Snuffy Smith's Sugjestionions for New Sitty Seal

                 Official Portsmouth City Seal

     which our officious First Ward councilman

            Kevin W. Johnson wants to change

   

        Kevin, how do you feel
        About this new sitty seal?
        Do you think it duz the trick,
        Or am I just a redneck hick
        Who really duzn’t know
        His ass from Ohio?









  What Porchmuth needs is more class,
  More wine tastin’ and less grass,
  More Scarlit Tan’gers,
  Less fly-by-night shitty man’gers.
  In short, less sons-off-guns
  And many more Kev’n Johnsons.







“The devil is running Scioto County.”
              Ohio Governor John Kasich




         While we’re at it, Kevin,
        Talkin’ ‘bout Porchmuth as heaven,
        Lets keep things on the levil
        And not furget the devil
        Witch Kasick & Co. feel
        Should be on our sitty seal.









A sitty seal should have a hero,
But on that score we’s come up zero.
Greeks had Hurlculies, Romuns Ceesar,
Persha had Irksies, Russya the Zar.
‘stead of Promeeth’us, the fire bring’r,
We got the guy who gives us the fing’r.








A pritty flour don’t need no gildin’
But a sitty seal should have a bildin’.
I mean what’s a seal wif out an edifuss?
Its like a hernia wif out a truss.
I’m nom’natin’ Martings, I am,
Our sitty’s greatist hystorical scam.

Heers D’rek, folks, Mr. Kleen Gov’ment.
Who was surely heaven-sent.
But his resyoumay left out somethin’:
His crime and suspendered sentencin’
‘bout witch the search commitease
Sed knot a word—what a sitty!










The best and brite-test should be on the seal,
Like Kalb who closed the Ameresco deal.
With Kalb and Malone to help with math,
The sitty wont have to take a bath,
And D’rek Allen, if he’s not to dense,
Wont get ‘nother suspendered sent’nce.









‘bove all The Mall must be on the seal
‘cuz we believe The Mall wuz the reel deal.
Youse knows yur from Porchmuth if youse b’lieve
In The Mall, for who’s death we greeve
Even tho’ it finely came a cropp’r
In the mind of owr fingerin’ d’velop’r.










Speekin’ of suspendered sent’nces
And crooks who didnt do penences
And who us’n wants on the sitty seal,
I’m gonna nom’nate Tom Bihl
‘cuz wen alls sed and done
Toms a real crooked sun-of-a-gun.









Jes’ like we furget the drawers and hewers,
So we furget the sitty’s overflowin’ sewers
And the local awffall that flows threw ‘em.
Oh, how we wish we never knew ‘em!
Shure, we want sewers on our seal
‘long with the afourmenshunned Tom Bihl.









Iff’n you turn back the old clock
Shure, Plimuths got its hysterical rock
But thay says every dogs got its bone
And we’ve got a rock of our own.
Shure Jim Kob stole it from Kentucky,
Frum where’s it wuz a layin’ in the mucky.








Dont think we got sumpin’ to hide.
Shure we got our Bonnie ‘n Clyde,
As soon as plug some won as steal.
We’s proud to have ‘em on are seal.
There mobs the infumus S.O.G.P.
Bin robbin’ us since 1963.

SSU: Offensive Ranking

Claudius in Hamlet” “Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven.”

Do you belong to some group or institution, such as a college, by which you are at least occasionally or possibly even often embarrassed? Let me admit I do. The college by which I am embarrassed is Shawnee State U., where I taught for a number of years. Today, for example, the Portsmouth Daily Times  featured a story about “SSU Being Listed Among ‘Smartest’ Colleges.”  Granted it is ranked pretty low on that smart list of 501 colleges, at 460, but still it’s among the smartest. Because college rankings are a circulation building/ money making racket that U.S. News should be given the credit or blame for starting. U.S. News use to divide up about 500 colleges into four levels I, II, III, IV. But that created public relations problems, especially for those schools in group IV, the bottom group. SSU used to regularly rank near the bottom of group IV. When it did, you didn’t read about it in the PDT. You didn’t hear SSU bragging about it either. When I reported on the low rankings in River Vices, some people at SSU said the rankings were not reliable and should be ignored. But now it’s front-page news when SSU is among the smartest, even if it is pretty far down  the smart list.  What happened? Did SSU go from one of the dumbest to one of the smartest universities in America in about ten years? Unfortunately, no. What changed was how U.S. News classified the colleges. They were not I, II, III, IV. No, they were collectively all classified as I, as smart. It’s like the children in Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor’s imaginary hometown in Minnesota, “where all the children are above average.” All the colleges in U.S. News are now smart, it’s just that some are smarter than others. Do you understand why Public Relations pays so well? It’s because the way a thing appears is more important than what it really is, and public relations people specialize in making something appear what it’s not. Those colleges at or near the bottom are still smart, no matter how low they are.  

