Russellville High Threat/CBD Oil Support

According to a brief news release to parents, there has been a threat made toward Russellville High School. A ninth grader has been investigated in the matter, and all was deemed safe. Well, at least for other students; if we were a parent of this young man, he would not be safe for a very long time.

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Anyone hear of a UNA survey recently? You know one where 100% of faculty and students said they loved Kenneth Kitts more than life itself? No? Thought not. More to follow shortly.

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Local governments have been very tight-lipped on CBD oil sales recently. If you want to take part in clarifying these laws, or perhaps changing them if needed, you have an ally:

Anyone that would be interested in publicly showing support for CBD in the Shoals area please get in touch with me via my Facebook or messenger. #bringbackcbd #cbdislegal. James Wright

Problems with Rogersville?/Problems with Florence?

First a little parable: Al and Bob were best friends in college. The two went on to work for the same company where both advanced in their respective departments. Al was responsible for yearly performance reviews and always gave Bob a 99% for his work as operations manager. He would have given him a 100%, but that wasn't allowed. Then one day new owners took over the company and posted Al to a new office. When Bob received his next annual performance review he discovered he'd made only 75%. Why? While Bob was excellent at what he did, he'd never kept up with changing company policies. Al had simply given him the 99% out of misguided loyalty. 

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No person is perfect. Towns are even less so since they're made up of some very imperfect individuals. Those who are now saying Rogersville is a perfect town not deserving of ANY criticism are highly misguided. When you have a mayor who tells half-truths (or worse) and a chief of police who outright lies about drugs, you have problems.

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Since some are saying we wouldn't criticize Florence as we have Rogersville, we're happy to give our home town equal time. How perfect is Florence? We love our home town and can't be entirely objective, but we can point out some problems.

1. Some department heads have absolutely no rapport with employees and use draconian tactics to rule.

2. Nepotism may not be in every nook of the city, but you don't have to look far to find it.

3. Leah Fox and the animal shelter are at the top of several hit lists. The situation with animal abuse is about to get very messy. Fox should do us all a favor and resign now.

Now how's that for giving equal time?

The Face of an Angel (Or Keep Fighting DHR)

Remember Angel Gieske? She's the fake doctor of psychology to whom thousands and thousands of our dollars were paid to sort out home situations. She's currently serving two concurrent and one consecutive sentence of one year from Lauderdale, Franklin, and Walker Counties. Apparently Limestone chose not to prosecute. Angels may walk among us, but this one won't be in our midst again until February 2020.

However, she is in currently in Lauderdale County, specifically the detention center, at order of the judge. We have no idea why she was sent for, but we have seen her mug shot taken upon entering the facility. This is the face of crime. This is the face of DHR who either placed or took custody of children upon her orders. Look at it carefully, and then tell us that the DHR in Alabama is a fully functioning, non-corrupt agency.

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We've been asked to comment on two gun crimes, one slightly out of our usual geographic territory. We'll take on the Huntsville school shooting first.

1. This boy took a gun from his home which his father had left unsecured. No gun laws will make a person responsible unless a police officer is a fixture in the home.

2. This gun "belonged" to a person who had no constitutional right to a gun. Again, how do you regulate a criminal?

3. This gun was stolen. By now you should see that no one in this home followed the law and would have obtained a gun no matter what laws were in place.

4. For any gun laws to make a difference in this type of situation, it will take approximately 30 years to clean up this current mess. First, we have to have citizens willing to make it happen. While we do support that, we don't see that as happening in most of our lifetimes.

5. Huntsville, where the elementary school shooting took place, is discussing metal detectors at all schools. We agree and feel that Florence should follow suit. Sad, isn't it?

About Confiscating That Vape Pen...

So you're a police officer. You make a traffic stop and smell weed. Or maybe you don't smell it; we have no real idea how MJ oil works in these contraptions called vape pens. No matter, let's say you see a vape pen in the vehicle. You let the driver go and take the pen with you.

Any of that make sense to anyone? Are we missing something? Did the driver/suspect commit a crime and get away with it? Why let him go and keep the pen? How much are those things worth? Apparently less than a ticket or the driver would have complained.

Let's see (isn't Google shopping wonderful?)... One article says $20.00 to $40.00 at regular price, maybe $15.00 on sale. Our own quick search found some for as little as $8.00, while others were going for up to $80.00, but these prices didn't include shipping. You think the confiscated vape pen was one with the fancy enamel with some thin blue line decorations? Hmmm, could be.

