"This old dog aint dead"
I figured I had better write this before I forgot how it
went. It's a sorta sick joke I heard the other morning. If
you've already heard it or a pet owner. Why just skip reading
the rest of this column. I don't know where it came from.
Maybe the teller read it somewhere or heard it on the TV. I
wish I could give credit to the source or even better yet been
the originator. But alas this was not to be. So the best I can
do is pass it on.
A man entered one of those small animal clinics carrying
what appeared to be an old dog who had suffered injures and
hadn't made it. The receptionist took one look and said
tactfully "Are you here wishing for us to take care of the
remains?" This shook the man up and he replied, "This old
dog aint dead. He's just tore up a bit and he's had a lot worse
happen to him and he still pulled thru. I want to see a vet".
Eventually the man and his dog were led into the exam-
ining room. Where the vet took a look at the dog and
declared it deceased. Where upon the owner insisted the vet
do a more thuri examination convinced that his pet was still
alive. So the doc being a caring sort went thru all the
SlimSez
by Slim Sirnes
standard tests, checking pulse,
breathing etc. looking for signs of
life to no avail. "I'm sorry sir but your
pet has passed on," "No he's not I
want a second opinion.." The old country vet could tell he
had himself a problem so he told the man that he would call
an associate in to confirm his diagnosis. Please wait.
Letters to the Editor
Pahrump Valley Gazette, Thursday, May 1, 1997 11
After a short wait, in comes another doctor carrying a
very live beat up old Tom cat, a battle scarred animal who's
been around awhile which he places on the table near the
inert dog. The cat seeing the dog immediately fuzzies up and
start spitting and growling and slowly prances around the
comatose dog. No reaction, another circle, no reaction and
at the end of the last circle the old Tom bites the dogs tail.
This last bit finally convinces the owner that his dog is
indeed dead.
"Thanks doc for your time and patience. What do I owe
You? $850.00, Upon hearing this enormous figure the man
exploded demanding an explanation of the bill. Which was
the doctors charged $25.00 each for their time which came
to $50.00 and the $800.00 was for the Cat Scan..
Sounds familiar doesn't it in these days of managed
health care. Have a good one.
Hale.Bopp comet
Much attention has been given lately to the passage of tho
Hale-Bopp comet. That reminded me of some material I had
squirreled away about 30 years ago about Halley's Comet. At
that time I was closely associated with certain scientific mat-
ters, management problems, effective communications, and so
forth, and I had a Mercury Comet. The following material is by
an unknown author, but I got it from a brand new young MBA
anxious to set the world on fire, that had already been out of
college almost a whole year. I think he wrote it since he did have
a great sense of humor. So for those who are interested both in
comets and precision communication, this information should
be extremely helpful. I am not making this up...
The President of a large company had issued the following
directive to his Vice-Presidents; "Tomorrow at approximately
9 a.m. Halley's Comet will be visible in this area, an event
which occurs only once every 75 years. Have all employees
assemble in the parking lot and I will explain this rare phenom-
enon to them. In case of rain, we will not be able to see anything
so assemble them in the cafeteria and I will show them films of
it."
Memo from Vice-Presidents to Division Managers: "By
Executive Order of the Company President, tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Halley's Comet will appear above the company parking lot. If
it rains, assemble all personnel in the cafeteria, where the
phenomenon will take place, something which occurs only
once every 75 years."
Memo from Division Managers to Section Heads: "Tomor-
row at 9 a.m. the company president will appear in the cafeteria
with Halley's Comet, something which occurs every 75 years.
If it rains the president will order the comet into the parking lot."
Memo from Section Heads to Employees: "When it rains in
the cafeteria tomorrow at 9 a.m. the phenomenal old company
president, accompanied by his girlfriend Halley, will drive his
Comet through the parking lot. He does this every 75 years."
So there you have it, exactly as I heard of this great event.
Now perhaps you can better understand why nothing works
right, and everything else seems to be in such accord with
Murphy's Laws. I am still not making this up.
Carl Blanchard
Pahrump, Nevada
Reservations:
The assistant manager at the Mountain View Restaurant in
her infinite wisdom decided to stop people from making
reservations in the resturant. Tracy the assistant manager said
one of the reasons was that when the High Rollers come in from
the casino to the restaurant and it is full but they see a reserved
sign on a table, but nobody is sitting there and they get upset.
I have traveled from South Bend, IN all around the U. S.,
Chicago, Ill., New Orleans, LA, El Paso, Texas., Tuscon
Ar.,Phoenix, Ar., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Casper, Wyo-
ming and many other places in between and I have never been
to a resturant that did not have or honor a reservation. In fact
most restaurants encourages reservations in advance.
Of course I am only 80 years old so what would I know. My
wife and I have been patrons at Mountain View for the last two
years and they have always honored our reservations, until
Tracy took over as assistant manager.
Gene Janski
Pahrump, Nevada
Fort Irwin Expansion ,Team
Expansion Team Leader,
The Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce, by unani-
mous vote of the directors, adamantly opposes the expansion of
the Fort Irwin US Army Training Center in the Silurian Valley.
Our opposition to this expansion is based on the following:
1. This is aDesert Conservation Area. As such additional air
contaminate the protected wildlife through the food chain.
2. Intermittent or long term road closure, or even the threat
of possible road closure of California State Highway 127 will
adversely affect tourism throughout the entire area. Foreign
visitors are especially leery of driving through a military zone.
This area ofinflnence includes Dumont Dunes, Tecopa, Shos-
bone, Pahrump Valley, Death Valley, Amargosa, Lathrup
Wells, and Beatty.