Shawnee State may be higher in the bottom group than it was ten years ago, but that may be because U.S. News in its ever changing criteria for ranking now attaches more importance to SAT scores than it did in the past and it allows universities, SSU included, to not report SATs for all of its students, thereby providing a skewed ranking. Some institutions deliberately have submitted falsified or incomplete data about students to U.S. News. Of course with the high ethical standards that prevail in southern Ohio, SSU would never deliberately do something like that, but in what it fails or is unable to report it has an advantage over institutions that can and do provide data on all students. I was surprised to see that in the rankings of the Washington Monthly magazine, which some people think more accurate than U.S. News rankings, SSU is ranked about in the top half of its top 200 smartest colleges. I couldn’t believe some of the good colleges SSU is ranked above in the Washington Monthly list. At this rate, SSU may be ranking as high as Ivy League colleges in another ten years. But would that be what it really is or only what it appears to be? An education is not worth much if it does not include critical thinking, that does not stress the importance of distinguishing between what something really is and what we  would like to believe it is. SSU has helped many students get an education and get ahead in life and I am glad I did my small part in helping them. But I would not be helping them if I encouraged them to mistake appearances for realities.

Those professors at SSU were right ten or fifteen years ago to question the validity of U.S. News rankings and they would be right to continue to question them now, for if SSU was not nearly as bad as it used to be ranked, it is not nearly as good as it is now ranked, as the State of Ohio recognizes by using the graduation rates at public colleges to determine how much funding those colleges get. And by that criteria SSU faces a grim fiscal future and doesn’t have Vern Riffe to bail it out any longer. About the time it is ranked as high as Princeton, SSU may go under. By that time it might have to revise Claudius’s line in Hamlet to say, “O, my rank is offensive. It smells to heaven.”

Sitty Man'ger's Going to Hell, Snuffy's Goin' Fishin'

"According to a story in the Celina, Ohio newspaper, The Daily Standard, dated Oct. 2, 2004, “Former Celina Safety-Service Director Derek Allen received a $250 fine and a suspended 90-day jail sentence in Miami County Municipal Court in Piqua (Ohio) on Sept. 24 for a count of dereliction of duty, a second degree misdemeanor.”   My Daily Tribune (click here)

I’m gonna go fishin’

Deer Reeders,

The bankruptures, drunks, adulterators, and drugged deelin’ pimps on shitty clowncil’s hired a convicted crim’null fur shitty man’ger wen they’se cud have had a Porchmuth holler boy like me whooze only recurd is fifty speedin’ vileations like this shitty clowncil Saddle feller and that con Kob  krook.  Iffen they ‘loud me chaw I’d be the shitty man’ger today. And  thay dint even tell Porchmuth sitisins they wuz a hirin’ a crim’null named Dreck Allen till it wuz fate d'accomplished  if you’ll pardon my  French. Dont  missunnerstan’ me. I’m thinkin’ it makes sense hirin’ a crim’null fur shitty man’ger cuz after awl this is Porchmuth and you  want sumbody with experiens cuz if your  startin’ a howse of ill repute your not gonna adverties for virgins, are  you? But shootn’t you  tell sitisins  your  hirin’ a hooker and not virgin and then not spring it on ‘em after the knots bin tied, or tell ‘em on the  weddin’ nite, so to speak. “Oh, by the way, your bride, I meen your shitty man’ger’s, a hooker” withowt  alertin’ the sitisins first? No, that ain’t mountain dew, not in my holler. My addvice to this Allen feller is dont give up your day job just yet cuz this scandul’s gonna  snowbowl like a snaky slalom in Boozy  Idoho,  and our officious First Ward  shitty clowncil  member Cavein Jonson  will haf to go back to the drawin’  bored to cum up wif another skeem, and by the way he’s not the only Cavein Jonson on the shitty clowncil. Thay say the rode to hell is paved with Cavein Jonsons. Cavein W. Jonson wants the bran’ new shitty man’ger to  be howsed in the Martin’ Bildin’ a few doors  down frum hiz faled so-called hysteric antic shoppe in witch the banker Crampp whose dubbled up with the  p's bailed him out and now  lives there that’s goin’ threw a change of life after leavin’ the SOGP in a huff becuz the govinment money being laundered sumhow went down the drane with the fall guy. Crampp's distensing hisself from the bank so’s he wont disgrace it should he be indicated. Awl this the new shitty man’ger  wood have knowed  in time. First they don’t tell you he’s a crim’null and then they don’t  tell you he waz derelection in hiz duty and they wont tell hiz celery becuz  you don’t want to bounce a chick that big in broad daylite  cuz that’s hiway rubbery. The three final lists wuz a setup—a guy from Whyomin’ for rejoonal ballast, a gal for jender ballast, and a guy with a crim’null recurd whose a derelect, the top rechoirments witch the other two lacked. Shouldn’t the hiring consultan firm that handled this be indicated for frawd? It isn’t as if the shitty clowncil didn’t already have this Allen rite where they want him. He’ll have  all kinds of responsihillbillies and expectorations and  no authoritee  and absolootly no hope. It wuz my expectoration that there’d  be a honeymoon period for Allen, but this ain’t a hirin’, its a shotgun weddin’ and the feud that’ll follow will make the Hatfields and McCoys look like a baptist picknick. And me? That job dont kneed me.  I’m gonna go fishin’ and catch me some catfish and catch up on my chawin’.

Yours trewly,

Snuffy

Snuffy Smith Chooses Chaw Over City Manager

New post on city manager.



http://rivervices.blogspot.com/2013/09/snuffy-smith-chooses-snuff-over-city.html