So if no one had become ill (wink, wink?), what would have happened to the (maybe) fancy vape pen that wasn't even evidence in a case? Would it have stayed in a desk drawer for a while until it was forgotten and then gone home with the officer in question? 

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Just in the For What It's Worth Department, it seems the fingertips are the slowest part of the body to absorb chemicals, for obvious reasons. If this particular vape oil is that potent, should the officer really have let the driver go?

Support for Name "Pride of Dixie?"

In case you're looking for a pithy comment on changing the local university band's name, you're not going to get it here...at least as the main theme. We will make some superficial observations:

1. The band's nickname was given it by one man, a band director in 1965. Now it's taking a committee of 19 to decide whether to change it or not? Really?

2. Did anyone complain when the nickname of Florence was changed? How about Sheffield? Muscle Shoals? We can't add Tuscumbia to that list since it's apparently never had a cutesy name.

3. Does anyone think the name change will matter in 200 years? 

4. Did anyone really notice when high school bands stopped playing Dixie?

Now for the pithy remarks. We're amazed at the number of negative comments we've seen over UNA changing a simple name, when we saw only 10% of that number when the university (read: Kenneth Kitts) tried to steal property from the school children of Florence.

If you haven't driven by the new middle school, we suggest you do. It's something our city can be extremely proud of. It belongs to all citizens of Florence, but only some of us fought for it. If we hadn't, these students would now be sitting in a 60 year old building behind the Krystal.

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J. Redmon has his Halloween costume all picked out. We have an idea he won't be the only one wearing this shirt in October.

What's Wrong in Rogersville?

We frequently receive input from readers on the various Shoals cities. We may not be able to tell you exactly what's wrong in some of these cities, but we can tell you which ones bring the most complaints here. Franklin County? That would be Russellville and its totalitarian police department. Colbert County? Let's hope you guessed Sheffield with its problems at city hall. Lauderdale County? Rogersville, always Rogersville.

From a reader (edited):

Thank you so much for staying on top of Rogersville and the Vape Pen Debacle. I grew up there and can attest that Poor old "Coach" Herston really doesn't know anything about running a municipality. He barely knew anything about Jr. High history when he taught us. 

As for Chief Holden having any sway over Poor ole "Coach" Herston, it's doubtful that he has the time. You see, Chief Holden's son Matt is an officer for the police department and according to the residents the city's biggest liability. He drives city vehicles like he's trying to get cast for a remake of Smokey and the Bandit and folks that live in town say they're just waiting for him to be the cause of a fatal accident. He is dangerous and highly irresponsible AND Chief Holden has been told this. It must be nice to play-act the Dukes of Hazzard as a grown-up and have your daddy cover for you all the time. 

It is also felt by pretty much all the citizenry, although there isn't any hard proof, that the catastrophe with the Vape pen was all Matt Holden's fault. Everyone knows the ONLY way that everyone could have gotten sick from that Pen would be if SOMEONE was actually "vaping" with it. Someone whose son would absolutely confiscate said Pen and take it back to the station and toke up with his buddies....and the same ones that would FLIP OUT when they realized they were high from vaping and had to do SOMETHING before Dad came on-shift. Thus, an idea was born out of stupidity....er....desperation. 

Rogersville is a dark little town, truth be told. It's mostly stupid in its administration...but when a woman's murder there about three years ago is waiting on an arrest simply because of a hold-up in state forensics....but you can get a lab report back on a vape Pen some dumb*** was using in 2-3 days, someone isn't being straight about a LOT of things.

There you have it. Rebuttals welcome.

The Three Counties Turn...Or Is That Churn?

Lauderdale/Florence - A police report on the untimely death of a shelter dog was filed earlier this week. While it may be some time before we can report on actions resulting from the complaint, we can say that even more individuals are contacting us to demand Leah Fox's head on a dog biscuit pan. 

Colbert - The Revenue Commissioner's office has lost at least three clerks in the past few months. Mr. Oswalt has placed ads for replacements, but according to a friend who submitted a resume', no interviews have been held. 

On another Colbert topic, why is Rep. Morrow the only one to speak out against the sex offender re-entry program? It seems Sen. Larry Stutts is "working on it" as he praises the McKinney family.

Franklin - Escaped county prisoner Robert Lee Brown is back in custody, but how did he get "wire cutters" to break through the facility fence? Franklin's detention center is still on the new side; security shouldn't be so lax. Was a guard paid off? That question may be rude, but it seems the logical assumption.

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Tomorrow: Some pithy reader comments on Rogersville!