to do with it’s electronics.

It wasn’t all bad. That’s were I met my wife Sheri. She operated a machine called a splicer that constantly broke down. I found myself looking forward to when her splicer acting up. She would sit and talk to me while I worked on it. Once I got it working again, I would hang around just to make sure it was working. That of course was just an excuse to talk to her.

You would not believe how perverted people can be. Seeing many of the pictures developed from the film people turned into their local Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club for 2-day processing gave me a clear understanding of just how nasty some people can be. Take it from me, if a guy is going to take photos of himself with a long stemmed rose inserted in this rectum, chances are he’s not going to go for the one-hour film processing. He’s going to drop his order in the box and come back in two days.

I guess I’m not surprised the facility is being shut down. Who uses film cameras?

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From the Hagerstown paper of record, The Herald-Mail:

Maryland Del. Robert A. McKee, R-Washington, on Friday announced his resignation from the House of Delegates after information surfaced that deputies, acting on information that child pornography was in the residence, searched his Halfway home on Jan. 31.

During the search, investigators seized two computers, about 30 videotapes and a “significant amount” of printed material, including magazines, Washington County Sheriff Douglas Mullendore said Friday afternoon during a press conference.

No charges have been filed.

McKee, in a faxed statement, also said Friday that he had resigned from his position as executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County, an organization he said he served for 29 years.

Yes, that’s right. When this asshole isn’t carrying out his duties as our elected representative in Annapolis, he is running the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County. You just can’t make this kind of stuff up.

Even though authorities found a “significant amount” of child porn in the delegate’s home over two weeks ago, he remains free. He has yet to be placed under arrest. How much child porn does one have to amass before being placed under arrest? This asshat should have been forced to announce his resignation from the House of Delegates from a jail cell. This is why we have jail cells. Why hasn’t he been placed under arrest?

McKee was present when the search warrant signed by Washington County Circuit Judge W. Kennedy Boone III was executed, said Mullendore, who knows McKee personally.

I guess it’s safe to say if you are going to be a collector of child porn, it pays to be friends with the local sheriff.

From MSNBC’s First Read:

“Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn’t won any of the significant states — outside of Illinois?” Chief Strategist Mark Penn said. “That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama.”

Significant states? Does that mean the only states Obama has won — such as Maryland — are insignificant?  At least we weren’t called poopy heads.

Today is the day Maryland, Virgina, and Washington D.C. hold their primary elections. People are calling it the Potomac Primary after the nasty, dirty river that runs through all three places. Here in Hagerstown, you couldn’t ask for a nastier day to vote. It has been snowing and sleeting most of the day.

Sheri and I voted at nearby Hagerstown Community College. There wasn’t that many people their casting votes. It was probably the smallest crowd I’ve seen voting at the college. I don’t know if it’s because of the weather or because most of the people living here are Republican. Maybe it was a combination of the two. I probably wouldn’t vote either if I could only vote for one presidential candidate.

Something funny happened as I was going over my ballot and double checking my votes. My cell phone started to ring. Are you even allowed to answer your phone while standing in the voting booth? They never covered that in my high school government class. That’s probably because they hadn’t invented the cell phone yet. I decided to go ahead and answer it. It turned out to be a taped message from Michelle Obama reminding me to go out and vote. As I was listening to her speak, I was looking at my ballot making sure the “X” was next to her husband’s name. It was a surreal moment.

Jarrel Gray, a 20-year old Frederick Maryland man was killed this past Sunday morning after being Tasered twice in a 23 second period by a Frederick County Sheriff Deputy. This from the Frederick News-Post:

The deputy found three men fighting, Jenkins said. A female was also on the scene.

Jenkins would not provide the names or ages of the other people at the scene, but he said the deputy was a corporal and a 13-year veteran of the department.

When the deputy told the three men to show their hands, one of them did so immediately, another walked away before showing his hands, and the third man, identified as Gray, did not comply, Jenkins said.

The sheriff said no other officers were present when the deputy deployed the Taser. Gray, of the 7000 block of Ladd Circle, fell to the ground unconscious; he was given first aid on the scene.

Emergency responders arrived in minutes, Jenkins said. Gray was then taken to Frederick Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead about 7:30 a.m.

Gray’s family says that he was deaf in one ear and may not have understood the deputy’s instructions to show his hands.

I don’t like these Taser devices. For supposedly being non-lethal, there sure are a lot of people now dead because of them.

My representative in congress Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett spoke at a town hall meeting on energy in Mount Airy and said he thought “gasoline needs to cost more that it already does” in order to promote conservation. He also said that “too many people are driving pickup trucks as personal transportation.”

I don’t know about people driving pickup trucks, but I know that gas already costs too much as it is. It doesn’t need to cost more then what it costs now. The fact that my elected representative in Washington D.C. actually hopes that gas goes up in price just confirms what I already know - I have a representative that does not represent my interests. Not only my interests, but the interests of my fellow neighbors in the Maryland 6th district.

Roscoe Bartlett uses the power of his office to satisfy his own whims. He doesn’t use his office for the benefit of the people he is elected to represent.

I also know that Roscoe Bartlett will continue representing the 6th district of Maryland until he either retires or dies. He will never lose an election. My fellow voters here in the 6th district of Maryland will continue to vote for Roscoe Bartlett no matter what he says or what he does. He can even say that he hopes our gas prices go up and people will still reelect him into office.

