Mr. Crankypants...

I get cranky. More and more, it takes less and less to get me there these days.

Age? Sure.

Cabin Fever? No doubt a factor.

The growing realization that so much of life is nonsense? That could be the root cause of cranky.

The older I get, the more I get Andy Rooney. The reasons why the visage of a cranky old man has achieved iconic status almost worldwide have been revealed as the years have come and gone.

Watching coverage of the Chilean tragedy, I couldn't help but notice there was more emphasis placed on the tsunami that could result from the earthquake than on the death and damage we already knew did. Perhaps it was due to the ease with which a series of huge waves heading towards Hawaii can be covered effectively, what with several TV stations there to engage and all.

The coverage was good, no mistaking that. Good, solid information delivered in a timely fashion by network anchors and local anchors and reporters on the islands of Hilo and Hawaii.

Then it came time, as it inevitably would, for someone to step up and explain the dynamics of a tsunami; how and why they form, how they move, what they might and might not do.

"Let's now go to meteorologist Lisa Isotopi for just what it is we're looking at here. Lisa..."

Lisa commences to posture, reaching outside meteorology, now assuming the guise of a geologist, a seismologist, an oceanographer, and a hydrologist as well. Brakes on, put it in Park, set the emergency, we need a reality injection here.

The old saying, "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bull." comes immediately to mind. That saying, as is above, is allegedly the verbatim from W.C, Fields, not the more scatological version that has emerged through the years. Why feign a high standard of false propriety when, really, we all know that bull is neat and tidy for bullshit. (Although classifying it as usually vulgar, Merriam-Webster does indeed recognize the word, giving it legitimacy.)

Why is it that staff meteorologists assume the role of de facto earthquake and tsunami experts? Any connection between meteorology and the other disciplines mentioned is loose at best, non-existent at worst. Why pretend they're all one and the same happy scientific family?

Admittedly, here in the US, our National Weather Service is a bureau of NOAA - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which climbing to the top of the food chain, is part of the United States Department of Commerce.

In view of that, how come you don't trot out meteorologists to, let's say, discuss the GDP, or explain economic analysis in layman's terms, or even do daily updates on the 2010 Census. Never happens. What should also never happen is these people, expert in one field, presenting themselves as expert in another, when they are simply and undeniably not.

Dazzle or baffle. Whatever works, it's really all you need to know...

Habemus Episcopum!

Thanks to an old and dear friend, I not long ago learned the Latin for "We have a bishop."

Like many, I've been awaiting the announcement with some interest, especially since I'd long been convinced of who it was going to be. In fact, I was certain and would have wagered respectable money, if I could have found a taker.

Last night I learned that my guess was wrong. At least I lost no money on the deal.

News spread when the diocese scheduled a news conference, with many reporters thinking it had to be one of two things, 1) A new bishop; 2) The diocese was filing for bankruptcy protection. With it being the former, we know that:

"Monsignor Joseph Bambera has been appointed the 10th bishop of the Diocese of Scranton, the Vatican announced this morning."

I was wrong, and please, that carries no disrespect for bishop-elect Bambera.

Since the announcement has been made, I feel comfortable in saying that my accomplices in drawing the now clearly flawed conclusion as to the next bishop were many. In short, there were sources, plenty of sources. Good, solid sources within the diocese, sources reaching as far as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

All of those insiders pointed to the same individual whom I personally speculated would become the next Bishop of Scranton. The sure thing was no sure thing at all.

Habemus Episcopum! I wish nothing but greatness for Monsignor Bambera and all the good people of the diocese.

As to the priest I believed would be elevated? I'm not giving up yet. I'll make another prediction: He'll be appointed Bishop of Harrisburg.

If I'm wrong again, I'll be happy to come back and say so again.

Cheap Cheeseburger In Paradise...

That great American convenience, the drive-thru, is one place you'll not see much of me. Whether it be bank, restaurant, pharmacy, or even beer distributor, the drive-thru has always made me twitchy.

The reason is about as simple as it gets; way too often, they don't work, they don't do what they're supposed to do, they save you no time at all.

Who among us hasn't had the feeling that you caught the burger joint crew by great surprise when you pulled up and had the temerity to order food? I knew the drive-thru had abundant weaknesses that first time I was asked to pull ahead and someone would bring my order to me.

"Huh? Why don't I just park here and come in and help you make it?" says me to the young lady hurrying to slide the window shut before I could warm up and get my brilliant sarcasm firing like a Lamborghini piston.

And so it has been that I avoided the drive-thru as a matter of routine for more years than I feel like counting.

