Area Mayor Checks Self Into "Psychiatric Institution" To Address Chronic And Long Festering 'Battered Mayor Syndrome'

In a bold move that has mental health professionals across the nation applauding the proactive nature of his actions, an area mayor, applying a somewhat high degree of self-analysis, took an unpaid sabbatical from his largely meaningless and unpaid job in the 2nd smallest town in the State and checked himself into a highly renowned although somewhat creepy regional mental health facility, the decidedly misnamed Charming Acres, late Tuesday. "Well, the caring although oftentimes ghoulish staff at Charming Acres pride ourselves on taking the worst cases imaginable, but when that mayor came staggering in here begging to be admitted, even our seasoned and largely callous staff were taken aback in shock and consternation - actually resulting in 3 employee resignations and one staff member of 26 years unfortunately having himself committed to help overcome the ordeal!" said Nurse Hatchet, a burly and none-too-gentle care giver who is no stranger to the high pressure water hose or that 'hush-hush' electro-shock gadget or whatever. "Anyway, after we managed to calm him down with that tranquilizer gun we got from the zoo supply place and strapped him down (none too gently!) on the cold metal cot in his unheated room (ironically, this arrangement was much more peaceful than the doggone town office!), he began to recount stories of being the mayor of a town where people for miles around hate everything that is ever done, regardless of their personal benefit, and who, if the obviously traumatized mayor is to be believed, exhibit behaviors that are completely outside the confines of even the most basic of human social contexts whatsoever!" she said mournfully, shaking her head although her hair never moved at all due to a quite impressive application of industrial strength hair spray or something. "Oh, it was horrid! Several of our staff members, the ones who resigned, in fact, just happened to be walking down the hall and overheard some of the things that go on in that town/region and even decades of professional training could not prepare them for the nightmarish horror show that he recounted! Oh, and the attending physician, you know, the one who had himself committed, that poor man had to hear all of it! It is a miracle he was not reduced to some vegetative state right there on the spot! I cannot help but shudder at the very thought of that disgusting tale of woe and outrageous ingratitude and nitpicking!" she stammered, crossing herself in a vain attempt to ward off the reflective evil and nastiness!

"So, although one would have thought it impossible for a region in this day and age to be so singularly devoted to chaos and civic disorder, it would appear that any number of people from whatever town/region he comes from is really a throw back to some imaginary wild west scenario where, like the book "Lord of the Flies", people just want to be allowed to tear each other apart and to reduce the town to rubble! Anyway, the mayor, not being from these parts, just naturally assumed that the townsfolk would want to be able to walk down the street without being attacked by dogs or have roving criminals terrorizing the place day and night - so you can imagine his shock when the area 'ruling elite' jumped firmly behind the dysfunction and discord! It would appear that this particular group of individuals, most living outside the town itself, have crafted a unique 'survival of the fittest' scenario where the very basest of human tendencies are applauded while basic constraints that every other town in the State takes for granted are met with scorn and derision! No wonder that poor mayor had such a profound mental event! It has to be like waking up in the middle of a "Twilight Zone" episode or whatever! It just makes me thankful for the town I live in, let me tell you!" she gushed, making a mental note to be considerably less nasty in the town she lives in!!

(Editorial Note: As with any town or other human grouping, the 80-20 principle applies. 80% of the citizenry are quiet, normal, law abiding folks who, as Richard Nixon used to say, are the silent majority - but the remaining 20 percent, the ones who benefit psychologically or materially from being able to bully their way through life at the expense of their neighbors, are any mayor's primary focus. But to have the so-called 'Area Elite" side with the law breakers and the social miscreants seems to be what sets some towns apart from others - and goes a long way to explain why some towns are small and unhappy and the focus of disproportionate Sheriff attention and some are not. It is all a matter of municipal tone - as defined by what is acceptable and what is not - and not having even the most basic of municipal standards for behavior, particularly as it relates to existing state and local laws, is what makes some towns more challenging to govern than others, that's all! We are just thankful this is not a 70-30 town! Big blessings oftentimes come in small packages! Thank you! Oh yeah, special thanks goes to the former 'Rabbit Nose' for the inspiration for this unfortunate tale of woe!!)

