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News from Cayucos, Ca Pop 3320. BEACH TOWN SAVED BY BRITS. Triumph for Mitchells.
By A. Mitchell (proud Grandfather)
Deadline: Wed 1 August. Three Mitchell Grandchildren -really grand kids - are on a junior lifeguard course ($l50 for three weeks). Today was the great face-off. Kids on three courses, Cayucos, Morro Bay and Pismo Beach to compete to be heroes of the San Luis Obispo (Slo) County beach.
Pismo never showed. Thank God as it turned out. One parent told me they are a crowd of hooligans. Morro turned out a massive team of hulking great children chanting “Kill.Kill.Kill’ and inspiring terror in the quaking kids of Cayucos, if only because their kids were twice as large, their team three times as big, their tattooed parents chanting “Go Morro. Go.Go.Go”. Cayucos quaked. Parents averted their eyes. The angel of death fluttered its wings. Hawks circled in the sky. Was that a shark’s fin off the pier? One’s been sighted in Pismo. Perhaps it’s eaten the team. Or scared them into moving inland.
In desperation the Cayucos lifeguard tried to persuade half a dozen layabout louts skateboarding on the front to bulk out her team. Three of them sauntered reluctantly onto the beach where they proved marginally useless but at least made the fourteen and over team (one member) slightly larger.
First the foot races. Three by age group all won by Morro to huge applause ”Go Morro Go” but with Mitchells second, fourth and fifth. Cayucos heads bow.
But then came the swim races with Archie first in his age group, Maisie in hers and Sykes third in his. Aquatic triumph. Morro parents scowled and flexed their tattoos.
Surfboarding meant dragging huge surfboards (five times the length of Archie) out into the sea andpaddling it round a buoy a hundred yards out or, in the case of the older kids, right round the long pier. Archie, who’s never done it before, won his category, Maisie hers and Sykes was fourth in the round the pier as fisherman shouted “mind the hooks”, “mind my line” to the frantically paddling kids who couldn’t hear in any case. Then the relay and Mitchells, spread now across three teams since the kids chose their own, won first and second places.
Finally relay running races. One team Mitchell won first place. The other fourth as their mother and I yelled “Go Cayucos” and the Morro parents pointedly put away their cameras. Not me. I now have 210 digital pix of grandchildren in various stages of exhaustion. Made me feel positively tired.
Triumph for Cayucos? Not quite. Linda approached the judge. ”Who’s winning?” “Oh Morro I guess”. “Whys that?” Well they’ve got the bigger team.” ”But that’s nothing to do with the placings.” ”Oh no, but Morro always wins.” ”Where do you come from”? “Morro.”
Final result? Don’t Know. It’s all got to be calculated overnight. Very suspicious. Should I tell them that I’ve got to know Senator Patrick Leahy, the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee?
End of Cayucos news. For this year, at any rate.
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More trivial news. Murdoch gets Wall St Journal. He can`t move that any further right so no threat there. He may even put money into it, though he’s overpaid.
Murdoch’s not in business to further socialism (though a splash of populism doesn`t hurt). But who cares here? Business journalism is about speaking prejudice to the even more prejudiced - it’s the right wing abomination he’s created in Fox News. Fair and Balanced? Crap. Republican rubbish.
Yet as this nation turns left and the Republicans deflate he’ll pay the price by being becalmed in a right wing swamp rather than moving with the flow.
Even O’Reilly now looks dated and out of touch with reality. We can hardly blame him because we crept and kowtowed to him. He’s a natural populist and we need to turn populism left and liberal. Do that and he has to follow us not we him.
I’m a Murdoch fan still. Fairly still these days. But Rupe sustains good newspapers. He pioneers new channels. But he’s only as powerful as governments allow him to be and it`s better the media corporations be run by media enthusiasts than faceless corporations. Beside s Rupe always defers to power. When it’s the left he’ll creep to us as he does to the Chinese communists. Gi’us a job Rupe, Mate.
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To have Boris Johnson competing against Lembit Opik to compete against Arch Funster, Ken Livingstone will make London’s mayoral election the best fun since the Eurovision Song Contest. All we need now is Jade Goody standing and it`s wall to wall fun. |
