Cub reporter tells all

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Cub reporter tells all				October 13, 2007

Hi.

My name is Jimmy Newby. Lew Leadbeater had to go to an important meeting at the Polo Club pub and asked me to write his column this week about Wednesday night’s supervisor debate between Andy Bradshaw and Jim Kennedy at the Norge library. I’m a junior in high school and Lew thought this would be a good experience for me cuz we don’t talk much about local politics in class and I don’t have much spare time to read or write cuz I play football. Mainly I write IMs and TMs, if you know what they are.

Anyway, I’ll write about this debate and try to remember all the fancy devises my English teacher told me to use for a good essay. I think they’re called parts of speech, but I’m not sure. Since I have no idea who Bradshaw and Kennedy are I’ll be what my teacher calls an “objective observer” which is someone who doesn’t know anything and so is not biased.

Lew said to tell you that this debate was run by the League of Women Voters. I’ve never heard of them before but I guess they’re a group of women who vote a lot. My mom votes sometimes but she’s never heard of them either. My dad never votes cuz he says all politicians are crooks.

Anyway, some woman named Noodson (sp? My spellchecker doesn’t do capital names) introduced Bradshaw (he’s what you call the recumbent supervisor cuz he’s done this before) and Kennedy about half way into the show (She forgot to do it in the beginning). Bradshaw is a short guy with glasses whose a lawyer and Kennedy is a big guy who runs a restaurant in Toano called Dudley’s. He named the restaurant after his dog. I have a dog named Butz. We call him that cuz when he wags his tail his whole rear end shakes. (I think the name Butz is a metaphor, but it might be what you call sinekdoky, which is a literary devise where you use the whole of a part for the whole or part of a whole for the whole whole or something like that. I had to leave class early that day cuz we had an away game).

I didn’t understand a whole lot of what they talked about cuz I sat in the back and couldn’t hear what Noodson (sp?) and Bradshaw were saying. Noodson had a mike, but she’s so tall that the mike was in her belly button and she whispered the questions. Bradshaw had a mike too but it didn’t work or something, cuz nothing came out when he moved his mouth. So I guess you would have to say that Kennedy won the debate cuz he was the only one you could hear. He was kinda like the default setting for the whole show. (Now that’s what you call a similly, cuz whenever you use the word like it’s a similly. Unless like is an adverb like in the sentence “I like BMWs” or a pronoun like in “Like man, what are you doing?’ Then it’s not a similly. I’m pretty sure this is right, cuz I was in class for all of that. The only thing I missed that day was literary cymbals, and I got the notes for that from Billy Wankowitz. I had to leave early cuz they were taking class pictures).

Anyway, back to the debate. From what I could make out there was a lot of talk about budget stuff and affordable housing and New Town. Bradshaw said something about how happy he was that the county would soon be fixing potholes and Kennedy talked a lot about what a crummy place this is for small businesses. But like I said (that’s not a similly), it was really hard to hear what they were talking about most of the time so I worked some on my literary cymbals homework (Literary cymbals are things you use to bang something into the head of the reader so he doesn’t know what you’re talking about).

After the debate there were supposed to be two short speeches by two guys who want to be on the school board. But one of them named Vaught (another recumbent) didn’t show. The other one was James Nickols who I think is the president of William & Mary, but I’m not sure. Anyway, these two dudes evidently got their homework in late and failed the test the county gives for getting on the ballot. So if you want to vote for them you have to write in their names. I don’t think I’d vote for either one of them, cuz they sound to me like two squirrels who couldn’t find nuts if you showed them where they were buried. (I think that’s another metaphor, but I’m not sure. It might be the subjunctive). Lew says he’s going to write in Rusty Carter’s name cuz he always writes in Rusty Carter’s name. (PS. Who’s Rusty Carter???).

So that’s my report on the debate. I showed this to Ms. Gumby my English teacher and she said she was appalled, so I guess she really liked it. Maybe I’ll see you at the next game. I’m No. 93, so if you see me, wave. I mostly sit on the bench.