Area Farmer/Rancher Zombies Return From Grave To Help Drag Lamont Back To Highly Undesirable And Profoundly Lawless 'Dark Ages'

In a decidedly unsettling and grisly (although not completely unexpected!) backlash against progress of any kind in the 2nd smallest town in the State, a shockingly organized cabal of the walking undead descended on Lamont in a last-ditch attempt to drag the town back in time to a period where men were men and dogs were allowed to run around biting people - oh yeah, and there weren't all those stinking sidewalks and paved roads strewn all over the place and all the town buildings were unpainted like they should be! Although often painful in the extreme, many if not most small towns experience growing pains related to advancement outside their municipal comfort zone(s), but few regions ever go to the extreme of summoning the walking undead to help sway the scales of progress into the retroactive position, however - as the Lamont area appears to be doing. "Well, we spent our whole lives making sure the Town remained backwards and anarchistic, and I'll be dadburned if I am going to let a little thing like the cold, cruel grave hinder me from taking action as a few city slickers come in and want to pry Lamont from the clutches of complete and total randomness and disorder!" said Jethro Bodine, a formerly deceased farmer/rancher, and the main spokesperson for the wriggling mass of undead cannibals who spend a vast majority of their time stumbling about the place, grunting and groaning and looking for a quick snack of human flesh. "I mean, we did just fine for many decades with no law and order, bad water, gravel roads, an aversion to the Sheriff and all of those other true joys of the rural life, but when that dern elected group over there went all crazy and brought in that stupid library project with an actual flush toilet, (with money provided by the County - the same bunch that provides the doggone Sheriff! What nerve they have!) that is when the alarm bells went off in the very depths of Hell itself and we farmers/ranchers needed to do something really nasty and backward looking - and quick!" he rambled in a mumbling sort of way like zombies tend to do, although speaking fairly clearly for a creature without that whole tongue/upper pallet thing to help form words. "Lamont needs to be left alone to just eventually crumble into the dustbin of history, and although when we were alive we never actually lived within the town itself and certainly never lifted a finger to help improve things, (Oh, Heaven forbid!! Why would they ever do more than complain, anyway?) we still have a vested interest in seeing this long pattern of dysfunction and decay continue uninterrupted, doggone it! Darn that mayor and his big city ways! This modernization thing will not stand! It makes us all look bad and serves to highlight our collective laziness and inertia! We have a false reputation to uphold, doggone it! - you know, that whole salt-of-the-earth, backbone-of-America nonsense and all of that!" he gurgled disgustingly!

"Well, being the mayor of Lamont one can grow accustomed to just about any outrage, but even I was slightly taken aback when our few, well-plowed streets were filled with any number of nightmarish creatures caught between the quick and the dead. At first, I could not figure out what was going on, given that fashions have obviously not changed very much in Lamont over the years, but when one of the undead ghouls accosted me as I was shoveling snow by the fire station and grunted something about Lamont needing to stay in the grips of lawless abandon, I knew that this was slightly different from the normal citizen complaint!" (not very much different, though!) said an area mayor who, after 5 years, has pretty much seen it all! (Oh, the stories he could tell!!) "Somehow Lamont is surrounded by a bunch of folks who have more than a passing interest in opposing every single initiative that any other normal town/region would view as the most basic of civic baselines - but what surprises me is the length that these folks will go to in order to ensure that Lamont remains firmly outside the loving embrace of the modern era! I mean, how can so many folks be against basic human dignity - under the guise of citizen rights and the American dream - particularly when they don't live within the town limits and also because of the fact that with all rights come responsibilities - particularly to those less fortunate in society - like school kids walking to school being free from dog attacks! I just don't get how so many supposed "area leaders" can be so firmly planted on the side of lawlessness and mob justice! It really makes me worry for America in general and rural America in particular! But, that is just all in a days work when you are the mayor of the 2nd smallest town in the State, I guess!" he sighed resignedly, returning to his largely ineffectual snow shoveling. "I bet that doggone Long Beach doesn't have this problem! I imagine Long Beach's citizens would complain about lawlessness of any kind - not vice-versa! Oh, maybe they are better than we are, after all!" he murmured (pathetically) under his breath so no one could hear him utter those forbidden words!