3. Overpasses built to minimize interference of civilian
traffic on Hwy. 127 could limit trucking on this route which
would have an adverse effect on goods delivered in the area of
influence. It could eliminate certain goods from being trans-
ported to these places or at the least increase costs for small
business in this area.
4. Tourism is the engine that runs the economy in the entire
area of influence. Any deterrent, such as driving on a military
reservation, could destroy this delicately balanced society.
5. This plan flies in the face of public demand for more fiscal
responsibility by our Federal Government. To acquire more
land and build the infrastructure to support its use while
monthballing other military establishments within reasonably
close proximity is not good stewardship.
It would appear from the maps in the Draft Environmental
Impact Statement that Nevada has not been considered in the
area of influence. We are here to tell you that not only should
we be considered in this study, but this plan will have an
incalculable negative economic and environmental impact on
the area and its residents.
Marge Taylor
Executive Director for the Board of Directors, Pahrump
Valley Chamber of Commerce
Special Education Parents
Beware
School Board Members take notice
Our daughter attends Rosemary Clark Middle School. She.
is in special education. She is learning disabled and speech
delayed with short term memory problems.
After repeated calls to R.C.M.S. requesting homework and
graded paperwork with no results, we contacted Dr. Forstot.
We expressed our concerns regarding our daughter's lack of
progress in her three years at the school. We expressed frustra-
tion over the lack of parental communication, and expressed
anger that our daughter was placed in classes that had no
modifications in place and were inappropriate based on her
dual disability. We requested new testing and a new individual
education plan 0EP). To our horror this is what we found:
The following week we were contacted by a special educa-
tion district employee wanting to know why we wanted new
testing. In our conversation the district employee told us that
our daughter was NOT tested in her 1995-96 school year before
the new IEP was written in March 1996. The law states that all
IEP's are to he done at least once a year, and that all IEP's are
to be based on "PRESENT levels of educational performance".
We then contacted both Mrs. Harge's office, as well as Dr.
Forstot's office. We explained the situation, and left a message.
We received no response. We arranged to inspect and receive
copies of our daughter's files at the middle school. Upon arrival
to pick up the files, we were told that Mr. Gailey said we could
not have copies of the files. We then spoke to Mr. Gailey who
refused to permit copies. We then asked to simply review the
file to see if our child was tested or not. Mr. Gailey refused, we
told him that he was in violation of state and federal laws, but
he still refused. He said that he would show us the door. We did
(after much ado) obtain a copy of the 1996-97 testing. We
learned at this time that our daughter was not even receiving her
speech therapy on a regular basis.
We sent letters to the district and had a meeting with Mrs.
pollutants as a result of training vehicles in this area will Harge, and Mr. Cuailey on March4, 1997. The meeting resulted
in Mrs. Harge saying "we will get back to you in writing."
We then put this matter before the Board of Trustees. We
sent an individual packet to each school board member at their
homes, with two going out by certified mail to ensure delivery.
They received them on March 24, 1997, with proof of service
to Debbie Baker, president of the Nye County School Board.
We informed them of the many state and federal violations, and
provided documented evidence, as well as informing them that
the district is leaving itself wide open to litigations. As of this
date, April 30,1997, we have yet to receive a response from the
Board, and the Board NEVER even brought these matters up
at the school board meetings. They have held three meetings
since.
We then had an IEP meeting at R.M.C.S. with Dr. Forstot
and numerous district employees. At this meeting the district
admitted fault in writing, and agreed to pay for an independent
evaluation because, in fact, there was no testing done for 1995-
96. At this meeting we were shocked to learn that not only had
our daughter not progressed in her three years at R.C.M.S., we
were provided documentation that she had in fact regressed in
some areas. A new IEP was written at this meeting of March 27,
1997. Since the new IEP, nothing has changed. The district still
failed to provide modifications in the two general education
classes based on our daughter's "ability level". The district
continues to FAIL to comply with the plan set forth in the new
IEP.
We were forced to pull our daughter out of these two classes,
and have had numerous calls to Dr. Forstot concerning the
noncompliance. We also called and left a message with Mrs.
Harge's office. We have yet another meeting with Dr. Forstot
on April 3, 1997. We have yet to receive a response from Mrs.
Harge.
To find out eleven months after the fact, that we were lied
to by the district is very distressing to us. We entrusted ourchild
to what we thought were professionals. We were very trusting
and naive a year ago, but no more. We were forced to educate
ourselves in the laws concerning special education. We wonder
how many other special education students that attended Rose-
mary Clarke Middle School in the 1995-1996 school year were
not tested? We strongly urge all parents to investigate this and
get involved in your children's education. Do not allow your
child to "fall through the cracks", as our child did. Do NOT take
the district's "experts" at their word. Make sure they have the
documentation to support their findings (it's the law). As
parents you have a legal right to any and all files collected,
maintained or used by the district, including any and all testing
and evaluation materials.
As for the Nye County School Board, answer the following:
Why does The Board not respond to its constituents? When a
matter is presented to the Board, why are these very important
matters NEVER discussed openly at the board meetings? And
finally, why does N.C.S.D (Nye County School District)
choose not to comply with state and federal laws which could
result in heavy fines? Just know this, these very serious
violations will NOT go away by the board simply ignoring
them, We are, in this letter openly asking for a response from
the Nye County School Board. This is our right as taxpayers
and as registered constituents in Nye County.
Mr. & Mrs. Couture
Pahrmnp, Nevada
The Pahrump Valley
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itom
All opinions expressed on the letters page are those
of the artist or author indicated. Furthermore,
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