A couple of weeks ago the Democrats decided to have 12-year Graeme Frost present a radio rebuttal to President Bush’s weekly radio address. The topic was a bill that would expand SCHIP. It’s a federal program that helps pay for health insurance for children of the working poor. People that make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid, but don’t have access to health insurance through their employer. Bush was planning on vetoing the bill.

Graeme Frost was chosen because he enrolled in the SCHIP program through the state of Maryland. He and his sister were in a terrible car accident that left both children in comas. Shortly after the radio address, the right-wing blogosphere started looking into the Frost family. Right-wing bloggers started to publicly question whether the Frost family fit their preconceived notion of the term working poor.

They went snooping into the Frost family’s lives. Some right-wing bloggers turned to Google to try to find some dirt on the Frosts. Their address was posted online along with links to satellite photos of their home on Google. Right-wing crackpot blogger Michelle Malkin even drove by their house.

Graeme’s father, Halsey Frost, is a self-employed woodworker. Graeme’s mother, Bonnie Frost, works part-time and doesn’t have health insurance through her employer. They earn less then $50,000 a year. The Frost’s own their own home, a 1936 Baltimore rowhouse they purchased in 1990 for $55,000. It’s since been assessed at $263,140. The Frost’s own a commercial property as well. It’s where Halsey operates his woodworking business. And to think Republicans used to like it when people ran their own business.

Judging from above the photo, they also own a very nice looking pumpkin.

What were the Frost’s supposed to do, sell their home, business, and their pumpkin so they could buy health insurance?

The problem is that health care in our country is still treated as though it’s a luxury instead of a basic fundamental human right. Access to quality health care shouldn’t be a luxury for the rich or the privileged. Maybe that mindset made sense when our machines were powered by steam and our commerce was conducted with the exchange of beaver pelts.

At the end of the day, programs like SCHIP only put a band aid on the problem. Until we as a nation put into place a national health care system like the rest of the industrialized world, we will continue to have these type of problems.

Our health care problems wont be solved with a Michelle Malkin drive by.

Last year I did some volunteer work for Andrew Duck, a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives. He sought to represent Maryland’s 6th congressional district against Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett. Normally I would automatically support anyone running against Bartlett. Duck was different in that I really thought he would make a good Representative. Unlike chicken-hawk Bartlett, Duck served over 20 years in the United States Army, serving three tours in Bosnia and one tour in Iraq in 2003.

I wasn’t voting against Bartlett, I was voting for Duck.

I guess because of my volunteer work, I ended up on a Maryland Democratic email list. Tonight I received an email inviting me to a special Maryland Democratic Gala event in Greenbelt, Maryland. The keynote speaker at this Gala will be Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.

To be honest, I don’t really know what a Gala is.

If I want to go to this Gala, I have two options. I can pay $250 and be a regular Gala Guest or I can pay $500 and be a VIP guest. As a $500 VIP, not only would I be attending the Gala, but I would be able to attend the special VIP Reception held prior to the regular old Gala.

The $250 guests don’t get to attend the Reception. I guess they have to sit in their cars and listen to Air America Radio.

There is something horrifically wrong with our political system. I volunteer to deliver VOTE DUCK yard signs to old people and now I get emails from my political party offering to let me hang out with them if I agree to pay enough for the privilege. I should not have to pay $500 to listen to my governor give a speech.

This isn’t how the political process is supposed to work. It is broken.

The Honorable Barbara A. Mikulski
Suite 503
Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-4654

Dear Senator Barbara Mikulski:

This concerns the recent email you sent me asking me to shut off my electrical power this past Saturday for one hour. I didn’t see the message until today when I decided to clean out my spam folder. You claimed in your email that by turning off my electricity for one whole hour, I would be fighting global warming.

I have to ask you Senator Mikulski - do you know how hot it is in central Maryland this time of year? Telling someone in Hagerstown to turn off their electricity on a humid 91-degree day is just down right silly. Especially when you realize the air-conditioning will only have to work just that much harder after it is turned back on. You actually conserve more power Senator Mikulski by setting the thermostat to one temperature and leaving it alone.

I couldn’t help but notice you were not in Maryland this past weekend. No, you were on a taxpayer-funded trip to Greenland. It was reported that your trip even included a boat tour of Disko Bay where you witnessed first hand the effects of climate change. You actually got to see ice breaking off glaciers and sliding into the water. That sounds like a nice weekend.

Did they serve snacks on the boat ride?

It’s a shame you couldn’t just do what I normally do when I want to learn about something. Instead of going to Greenland for the weekend to watch big chunks of ice fall into the water, I would just go to Wikipedia and read about it. After reading about climate change over at Wikipedia, I would have then gone over to YouTube and watched videos of the icebergs of Disko Bay. Using the Internet to learn about global warming may not be as exciting as jetting off to Greenland for the weekend, but you have to admit my learn-about-it-on-the-Internet method creates a much smaller carbon footprint then yours.

Using the Internet to learn about things is also much cheaper then your method. Granted, you and I both pay the same amount with our methods - absolutely nothing. Even though you personally didn’t pay for the weekend junket to Greenland, the taxpayers did.

The very same people you told to turn off their air-conditioning on a 91-degree day.

Please do us a favor Senator Mikulski and the next time you decide to take a costly fact-finding trip on the tax-payers dime, stop and ask yourself if you could learn just as much by getting on the Internet.

Democratically Yours,

Rick Rottman

Hagerstown, Maryland