Lamont Unveils New Town Motto To Ride Crest Of 'Modernization Tsunami' Into Intimidating And Largely Unnecessary 21st Century

The lowly and largely misunderstood Town of Lamont, known for miles around as the town that cannot, even under the most decidedly favorable conditions, grab its own rear-end with both hands, has thrown convention onto the manure pile and is attempting to do what is known in the 'outside world' as a bit of branding - a marketing term that has something to do with institutions or products or something like that. (Hey, how can branding not be associated with cows? That just seems crazy to me!) The lowly Lamont, known until recent years as the town without houseplants given the formerly outrageously bad state of the town water system after decades of neglect and inaction (Thank you USDA and CBDG and Century West Engineering for helping us rectify this situation!!) has decided that it needs a new slogan - a new moniker, if you will, to help capture the current unsettling energy and verve that seems to be gripping the town by the throat in the last few, quite painful years. "Well, nothing pains us more as a town than positive change, (The negative kind seems okay, however!) but it is high time that the town dust off its tarnished and largely disreputable (yet well-deserved!) past and take several teetering baby steps towards the modern era, for Pete's sake!!" said an area mayor with more than a dash of cringing fear and trepidation. "Sure, that whole unfortunate houseplant reputation thing was a little embarrassing, and, sure, since our founding in 1910 we have been affectionately known across the Palouse as the epicenter of pungent and often overwhelming halitosis, (not to mention those other unfortunate, largely bovine-related odors! Whoa!!) but we need to update our decidedly well-deserved image to embrace the future, however unsettling and unnerving that may seem!" he said with far less enthusiasm than is normally shown by even an innocent man being unceremoniously frog-marched thru the snow to the waiting gallows. "So, our new town slogan "Lamont - Where Fair To Middling Is The Best We Can Ever Hope For!" seems to capture some of the new hope and possibility that Lamont is trying to parley into new residents and maybe even a single, solitary store or coffee shop or whatever!" he rambled on annoyingly - never being one to shy away from aspiring to even the most unreachable of pipe dreams (Come on! Lamont with a store? How insane is that?) or clinging desperately to the most ridiculous and far-fetched of forlorn hopes!

"Well, given that Lamont is the town that never quite managed to paint their one, single, solitary building - the Fire Station/Town Hall in 60+ years, it goes without saying that running around changing things and improving stuff before it just collapses into a heap of smoldering ruin runs counter to the prevailing farm wisdom for miles around - so this bold, brave step into that whole 're-branding' thing is bound to be as unpopular as all of the other 'big city' things we have done in the last few years, but maybe it is time for people to begin to quit clinging onto a failed and dismal past that somehow catapulted us into the quite unenviable position as the 2nd smallest town in the State!" he blathered on endlessly as he tends to do when anyone, however remote, seems to be paying even a modicum of attention to him. "I mean, we are still facing a simmering citizen revolt from when we instituted a new, largely tooth-less dog ordinance several years back because some people think it is their God-given right to let their animals attack school children walking to school (some of them thought this way, anyway!) - and naturally we still have any number of people who won't walk on the new sidewalks (Thank you Greg Partch and the TIB!! Our new roads are beautiful!) because they preferred the dusty, unreliable gravel roads and view their embarrassing, archaic, illogical behavior as some gallant form of civic protest akin to flying the flag at half mast in moments of national tragedy or grief (ironically, the biting dog people and the sidewalk people tend to come from the same families! Go figure!!) - oh yeah, and don't forget those folks who don't want a new library because all that fancy book learning, as everyone knows, is a razor-sharp arrow in the devil's quiver - but still we must move on - however tentatively and reluctantly this advancement may appear to others!" he gushed fearfully, glancing about as if expecting some piano or anvil or whatever to come tumbling out of the sky onto his somewhat thinning hair/head! (Yes, the cartoon "The Roadrunner" is now the official Town cartoon - having replaced "Scooby-Doo" just last year in another one of those controversial mayoral initiatives to help modernize the place!)