I've come back. All is forgiven.

Enter the dollar double-cheeseburger.

Whatever name or guise it takes, it's a buck for a burger, and a mighty good little burger at that.

It's an amazing piece of American marketing.

It works. It works too well. I've bought into it.

While standing at a counter to spend a buck and six might make one look a champion tightwad, the anonymity of my truck offers enough protection from the accusation.

Therein the dilemma faced several times a week, those times when hunger falls on you from nowhere, leaving you empty, hollow, with a maddening pang for something carby, unhealthy, fast, and nearby. Oh, it need be a bit greasy, too. And now, sweet matriarch of all that nourishes and fattens, it's cheap!

You know the chains, the franchises. No need here for me to name names. Just about all of the big corporate joints have something right around a buck now. The temptation is frightening.

Not to be outdone, one non-burger place can offer you five sandwiches for about six bucks. A sack of sandwiches with condiments, paper napkins, all awaiting an arm's length away, right there at that little window, the one that might as well be a tollbooth along the Tubby Turnpike.

Negligibly priced and good, satisfying, filling the comfort-food hole in your soul, this is truly a good deal. We all know that there are moments, and yes they do pass, that the hole needs to filled, the monster demands to be fed.

Well, by God, there I was, sitting no more than seventy feet from the far too conveniently located drive-thru one day last week, eyeballing the signs in the window telling what taste of our cultural gastronomy is now available for one dollar and six cents. A pair of discreet binoculars, maybe opera-glasses, might have been helpful. That way I'd not miss an item before succumbing to this devilish temptation.

Please know that there are those times I do not cave, I embrace denial successfully and drive off hungry. Who's keeping score?

I'm not a cheap man, not one to pinch pennies, to nickel and dime any situation. If anything, the opposite be true. Spendthrift is a good word, it fits me well at times.

It's not about the money, but the money plays an evil role in it all. Those ugly twins of greed and avarice are at work. Satiation for a buck, a belly fuller still for two bucks. This is temptation not easily ignored.

If that double baby was regular price, pffffffttt, no thanks. At a buck, irresistible, fetching, and appealing aren't strong enough words.

The bigger mountain to climb is that those offering dollar menus seem committed to their continuance.

I'm in trouble...and I doubt alone.

All Talk, No Train...

I've gotten grumpier and grumpier about this topic with every year's turn of the calendar.

By my accounting, it's been roughly twenty-five years since the train to NYC has been a done-deal, and today it's no more done than it was in 1985. My recollection is that the in-earnest talk began the day Steamtown announced it was relocating to Scranton. It was almost a joint announcement, making it a given that NYC/Scranton rail passenger service was maybe a couple years away. That was 1984.

How many follies, fads, and delusions have come and gone while we wait?

When you get right down to cases, all we've ever had have been hopes and dreams, and even those flimsy traces are vanishing right before us. The pain lies in having those hopes and dreams perpetuated by some really important and powerful people. What I've found enormously fascinating is that, should you gauge optimism for the return of rail passenger service over in New Jersey, you'll find that there really isn't any. On the other side of the Delaware, they know better, they think it's kind of comical that we keep on waiting for some train that's never coming.

Isn't the time for that over? Doesn't someone need to step up and admit that, if this ever does happen, we are now looking at another twenty-five years before it does? A child born today might set foot on Mars before a steel-wheel turns.

Each time a feeble and wobbly step forward is made, five enormous shoves backward immediately follow.

For those at all interested, I wrote about this some time ago, then explaining the situation.

The latest news is not good. In fact, the latest news is dreadful.

With eight billion federal dollars up for grabs, neither PennDOT, nor our senators, nor any other interests involved, managed to come up with eight dollars in furtherance of this project. Nothing, zero, bupkus, not a nickel out of eight billion dollars. Did I say dreadful? Add pitiful and jaw-dropping as well.

Failing so miserably when there is that kind of money available is enough to justify finger-pointing. Even that might be a waste of time.

For all the assurances that this project has been alive since Cagney&Lacey lit up our TV screens on Monday nights, I've believed that to be less and less true with each passing year. Waiting since 1984, I sort of figured it to be largely meaningless talk about eight years ago. My skepticism has now turned to a granite-solid certainty that there will no passenger rail service between Scranton and NYC for decades to come, and that there may never be any such service; a claim I've made before.

Never is indeed a long time. So is twenty-five years.

There are those who've already begun spinning this as a setback. One congressman has called it a "...bump in the road." Yes, and the Grand Canyon is just some old hole in the ground.

Maybe all involved should come clean and recognize the project for the trainwreck it's long been.