(Editorial Note: This new Lamont motto, although falsely modest and largely discombobulated like everything that Lamont does, is still vastly inferior to that doggone Long Beach's motto, that rambles on about being a really fun place to live and vacation - and something about having stores or whatever! That is just like them! Having to have some logical, contextually accurate, easy to remember motto that is much more enjoyable to read than the Lamont motto. Darn their beady little eyes - and their stupid motto, too. That is all we have to say on the matter! Thank you!)

Lamont Releases Provocative And Alluring 2011 Calendar Featuring Local Beauties - Area Puritanical Do-Gooders Up In Arms!

For the 34th year in a row, the Town of Lamont, never one to shy away from controversy and often finding itself on the cutting edge of every avant-garde social movement and/or fad that comes down the pike, has produced yet another socially stunning and controversial calendar that leaves very little to the imagination when it comes to a shameless exhibition of the female form, (On the hoof, anyway!!) insiders report. This said calendar, (Editorial Note: The dern thing only has 12 pages, for some reason!! What cheapskates!), quite shockingly displays a disturbing level of actual exposed female flesh, thus obviously attempting to draw on the more prurient segments of the farmer/rancher calendar reading audience. "Well, as if we didn't have enough reason to want to run off all half-cocked and crazy acting - but now that dern Mayor pretty much leaves us with no dadburn choice!" said Dodo Festoon, an area farm wife and notorious gossip/busybody/snoot-bag. "It is a crying shame that half the dern rancher wives in these parts let their cows run around half naked, but to capture this outrageous indecency with one of them fancy cameras and to plaster this moral outrage all over some two-bit calendar for everyone without a lick of sense to gawk at just seems contrary to the very moral fibers that this country now so sorely lacks, if you ask me!" she fumed, looking slightly less insane with her blushing, obviously embarrassed cheeks helping to draw attention away from her cold, reptilian eyes that are as dead and lifeless as a shark's.

"I remember a time when any farm/ranch wife worthy of the name would spend those long, cold winter months inside the house, knitting each one of the cows a shawl or sweater or covering of some kind. But now, it would seem that every farm wife within 20 miles of the place spends all their time running down the town and partaking in shameless gossip and back-biting in a vain attempt to somehow derail all them 'big city' changes that are taking place in Lamont - and I'd be surprised if nary a stitch has been joined together this whole year in the Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA)!! It's a crying shame, I tell you!" she screeched, spittle flying in every direction! "If the Good Lord wanted our cows to run around in their dadburn birthday suits, He wouldn't have invented knitting, now would he?" said the biblical and reason-challenged battle-ax with real, hardly concealed anger management problems! "Oh, and anyone who would look at that sort of thing, much less hang it on the doggone wall, just needs their head examined, for Pete's sake! This country is sick, I already knew that, but I just had no idea how sick it really was!" she concluded with more than her usual generous helping of unbridled lunacy, while failing to note, quite ironically, that she, too, has not managed to knit one measly cow shawl or festive, brightly colored poncho or whatever - particularly since that doggone mayor took over - with all them 'Big City Ways' - because there just ain't enough hours in the day to knit and viciously slander the Mayor at the same time, now are there? (Editorial Note: And don't we know that fact, too!! Oh, where does the time go, anyway? And let's be honest here, who wants to just sit around knitting like some Geritol-taking granny when there is some serious slandering to do? I mean, come on!)

Politically Powerful 'Lamont Bovine Association' Condemns That Doggone Long Beach For Exploiting Cows For Cheap and Tawdry Political Gain

A local bovine support organization lowered its horns and is prepared to charge after an inflammatory photo began to circulate around Lamont - the origin of said photo being that doggone show-off Long Beach, if shameless rumors are to be believed! This unsavory display of bovine humiliation can only serve to raise the already fever-pitch tensions between Lamont, a small, disorderly, largely mission-less (and laggardly!) town in the Palouse and the bright, nicely planned, refreshing, well-managed and tourist friendly Mecca where the beautiful people with actual money go on vacation - yes, that stupid Long Beach itself!

"Well, that is all I need right now! Oh, that is all I need!" whined an area Mayor who has enough on his plate, wearing the shame of being the Mayor of the 2nd smallest town in the State that doesn't even have a public restroom, let alone any stores - not even a 'Quick Stop' or a measly 'newspaper stand'!! "Oh yeah, like my life is not already filled with crushing levels of self-doubt, simmering self-esteem issues and a general propensity towards feelings of claustrophobic doom! So, of course, amidst that foul gumbo of the basest of human emotions, in trots that dadburn Long Beach, having to stir up our easily excitable and potentially explosive bovine boosters who really only have one local target of choice - yours truly himself! Thanks loads, Long Beach! Oh yeah, that's just peachy!!!" he sniveled while shaking his fist in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean!

"So, there I was, minding my own business, acting like I wasn't home like I usually do when I am, in fact, at home - and the next thing I knew both my front door and back door began to heave under the pounding of the truly motivated and/or potentially criminally insane - so what could I do? Anyway, when I tried to shamelessly slip out the side window in a vain attempt to slither on my belly out to the barn in the tall grass I had neglected to mow in over a month (of Sundays!) I ended up nose to nose with that fearsome Jethro Festoon (and his goons!), the acting President of the Lamont Bovine Association himself. And even before the whiskey breath hit me in the face like a 30 pound salmon that had been left in the sun for too long, he proceeded to shove that stupid Long Beach photo in my face, demanding some sort of feeble explanation from me or some pound of flesh or whatever! What could I say to the man? I have done my best for over two years to dismantle that stupid seaside wonderland and vacation paradise brick by brick, so how is it my fault that they are basically impervious to my pathetic yet persistent barbs! They are inhuman or superhuman or whatever! Hey, I really need some help there! Just when I think I have gained the upper hand, or maybe even the upper finger, even for an hour or two, (Okay, those poorly chosen words, regardless of the largely inarticulate symbolism they pretend to convey, seem to border on some obscene hand gesture that the Lamont Blog cannot approve of! This is a family friendly blog, for Pete's sake!) that doggone Gayle Borchard comes trotting in, all chipper and happy and glowing from some new and hideous planning success for her City, and begins throwing her strategically placed little photographic hand grenades all over the place and the next thing you know I am politically blown to smithereens onto the wastes of Adams County! (except for the ground Lamont is situated on, Whitman County doesn't have any wastelands!) Oh, like I don't have enough issues on my plate without having to constantly be bested by some outrageous City that I have only been to twice! (In fact, he has been there a few more times than that - usually in disguise!) Don't I already carry the crushing, cumulative shame and humiliation of any ten men, being the thankless Mayor of Lamont and all? All I have to say is "Thanks, Long Beach! Your timing is superb, as always!!! And, oh yeah, darn your beady little eyes, too!" he concluded before dragging his spare bed down into the root cellar where no one will hopefully look for him - at least not for a little while, anyway! (And by that time maybe they will be sobered up! Doubtful, but a man can dream, can't he?)

Area Mayor Goes All "Gangsta" In Concerted Attempt To Reach Out To Fast-Growing (and annoying!) Rapper Segment Of Local Citizenry

In a bold move to provide robust and nuanced mayoral leadership to every segment of the 2nd smallest citizenry in the state, an area mayor bought outrageously baggy pants, spent the last of his savings at a Spokane jewelry pawn shop and altered his normal speech patterns in order to reach out to the disturbingly fast-growing 'Rap sub-culture' in the town, late Tuesday. "Yo! Word to your mother! What up, dude?" said an area mayor, who unfortunately still sounds like some Russian guy and not a genuine rapper - at least not the ones on TV. (Editorial Note: Oh great! We at the Lamont Blog thought that that whole Russian accent thing when the mayor was acting like a pirate was bad enough - but a Russian rapper! Oh, the humanity!! Maybe we should move down the road and become the Sprague Blog, or maybe even the St. John Blog! (St. John is really the best managed small town in Washington!) This is just too much for even us to take! A Blog has to have some community standards, after all! Thank you!) "Well, I have to reach out to my 'peeps', yo! I am so down with that! Public acknowledgment and understanding is the 'gin and juice" of our democracy, yo! Word!" he rambled on annoyingly, still sounding like Checkov from Star Trek, but only in baggy pants that show his underwear! Checkov would have been booted off the show if he would have showed up wearing pants like that. Even the Klingons would never have been caught dead in duds like that! I mean, come on!

"Well, although I understand the sentiment and all, I just cannot see how a middle-aged, balding, horizontally-challenged mayor can ever hope to pull off some hopefully passing fad that originated in Los Angeles or whatever" said Wilber Snopes, 64, an area farmer/rancher. "I mean, anyone who has ever seen the mayor read the water meters knows full well that he is no stranger to baggy pants, but we all just assumed that he was imitating a plumber and all of the unfortunate symbolism that that entails. So, I guess if you think of it, that jump to being a rapper, whatever that means, is not a very big one - but seeing less of the mayor's backside is a worthy goal I think we all can share. But all that big clunky jewelry! Rings on every finger and that big "M" medallion hanging from his neck like he was that "Flav-a-Flav" or whoever that weird guy is! (The 'M' stands for Mayor!) I believe he calls it 'bling', but I call it stupid! That is all just so crazy! And I won't even mention his new gold tooth with a map of Whitman County worked right in there! Oh, that is just so wrong! I just feel strongly that we, as a town, should not be encouraging that sort of thing, that's all! But the last straw was all of those "Yo momma is so fat' jokes that he tells now! He may be attempting to reach out to the 'rapper' segment of the population, but he is sure alienating the easily slighted and long-remembering 'farm wife' one with those poorly chosen although oftentimes very apt and downright funny jokes! Oh, why cannot Lamont just go back to being Lamont - you know, the town with aggressive roving dogs, no public restrooms, and where certain crime families were allowed to run amok terrorizing the citizenry at will - without any of the 'so-called good citizens' lifting a finger to stop them and protect the innocent residents from this anarchy. Now that was the historical Lamont that we could all love - not this town that is pirate one week and rapper the next! Somehow we just need to be who we are, that's all!" he concluded stoically while hiking up his pants to make darn sure no one can see his underwear, doggone it!

(Editorial Note: For the record, the most awesome Clerk/Treasurer in the continental USA in this age and any other, Cheryl Loeffler of Fairfield fame, has completely refused to participate in this latest town 'rapper' phase, although she did manage a few 'arrghh's' when Lamont was going thru its thankfully short-lived pirate stage - although she did draw the line on wearing an eye patch to the town meeting(s). Cheryl, a refreshing addition to the Lamont team, however, has shown more open skepticism towards that whole 'rapper' thing, and has even been seen turning the blaring Town radio (we are too small to own a boom-box!) away from the Spokane rap station - and onto some radio station that plays a much less hip and phat blend of music that doesn't even come close to capturing the spirit of the streets! We still appreciate her anyway. Sadly, any hope of her getting one of her teeth capped with a map of Whitman County seems remote at best, especially since she lives and works in Spokane County. No one is perfect, we guess!)

The Ever-Intensifying Lamont/Long Beach Tussle Follows Historical Agrarian/Urban Conflict Model, Says Egghead Area Anthropologist

In a tale of woe, sadness, shame and intrigue as old as the institution of agriculture itself, the current simmering cultural conflict between the small, struggling, store-less, disturbingly dysfunctional Town of Lamont and the vibrant, lively, energetic and extremely well-managed City of Long Beach appears to follow the natural course of historical human cultural development, says Dr. Winston Peabody III, a renowned cultural anthropologist from BSU. According to Dr. Peabody, as far back as the human record goes, small, isolated, inward-looking, shockingly self-absorbed agricultural communities have traditionally fallen prey to societies that either had too much energy, brains, talent, social prowess and/or general martial gumption to stay tied to the same piece of land year after year. And, of course, given that everyone does have to eat on a regular basis, if you, as a society, could make some dramatic raid once a year, preferably right after harvest, and abscond with someone else's vittles that you didn't have to work in the hot sun for, that was a pretty sweet deal, assuming you didn't get stabbed in the gut with a pitchfork or something. (The farmer types never really warmed to this quite necessary although somewhat limiting (for them!) cultural development, needless to say!)

"Anyway, if you think of all of the most dynamic cultures in the history of mankind, the ones we tend to admire and venerate were the ones who tended to bonk their neighbors on the head, take their food, and move on to repeat the process on some other hapless victim down the road or whatever" said Dr. Peabody III. "If you think of those exciting Vikings, the amazingly organized Romans, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan - you could just go right down the list - all of them didn't just sit around the place watching the wheat grow and worrying if the cow was going to have a normal birth! Heck no! They were men and women of action - the builders and shapers of all the things that we hold in high regard, even today. I mean, who wants a hero who is well known for getting up at 3:30 AM every morning to milk a cow and, as an after thought, scoop manure out of a stall? Where is the glamour in that? Look at those doggone British. They come from a relatively small island off the coast of Europe and they conquered the whole dern world, almost. How can you sail around the world, thumping other cultures on the head and swiping their stuff if you have to be home in time for the 2nd milking of the day? It just doesn't make any sense! So yes, there are winners and losers in this world, and history has favored those who can break out of tradition, embrace change and adapt to evolving circumstances. So, if you look at this whole Lamont/Long Beach dust-up in that light, this really goes a long way to explaining those tensions. Oh yeah, and if I were you, I would put my money on Long Beach. The smart money is always on the pirate-personality types versus those who just want to poke around the barn, milking and shoveling manure and watching the wheat grow. That is just the natural order of things, that's all! Don't blame me! I am just the messenger of the obvious, for Pete's sake!" he concluded sagely.

(Editorial Note: Well, we at the Lamont Blog, especially since we live in an agrarian portion of the Great State of Washington, cannot endorse bonking anyone on the head, unless, of course, that somehow excludes bonking people from Idaho on the head. Bonking Idahoans on the head is a healthy, rewarding pastime, and if we somehow inadvertently happen to bring home a few potatoes in the process, that is completely different from some Viking warship docking on our shores and going berserk all over the place or some stupid pirate galleon pillaging us on the high seas and making everyone walk the plank!! When it comes to bonking someone on the head, as the Good Book says, it is indeed better to give than to receive! As long as it is not Long Beach bonking us on the head. That is just wrong on just about every conceivable level. Thank you!)

Nation Stunned, Pensive As Lamont Officially "Crosses the Rubicon" Into The Frightening 20th Century (Yes, we have high speed internet now!)

The lowly and laggardly Town of Lamont, a municipal incorporation that has turned holding onto the past into a genuine art form, stunned the entire nation by shamelessly adopting a communication technology most often used by 'them big city people' - yes, Lamont is now connected to the World Wide Web (WWW, whatever that is!) via a stunningly fast 'high speed internet connection'. This town, best known as the human settlement that didn't actually get their first vehicle powered by the internal combustion engine for 98 years (sadly, this is all true!), is well known for rejecting modernity as 'the fruits of the devil', so those 'in the know' cannot help but be shocked by their quite reckless and 'devil-may-care' adoption of a communication protocol that does not require people to wait about 5 doggone minutes to pull up a simple Google page, for Pete's sake! "Well, let's just say that we started leaving our municipal 'comfort zone' just about the time they started making buggy whips with those stupid man-made fibers worked in there and all!" said an area Mayor who considers his toaster to be an advanced piece of electronic equipment (Well, it does use them electroid things or whatever!) "Anyway, as you all know, Lamont now has the most awesome Clerk/Treasurer in the history of the whole doggone world, that Cheryl Loeffler of Fairfield fame (she really is pretty darn awesome! What a God-send she is!), and she has worked out this whole remote connectivity thing or whatever, don't ask me, anything more advanced than sticking your head out the front door and hollering seems like voodoo mischief to me - but she was doing this via dial-up and it was taking forever to do basic things, so she brought high speed connectivity up in our last meeting and, amazingly enough, the Council went for it! I am 99.99% sure they had no idea what they were agreeing to, I know I sure didn't, but I made one quick call to that totally awesome (And understanding! And patient! And able to work effectively with the technology challenged!) RitzCom communications and the next thing I knew all them computer pages were just flying up on the screen like a Banshee queen or whatever" he gushed ignorantly!

"Well, given that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and that this certainly matches all the biblical signs for the "End Times", we in the bible prophecy community have kept a close eye on Lamont as some sort of 'bell-weather' for the global apocalypse and all" said Rev. Wilber Leadbottom, a renowned area biblical scholar. "So, needless to say, when Lamont went hog wild and bought that fancy truck/snow plow we pretty much knew that that whole Rapture thing was right around the corner. But leaving dial-up for high speed internet pretty much lets the faithful the world over know that we may only have hours or days left of this earthly burden! Repent, you sinners, repent!" he bellowed, shaking his fist menacingly. "I mean, if you cannot count on Lamont being a century or two behind the rest of the nation, then I am not certain that we can trust the very ground under our feet! Oh, and I still don't see what was wrong with Nellie, the Lamont town mule! Sure, she did tend to leave 'road apples' in front of the Mayor's mailbox and all, and she did have that little 'kicking problem', but she sure could clean out a ditch in record time and as a watchdog she was beyond compare. But no, Lamont had to go get all fancy and buy a modern vehicle! (pronounced 'veee-hick-el). Oh, times, they are a-changin'!!! he concluded solemnly before throwing salt over his shoulder 3 times and spitting to ward off the 'evil eye'!

Shock Study: Area Mayor's Hairline Continues To Decrease At An Increasing Rate!

In a sad, genuinely disturbing state of affairs that has Town leaders contemplating drastic and possibly extra-constitutional action, (if for no other reason than to save what is left of the Town's tattered reputation) an area mayor's hairline, although less than impressive when he took office five years ago, has begun to recede at such an alarming rate that drastic action is now mandated, insiders report. "Well, I don't know how to put this gently, but if I was an advertising agency specializing in billboards, that doggone mayor's forehead would be prime real estate!" said Wilber Snopes, an area farmer/rancher who lives outside of town but who has lived in the area for so long that he feels that he should have a direct say in the internal affairs of the town. "I mean, we have so few visitors as it is, but to expose the few that we do get to that expanding mass of pasty white skin just seems to be less than neighborly, that's all. What is wrong with having a mayor who you don't have to wear sunglasses around when having a casual chat out of doors? I just cannot believe that the human forehead has that much actual surface area, that's all!" he said with genuine wonderment!

"Well, I know with all of those protective employment classes the government has foisted on us, it may not be legal to run off an elected official for shocking levels of hair loss while in office, but it is worth a shot, anyway!" said Elma Festoon, an area farm wife and a woman who knows the pain of hair loss due to bi-monthly perms for the last 40+ years. (she is only 44 years old!!!). "Anyway, Lamont has an image to uphold, and having our point representative running about the place blinding residents and visitors alike just runs contrary to the image we are trying to project, that's all! It was bad enough when he was the first mayor in town history that didn't sport the Lamont trademark 'mono-brow' (even the women mayors!) - so it took us several years to get used to that unsettling patch of skin between his eyes - but this whole forehead thing is just a little too much for public sensibilities, if you ask me!" she stammered indignantly! "I guess that that whole 'separate, distinct, individualized eyebrow' thing and that whole expanding forehead debacle are probably manifestations of that mayor's 'big city ways' - but this is the rural Palouse and we just prefer huge tufts of hair covering 90 percent of the human form in our elected officials, that's all."

(Editorial Note: We at the Lamont Blog do not discriminate against the follicle-challenged and thus cannot support the sentiments or opinions expressed here. Just because some poor schlub is developing a 'chrome-dome' is no reason to boot them out of office, although the potential for reduced eye-strain is attractive on so many levels. Maybe instead of one of those 'comb-overs' that seem to be so popular in these parts, the mayor could attempt a "comb-straight-down' or something, thus reducing the town's total UV exposure rate by as much as 60%!! But what do we know?) (Oh yeah, and none of our female mayors ever had a 'mono-brow' - not that we know about, anyway!)